Amreekiya Read online

  I nodded, recoiling from his touch in front of Imm Yusef. “But straight hair make me look like movie star,” I said with a Palestinian accent.

  A photographer arrived, and we took pictures before the party began. According to Yusef, his mom was big on pictures, and she ended up arguing with the photographer a couple of times about what sort of poses he wanted. She objected to having us kiss in a photo—even on the cheek—or having his hand on my lower back, but most of the time we had our arms around each other’s waists and smiled stiffly into the camera. It was odd being so close to him for so long in front of all these people. Taking pictures usually made me self-conscious, but it was like we were an island unto ourselves for that time, even for the group picture, with my family on my side, his on the other.

  Sana arrived early with her parents and her younger brother while we were still taking pictures. She clapped at the end. “You two are the most beautiful couple ever.” Her mother agreed and said that we had better put a blue stone up in our house to protect against the evil eye. I hugged Sana and her mother. Sana’s mother kissed me on both cheeks. “I always thought that you two would make good husband and wife,” she said.

  The men all congratulated Yusef with hugs and kisses, except for Sana’s younger brother, who only shook his hand. All the women congregated around the three of us, and the older women exchanged stories about their weddings and engagement parties and how they were so much different back home. They had no say in the weddings or anything else; their mothers-in-law chose everything. The conversation turned, as all discussions of the Old Countries inevitably did, to the excitement of coming to America, of seeing all the sights they saw on TV, and soon being terribly disappointed by Amreeki decadence and immorality.

  “Ya Sana, when will you be married?” Imm Yusef asked suddenly with a teasing smile.

  She shrugged. “I wasn’t as lucky as Isra. I don’t want to marry some hairy bear.” Sana and I laughed, but the older women didn’t.

  “Sana has a new job as a nurse at the hospital, and I’m so very excited, but, Sana habibti, every woman needs a husband and every man needs a wife,” her mother said, placing her hand on Sana’s back, sorrow in her eyes.

  With her back to the other women, Sana asked to see the ring I got for Yusef. Once we were a safe distance away, Sana whispered in my ear, “If this is the engagement party, what’s she planning for the wedding?”

  “It’s her only son. He came to her when she was in her thirties, after being married for more than ten years and three daughters,” I said.

  We giggled quietly, though I felt cruel for mocking Imm Yusef in such close proximity. I suppose it was payback for what she said to Sana, what she did to my face, and her controlling behavior.

  “How you have not killed that woman yet is beyond me,” she said. “I guess your temper is getting better.” She reached for the ring I had for Yusef and opened it. “It’s nice.” It was a simple gold band, the manliest ring I could find.

  Imm Yusef soon interrupted the conversation by telling Sana about her nephew who had immigrated from Falasteen a few years ago and looked almost exactly like Yusef and was the sweetest man and not yet thirty. She offered to show Sana pictures of him later and kept on saying, “You must find a husband when you are young and can have children. I was younger than twenty when I married and didn’t have a son until I had more than thirty years.” She went on with a catalog of young men (and some who were well past being young) whom she knew, and while I looked at Sana sympathetically, I felt immense relief that I wouldn’t have to hear this anymore.

  Yusef and I spent the first half of the ceremony sitting on our love-seat-throne while Arabic music played in the background and guests arrived in groups. Most were late and seemed to be in the midst of intense conversations. There was so much noise that my head started to beat like the drums in the music.

  Yusef leaned in next to my ear and asked me what I was thinking about.

  I shrugged. “Nothing. Just our throne.” I squirmed in my seat. “The couch is so uncomfortable.” My butt was already asleep. I might as well have been sitting on a hardwood floor.

  Before Yusef could answer, Amu came up to the stage and asked how we were. We both said fine, but Amu had much more to say, to Yusef in particular, about marriage. He told him how this was a big step in both our lives and truly made us adults, and we needed to take this seriously in order to be happy. He also talked about children, but I had stopped listening by that time. This whole event was a way for Imm Yusef and Amu to glorify themselves by displaying Yusef and me for all their friends and acquaintances. For Imm Yusef, it was her production of such a fine son; for Amu, it was his generosity in taking me in from a life of sin and making a good Palestinian Muslim girl out of me. I should have stormed out, but I sat there and let Amu—and now Imm Yusef—get away with it.

  “Cheer up, Isra. Be happy. This is your engagement party.” He smiled to instruct me, showing no teeth like a modest girl. He usually smiled widely, letting all his front teeth show.

  “I am happy. I’m just not one for big displays of it.”

  He rubbed my shoulder. “This is a day for displays. It does not hurt so much to have a little smile.”

  “Okay.” But I didn’t smile. I couldn’t. I didn’t know it had to be part of my accessories like my gaudy makeup and flattened hair.

  He left the stage and went back to his seat in one of the front tables. Yusef squeezed my hand and asked me what was troubling me. Didn’t he see just half of what made me angry? I opened my mouth to say something, but I was too nervous and angry to speak. “Isra, it wouldn’t be so bad if you did smile.”

  The party hall was about half full, but that didn’t keep me from throwing my arms out in frustration. “I guess that’s what you guys have been talking about when you and your father meet with him.”

  He sighed. “Whatever. Let’s drop it here.” But he lied. “Why are you so mad, Isra?”

  “I already told you.” I kept my face averted from his, feeling childish. We were up on a stage, what did he want me to do, reveal my deepest feelings? “All this has been taking orders, orders, orders. From Amtu Samia, from Amu Nasser, from your mother.”

  “Is this about the makeup?” he asked, exasperated.

  “You don’t get it! All you had to do was put on a goddamn tux and come over to my house a couple of times.”

  “Isra, let it go.”

  Right then I saw a woman in her late thirties or early forties in hijab coming up to the stage. I turned away from Yusef and faced her, trying to keep anger out of my face. “It’s my sister Khadija.” I had met the other two, who were both married with children, but Khadija was very busy because she had five boys.

  She gave Yusef a hug and congratulated him. “So you are Isra!” She hugged me and told me I looked beautiful. “I knew Yusef would always get a pretty girl, the way all the girls go crazy over him. I’m so happy for you two. He is a good man, and Mama has been telling me what a nice girl you are.” She apologized for not being able to meet me earlier, and while she talked, I couldn’t help but try to peek into her purple hijab to see if she combed her hair. I saw only a little above her forehead, dark brown and smooth enough to look brushed, but today was a special occasion. Yusef was honest about her being the only one who wore the hijab at least, so maybe I should take his word on the rest.

  Abu Yusef finally came up to the stage with a microphone and made a short speech about how the two of us would be married at the end of May. “Inshallah, Yusef and Isra will be blessed with many children and a happy, healthy life together,” he said at the end. Everyone clapped; someone even ululated, causing a roar of laughter and a round of ululations. Amu came up with the cushion that held our rings. Yusef picked up his ring for me first, and it took several seconds for him to slip it on because our hands were shaking. We stabilized ourselves by the time I took the ring for him.

  The clapping started again, and the music resumed.

  CHAPTER FO
UR

  Before I met Sana, I dreaded summer, with its promise of endless days with Amtu and her complaints and orders. Rasheed also drove Hanan and me crazy with his antics. Sometimes he would shoot tiny wads of spit-soaked paper through a straw or pick his nose and flick the boogers at us. Hanan was small then, so on occasion he even picked her up above his head and spun her around while she screamed in protest. I usually had to hit him and hurl insults to get him to stop. Amtu had enough energy to make my summers hellish, but she wouldn’t do anything to Rasheed until Hanan ran to her crying. She never did much more than pull his ear and tell him that he was acting like a hiwan, an animal.

  But I escaped by going to Sana’s house a couple days out of the week; my chores could wait till the evening sometimes. I felt bad for leaving Hanan at the house, but Amtu didn’t want her taking the city bus with me or staying at Sana’s house, because she believed any friend of mine would make unsuitable company for her little girl. Nothing really went on there, even though Sana’s parents both worked, and we were free from adult supervision. Sana and her siblings did violate their parents’ rules by having the brothers’ and sisters’ friends over at the same time. She said her parents were worried that something indecent would happen if unrelated boys and girls mixed. Her brothers were unwilling to compromise on which days Sana and her older sister brought friends over, so all her siblings had friends over whenever they wanted, and just made sure that everyone cleared out by three-thirty when their mother got off work.

  There was no risk in having us mix because we—boys and girls—knew to keep our distance from one another as if the adults were still in the house with us. Even her brothers’ friends who weren’t Muslim knew to keep away from us. None of the guys were anything special. Sana didn’t think any of them were worth a second look, and we both agreed that her brothers hung out with ugly guys to make themselves look better.

  Toward the end of June, Sana and I were in her room, sitting on the bed while she told me about some guy she liked at school. “I don’t know how I’ve survived almost the entire summer without seeing him!” She looked up at the ceiling with her hands out in supplication. This was nothing new—she had crushes all the time and claimed that when she was eighteen she’d move out and have lots of boyfriends. Who cared what her parents thought? Didn’t all the Arab boys do that? But once she tired of talking about this boy and her parents being unfair, she asked me, “How come you never talk about boys, Isra? There’s gotta be someone.”

  I shook my head. “No.” Occasionally I saw a boy I thought was cute, but I never had a real crush—no one I wanted to be my boyfriend anyway. At my middle school, the boys were just as overprivileged and snobby as the girls; I hardly talked to anyone there. That was why I decided to transfer to a GATE school all the way across town. Those rich kids would never take me in as one of their own with my cheap clothes and less than cushy life. I had spent about six years among them but never became a part of them. I didn’t want to have anything to do with them.

  “It might be better once you start high school, even though it’s definitely overrated how hot the guys are.” She looked down and giggled. “You know my brothers’ friend? The one with the eyes?”

  “They all have eyes.” But I had noticed him a few days before. He wasn’t one of the regulars, because he had a summer job that took up most of his days. I caught him staring at me while Sana and I scoured her back issues of teen magazines for ideas on how we could style her hair and do her makeup once she saw her latest crush again.

  “You know who I’m talking about.” She paused and grinned. “Do you like him?”

  “I think I weigh more than him.” He was so skinny that his head kind of looked like a balloon on top of his body.

  “At least he won’t suffocate you with his fat stomach.”

  “I don’t want to be the one to suffocate him.” But he did have striking eyes, lots of wavy black hair, smooth honey skin, and full lips for a boy, the kind I imagined would be good for kissing.

  “You know what? He told my older brothers that he thinks you’re hot. He said he loved all your curly hair and big boobs. He’ll probably try to rub his face in them.” She simulated the movement, her hands as my boobs, and threw her head back to laugh.

  I rolled my eyes. “Now I know you’re lying about that.”

  “Hey, I got two older brothers—that’s how dudes are. Even my younger brother probably already thinks that way, he’s just not joining in on it. Yet.”

  Did Rasheed say those things? Not in front of me, probably not even in the house, though I could believe him saying such things with his friends. He was crass and annoying. But hearing that a boy like Yusef said those things about me—that made me feel nauseated and yet flattered. Then I thought about Amu and Baba being that way in their youth. I couldn’t imagine either Baba or Amu with a sex drive, despite all the havoc they wreaked with their libidos.

  Sana suggested that we go out past the living room to the kitchen, where we could look his way without the boys noticing us if we were discreet. I thought it was a good idea except that Sana was far from discreet. She’d giggle and whisper too loudly about how Yusef looked at me, and talk about how the two of us were meant for each other. She was so in love with love and anything resembling it: crushes, lust, all that. To Sana, love was attention and pleasure. Though Sana was two years my senior, I felt old and bitter compared to her. I wondered how she would cope when she learned the truth.

  She found a board game in the storage closet in the hall so the boys could see us doing something besides looking at them. She motioned with her forefinger for me to follow her down the hall, then stopped at the end, watching the TV for a few seconds. I didn’t get why she was waiting, but at a critical point in the boys’ video game, she walked in front of the TV with me in tow. I heard her brothers groan and protest; even the little one made a ruckus.

  Sana turned around and glared. “Shut up. Is it a crime to walk in my own house with my friend? It’s better than sitting around all day, being couch potatoes like all you guys.”

  The oldest one, Bassam, made some remark about how she walked in front of the TV intentionally. “I need to see the game, not your ass.” Yusef said it wasn’t that important, and it’s not like it messed up the game. Sana’s older brothers both laughed at him. “We’re not pussy-whipped like you,” Bassam said with the smugness of an oldest son, and all the boys laughed. I was already wishing that we’d stayed in her bedroom when I saw Yusef give Sana’s brothers the finger.

  “God, brothers suck. You’re lucky you only have to deal with one,” she said. She assumed that Amu and Amtu were like parents, Hanan and Rasheed like siblings, despite all I told her.

  She calmly set up the game like she hadn’t had a tiff with her brothers. It wasn’t anything unusual. Sana and her siblings constantly bickered. I had dinner with them a few times, and each time her parents ended up yelling over their kids and threatening to pull their ears or worse if they didn’t shut up. It kept them quiet for the rest of the dinner, but there’d be another argument to settle within an hour.

  Sana leaned toward me. “He’s looked at you at least three times,” she breathed.

  She’d told me often before that crushing on Muslim boys was dangerous territory: if his parents saw him with a Muslim girl before marriage, they’d freak and make sure her parents found out, even if those parents spoke on no other occasion. That sort of informing was hardly a risk with other boys, whose parents usually didn’t care if Muslim girls kissed or touched boys. I reminded her of what she’d said. “So why’re you trying to set me up with a Muslim boy? Do you want me to get in trouble?”

  She snickered. “Well, I know that you’ll resist temptation. It’ll be fun for you, an innocent flirtation.”

  “With who?” Yusef asked when he came up behind me, startling me so much that I nearly pushed my chair back against him.

  Even Sana was a little flustered. “No one you know,” she said, crossing her arms and
looking away.

  He held on to the knob on the back of my chair. Sana’s cheeks twitched. He introduced himself, holding out his hand. I took it and gave him my name.

  He smiled. “That’s a pretty name.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Isra’s going to the same school next year,” Sana said. “She’s going to be a freshman.”

  “Then I’ll get a chance to see you.”

  “Yeah.” I had to say something.

  “I’ll let you guys get back to your game.”

  Once he was out of sight, Sana turned her face to the side and laughed silently, her face still twitching and reddening with the effort to muffle it.

  When the time came for me to leave and Sana showed me out the door, Yusef offered me a ride. Sana’s brothers, who had been absorbed in their video game, tore their eyes completely from the screen and looked over at us for a few seconds, then went back to the TV, waiting to see what would happen from the corners of their eyes. I hesitated and had difficulty saying something as simple as “No, thanks.” Why couldn’t everyone just look away while I turned Yusef down? Tekken had to be more interesting than this.

  “Are you sure? It’s no trouble for me.”

  “Isra’s family is really strict,” Sana said.

  “Okay, then. Thanks.” I don’t know what it was that made me accept: it could have been the desire in his eyes, the slight sad slackness of his lips when I said no, or my fluttering heart.

  Sana’s eyes almost popped out of her head, and she mouthed, “What are you doing?” I shrugged and walked out the door Yusef was holding open for me.

  Yusef wanted to know why my family didn’t attend the masjid that was only a couple of miles from Sana’s house. I turned my eyes to the road and swallowed hard. “We’re not very religious,” I said. I couldn’t imagine us all going anywhere together except an occasional visit to a family friend’s house. Most of the time Amu didn’t have dinner with the family; I saved him a plate in the refrigerator.