Amreekiya Page 9

  I walked over to him and rested my face between his shoulder blades. I was relieved that he seemed pleased with the change.

  “You didn’t have to pay for all this, though. It must have been, what, a couple hundred dollars?”

  I shrugged. “Almost, but it’s not a big deal. Really.” I had never spent that much in one day, or week, or even a month, unless I was ordering my textbooks or when I saved up enough to buy my car. But suddenly it wasn’t anything to drop that kind of money on a new household; I was a woman now, and I had bigger expenses.

  Yusef kept insisting he had to pay me for this.

  “Yusi, it’s all right. It’s not like this is a monthly expense; it’s a onetime thing.”

  He walked off to the bedroom and came out with a bunch of bills in his hands, $200 in twenties, tens, fives, and a fifty. He tried to shove it in my hand, but I walked to the stove because I had to check on the grape leaves. As I broke one open to see if the rice inside was done, he tried to nudge the money into my jeans pocket. “No, Yusef. I paid for the stuff, okay?”

  He changed tactics and took my face in his hands and kissed me. He had a grain of rice on his lips from my lips. “Come on, just take the money.” He put his hands on my hips and pressed my body up against his. “And then we can make love while the food cools down.”

  I pulled away and took out a plate for the grape leaves. I took the tongs and started pulling them out one by one. I thought: What’s the big deal? Let him pay for it. But he was the one who made such a fuss about it in the first place.

  He may not have been into me using my money to pay for things, but it didn’t bother him to give me control over the finances. He made his bank account a joint one, put my name on the apartment lease, and had me pay the rent, electric and gas, and our cell phone bills. I did the grocery shopping, decided what our breakfast and dinner would be, and when we would eat it on the silverware I chose. I cut corners anywhere I could and started saving money for both of us. I had no goal in mind for the money—there wasn’t a fortune left over—but having a little in the bank always made my heart beat steadier and calmed my thoughts.

  Amu Nasser never let Amtu Samia control the finances. Amtu Samia was a bit extravagant—she needed to buy herself at least a couple new outfits every week, though she rarely visited anyone except Imm Samir for the last several years—but I had seen more excessive spending from other bored housewives, and Amu gave her a “spending money” allowance for that. If she went over her limit, he usually gave her the money with no argument. Amu claimed he was tired and overworked all the time, so why didn’t he hand over the household expenses to Amtu? It made no difference to me, because when he gave her money for school shopping for us kids, she made sure to give me at most half of what each of her kids got, so if she paid the mortgage, the water, the electric, it would be a burden off his back with no negative consequences.

  But he had to know about every dollar she was spending.

  One thing way out of my control was Imm Yusef. My new family was a lot more social than my old one. Yusef’s mother expected us to see company almost every night of the week. “Come to our house, Yusef habibi, I am making the fatayer you have such a love for,” she would say. Then she’d say another day that one of Yusef’s sisters missed him and wanted him over for dinner, though his sisters spent most of the time socializing with the other women they invited. Then it was come over to one of her friends’ houses so they could see the newlywed couple; then it was see the friend of the friend of the friend of Yusef’s parents.

  Yusef was obliging. It even seemed that he liked going out to see his relatives and their friends and his friends and everybody. He wasn’t picky about the company he kept, so I was the downer because I didn’t like it. His sisters weren’t bad, although they were nosy, especially the middle one, Fatima. Sometimes she would even ask what Yusef was eating, and if he ate enough (he ate plenty—I still cooked the same portions I did at Amu’s house when I cooked for four or five, and we had hardly any leftovers). Khadija, on the other hand, claimed that he had more color in his face and had gained weight since our marriage. It was good for him to be living with women, or a woman, again; she never understood why he moved out on his own. And Imm Yusef of course had her strong opinions about Yusef’s health and looks, which varied each time I saw her.

  Lubna was the only one of them who didn’t idolize and baby Yusef. It might have had something to do with the fact that she worked part-time and had two children under the age of eight. She didn’t go out for company quite as often, and when she was there, she was busy watching her own children, usually chastising them or giving the boy a spanking for running in the house.

  On top of that, all the older women seemed to believe they were surrogate mothers to Yusef, since they were almost as curious about our marriage as anybody else.

  I realized there might be other reasons. One woman, Imm Ali, mentioned casually that a couple years ago she thought Yusef would be perfect for her daughter.

  He turned the offer down.

  And clearly she believed he hadn’t turned her daughter down for a better woman.

  Once I closed my eyes, I felt Yusef rustling under the sheets. He sat up and picked up the new bag I had bought for him (with his money, of course). I grabbed his arm with both hands. “No, stay in bed, Yusef.” Getting out of bed to do his work was becoming a nightly ritual, just like it was his nightly ritual to have me before he relaxed a while to get back to more important matters.

  He half-lay on his side, still slightly propped up on his elbow, and kissed my forehead, my eyes, my nose, my cheeks, and my hair so intensely it was more like he was going away for a year rather than an hour. He gave me the usual excuse. “Isreenie, I’ve gotta get in at least some work. I’ll be back in bed soon.” He sat back up, yawned loudly, and stretched. “I’m gonna put my foot down. A body can only take so much.” He leaned over for another kiss, but I turned away, hoping he would make good on his promise.

  I stayed in bed nearly the entire morning, drifting in and out of sleep. Around eleven I resolved to get up, but that took more than an hour for me to finally do. My stomach gurgled, and I leaned over onto my knees. I must have gotten food poisoning, I thought, or my period was coming. I heard the rustling of papers out in the living room and the incessant clack of laptop keys. I stood up and dressed slowly, closing my eyes hard every few seconds. Then I had to run to the bathroom; I puked in the toilet, my stomach contracting with each watery chunk that came up. I rested my cheek on the seat and took in deep breaths. It had been so long since I had been sick like this.

  Yusef knocked on the bathroom door. “Isra, what’s up?”

  My eyes fluttered. Gathering the energy just to speak was a struggle. “Oh, I’m … I’m a little sick.”

  “Let me come in.” He opened the door before I answered and helped me off the floor. He tried to take me to the sink to wipe off the vomit residue from the corners of my lips, but I insisted I do it myself; I was dizzy, not disabled. He put his arms around me and led me back to the bedroom, tucking me in bed. He suggested that I have some tea with maramiya, the sage leaves that his parents gave us from their store.

  That was Baba’s solution to any sort of stomach ailment. We never had it at Amu Nasser and Amtu Samia’s. Amtu preferred Maalox.

  Yusef kissed the corner of my forehead and brushed the hair out of my face, then left the bedroom to start the tea. Soon he came in with a steaming, fragrant cup, and I sat up to gulp it down. It was sweeter than my father’s, and I thanked him for it.

  He placed his hand on my forehead. “You don’t have a fever. Still dizzy?”

  “Not anymore. Just tired.” I didn’t like having him examine me so closely, moving his hands clinically from my face to my chest, squeezing my breasts, which he claimed were plumper than he remembered. “It’s something I ate.”

  He moved his hand down to my stomach, which was still gurgling every few minutes. He grinned. “You’re pregnant.”
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br />   “I’m not!” I didn’t think I had the energy to answer as ferociously as I did. “How would you be able to feel it this early? It’s food poisoning.” Maybe Imm Ali had done it to me for stealing Yusef from her daughter.

  He chuckled. “Morning sickness, fatigue, wild mood swings. Pregnancy symptoms.”

  I guarded my stomach from him with both arms and glared.

  “Damn, I thought my mother and sisters could give some killing looks, but you have them beat with that one.” That didn’t keep him from leaning in to kiss me, puke breath and all; the maramiya probably killed off some of the smell by now. At least he didn’t put his tongue in my mouth. “Imagine us, Isreenie. Carrying the baby around, smelling its head, watching you breastfeed.” He had thought this through pretty well. “Then when it’s bad you can give it a look like you just gave me; we’ll have the best-behaved kids ever.” He squeezed the top of my arm.

  “We don’t even know if I’m pregnant,” I said with less conviction than I previously had. I felt stupid that the thought hadn’t even occurred to me. I had been having unprotected sex for almost a month. Even though I was inexperienced, I had attended enough sex education lectures in high school and college to know that once was enough.

  He shrugged. “I know it’s gonna come soon, hayati.” He took my face in his hands, murmuring a new Arabic term of affection with each kiss, albi, helwati, making a song out of his feelings for me. “I wonder if our kids should call us Baba and Mama or Mom and Dad. My parents would hit the roof if we used the American ones, but then we’re not old-school like them.”

  “I’m sure I’m not pregnant.” It had to be impossible that I’d be feeling symptoms this early.

  Yusef told me that I should take an at-home pregnancy test—just so we could plan ahead, not to get our hopes up.

  But his hopes were already up from what he thought was “morning sickness.”

  That must have been why I wouldn’t do the pregnancy test. Yusef even went to the trouble of picking it up for me the next day, Sunday, after I had another bout of vomiting and dizziness that lasted into the afternoon. I felt lethargic almost all day until sunset, when it cooled down. I didn’t want to pee on a stick. I felt fine; I only had a bit of sickness, maybe the flu. It was nothing.

  That started our second disagreement. It wasn’t harsh enough to be an argument or a fight. He was condescending and pitying. “Isra, I study disease and illness for a living. I could tell if you had the flu. It doesn’t pass in the evening and come back the next day.” He pressed his hand on my belly. “You’re pregnant.”

  “I don’t feel like it. I feel like crap, and I’ve gotten so behind on the housework and everything else. I don’t have time to do it.”

  “The test doesn’t take that much time.”

  “Why does it matter if I put it off for a day or two?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t put it off too long.”

  Hanan called while I was making dinner, so I put her on speaker phone. I set the stew to simmer and started pulling apart shredded phyllo dough at the kitchen table. I was having an intense craving for anything sweet, and nothing would be more satisfying than a kunafa, a creamy cheese dessert—the only one I could ever master besides cake. Yusef wondered why I chose one of the hottest days to bake, but I just said it would be nice to have a good meal at home for once; if I told him about my craving, he’d add that to the long list of pregnancy symptoms he believed I was having. Another piece of evidence he didn’t really know me. My craving was more a symptom of my fear of pregnancy than a symptom of pregnancy itself.

  “Let me come over,” Hanan said. “I want to eat kunafa.” She lowered her voice. “I’ve been eating Mama’s food for weeks, and it sucks.”

  Yusef chuckled as quietly as he could, but I could tell Hanan heard him from the uncomfortable silence.

  I broke it. “How about you come over tomorrow before I go to work?”

  Yusef put his arms around my shoulders and kissed my neck. “She can come over today. I’m sure we have enough food for one more person.”

  “But I have a lot to catch up on since I’ve been in bed all weekend, and we’ve practically been living at other people’s houses for the last couple weeks, so I have so much to do afterwards that we won’t be able to spend time together.” Anyway, how could I vent my anger about Yusef to Hanan while he was still at home in this tiny apartment following me around, badgering me about the baby he felt certain was in my pudgy belly?

  I got enough of it out right then to make Yusef walk off and mutter something about wild mood swings.

  And it didn’t do anything to ease the uncomfortable silence with Hanan. She said she’d call back tomorrow or stop by at ten or something. Even she ran away from our bickering.

  The only sound being made at the dinner table was the clink of silverware on our plates. I couldn’t wait until we were finished and Yusef went to work on his thesis so I could devour half of the kunafa. At Amu’s, our dinners were just like this most of the time—Hanan and Amtu and me all sitting uncomfortably at a table. Sometimes Amtu might lecture us girls about something while we were eating, reminding both of us that we would get fat if we ate too much, but she got minimal response from us on those occasions. She ate faster than Hanan and me, and consumed much less, before she left to watch the Arabic channels on satellite TV. Then Hanan and I would start talking naturally, knowing that Amtu wasn’t there waiting to insert some snide remark about what we were saying.

  I considered apologizing, but I was convinced that this wasn’t all my fault—Yusef was pressuring me too much to take the pregnancy test, and ignoring me and exhausting me with seeing some member of his family nearly every night. I didn’t want to volunteer an apology; I hadn’t apologized to anyone since grade school, and that was only when I was forced to do so. What if he didn’t return it? Because he was wrong too, and I would be damned if I was going to take the fall for everything.

  Still, I figured I could risk humiliation for a little bit of peace. “I’m sorry that I’ve been so bitchy lately. I’ve been really tired, and …” I ended it there, but I had plenty more to add: I didn’t realize it would be such an adjustment having to live with you, especially after that first great week together. And I can’t stand being compared to other women who you could have possibly married, my performance as a wife constantly being assessed by your mother and sisters. Who is there to assess or even care how you treat me? Maybe Hanan. And right when I’ve started having my doubts about marriage in general, I’ve probably already gotten myself pregnant.

  I said it quietly, so I wasn’t sure if his hesitancy was because he hadn’t actually heard me. He sighed and tapped his fingers on the table, his lips pursed. “That’s it?”

  “Yes,” I answered defensively. What did he expect me to do? Plead with him and kiss his feet? What I had been doing was not that horrible. He wasn’t perfect either.

  “Well, it seems like you’ve still got a chip on your shoulder. It’s more than that you’re feeling a little sick.”

  “Oh, sorry if I failed your expectations for a wife, but I was just irritated.” I folded my arms. “I feel like you’re setting your expectations too high for me being pregnant, and I haven’t even taken a pregnancy test.”

  “You won’t take a test, Isra.”

  Tears came to my eyes with no warning. I stood up from my seat and yelled. “You’re insensitive, that’s what it is! Of course, a baby’s all fun for you because it’s not going to be in your body, and you’ll probably hardly take care of it!”

  He said that was the problem: I wouldn’t tell him anything. I retaliated by telling him that he wouldn’t give me the space or the time to say something, with the way he carried on.

  “What?” He stood up. “I’ll give you your space. I’ll get my keys, take a drive or something.” He went from the table to the bedroom and back to the front door before I could consider trying to stop him.

  I wouldn’t have done it anyway. I had already apolo
gized, and look what it got me.

  Hours passed. I ate the entire kunafa and made sure every piece was soaked in my homemade syrup. I’d never eaten so much dessert at once before; I got a stomach ache from it, like when I was seven and ate too many chocolates at school on Valentine’s Day or Halloween. The last thing I wanted to do was lie down and think about my stomach or Yusef while watching bad television. I opened the box and peed on the white stick and let it sit.

  I was pregnant. The fear ran cold through my veins. The familiar fear, the one that I would end up alone with a child with no one to turn to. I chided myself for being hysterical. Yusef hadn’t left for good, and I only found out I was pregnant alone because I wouldn’t take the test while he was here.

  I cleaned the kitchen and vacuumed. Free time was scarce these days. It took me time to remember my usual hobby: reading. I started on a long book, but everything reminded me of Yusef: the man on the cover with a smirk, the naïve child in the book. It was almost ten o’clock. I’d end this stalemate and call him to yell at him until my lungs were sore. Where could he be at this hour? Maybe out with a former girlfriend, or he could have found a brand-new one, one that would let him fuck her for as long as he wanted and would listen in sympathy when he vented about his crazy wife. Now, instead of being Mom, I would be Amtu Samia. He’d never leave me, but I would know every day that he wished he could. He would express his feelings by coming home late, hardly eating with the family, refusing to take vacations with me, and not even staying by my side while a parent was dying a slow death. Those thoughts winded me, and I lay down on the bed in defeat. I had to admit I enjoyed having the soft, comfortable bed to myself—the one at Amu’s was as hard as wood, and it was a lot better than the lumpy full-size Yusef had in here before—but that was scant comfort to a woman facing a loveless marriage.

  I threw the book at the wall. It only made me angrier, and my teeth were clenched so hard I thought they would fall out. I got a hold of myself and decided against calling him. Maybe I should just leave and tell him he wasn’t about to trap me and treat me like shit. I’d rather be Mom than Amtu. I’d been the “less than” for the better part of my life; it would not be my permanent place. I wasn’t playing second fiddle to some other woman, or women, who knows? If Amu—a man who had become increasingly fat, bald, and wrinkly—had the ability to play two women, at least two women, Yusef probably had an infinite number of opportunities.