Page 140 - A Woman Is No Man
P. 140

“Maybe you can go around proposing to any girl you want,” she said.
                “But I don’t see any choice here for me.”
                     “But there is! You can choose to say no until you meet the right person.”

                     She rolled her eyes. “That’s not a choice.”
                     “That depends on how you look at it.”
                     “No matter how I look at it, I’m still being forced to get married. Just
                because I’m offered options, that doesn’t mean I have a choice. Don’t you
                see?” She shook her head. “A real choice doesn’t have conditions. A real
                choice is free.”
                     “Maybe,” Nasser said. “But sometimes you have to make the best of

                things. Take life as it comes, accept things as they are.”
                     Deya exhaled, a wave of self-doubt washing over her. She didn’t want
                to accept things as they were. She wanted to be in control of her own life,
                decide her own future for a change.


                “So, should I tell them yes?” Fareeda asked Deya after Nasser left. She was
                standing in the kitchen doorway, a cup of kahwa to her lips.
                     “I need more time,” Deya said.

                     “Shouldn’t you at least know if you like him by now?”
                     “I barely know him, Teta.”
                     Fareeda  sighed.  “Have  I  ever  told  you  the  story  of  how  I  met  your
                grandfather?” Deya shook her head. “Come, come. Let me tell you.”
                     Fareeda proceeded to tell her the story of her wedding night, nearly fifty
                years before, in the al-Am’ari refugee camp. She had just turned fourteen.
                     “My  sister  Huda  and  I  were  both  getting  married  that  day,”  Fareeda

                said. “To brothers. I remember sitting inside our shelter, our palms henna-
                stained, our eyes smeared with kohl, while Mama wrapped our hair with
                hairpins she had borrowed from a neighbor. It was only after we’d signed
                the marriage contracts that we saw our husbands for the first time! Huda
                and I were so nervous as Mama led us to them. The first brother was tall
                and  thin,  with  small  eyes  and  a  freckled  face;  the  second  was  tan,  with

                broad shoulders and cinnamon hair. The second brother smiled. He had a
                beautiful row of white teeth, and I remember secretly hoping he was my
                husband. But Mama led me by the elbow to the first man and whispered:
                ‘This man is your home now.’”
                     “But  that  was  a  million  years  ago,”  Deya  said.  “Just  because  it
                happened to you doesn’t mean it should happen to me.”
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