Page 145 - A Woman Is No Man

Life here isn’t so different from life back home, with all the cooking, cleaning, folding, and
ironing. And the women here—they live no better. They still scrub floors and raise children
and wait on men to order them around. A part of me hoped that women would be liberated in
this country. But you were right, Mama. A woman will always be a woman.

She was gritting her teeth in anger and despair. She crumpled the letter,
started again, then crumpled the next as well, then the next and the one after

it, until she had rewritten her letter a dozen times, and all of them lay balled
at her feet. She could picture Mama’s disapproval now, could hear her
voice: But aren’t you fed, clothed, and sheltered? Tell me, don’t you have a
home? Be grateful, Isra! At least you have a home. No one will ever come
and take it from you. Living in Brooklyn is a hundred times better than
living in Palestine.
“But it’s not better, Mama,” Isra wrote on a new sheet of paper.

Do you think about me? Do you wonder if I’m treated well? Do I ever cross your mind? Or
am I not even part of your family anymore? Isn’t that what you always said to me, that a girl
belongs to her husband after marriage? I can see you now, coddling my brothers, your pride
and joy, the men who will carry on the family name, who will always belong to you.
I know what you’d say to me: once a woman becomes a mother, her children come first.
That she belongs to them now. Isn’t that right? But I’m a terrible mother. It’s true. Every time
I look at my daughters, I’m filled with sorrow. Sometimes they are so needy, I think they’ll
drive me mad. And then I’m ashamed I can’t give them more. I thought having daughters in
this country would be a blessing. I thought they’d have a better life. But I was wrong, Mama,
and I’m reminded of how much I failed them every time I look in their eyes.
I am alone here, Mama. I wake up every morning in this foreign country, where I don’t have
a mother or a sister or a brother. Did you know this would happen to me? Did you? No. You
couldn’t have known. You wouldn’t have let this happen to me if you had. Or did you know
and let it happen anyway? But that can’t be. No, it can’t.

Two weeks later, on a cool September day, Nadine went into labor. Khaled
and Omar drove her to the hospital, leaving Fareeda to pace from room to
room, a phone in hand, waiting for the news. Fareeda had wanted to
accompany them, but Omar had refused. He hadn’t wanted to put pressure
on Nadine, he’d said, without meeting Isra’s eyes, especially if she had a

girl. Fareeda had said nothing, storming into the kitchen to brew a kettle of
chai. Now she paced around the sala, muttering to herself, while Adam sat
on the sofa, looking at Isra in his absent way, eyes half hidden behind a
cloud of hookah smoke. When she couldn’t take it any longer, she stood to
go brew some coffee.
In the kitchen, Isra let out a silent prayer that Nadine would have a girl.
No sooner had she thought it than she felt disgusted with herself. What