Page 175 - A Woman Is No Man

The hope that perhaps, she, Isra, deserved a better life than the one she had,
as far-fetched as that hope seemed.
Some days she believed she could actually achieve this life if she tried.

Hadn’t the characters in her books struggled, too? Hadn’t they stood up for
themselves? Hadn’t they been weak and powerless, too? Wasn’t it true that
she had as much control over her life as they had? Perhaps she too had a
chance to be happy. But just as quickly as these thoughts came, they went,
leaving Isra overwhelmed with hopelessness. She couldn’t possibly take
control of her life. And it wasn’t Adam’s fault but her own. It was her fault
for asking Sarah to bring her books, for reading them obsessively in this

way. She was to blame for raising her expectations of the world, for not
focusing on Adam and her daughters instead, for dreaming and wanting too
much. Or maybe it was her books’ fault for turning her mind the way they
had. For tempting her to disobey Mama as a young girl, to believe in love
and happiness, and now, for taunting her over her greatest weakness: that
she had no control over her own life.

But despite the war inside her mind, Isra couldn’t part with her books.
Each night she read by the window. She decided she would rather go on
living conflicted with books by her side than be tormented all alone.

“I have some books for you,” Sarah whispered to Isra one evening as they
cooked dinner together. As the sun set, the windows darkened, and Fareeda
retreated to the sala to watch her favorite Turkish soap opera, Isra and
Sarah roasted vegetables, simmered stews, and prepared assortments of
hummus, baba ghanoush, and tabbouleh. Sometimes Nadine would enter

the kitchen to find them whispering together, and to their relief, she would
join Fareeda in the sala. In these private moments, as they lingered near the
stove, wrapped in a blanket of steam, the savory smell of allspice
thickening the air, Isra would feel her heart swell.
Lately, Sarah had been sneaking into the basement a few times a week
after dinner with a handful of books she had brought home for Isra. In the

past, on nights like this one, Isra would have put her daughters to sleep and
spent the evening gazing out the basement window until Adam came home.
But now she waited up for Sarah, eager to see which books she’d brought.
Some nights they would even read together. Last week they’d rushed
through Pride and Prejudice in four nights so Sarah could write an essay on