Page 178 - A Woman Is No Man

Still, Isra was surprised Fareeda hadn’t noticed a change in her. Lately,
she performed all her responsibilities—soaking the rice, roasting the meats,
bathing her daughters, brewing Fareeda her maramiya chai twice daily—in

a rush, desperate for a moment alone. Most days, she read by the window in
the girls’ room, the sun bright and warm against her face. She pulled the
curtains open and leaned against the windowpane. The touch of each
hardcover book sent shivers down her spine.
She couldn’t remember the precise moment she had stopped reading.
Perhaps it had been when she first arrived in America, glancing over her
copy of A Thousand and One Nights when she couldn’t sleep and finding it

insufficient comfort. Or maybe it was during her pregnancy with Nora,
when Fareeda had dangled a necklace over Isra’s belly and predicted a girl,
and Isra had read a sura from the Holy Qur’an every night, asking God to
change the gender. She had almost forgotten the weight of a book between
her hands, the smell of old paper as she turned each page, the way it
soothed her someplace deep within. Is this what Adam felt, she wondered,

when he drank sharaab and smoked hashish? A surge of happiness. An
elation. If this was how he felt—floating as she was now, with a book in her
hands—then she couldn’t blame him for drinking and smoking. She
understood the need to escape from the ordinary world.

“What makes you happy?” Isra asked Adam one night as she watched him
eat his dinner. She didn’t know where the question came from, but by the
time it had left her lips, she found herself leaning forward in her seat, both
eyes glued on Adam for his answer.

He looked up from his plate, swaying a bit in his seat. She knew he was
drunk—Sarah had taught her how to recognize the state. “What makes me
happy?” he said. “What kind of question is that?”
Why did she care what made him happy? The man who beat her
mercilessly, who had sucked the hope from her? She wasn’t sure, but in that
moment it felt important, intensely so. She poured him a cup of water. “I

just want to know what makes my husband happy. Surely something must.”
Adam took a gulp of water and wiped his mouth with the back of his
hand. “You know, not once in my entire life has anyone ever asked me that
question. What makes Adam happy? No one cares what makes Adam
happy. All they care about is what Adam can do for them. Yes, yes,” he
said, slurring a little. “How much money can Adam bring home? How