Page 200 - A Woman Is No Man

Fareeda

1970

One of the memories that came unbidden when Fareeda was alone: she

was at a gathering while she and Khaled still lived in the camps, a few years
before they moved to America. The women sat on the veranda of Fareeda’s
cement shelter, sipping on mint chai and eating from a fresh platter of
za’atar rolls Fareeda had baked over the soba oven. Their kids were riding
bikes on the unpaved road. A soccer ball flew from one end of the street to
the other. They were surrounded by noise, laughter.
“Did you hear about Ramsy’s wife?” Hala, Fareeda’s next-door

neighbor, asked between mouthfuls of bread. “The girl who lives on the
other side of the camp? What’s her name? Suhayla, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Awatif, who lived eight doors down, in a shelter by the open
sewers. “The one who went crazy after her newborn daughter died.”
“But did you hear the rumor”—Hala leaned in, her voice a whisper
—“about what really happened to her daughter? They’re saying she

drowned her in the bathtub. Ramsy and his family tried to pass it off as an
accident, said she’s still a young bride and didn’t know how to bathe the girl
properly. But I heard she did it on purpose. She didn’t want a daughter.”
Fareeda felt nauseous, her tongue dry. She swallowed, then took another
sip of her chai.
“I mean, it makes sense,” Hala went on. “The girl was raped as a child,
then married off at once. Poor girl was barely thirteen. And we all know

Ramsy. A drunk. Day and night with sharaab in his hands. He probably
beats the poor girl every night. You can imagine the rest. She likely thought
she was saving her daughter. It’s sad, really.”
Fareeda kept her eyes on her legs. Her fingers trembled against her
teacup, and she placed it on the old barrel they used for a coffee table. The

barrel was rusted and moldy but had been standing strong for over ten
years, ever since Khaled and Fareeda first married in the camps. It had
served many uses then. She remembered using it as a bucket to shower.