Page 205 - A Woman Is No Man

Isra

Fall 1996

Isra could no longer remember her life before America. There had been a

time when she knew precisely when the mulberries back home would ripen,
which trees would grow the sweetest figs, how many walnuts would fall to
the ground by autumn. She had known which olives made the best oil, the
sound a ripe watermelon made when you thumped it, the smell of the
cemetery after it rained. But none of this came to her anymore. Many days,
Isra felt as though she had never had a life before marriage, before
motherhood. What had her own childhood been like? She couldn’t

remember being a child.
And yet motherhood still did not come naturally to her. Sometimes she
had to remind herself that she was a mother, that she had four daughters
who were hers to raise. In the mornings, after she woke and made the bed
and sent Adam off to work with a cup of kahwa and a labne sandwich,
she’d wake her daughters and make them breakfast—scrambled eggs,

za’atar and olive oil rolls, cereal—running around the kitchen to make sure
all four of them were fed. Then she’d take them downstairs and run a bath.
She’d soap their hair, digging her fingers into their scalps, rubbing their
bodies until they reddened, rinsing them off only to start over again. She’d
dry their shivering bodies and comb their wild hair, untangling it strand by
strand, willing herself to be gentle though her fingers moved frantically,
aggressively. Sometimes one of them would scream or let out a whimper.

On days when she was feeling patient, Isra would tell herself to take a
breath and slow down. But most days she’d snap at them to keep their
mouths shut. Then she’d drop Deya and Nora off at the bus stop and set
Layla and Amal in front of the television, eager to complete the day’s
chores and return to her books.

Now Isra leaned against the window, reading. Outside the trees were
bare, their stark branches covered with frost. Isra thought they looked like
tiny arms, thin and bleak, reaching for her, like her daughters. Lately it