A Woman is No Man. Etaf Rum

Adam said. “I do.”

      Isra looked up to see that he was still staring at the curtains. “Would you ever move back?” she asked.

      “Maybe one day,” he said. “If things got better.” He turned away and walked down the hall. Isra followed.

      “My parents stay here on the first floor,” Adam said, pointing to the bedroom. “Sarah and my brothers sleep upstairs.”

      “Where will we stay?” she asked, hoping her bedroom had a window.

      He pointed to a closed door down the hallway. “Downstairs.”

      Adam opened the door and signaled her to go down. She did, all the while wondering how they could live in a basement. If there was barely enough light upstairs, what would the basement be like? She peered down the shallow steps. At once, she was overwhelmed with darkness. She put both hands in front of her and descended, the light cast from the doorway fading with each step. She reached the bottom of the stairs and fumbled against the wall in search of a light switch. Cold crept through her fingertips until she found it and flicked it on.

      A large, gold mirror hung on the wall directly in front of her. It seemed odd that anyone should place a mirror in such a dreary, uninhabited place. What good was a mirror in the middle of the dark with no light to reflect?

      She entered the first room of the basement, surveying the dim space. The room was narrow and empty—four gray walls, bare with the exception of a window to her left and, in the center of the wall ahead, a closed door. Isra opened it to find another room, slightly larger than the first and furnished with a queen-size bed, a small dresser, and a large mirror. Beside the mirror was a small closet, and beside that, a doorway that led to a bathroom. This would be their bedroom, Isra knew. It didn’t have any windows.

      She studied her reflection in the mirror. Her face looked dull and gray in the fluorescent light, and she stared at her small, weak frame. She saw a girl who should’ve kicked and screamed as her mother tightened her wedding gown, should’ve begged and hollered as her father secured her in the taxicab to the airport. But she was a coward. She turned away. This is the only familiar face I’ll ever see again, Isra thought. And she couldn’t stand the sight of it.

      Upstairs, the earthy smell of sage filled the kitchen. Fareeda was brewing a kettle of chai. She stood over the stove, back hunched, staring absently at the steam. Watching her, Isra found herself thinking of the maramiya plant in her mother’s garden, how Mama would cut off a few leaves every morning to brew in their chai because it helped with Yacob’s indigestion. Isra wondered if Fareeda grew a maramiya plant, too, or if she used dried sage from the market instead.

      “Can I help you with something, hamati?” Isra asked as she walked over to the stove. It was the first time she had called Fareeda mother-in-law.

      “No, no, no,” Fareeda said, shaking her head. “Don’t call me hamati. Call me Fareeda.”

      Growing up, Isra had never heard a married woman called by her first name. Her mother was always referred to as Umm Waleed, mother of her eldest son Waleed, and never Sawsan. Even her aunt Widad, who had never borne a son, was not called by her first name. People called her Mart Jamal, Jamal’s wife.

      “I don’t like that word,” Fareeda said, reading the confusion on her face. “It makes me feel old.”

      Isra smiled, resting her eyes on the boiling tea.

      “Why don’t you set the sufra?” Fareeda said. “I’m making us something to eat.”

      “Where’s Adam?”

      “He left for work.”

      “Oh.” Isra had expected him to stay home today, to take her for a walk around the neighborhood perhaps, introduce her to Brooklyn. Who went to work the day after his wedding?

      “He had to run an errand for his father,” Fareeda said. “He’ll be home soon.”

      Why couldn’t his brothers run the errand instead? Isra wanted to ask, but she was afraid of saying the wrong thing. She cleared her throat and said, “Did Omar and Ali go with him?”

      “I have no idea where they went,” Fareeda said. “Boys are a handful, going and coming as they please. They’re not like girls. You can’t control them.” She handed Isra a stack of plates. “I’m sure you know—you have brothers.”

      Isra smiled weakly. “I do.”

      “Sarah!” Fareeda called out.

      Sarah was upstairs in her bedroom. “Yes, Mama?” she called back.

      “Come down here and help Isra set the sufra!” Fareeda said. She turned to Isra. “I don’t want her thinking she’s excused from her chores now that you’re here. That’s how trouble starts.”

      “Does she have a lot of chores?” Isra asked.

      “Of course,” Fareeda said, looking up to find Sarah at the doorway. “She’s eleven years old, practically a woman. Why, when I was her age, my mother didn’t even have to lift a finger. I was rolling pots of stuffed grape leaves and kneading dough for the entire family.”

      “That’s because you didn’t go to school, Mama,” Sarah said. “You had time to do those things. I have homework to catch up on.”

      “Your homework can wait,” Fareeda said, handing her the ibrik of chai. “Pour some tea and hurry.”

      Sarah poured tea into four glass cups. Isra noticed that she didn’t hurry like Fareeda had asked.

      “Is the chai ready?” A man’s voice.

      Isra turned to find Khaled in the doorway. She took a good look at him. His hair was thick and silver, his yellow skin wrinkled. He wouldn’t meet her eyes, and she wondered if he was uncomfortable because she wasn’t wearing her hijab. But she didn’t have to wear it in front of him. He was her father-in-law, which, according to Islamic law, made him mahram, like her own father.

      “How do you like the neighborhood, Isra?” Khaled said, scanning the sufra. Despite his faded features and the iron-colored hair across his jaw, it was easy to see he had been handsome as a young man.

      “It’s beautiful, ami,” Isra said, wondering if perhaps calling him father-in-law would irritate him the way it had Fareeda.

      Fareeda looked at her husband and grinned. “You’re ‘ami’ now, you old man!”

      “You’re no young damsel yourself,” he said with a smile. “Come on.” He signaled them to sit down. “Let’s eat.”

      Isra had never seen so much food on one sufra. Hummus topped with ground beef and pine nuts. Fried halloumi cheese. Scrambled eggs. Falafel. Green and black olives. Labne and za’atar. Fresh pita bread. Even during Ramadan, when Mama made all their favorite meals and Yacob splurged and bought them meat, the food was never this plentiful. The steam of each dish intertwined with the next until the room smelled like home.

      Fareeda turned to Khaled, fixing her eyes on his face. “What are your plans today?”

      “I don’t know.” He dipped his bread in olive oil and za’atar. “Why?”

      “I need you to take me to town.”

      “What do you need?”

      “Meat and groceries.”

      Isra tried to keep from staring at Fareeda. Even though she was not much older than Mama, they were nothing alike. There were no undertones of fear in Fareeda’s voice, nor did she lower her gaze in Khaled’s presence. Isra wondered if Khaled beat her.

      “Do I have to go too, Baba?” Sarah asked from across the table. “I’m tired.”

      “You can stay home with Isra,” he said without looking up.

      Sarah exhaled