The Blue Between Sky and Water (3 page)

“Welcome to our humble home, ladies. We are honored by your presence,” Nazmiyeh finally said with a smile that allowed others in the room to breathe.

“The honor is ours, beautiful young woman,” they said in unison.

Nazmiyeh was not beautiful, not instantly attractive to those who looked her way. But for those who saw her, who brushed against her haughty defiance and irreverence, she was irresistible. She had walnut-colored skin that she made no attempt to lighten by keeping away from the sun. She didn’t try to straighten her coiled hair by wrapping, pulling, or ironing it for occasions, such as weddings, when women removed their hijabs for one another. Instead, she let her curls just be, enraged and arrogant as they pleased. Whatever people thought of her, she proved difficult to ignore. Indeed, she had been the object of many a fantasy in Beit Daras.

The women of Beit Daras had come bearing gifts of fresh fruit and vegetables, olive oil, honey, and sweets. They apologized on behalf of their children, assuring Um Mamdouh, whom they respectfully addressed as Hajje Um Mamdouh, that each boy had received a hard beating and each would come in to apologize personally, if she would so allow. Hajje Um Mamdouh sat quietly and only spoke when addressed directly. She assured the women that Allah is the One who forgives, and that she had already forgiven the boys. It remained unuttered, though understood by all, that it was Sulayman’s forgiveness that was being sought and granted.

Not until hours had passed did one of the women explain the condition of Atiyeh, the stunned boy.

“Bring Atiyeh to me,” said the hajje. “I will help him.”

As Atiyeh entered, Nazmiyeh bore into him with a stare so indignant and loathful that he stopped for a moment, more unsure of the world than he had ever been. He had just turned fifteen, though he seemed much younger, and Nazmiyeh was seventeen, though she seemed to be so much older. Blistering shame spread through Atiyeh’s body and mixed in his organs with the image of Nazmiyeh’s orange and green dishdasha stretched by supple rounded flesh at her chest and hips. His ribs pressed down on his heart with embarrassment and, he was sure, with love. Despite all eyes upon him, he felt himself growing hard, and he quickly flung himself at Hajje Um Mamdouh to kiss her hand and hide his predicament. But still, he could not speak. The hajje took the boy’s head in her hand, pulled it back, and began to utter her scrambled ramblings. Her eyes rolled in their sockets and her stale breath reached those around her. Suddenly, she stopped, her eyes clear. The boy stood, seemingly taller than before he had knelt, as if in that moment he had crossed the final threshold to manhood. He glanced at Nazmiyeh with eyes that tamed her glare and assured her that he was stronger than she. No one could have perceived that fleeting glance, though it lasted an eternity between the two of them. Then he walked out as if nothing had ever happened to him, and that was proof enough that Um Mamdouh, the strange woman with no husband and three children in the Masriyeen neighborhood, who had once shat in the river and slept in pastures, was in reality among the blessed
asyad
, the gifted mortals who could communicate with the djinn of another realm.

News spread quickly through Beit Daras and the surrounding villages and people began to flock to Hajje Um Mamdouh’s home. Many came to explore the world of the unseen. Are there other djinn in Beit Daras? Do the djinn mean us harm? Are they good or bad? Is it true that djinn have free will? Are they like us? Is it true they live more than a thousand years? Most came to search the mysteries of love. Does he love me truly? Which suitor is best for my daughter? Is my husband planning to take a second wife? A third wife? They always brought
bakhour
incense to burn because Hajje Um Mamdouh said the djinn love it. Once, a woman gifted Um Mamdouh a bottle of perfume from Lithuania and Sulayman stayed away until she got rid of it. Such scents based in alcohol repelled the old djinni, which many took as evidence that Sulayman may well have been an angel.

SEVEN

These were the times in Beit Daras when my great-khalto Mariam got her wooden box of dreams and I would traverse time and death, before I was born, to wait for her by the river, where I taught her written language, she talked to me about colors, and we made up songs.

Mariam was delighted that so many visitors now came to her home seeking her mother’s advice. They came with gifts and brought the energy of other villages and stories from esteemed families in Beit Daras. Upon seeing Mariam, they would praise Allah for such unique eyes. Nazmiyeh would immediately take her sister aside and read Quranic
muawithat
to shield her sister with the words of Allah, lest the compliments strike her with the curse of
hassad
. Sometimes Nazmiyeh did it in front of the women to shame them for being so bold with their compliments to anyone but Allah, the Creator who had made her sister’s eyes. But Mariam did not care. She loved the attention and wanted the guests all to herself. She fought Nazmiyeh to be the one to serve them tea, going so far as to threaten breaking all the family’s dishes if Nazmiyeh did not allow her.

“Okay, little sister. I just thought the tray was too heavy for you,” Nazmiyeh relented, and the fierceness in Mariam’s mismatched eyes turned to a smile as she carried the serving tray.

Mariam’s ability to see auras had lessened over time so that now, at the age of six, she only saw occasional bursts of intense feelings. But her inner world was always sorted by color. So after weeks of working up her courage, she finally asked the women for a pencil, a cobalt blue pencil, the color of Khaled, her friend who was always waiting for her by the river.

The next day, several women came with pencils and notebooks and erasers and sharpeners tucked in a carved wooden box with inlaid mother-of-pearl calligraphy of the word
Allah
. Mariam received the gift with awestruck gratitude. It was a wooden box of dreams that Mariam would carry for the rest of her life. She began to spend more time at the river and no amount of threats or whuppings from Nazmiyeh could keep her home during daylight. Mariam had her wooden box to take each day to the river, where Khaled taught her how to write her name and the ninety-nine names of Allah. It was not long before she had unlocked the secrets of language. She had stopped watching the schoolboys walk to school and would leave after her chores every day for the river.

Several times Nazmiyeh followed her to see Khaled. Never finding him, Nazmiyeh concluded that Mariam had made him up to try to explain her self-taught literacy, and they settled into their lives thus. Those were perhaps the happiest days of the Barakas’ lives together. Um Mamdouh was respected, Mamdouh was happy in his job keeping bees, and Nazmiyeh became dreamy, looking prettier than ever.

For two years, Mariam would return home daily in the late afternoon, eager to show her sister all that Khaled had taught her, and Nazmiyeh would leaf through the pages, her heart swelling with pride. She was sure her little sister was the first girl in all of Beit Daras to learn to read. Once, in a moment of unbearable love for her brilliant little sister, Nazmiyeh began to cry. She held Mariam’s face gently in both her hands, crouched to bring her face close, and said, “You are the most spectacular person I have ever known, my little sister. Remember how special you are, how loved you are. We will always be together.”

“Are you okay?” Mariam asked, unaccustomed to this sentimental side of her sister.

“Yes! I’m more than okay. I’m in love,” Nazmiyeh whispered. Mariam gasped, wide-eyed.

“Shh,
habibti
,” Nazmiyeh put a finger to her smiling lips. “I will tell you later. But for now, this is our secret.”

Nazmiyeh had always assumed a motherly role in Mariam’s life. Now they were sisters, too, who could conspire and hold each other’s secrets. So, almost eight years old now, Mariam resolved to explain who Khaled really was. But not now. They had to pray the day’s fourth
salat
and prepare the evening meal before their brother Mamdouh returned home from his work at the apiary.

EIGHT

My great-teta Um Mamdouh could not speak with the unseen except for Sulayman, an old djinni cast out from his tribe for having fallen in love with a mortal. The villagers came to understand this over time, but it did not lessen their respect for her power. Although the villagers’ visits eventually dwindled, they continued until history arrived and Beit Daras was carried off by the wind.

In February 1948, Five men arrived at the Baraka home. Village elders and chosen
mukhtars
from each of the main families of Beit Daras, they were pious men who would not ordinarily visit a woman such as Um Mamdouh, who lived with the unseen and without a husband. Their faces were hard and sober, dignified by age and tribal tradition. They greeted the hajje’s only son, Mamdouh, with firm handshakes and a kiss on each cheek, a sign of respect for the man of the house, even though Mamdouh was now only seventeen years old. They showed Hajje Um Mamdouh respect and honor by averting their eyes from her and placing their right hands over their hearts.

“Welcome to our home,” Mamdouh greeted the men, motioning for them to enter and sit on the carpet cushions near his mother.

“May Allah grant you long life, Hajje. We have come to seek your help and the help of Sulayman,” said Abu Nidal, the venerable mukhtar of the Baroud family. Before they could say more, Um Mamdouh closed her eyes, enfolding herself in the climate of another world. She inhaled the severe air surrounding her guests, mumbling incomprehensibly until her body was filled with echoes and her skin exhaled a strong scent of soot. She opened her eyes.

“You come to learn the intentions of the Jews?” she asked. They all nodded, so she continued. “Our peaceful neighbors in the kibbutz are not our friends. They harbor treacherous plans toward Beit Daras.”

“Are you sure, Hajje? We have been good neighbors for years. We have given them crops and taught them to till this land. Their own doctor has treated our people and, enshallah, helped them back to health.”

“I tell you only what Sulayman tells me. He does not lie.”

“Tell us more,” they said.

“Only Allah knows the unknown, and only His will shall be done. Our neighbors will come joined by others, and they will spill the blood of the Bedrawasis of Beit Daras,” she said of a family known for their bravery and warrior skills. “Beit Daras will be victorious. You will all fight and you will live, but some of your brothers and sons will fall; yet, that will not be the end. More Jews will return and the skies will rain death upon Beit Daras. The big-headed stubborn Bedrawasis of Beit Daras will not surrender. Time and again they will repel the enemy, but the ememy’s fury is great. Native blood will pour from these hills into the river, and the war will be lost.”

Recognizing the gravity of such a visit, Nazmiyeh, now twenty years old, stood still, listening in the tight space of broken wall between the kitchen and the main room. Eavesdropping next to Nazmiyeh, Mariam did not fully understand her mother’s formal words, but she could feel the disquiet they inspired. When she served them coffee, Mariam observed the men sitting straight and stiff, hands clasped in laps. Small, uneasy fidgets and hard swallows that ferried Adam’s apples up and back seemed the only movement in the room. They didn’t look one another in the eyes, as if doing so would betray the despair they labored to hide. Nazmiyeh pulled her little sister closer and they stayed that way, listening to a trembling silence crawl from the ground, up the walls. Finally, the men sipped their coffee, and Um Mamdouh spoke again. “Only Allah can know the unknown, but if Beit Daras does not surrender, this land will rise again, even if the war is lost.”

No one understood the meaning of her words and none dared ask for an explanation. It was enough to hear
this land will rise again
. They grabbed those final words of hope and inhabited them until their final days, which came to some in battle shortly thereafter, and to others in the wreckage of nostalgia that paved refugee camps.

“May Allah grant you long life, Hajje. Take this for your trouble,” Abu Nidal said, placing a bundle of Palestinian notes before her. But she refused. “Put your fate in the hands of Allah. Lean on Allah and fight for us, Abu Nidal. I do not accept money. Allah is my provider and my protector. My son will fight with you. I will stay, so Sulayman, too, will remain to help us; but know that the enemy brings
afareet
from
iblis
, demons from the depths of darkness. May Allah grant you long life and may He protect Beit Daras and her people.”

NINE

Mariam and my teta Nazmiyeh listened that day behind the broken kitchen wall as their mother spoke to the mukhtars about iblis and afareet. Iblis was the devil, and afareet were his terrible followers, but Mariam could not understand why they were coming to Beit Daras. She buried her face in her sister’s chest and clutched her tighter. Nazmiyeh asked Mariam to fetch her wooden box and transcribe a note for her. It said, “If you want to marry me, your family must come tomorrow.”

A week after young Atiyeh’s voice had been liberated from the stun of seeing Sulayman, he and Nazmiyeh had locked eyes again in the
souq
. She tried her meanest stare with eyes outlined in black kohl and underlined by a
niqab
veil she was trying on because it was adorned with pretty jingles, but he didn’t flinch. He squinted in a mock attempt to one-up her stare. Then he could see her brow relax and eyes narrow from the force of the smile he knew had formed beneath the veil. She returned the veil to the vendor and looked away, knowing Atiyeh was watching.

They met this way many times, communicating with only their eyes. Six months later, they met by the ruins of the Roman citadel and for two more years, Nazmiyeh refused every suitor, waiting for Atiyeh’s older brothers to marry before his turn could come to choose a bride. They met on the first Thursday of every month in a spot they claimed as their own. Anguished by exhausting patience and unredeemed love, they finally agreed it not sinful to hold hands, and from the dexterity of interlacing, squeezing, gripping, and caressing fingers, their hands created an amorous language that spoke of complicity and promise.