The Blue Between Sky and Water (9 page)
Exile in America offered a professional career and financial gains that my great-khalo Mamdouh could have only dreamed about anywhere else. “It’s a great country,” he told Yasmine, who was not entirely convinced. But he believed it, even though exile made him a foreigner, permanently out of place, everywhere. Exile took his son, first by extricating the homeland from his heart and trashing the Arabic on his tongue, then by taking his life in a car accident. His only consolation then was that his Yasmine had been spared the pain.
When his Granddaughter was born, Mamdouh had wanted his son to name her Mariam, a tribute to his beloved sister. Had he and his Yasmine had the good fortune to have another child who was a girl, he’d have named her Mariam. Though Yasmine survived her first encounter with cancer, it took her womb after their only child. But words and stories and dreams remained, trying to find a place in the next generation. Mamdouh and Yasmine had tried to explain this to their son. They had told him it would mean the world to both of them to name their granddaughter Mariam, or—in desperation he had added a compromise—any Arabic name.
“I don’t understand why you deny us this simple joy, Mhammad,” Yasmine had pleaded with her son.
“Mama, you know I like to be called Mike.”
“Mhammad is your name because I’m your mother and that’s what I named you. Where did we go wrong? You deny your identity and marry a woman who looks down on us like we’re filth. Straighten up, boy!” Yasmine was rarely so stern. But she had felt death creeping along the edges of her days, and that had changed everything. “A man who denies his roots is not a man,” she continued, as if Palestine would simply rise up in her son by the sheer force of her anger and grief.
“This is why it’s difficult to talk to you. It’s always Arab drama and endless Arab guilt.”
“Why, my son?” she pleaded. “Why do you insult me? I did not raise you like this. Why does it embarrass you to be an Arab? It is what you are whether you like it or not.”
“Mama, I’ll talk to my wife!” he said and left.
His wife, a Castillian woman from Madrid, had first refused an Arabic name for her child. Both she and her husband sought to erase his unfortunate heritage from their lives. Why would she allow her daughter to have an Arabic name? So what if it made his mother happy? She was likely to die soon and they would be stuck calling their child by a name that reminded them both of what they’d prefer not to remember. Navigating life in America was hard enough with a name like Mhammad, why would they want their child to suffer, too? “Why do Arabs love to suffer? It’s like it gives them more drama to guilt people,” she said.
“I know, darling. But you should have seen my mother. She was different this time. I think she believes her end is near.”
A compromise was reached. “Mariam” was out of the question because it would give her in-laws too much control. But she agreed to consider another Arabic name, as long as the child’s last name would be hers.
Yasmine suggested the name Nur, because that baby was the
nur
of her life, the light of her days, and she died a year later never knowing that her Nur’s last name was Valdez.
There was a time, after his wife had passed away and his son had died, when my great-khalo Mamdouh despaired. Nur was all he had left, and her mother would surely never allow him to see her again. He pleaded with her, crying like a child. He hired lawyers and went to court. In the end, money got him what he wanted. It took all he had, everything he had worked for and saved up. But he had his Nur, and that was enough. He called his sister, my teta Nazmiyeh, to tell her they were coming home, at last.
As the World got cold and snow began to fall, Nur and her jiddo made the special soup they prepared every year in a large vat and froze in small servings to thaw for winter meals. Her jiddo’s cold was making him cough more than usual, so Nur took it upon herself to help out. She already knew how to operate the microwave, and she could get the frozen soup from the freezer by standing on a chair. She felt grown up to make dinner and take it to her jiddo when he was too sick from his cold to get out of bed, where they would play games, read books, and watch television together as they ate. When the special prayer alarm went off, he would climb out of bed so they could perform salat together.
That winter, when the papers cleared and her jiddo got full custody of her, he made two important decisions. First, he said it was time for them to go home to Palestine where they belonged. He had already bought their tickets and was hoping his car would sell before they were due to leave in three weeks. The second important decision was that their new and very urgent project together was to write a love story, which Nur decided to call
Jiddo and Me
. Her grandfather instructed her to write about her favorite things they did together. She drew pictures and dictated what she wanted to write, since she couldn’t yet spell all the words. On several pages, they chronicled the highlights of their frequent trips to the duck park, featuring Nur’s artwork of the two of them in a paddleboat and another of her jiddo pushing her on a swing at the castle playground. On other pages, she drew them reading a bedtime story together. Mahfouz, her bear, featured in most pictures, and she wrote a special story about Mahfouz’s green and brown button eyes. A full chapter was dedicated to CCP Saturday mornings, a drawing of giant chocolate chip pancakes with a scoop of ice cream on the side. She was certain no other little girl in the world got to eat ice cream every Saturday morning. It was such a privilege that she willingly ate vegetables throughout the week. And some chapters were dedicated to the black-and-white past, where they fixed the only picture her jiddo had of that time. “Is that really you, Jiddo?” Nur asked.
“Yes, I was young then.”
“Your legs are the same size.”
“Yes, that picture is before I was hurt.”
“Is that Mariam?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I knew it!”
“And that is my other sister, Nazmiyeh. And this little boy … well, it was very strange. We didn’t remember seeing him, but we knew all about him and thought he was imaginary. His name was Khaled. He was your great-amto Mariam’s friend.”
“Yes, I know him. I like the white streak in his hair.”
Her jiddo stared more intently at the photo and wiped it to remove any dust. “I never noticed that before.”
A week into writing their book, her jiddo’s cold became so bad that he couldn’t get out of bed for prayers and had to sleep at the hospital. That was when Nur met Nzinga, from the Department of Social Services, or “DSS,” who took her to live with a foster family until her jiddo could get better. Daily, she went to the hospital with Nzinga, a tall, beautiful woman who wore a colorful wrap called a
gele
, and who spoke in a funny way because, as Nzinga explained, she came from a country far away called South Africa. On these rides to the hospital, Nur learned phrases in isiZulu and she, in turn, taught Nzinga Arabic words. She would remain there most of the day, talking with her jiddo and working on their book. When her jiddo napped, she chatted with the nurses, pushing all the buttons she was allowed to push, from the vending machines to the elevators. And daily, she shared the progress of her book with various hospital staff, and with Nzinga when she would arrive to take Nur back to her foster family.
As the pages grew thick with stories and pictures, Nur suggested to her jiddo that they make lists of good words for their hearts to hold. “What a wonderful, wonderful idea, Nur!” her jiddo exclaimed, his color brightening to a jubilant yellow that delighted Nur to see, for the shine colors were becoming less and less frequent. Her jiddo had told her that Great-Amto Mariam had stopped seeing colors as she got older, even though occasionally it would still happen when things were “very emotional.” She had asked what that meant and her jiddo had explained that emotional things were ones that made her heart feel as if it got warmer, beat faster, or were going to fly out of her chest. Things that made her feel like there was a lump in her throat or that made her want to cry. Nur considered all of those very emotional things now and asked her jiddo which one he felt about her idea to make a list of words to put in their hearts for each other.
He replied, “My heart got warmer and felt like it was flying high in the sky. That’s how I always feel when I’m around you, Nur.”
They made their lists for each other. She started but ran out of words after, “Nice, Funny, My Favorite Person Ever, and The Best.”
Her Jiddo started. “Beautiful, Loving, Light of Jiddo’s Life—”
“You’re those ones, too. Jiddo, can boys be beautiful? I want that one on my list,” she said.
“Boys can be beautiful, of course. Do you think your old jiddo is beautiful?”
“Yeah! Especially when you walk without your special shoe and cane.”
“Smart, Caring, Kind, Thoughtful …” her jiddo wrote them down slowly, his hand shaking.
“Me too! I mean you, too! I want those on my list. Spell them for me, please. Jiddo, you’re good at this list game!” She beamed.
Her jiddo began coughing and pushed the button that made the nurse come in to ask how he was doing. Nur liked to do that, so her jiddo usually told her when it was time so she could push the button herself. But he must have forgotten this time. The nurse made Nur wait on the couch outside the room, just like when it was time for her jiddo to go pee or poo. It made Nur giggle to think about her jiddo going poo.
More nurses rushed past Nur into her jiddo’s room. They were taking a long time and would not allow her back in. She thought maybe it was one of those poos that are really hard to get out, when you have to push really hard.
“Not yet,” one of the orderlies said. “Why don’t you go get something from the vending machine?”
“Sure! I know how to do it myself,” she bragged.
Nur had a snack. She went to the hospital chapel to see if Pastor Doug was there, but he wasn’t. She stayed in the cafeteria for a while, helping the cafeteria ladies stock up the salad bar, until they told her she needed to run along. When she had gone up and down the elevator several times, insisting she push the buttons for all the passengers, she heard Nzinga yell to hold the elevator.
“Nur! There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you. We need to go back to your foster family,” she said.
“Hi, Nzinga. I have to get my book and my stuff,” Nur said.
“I already got everything for you. See,” Nzinga said, opening a plastic bag, revealing their handmade book tied with a blue ribbon.
“No! I have to go say bye to Jiddo first,” Nur protested, feeling something new inside her, a strange tightness in her heart, moving toward her throat, like a lump.
Nzinga crouched close to Nur’s face. “I’m afraid we can’t do that, little angel,” she said.
Nur could no longer see the colors around people to understand if what they were saying was nice or mean. The lump had gotten bigger and was now stuck in her throat. Her chin quivered and tears formed in her eyes. She couldn’t say another word, nor did she know why.
Nur walked out of the hospital, her small arms reaching up to hold Nzinga’s hand. She turned her head back, instinctively, to see if her grandfather might have come out of his room and down the elevator to the lobby to say good-bye. But he was not there, and his absence made her heart hurt. It hurt so much that she froze and the lump in her throat exploded in a loud cry. The glass doors ahead of her inspired dread and fear she could not yet understand, and for which she had no vocabulary.
The security guard, who had been Nur’s friend at the hospital, walked over to them and Nzinga picked her up.
“I don’t want to leave. Please don’t make me leave,” Nur managed to say, crying. “There’s very emotional things.”
The guard looked pleadingly at Nzinga, who was equally moved, “Why don’t we go to the cafeteria for a while. Would that be okay, Miss?” he said.
Nzinga agreed.
The security guard added, “And I’m going to get your favorite.” The immediate thought of a chocolate mousse with whipped cream distracted Nur from the hurting thing in her chest. But she did not smile and she wrapped her arms around Nzinga’s neck, afraid to let go. The thing in her chest now felt like a monster. Her jiddo was the person in her life to make monsters disappear from under the bed and banish them from closets. He made everything softer and brighter. And now, when the world was growing darker and a scary thing lurked all around and inside her, Nur pleaded with Nzinga, “Can I please go see my jiddo?”
Although Nzinga did not return her to her jiddo’s room, she managed to calm Nur and assuage her fears. They talked about her favorite things. Nur showed her the progress with
Jiddo and Me
, until exhaustion crept into the child’s body, and Nzinga carried her to the car.
Two months passed before Nur learned the fate of her jiddo. In that time, she waited patiently for permission to visit him again. “When he’s feeling better,” her foster mother continued to say. Nur wrote letters to her jiddo in their shared book with the blue ribbon. She added more adjectives to her list of him. Eventually, Nzinga would explain what had happened, but for now, Nur continued praying for him to get better soon, until one of the older girls who shared her room overheard Nur’s nightly prayer and said, “Your grandfather is dead. He ain’t getting better, stupid. Grow up!”
The earth shook. The moon fell. The stars went out. And the mean girl’s words would echo forever in Nur’s heart. Faint moonlight seeped in parallel lines through the blinds and fell across the stricken child. Nur’s hands were pressed together in prayer and tears streamed from her eyes. She wanted to reach for Mahfouz, her bear, but she was immobilized. She could already feel pieces inside of her loosening and falling, the way beads of a necklace fall apart when the string is broken. If she stayed perfectly still, perhaps her jiddo, the string that connected all the pieces of her, would not be pulled completely away. She knew the mean girl was right. Her jiddo was dead.