Home Is Not a Country

The Airport once when i was small  we packed a shared suitcaseof bright cotton  floral prints  & something yellow & silken i’d never seen my mother wear & for the trip across the country she wore perfume & her best red beaded scarf  & we clattered into the terminal  my mother  collecting all the light a wedding on another coast  its promises of sunlight & gold  & her scattered schoolmates & cousins & faraway friends  all crowded into a rented hall  making it  with color & incense & song  our country & it all shone in my mother’s face  we approached the counter to check in  the family ahead of ours handed their boarding passes with a grin before the agent turned to us & his smile clicked shut said  check-in is closed  & no there is nothing he can do & no there is no manager to call & please can we leave this counter is now closed  my mother’s faltering voice  the soft music in her english her welling eyes  her wilting face  her beaded scarf & all she said was please  please  i have a ticket & i’d never seen her so small  english fleeing her mouth & leaving her faltering  frozen  reaching for words that would not come  dabbing at her eyes with the scarf  its red so bright  so festive like it was mocking us & all i could do was reach  for the suitcase with one hand her limp arm with the other  & wheel us to the exit & in our slow retreat i heard the last snatches of that man’s joke  his colleague’s barking laugh no way we’re letting mohammed so-and-so near the plane & that’s why we don’t go anywhere  anymore  Mama my mother is so often sad  so often tired & wants mostly to sit quietly in front of the television  where we watch turkish soap operas dubbed over in arabic   their sweeping landscapes & enormous romances until she falls asleep chin pointed into her chest & glasses askew on bright days she plays music  pitches her voice high & sings along to all the ones we love  abdel halim & wardi & fairouz  sayed khalifa & oum kalthoum gisma’s open throaty voice & frantic percussion to which mama claps along  tries sometimes to teach me the dances  the body formed like a pigeon’s the chest arced proudly upward  head twisting helixes against the neck  in a surprise to no one i cannot dance but love to watch her  love that she tries anyway to teach me & sometimes  rarely  by some magic  the movement will click fluently into my body  & she’ll ululate & clap while i twist my head in time to the song  mama’s voice celebratory & trilling  my nima  my graceful girl Haitham is smaller than me  three weeks younger & always a little disheveled  always dressed in something that someone else wore first  & laughs the most enormous sound haitham passes me a drawing  during arabic class full-color cartoon on the back of a worksheet of our horrible teacher  spit flying from his large mouth  with a speech bubble that reads WE ARE NOT AMERRICANS! YOU SPEAK ZE ARRABIC!  eyes bulging & his bald patch glistening in the light i press my fist over my mouth to keep the laugh inside & it builds until i think my eyeballs might burst until the sound threatens to come pouring from my ears  from my nose  until my face is wet with tears  & haitham swipes the drawing  crumples it into his notebook  right as the teacher turns & thunders over  spits a little while asking what on earth  (the only way teachers are allowed to say the hell)  what on earth is wrong with me i only manage to choke out    allergies & haitham  from the row behind  offers me a tissue with a grin Pyramids once  in arabic class  excited that the new girl’s name luul  reminded me of the song i love  the pearl necklace i sang a little of it when she introduced herself & watched her smile falter  confused  before she finally excused herself  & by the end of the day everyone was giggling  nima loves old people’s music  pass it on so even here among my so-called people i do not fit here where the hierarchy puts those who have successfully  americanized  at the top  i’ve marked myself by caring about the old world  & now i hover somewhere at the bottom of the pyramid  (while our arabic teacher drones about ancient times  & the little-known fact that our country has 255 pyramids remaining today) the bottom of the pyramid with those recently arrived  dusty-shoed & heavy-tongued  & though i’m born here though my love of the old songs & old photos  doesn’t translate to my spelling  my handwriting my arabic pronunciation  or grammar  or history or memorization of the qur’an  i recognize in their widened eyes  that feeling  that shock of being here instead of there Haitham lives in my building  which isn’t actually surprising since it seems everyone from our country immigrated to this same block of crowded apartments  it’s saturday morning & he’s ringing the doorbell frantic    & falls inside when i answer sweaty & rumpled & still in his house shoes  coughingwith a little joke in his eye his grandmother opening his t-shirt drawer to put away the laundry  found his secret pack of cigarettes  which he doesn’t even really smoke  which he tried to explain away  while dodging the slippers aimed at his head who knew mama fatheya was so athletic everything always so funny to him she chased him out with cries of DISKUSTING!  DISKUSTING!  & where else was he going to go my mother hasn’t left yet for work  & makes us tea boiled in milk  poured into mismatched mugs & hands us packs of captain majid cookies she gets from the bigala that haitham & i call  ethnic wal-mart where we buy everything  from bleeding legs of lamb to patterned pillow covers  & cassettes covered in a layer of dust she never seems old enough to be anyone’s mother so pretty & unlined & smelling always of flowers she clears the cups & wipes the crumbs from the table & our faces in quick movements  pins her scarf around her face & leaves for work haitham isn’t wearing shoes so we cannot go outside we instead spend the day playing our favorite game calling all our people’s typical names out the window into the courtyard mohammed! fatimah! ali bedour! to see how many strangers startle  & look up when they are called Haitham haitham’s grandmother once asked us  suspicious what do you two do all day?  & by the middle of the list had already turned her eyes back to the television as haitham continued to list our every microscopic act music videos  snacks  monopoly even though half the cards are missing  five-dollar tuesdays at the movie theater after school concan even though nima thinks i cheat & we don’t really know the rules & in truth i do not know what we really do with our time together because it’s always been like this my every day is filled with haitham his laughter pulling my own to join it our nonsense jokes & riffs & misremembered lyrics & laughing & more laughing i see him every day & somehow still have so much to tell him every time one of us rings the doorbell to the other’s apartment & crosses the threshold  already beginning whatever story already unfolding whatever thought  & he’s never joined the other kids in making fun of all my strangeness  makes it feel instead like a good thingeven when he calls me the nostalgia monster he makes it sound like a compliment full of affection & pure joy  has never made me feel that there is anything wrong with me at all An Illness through the bathroom door i hear haitham singing loudly in the shower  stretching each note with a flourish i perch next to mama fatheya on the couch while she watches  intent as a woman on the television pulls a glistening chicken from the oven  i am so bored  & haitham is taking his time  the mantel above the television is crowded with photographs haitham’s mother  khaltu hala  younger & first arrived her hair cut short & eyes haunted  haitham a bundle in her arms  mama fatheya, tell me about back home  she glances up from  her program  irritated at first & then softening nostalgia is an illness, little one  she says gently  turning back to the television  but continues ours is a culture that worships yesterday over tomorrow  but i think we are all lucky to have left yesterday behind  we are here now  dissatisfied  i press on  wait, you actually like it here?  & she faces me again  a sadness hitched  behind her eyes  here i have lost nothing i could not afford to lose just as haitham squawks the last notes to his song & shuts off the shower  i look at the lost country in mama fatheya’s face  & recognize it from my own mother’s face  the face of every grown-up in our community  a country i’ve never seen outside a photograph  & i miss it too Haitham always laughing & pulling laughter from anyone he meets has interests that keep him here instead of dreaming of a lost world  for a while he tried to get me to play video games  but i could not make myself care & now i mostly sit on the plastic-covered couch & watch him play while i daydream  & when he’s done or tired of losing  he’ll put on one of the old movies from the box under his grandmother’s bed  though by now we’ve watched them all dozens of times  we each pick a favorite character & recite all the dialogue long since memorized  & squawk off-key to all the songs  though secretly we are each belting them out in earnest i think that  secretly  he loves this old world almost as much as i do Khaltu Hala haitham’s mother  her hair cut close around her ears though in the old pictures she wore it long  puffed out around her shoulders  curls halfway down her back i like her  her gruffness & briskness & her short bark of a laugh  the books shelved floor to ceiling in the little apartment  each one of them hers traced for years by her fingers until the ink began to gray  the way she coaxes a smile from my mother  & clears the shadow from her face the way she growls out every letter of my name in approval  how i can’t imagine her ever afraid though when she is home we don’t watch the old films or sing the old songs or ask too many questions  my mother never talks about it except the one time after khaltu hala heard me humming the song about the pearl necklace  &  eyes bulging voice hoarse  told me to leave  & go home knocking gently on our door hours later a little pearl ring passed from her hand to mine her embrace bright with the smell of oranges & soap apology muffled by my sweatshirt’s thick fabric  that night  my mother  voice hushed  told me about the officers that cut khaltu hala’s hair  the long scars striped down her back  the thousand things she will not talk about  in hopes of erasing that whole country  & starting again here brand-new  & i almost wish she hadn’t told me & for weeks after i did not want to listen to the songs  & every photograph looked sharper & ugly & gave off the faintest smell of copper  of blood & now i mostly try to forget the story  & return to loving the dream of home  & the pearl never leaves my finger Mama though the story about khaltu hala hurts  i do not want my mother to stop telling stories  she who so rarely tells anything at all  i ask about my grandmother  loved flowers  about  my mother as a young girl  i wanted to be a dancer  & when i ask about my name  she frowns a little  squinting as she chooses the words  i had a whole other name picked out, did you know?    but when your father died i don’t know  it felt like that name belonged to him  & i couldn’t bear to keep it without him   so i picked something else  & i feel that old pang  of being second-best  to that other girl  my ghost-self      yasmeen Overheard my mother has guests over & i am hiding in my room humming to myself & looking through my tin box of artifacts  the photographs again  my mother as a painted bride  my parents dancing  i put the pictures away  the cassettes  & hear my mother calling me to greet her guests  hello  fine thank you i’m almost fifteen  school’s fine arabic’s fine  alhamdulillah  you too & i duck back into hiding & i hear khaltu amal with the tattooed eyebrows who is not actually my aunt & who always smells like ghee purring to my mother  she could be such a pretty girl & my mother mourning my unkemptness  sometimes she won’t even brush her hair  & i don’t know why she insists on wearing that sweatshirt all the time i have to pry it away to wash  & khaltu amal again her cloying voice  remember when we were girls? the daughters we imagined we’d have?  & i hate her & her pink-gray face  her still-brown neck she hasn’t bothered to bleach to match  i hate her armful of clattering bangles  the way she touches my mother’s arm & pretends to be her friend  the way she wrinkles her nose whenever she enters our apartment  her own apartment large & expensive but filled with awful gaudy objects  i giggle a little to myself at the memory of haitham saying to her  straight-faced aunt amal, would you agree that money can’t buy taste?  though my laugh dies as i hear her continue to mama  remember the girl you wanted to name yasmeen?  with yellow ribbons braided into her hair such a pretty name  i never understood why you chose the other & in the mirror i try to unknot the hair tangled at my neck & of course there’s no point  i give up & stare into my blurring reflection  my body filled with strange static  & see only a smudge where my nose & mouth should be  only the eyes large & blinking & intact  & when i blink again it’s back the same unremarkable face Mama of course i know my mother is lonely her days & nights spent mostly in the company of ghosts  so much of who & what she’s loved she speaks of only in past tense  though mostly she keeps quiet  i can’t help but imagine that her life was enormous before we came here loud & crowded & lively as any party & then the final notes of the song  & everyone is gone  except me  & i feel my own smallness as i try to fill her life’s empty spaces though they gape around me like the one pair of her high-heeled shoes i used to love to play with when i was little  so much of our life feels like sitting at a table set for dozens who will never again arrive  the two of us surrounded by empty chairs  my mother is lonely & i am her daughter her only i think that might be why i’m lonely too The Photographs the photographs are how i piece together my imagining of my mother’s first life when she was aisha  life of the party a girl in a yellow dress who was going to be a dancer  loved & laughing & never lonely  a whole life stretched before her in the company of friends & family & the man she chose who chooses her & knows all her favorite songs  who watches her with awe  & never dies  his life braided tightly to the long bright ribbon of hers i don’t think she even knows i have them these pictures  i’ve had them for years in the box i keep under my bed & she’s never noticed  because she never asks for them  because she hasn’t looked at them in years