her like this, how dare she defy her, after all Fareeda had done for her, for all of them? All she had given up, day after day until there was nothing left of her but a sack of bones. And they still blamed her in the end.
She took off her slipper and slammed it against Sarah’s body, over and over, her jaw clenching each time the slipper struck her daughter’s skin. It wasn’t fair! Sarah tried to crawl away, but Fareeda stooped down and seized her, pushing her into the ground with all her might. The next thing she knew, her hands were clutched around Sarah’s throat, all ten fingers digging in as if kneading a chunk of dough.
“STOP!” Isra’s voice cut through Fareeda’s rage. What was she doing? She let go. The feeling she had now, like the jinn had entered her, would not shake. She stared at her hands for what seemed like an eternity. Finally she spoke in a quiet voice. “I’m doing all this for you.” Sarah was shaking her head, rubbing tears from her eyes. “You think I’m a monster, but I know things about this life you can’t imagine. I could sit around and play house with you, making jokes and spinning fairy tales, but it would all be lies. I’m choosing to teach you about the world instead. To want what you can’t have in this life is the greatest pain of all.”
Sarah stared at the floor. A moaning sound came from her lips, but she said nothing. Fareeda swallowed, studying the runner beneath her feet. Her eyes followed the fabric, its embroidered lines spinning in and out of each other, again and again. She felt as though her life was bound by the same pattern. She couldn’t breathe.
“Just go,” Fareeda muttered, closing her eyes. “I don’t want to look at you right now. Go.”
Isra
Spring 1997
On a humid Saturday afternoon, Isra and Sarah stuffed eggplants on the kitchen table. Fareeda sat across from them, phone pressed to her ear. Isra wondered if this was one of her renewed attempts to find Sarah a suitor. If it was, Sarah seemed unconcerned. Her full attention was on the eggplant before her as she carefully stuffed it with rice and minced meat. It occurred to Isra that despite the many threats Fareeda had made to Sarah since her beating, nothing she’d said had elicited even the slightest appearance of fear from her daughter.
Fareeda hung up and turned to face them. Isra froze when she saw her face—it was as if she had seen death in her cup of Turkish coffee.
“It’s Hannah,” she began. “It’s Hannah . . . Umm Ahmed . . . Hannah has been killed.”
“Killed? What are you talking about?” Sarah jumped from her seat, her eggplant rolling off the table.
Isra felt her heart thumping beneath her nightgown. She didn’t know much about Sarah’s classmate Hannah, Umm Ahmed’s youngest daughter. Fareeda had considered her for Ali at one point, but had decided against the idea when she’d sensed that Umm Ahmed hadn’t wanted Sarah for her son. Isra remembered thinking how lucky Hannah was that this family hadn’t been her naseeb—surely Hannah’s life would’ve turned out like hers. But now, listening to the news, a panicky feeling moved through her. Sadness was an inescapable part of a woman’s life.
“What do you mean, killed?” Sarah asked again, louder this time, beating her thighs with the edges of her palms. “What are you talking about?”
Fareeda straightened in her seat, her eyes glistening. “Her husband . . . he . . . he . . .”
“Her husband?”
“Hannah told him she wanted a divorce,” Fareeda said, her voice cracking. “He says he doesn’t know what happened. They found him standing over her body with a knife.”
Sarah let out a wail. “And you want to do this to me? ‘Get married! Get married!’ That’s all you can say to me. You don’t care what happens to me!”
“Not now,” Fareeda said, staring at a spot outside the window. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me! What if some man kills me? Would you even care? Or would you just be glad that I was no longer your balwa?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Fareeda said, though Isra could see her upper lip trembling.
“Hannah was only eighteen!” Sarah shouted. “That could’ve been me.”
Fareeda’s eyes were locked on the window. A fly buzzed against the glass. She squashed it with the edge of her nightgown. She had told Isra