one December morning when Isra came up to help with breakfast, squinting at the blue and purple mark on Isra’s cheek. “You think anyone wants to see this?”
Isra opened her mouth, but nothing came out. What was there to say? A husband hitting his wife was normal. How many times had Yacob hit Mama? She wondered if Khaled had ever hit Fareeda. She had never seen it, but that meant nothing.
“There are things in this life no one should see,” Fareeda said. “When I was your age, I never let anyone see my shame.”
Watching Fareeda, Isra thought she was the strongest woman she’d ever known, much stronger than her own mother. Mama had always wept violently when Yacob beat her, unashamed to display her weakness. Isra wondered what in Fareeda’s life had made her so bold. She must have suffered something worse than being beaten, Isra thought. The world had made a warrior out of her.
Fareeda led Isra upstairs to her bedroom. She opened her nightstand drawer, pulled out a small blue pouch, and fumbled for something within. First she pulled out a stick of red lipstick, a deep maroon, then shoved it back in. Isra pictured Fareeda’s lips covered in the color. She had worn red lipstick at Isra’s wedding, a bright and upbeat shade. But the dark shade of maroon, the deepness of it, suited her much more.
“Here,” Fareeda said, her fingers finally producing what she had been searching for. She pumped a few drops of liquid foundation onto the back of her hand. Isra winced when Fareeda touched her skin, but she didn’t seem to notice. She continued smearing the makeup on Isra’s face, coat after coat over the bruises, until satisfied. “There,” she said. Isra risked a peek at herself in the mirror: every inch of shame, every shade of blue and purple and red, had disappeared.
As she turned to leave, Fareeda grabbed her elbow and pulled her close, thrusting the bottle of foundation into her hands. “What happens between a husband and wife must stay between them. Always. No matter what.”
The next time Adam left bruises, Isra covered them herself. She had hoped Fareeda might notice her efforts, that it might bring them closer somehow, maybe even back to the way things were in the beginning, before Deya was born. But if Fareeda did notice, she didn’t let on. In fact, she pretended as if nothing had happened, as though Adam had never hit Isra, as though Fareeda had never covered her bruises. It bothered Isra, but she willed herself to remain calm. Fareeda was right. What happened between a husband and wife must stay between them, not from fear or respect, as Isra had initially thought, but shame. She couldn’t have Sarah or Nadine suspecting anything. How foolish would she look if they knew Adam beat her? If she were back home, where a husband beating his wife was as ordinary as a father beating his child, Isra might have had someone to talk to. But Sarah was practically an American, and Nadine had Omar wrapped around her finger. Isra had to pretend nothing was wrong.
But pretending only worked on the outside. Inside, Isra was filled with a paralyzing shame. She knew there must be something dark stemming from within her to make the men in her life do these terrible things—first her father and now her husband. Everywhere she looked, the view was dreary and dismal, as gray as the black-and-white Egyptian movies she and Mama had loved to watch. Isra remembered clearly the colors of her childhood—the pink sabra fruit, the olive trees, the pale blue skies, even the wide, grassy cemetery—and she understood with dread that color was only seen by worthy eyes.
That winter, Isra did little but sit by the window, retreating to the basement as soon as her chores were done. She hardly spoke unless spoken to, and even then her responses were muted. She avoided her daughters’ eyes, even when she held them, mothering them in a rush, desperate to return to the window, where she stared in a daze through the glass until it was time for bed. Only she barely slept, and when she did, she wept in her dreams, sometimes even waking in a scream. On those nights, she’d look over to Adam, afraid to have woken him, only to find him in a rough sleep, his mouth hanging wide.
Isra sometimes wondered if she was possessed. It was possible. She’d heard countless stories growing up