The Pact We Made

I find a perverse delight in accidental bleeding, though. I cut my finger on a bit of broken glass once. It sliced through the knuckle, skinning me clean. I stood at the sink, finger under the tap, and let it bleed and bleed. The red streaming from my fingertip, swirling pink in the drain, felt more real than the wooziness in my head, more real somehow than the pain in my hand. I could see it. And I often believe what I see over what I feel.

My feelings are like my reflection, like the commas in my eyes and the hair on my foot. I struggle to verify them.

Thursday. Another dress on my bed. This one was cream with a floral pattern, big pink roses splashed across the bodice and down the full skirt. It was even frillier than the last, and I wondered whether Mama knew me at all, or whether she thought that was the mold I had to fit in order to land a husband, after which I could revert to being myself, the way some married women eventually stop shaving their legs.

I rubbed the fabric between thumb and forefinger. It was new, strong, and rich. Which shoes would I pair it with? In the closet was my black dress, fresh from the dry cleaners. I ran my hand over the comforting organza, fingering the small buttons down the front, and wondered if it was possible for a dress to be disappointed in me. Pulling it off the hanger, I spread it on the bed, pulling and draping until it covered the other one, until the flowers appeared more mauve than pink.

I would always hear them before I saw them. The suitors. Mama entertained them in the formal living room downstairs before I made my entrance. Even though no one could see me coming down the stairs, that was where the jitters hit hardest. My palm would get clammy on the banister, my heart would shiver in my throat, and the dress would suddenly feel too tight or too short or too low in the front. There was a moment, two or three steps from the bottom, where I was convinced I’d either fall or pass out, and I always hoped it was the latter because that, at least, could be blamed on something other than clumsiness.

I would make my decision based on their voices. Nothing more. Not looks or height or body, not beautiful hands or trimmed toenails peeking out from open-toed sandals. Pausing just around the corner, I would wait for the man to speak, and then I’d make my judgment. I didn’t resort to any predetermined list; it wasn’t about tone or pitch or how nasal the voice was. It was something unnamed. Call it a gut reaction. I stuck with it.

This one was an immediate and unqualified ‘No’. I arrived in time to catch the end of some sentence about working at a bank, but it was enough. The voice was harsh and unforgiving, abrasive even. Like it was waiting to dole out some retribution. No.

The face that went with it was deceptively charming: straight, aristocratic nose, sun-burnished skin, wide smiling mouth. When he rose to greet me, I saw that he was tall with a broad frame that attested to some sort of regular athletic endeavor. Probably water sports, I thought, taking in his bronze face and hands.

Nadia was there to chase away the awkwardness with all manner of social niceties. She and the suitor got along perfectly. Mama and his mother got along perfectly. If only Nadia wasn’t married, it might have been a perfect match. It turned out they had both gone through the same bank branch back in the days before Nadia became a housewife, and they reminisced about crazy managers, dunderheaded office boys, and insane clients. Finally, she turned to incorporate me into the conversation, asking leading questions to which I gave small, unremarkable responses. Mama’s disappointment skipped across the sofa and into my lap, staring me in the face. But I was helpless to stop it. I couldn’t be the engaging thing she wanted me to be. I’m not my sister. Maybe at one point I could have been, but the moment was gone, and we couldn’t retrieve it.

My heart throbbed in my fingertips, and I pressed them into the fabric of the sofa. My scalp tingled like a million insects were crawling across it. This uncomfortable feeling, which I should have been used to by then, strangled me. I had an urge to bolt, to feign illness – and wasn’t I sick? – and leave. But I stayed put and struggled not to fidget.

He tried, asking me what I liked to do in my free time, and I confessed my illustrations. He seemed genuinely impressed and asked what it was I drew.

‘Monsters, mainly,’ I said, gritting my teeth when Mama’s fingers pinched the skin behind my knee. ‘Big hairy ones with ugly teeth.’

Mama laughed it off, pinched me again, then quickly changed the subject. She hadn’t seen my new Ariel obsession, only the Goyas that were multiplying on the walls in my room. She’d begged me to take them down, but I refused.

The Caprices. Eighty etchings in which Goya condemned the follies of eighteenth-century Spanish society. I often thought the Europe of that time was remarkably similar to twenty-first-century Arabia: the ignorance and shortcomings; vices and marital foolishness; the rationality infected by persistent superstitions. It was all there, in those grotesque images, with the anthropomorphized asses and the scheming witches and the yawning maws of terrible men. I’d printed out a third of them already, taping them to the wall even though Mama had yelled at me that it would ruin the paint, and why would I do that for something so hideous.

They were hideous; I couldn’t argue with that. At times, I confess, I struggled to see the ‘art’. But there was something there that stayed in my mind long after I’d stopped looking at the prints, and perhaps that was essentially what art was. It was not light and shadow – those belong to Doré – nor was it the playground of Blake, full of prophecies and symbols. It was not the chilling details of Dürer or the Gothicism of Harry Clarke. I couldn’t name it, but there was something there that required my continued attention.

When they were gone, Mama followed me upstairs to my room. I was already unzipping the dress, letting the petal skirt and cream bodice fall to the floor. I nearly tripped over it in my heels and did a little side shuffle in an attempt to stay upright. Mama watched from the door with a frown, but I managed to get the dress off the floor and into a heap on the bed without injury.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘he’s perfect, right?’

I chuckled, stepping out of my shoes and rubbing my toes. ‘That’s what you said about the last guy.’

‘He was perfect too, and if you had put in a bit more effort maybe you’d be engaged to a doctor now.’

‘So he was better than this guy?’ I asked. She made a noise of frustration and threw her hands up. I shrugged on a robe and let down my hair, pulling out the strong, sharp bobby pins to free the heavy curls. ‘Does it not matter at all who I marry?’

‘No,’ she replied. ‘As long as it’s a good match, I don’t care who it is.’ I turned to her, eyes wide, and she crossed her arms under her breasts. ‘And if you don’t like my choices, maybe we’ll go to khataba and see who she can find.’

‘A matchmaker?!’ I gaped at her. ‘Are you insane?’

She shrugged. ‘Many people use them nowadays. What do you think, Dahlia, that there’s one perfect man out there for you? Do you think you’ll fall in love, and then he’ll come seeking your hand?’ It was on the tip of my tongue to mention Mona’s love match, but I swallowed the words down and yanked out a tangled pin, pulling three long black strands with it. ‘Children think that way,’ she continued. ‘You’re much too old for such nonsense.’

‘I’ve never said anything about a love match.’

‘Your actions speak loud enough! Tell me; tell me what’s wrong with this one? What do you object to?’

I shook my head down at the little mound of bobby pins before me, and I could only speak the truth. ‘Nothing.’

I didn’t have to look to know a smile had spread across her face. ‘So, I can tell his mother “yes”?’

The moment felt monumental. The expectations, Mama’s hopes and dreams, my fears and any courage buried in me seemed to dance in the air between us. It was not a dance; it was a battle, a frigid war I hadn’t agreed to. I could have said yes, if only to avoid another fight, on the off chance that he’d say no. I saw his warm brown eyes, his white smile, his nods and jokes. He wouldn’t object. And in any case, I couldn’t risk it, not with a voice like that.

I shook my head, and it was all she needed. Crossing the threshold, she took hold of my arm and jerked me towards her, grabbing my other bicep and shaking me hard.

‘Are you trying to kill me?’ Her fingers dug into my skin; I was not at all protected by the flimsy robe. ‘Why are you doing this to me, Dahlia? Why!’

‘I’m not doing anything to you.’ In my head it was a scream, but it came out as a whimper. ‘This isn’t about you.’

She was still shaking me, and she was so mad, when she spoke, I was hit with spittle. ‘Is this your way of punishing me? Tell me! You’re punishing me, aren’t you?’

‘No!’

‘Then give me one reason, one good reason to say no to him.’

‘I don’t have to give you any reason!’ I broke her hold, inadvertently shoving her away so she hit my dresser with her hip. The vanity swayed precariously, the big, heavy mirror threatening to tip over, until I rushed to steady it.

I was breathing hard. I didn’t look at her, my eyes focused on where mirror and table met, trying to keep it upright. ‘You can’t force me to marry him, or anyone, no matter how much you wish you could.’

She was quiet for a long moment. Long enough for me to set the mirror right. Long enough for me to pick up the toppled-over perfume bottles and tubes of lotion. Long enough that I no longer had an excuse not to look her in the eye. So quiet, and I thought there could not be anymore to say and why wouldn’t she leave and how much worse did she want me to feel?

‘Do you never want to get married?’

There were tears now, but I wouldn’t let her see them. ‘I’m not even thirty yet. It’s too soon to worry about that.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ she replied, turning to leave. ‘It isn’t at all.’

In the shower I scrubbed myself raw, until my skin was an angry red – just like the showers when I was fifteen.

I realized a long time ago that, in a lot of ways, my body is not strictly mine. It’s a shared entity, something to be criticized, guarded, commented on, and violated. I learned it at twelve when Nadia said I should start shaving my legs. She sat with me in the bathroom, showing me how to lather up with lots of soap, how to go against the grain – ‘So it cuts at the root, idiot!’ – and how to tear off tiny bits of tissue to plug up nicks. At thirteen Baba decided I wasn’t dressing right. I had to wear skirts with hems below the knee and long shirts that fully covered my butt. Why I should have to hide my thirteen-year-old body from strange eyes I never asked, although I soon learned if you caught a man’s attention, no amount of baggy clothing would deter him. Sleeveless tops were forbidden and V-necks couldn’t dip too low (though at the time, there was nothing to conceal). At fifteen any sense of self I had, any sense of control, was ripped away from me, taken to a place where I feared I would never find it. At seventeen, when I was eating non-stop, Mama forced me to the memsha, a public walkway that stretches around our neighborhood, driving the car on the parallel road while I ran because nobody would marry a fat girl. At weddings, appraising eyes dissected me. In the street, men with greasy eyes let out catcalls.

That wasn’t the point. I’m digressing. Besides, I relinquished control of my body a long time ago. I no longer have a connection to it. Perhaps I never truly did. My point is that my life was not my own either. It too was something to be controlled, commented upon, and directed to the will of others.

My mind drifted while I rinsed white, rose-scented suds from my hair. I tipped my head too far back and hot water pushed up my nostril and down my airway. It happened fast. One minute I was breathing, the next I was choking, like something had been shoved in my throat. In the steam and harsh jets of water, I was convinced I was dying. Scrabbling back against the cold fiberglass door I tried desperately to suck in air, but all I got was water and steam. It was blocking my nose and tightening my throat. I reached for the door, slipped and hit warm tiles.

The autumn of my thirteenth year was exceptionally warm, and we spent every weekend at the beach house taking advantage of the long days and pleasing tides. I was gazelle-brown by week two. Always the best swimmer, I had to be bribed into getting out of the water. They never worried about me, even though I swam out the furthest, dove the deepest, and opened my eyes underwater despite the sting.

There was one scorching day. My family stayed close to shore, splashing and lazing under umbrellas jammed into the mud. Maids came out with a succession of icy glasses of water, rainbow juices, and thick wedges of pink watermelon and orange melon. The youngest cousins, only toddlers then, decorated their sandcastles with blueberries and grapes, wailing when my aunties yelled and swatted at them.

I heard the wailing from where I was, treading water several meters out. Lifting my legs, I floated on my back and stared up at an empty sky. I leaned my head back until my ears were submerged. And then, it was silent. Blue above, blue below.

The boys in the neighboring chalet lowered their jet skis in, sending rolling waves that bumped me up and down, up and down. I righted myself to avoid water up my nose. With a roar of twin engines, they raced past me, the younger one skidding to the side so a sharp spray hit me full in the face.

I dived then, deep down in the blue where no one could find me. Open mouth for a big breath like I was about to swallow the sky. Then, like a dolphin, arching into a dive. Kick, kick, bigger kicks to propel me down, down. Open eyes, the sting will go away. Further down, until I hit it, the spot where the water is cold, where you’re wrapped in this alien iciness, like a portal to another world. Look up, it’s like a window in a thunderstorm, all wavy lines and squiggles. When the lungs are almost uncomfortable, start kicking back up; it’s easier, you can relax because physics does the work, lifting you back to sun and safety.

I misjudged. I opened my mouth and nose and lungs too soon, sucking in warm, salty water. I flailed and splashed and couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream. Flashes of light burst behind my eyes, and water sank into my ears. My yathoom wrapped his legs around my chest and squeezed. There were hands grabbing at me, strong arms lifting me and pressing me against broad shoulders, water draining off my body. Mama screamed at her cousin—a cousin who, orphaned as a child, had been raised in her house as a sibling, and who we called Uncle Omar—screams of panic and confusion and anger and still I couldn’t breathe. His face swam before my eyes, blurry and indistinct, until they closed. My lungs gave up. Then there were fists on my chest, hitting much too hard, rattling my ribs. Then two lips, slimy and cold like fish, on mine, forcing my mouth open, forcing the air in, blowing me up like a balloon. Rough hands gripped my face when it wanted to turn away. Wet fingers, like sea cucumbers, made my mouth stay in place. Rubber lips, hot air, fists on chest, over and over and over. And still I couldn’t scream.

5

The Architect

The next day my mother and I called a truce, unacknowledged and porous as it was. I’d woken with fingertip bruises and little crescent moons on my arms. There was a kink in my shoulder that I couldn’t stretch out and a purple bruise, the size of a lemon, on my hip from the fall in the shower—a sour reminder of bruises long faded.

After my shower, after the panic, as I’d lain wrapped in a towel on my bed trying to connect with my lungs, I’d heard yelling from the living room. I got up and pressed my ear to the cool wood of my door to make out their words. In my head, there’d been the echo of a teacher from my childhood, telling me that the punishment for eavesdropping was flesh-eating worms blanketing you in the afterlife. It didn’t stop me though, and I heard my father say, ‘Leave her alone. Let her be for now.’ ‘She didn’t even apologize,’ Mama said. ‘Pushed me into the dresser and your daughter didn’t even apologize.’ I heard Baba’s harsh breath and snort of frustration. ‘I’m sure she will. It was an accident.’ (It was an accident, but she got no apology from me.) There was quiet then, a quiet so long I thought perhaps my father had gone to their room, but then I heard her voice, low and resigned. ‘I worry about her.’ ‘Of course, you do,’ he said. ‘Stop pushing her. Let her breathe a bit.’ That was all I’d heard; any reply my mother might have made was too low, and I’d returned to my bed.

So, the day passed in silence, and as evening fell she asked me to sit in the living room with her while she watched an old Egyptian movie. I sat on the sofa opposite her with my sketchbook in my lap. I’d found a print by Fuseli the other day at work, depicting Ariel flying on a bat, and the lines and curves had me transfixed. I had the print stapled to a page in the sketchbook, and I’d started trying to replicate it on the opposite side. But as the actors in Mama’s movie barked at each other in their rough dialect and my mind wandered, so did my pen, so that I was no longer moving it across the page, but across the bare skin of my thigh. I’d pulled the hem of my shorts up and was pressing the black ink into my flesh. I couldn’t get much traction, but I kept at it until I had a basic outline – Ariel, balanced on the back of a bat in flight, one leg up behind him and one arm high overhead like a ballerina going into an arabesque, a cord of dripping stars whipping around his body.

The front door opened downstairs. ‘Baba?’ I said, thinking it was too early in the evening for him to be home.

‘It’s me.’ Mona’s voice came ringing up the stairs, followed by the clicking of her heels.

I sat up, putting my sketchbook aside. We hadn’t spoken since that day at the mall. I’d avoided her calls and ignored her texts; the only time I replied was in our group chat with Zaina. She came into view, her pixie-cut hair standing almost straight up in what I called her punk look. Aside from thick black eyeliner wings, her face was bare. Her gray dress was loose, stopping at her knees and slipping off one shoulder. She headed to my mother, kissing her cheeks and asking after her health. Mama hadn’t seen her for a while and made her sit for a chat. The next few minutes were filled with inquiries about the health of Mona’s parents and invitations for them to come out to the beach house. She asked about her husband – Mona avoided my eye – and whether they were thinking of children yet. Her response was a bubbly ‘no’ and a fluid lie of how they were still enjoying their couple-dom. The answer strained Mama’s belief, I could tell, their marriage being nearly five years old at that point. In Mama’s mind they ought to have been on their second child. When the chit-chat was over and one last reminder of the invitation was issued, Mona and I headed to my room.

‘So is this it?’ she said as soon as I’d shut the door behind us. ‘You’re just never going to speak to me again?’

I turned to her and plopped down on my bed. ‘I’m upset.’

‘Yeah, I got that,’ she replied, hands on hips, her face in a frown. Mona’s first instinct was to go on the defensive, and I was not thrown by the aggression. ‘But it’s been like two weeks now. We should talk about it. You can’t just shut me out.’

‘I was processing,’ I said, smoothing the cover of my duvet so I didn’t have to look at her.

‘Processing?’ There was a lightness in her tone that hit me like the snapping of a rubber band.

‘Yes, processing. It’s not every day you have to deal with the knowledge that your best friend is cheating on her husband.’ She had the decency to lower her eyes at that. ‘And not just once, Mona! It’s not like you did it once and realized what a shitty thing you’d done. No, you continued to do a shitty thing. You have this great life, this great husband who adores you, why would you do this?’

‘It’s been difficult, okay?’ she finally said, shaking her head. ‘Things with Rashid have been difficult.’

‘Difficult how?’ I replied. ‘You never said anything.’

She shook her head again, blew out a breath and brushed a finger down the wood of the little human mannequin on my dresser that I used for drawing. ‘Marriage is different, Dahlia. I don’t come running to you guys with our problems the way I did with boyfriends. Zaina doesn’t tell us about her marriage; do you just assume everything is perfect there?’

I did, I had, and Mona knew it. She looked at me like I was terribly naive, and I dropped my eyes back to the duvet cover. Ariel’s upraised hand peeked out from the hem of my shorts; it was smudged now.

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