the surrogate sister

Twice I’ve found myself standing between sisters.

The first time, of course, happened with my aunt. She loves me, and I know that. But she did forget to pick me up at the airport and, when she finally arrived, she didn’t recognize me without my glasses. I was practically in her arms before she knew who I was.

Now, my first encounter with my aunt was very much that of celebrity-meets-doting-fan. Arriving in Amman last summer, I came fully aware of my aunt’s most unflattering nicknames — and there are several. (No, I will not share them with you. She’d kill me.) I knew, for example, that she majored in psychology, that she digs alternative medicine and that she doesn’t entirely discredit the possibility of extraterrestrial life. I knew that Mama fondly calls her Im ‘Eenain Zuru‘ (the One with the Blue Eyes) and that she and my blond grandfather once got through Israeli security without showing ID because they “didn’t look Arab.” To her surprise and indignation, I also knew that she once tricked my uncle, when that they were both children, into drinking urine and that he finds that hard to forgive. (I wonder why.)

She, in turn, knew that I was the kid of her kid sister, born at a faraway time and place.

Therefore, when she picked me up at the airport, I couldn’t help feeling a little bit like a wrong number. I mean, how tearful would this meeting be if it weren’t me struggling with a suitcase my height, but my mother. After all, my aunt and mother haven’t seen each other in upwards of twelve years, and that last meeting took place in a hospital. My late grandfather (Allah yirhamu, God have mercy on him) was bedridden after an open-heart surgery and, because he had experienced “rare hallucinogenic side effects,” he insisted that they were both slices of cake. (They’re lucky he didn’t try to eat them.) Needless to say, they had little time to catch up on news of husbands and (plant) husbandry.

More recently, there’s another pair of sisters I liaise between. A Libyan khweila (auntie) who’s known me longer than I knew myself sent with me an amana (trust) for her sister in Amman. After she played a little phone tag with me, the sister arrived one sunny day at my doorstep to pick up the amana. Though she met me with the Libyan-to-Libyan warmth I’ve come to expect, again, I couldn’t help but feel underwhelmed by myself. How much more cherished would a reunion have been between khweila and her sister, how excitedly would they speak, how tightly would they hold each other? But in lieu of that beloved sister, there I stood. A little nobody trying to bridge the Pacific.

If my life story were a schematic diagram, and I had a rubber eraser, I’d wipe out the middleman and pencil in the stick figures together, with watermelon smiles and complementary Dr. Seuss bows on their heads.

But I’m not the artist. So I just keep playing my part, jumping from page to page, shuffling salams from one sister to the other, all the while hoping that the pages will never turn to a point where my sister and I are the estranged stick figures. Or, if estrangement be a must, then perhaps the pages will turn quickly, as in a flip book.

Ah, but why all the angst when we, too, can find our very own delivery girl. Through her, my sister and I can send each other boxes of edible hugs and kisses. After all, feelings are overrated while chocolate is not.

darndest things

Although my grandparents lived in Saudi Arabia for over thirty years, they and their six children were like an island at sea. They felt mostly alienated from their surroundings, distant from their neighbors and, in the words of Edward Said, simply out of place.

Maybe it was the fact that, despite his long stay in Saudi, my grandfather Sido was denied Saudi citizenship and did not see raises in his salary because (a) he was originally from Gaza and (b) he had too many children.

Or maybe it was the fact that his eight-member family lived in a two-bedroom apartment in a struggling area, where many of the infants ambled about bare-bottomed and defacated in the street.

Or maybe it was that my blond and green-eyed Sido was widely considered a “foreigner.” (I never understood if this meant Westerner-foreigner or unwanted-poor-Arab-immigrant-foreigner). Once, as he cycled to work, Sido witnessed a car accident and a Saudi national immediately bore (false) witness against him. “Policeman, it was this foreigner’s fault. I saw it. It was all his fault.” The policeman, who’d witnessed the incident himself and saw that Sido was not at all responsible, thanked the man for his (unsolicited) testimony and sent him packing.

In any case, in the midst of Saudi’s sand dunes, there lied an emotional gulf between some refugees and Saudi locals.

Once, when they had settled into a house, my grandmother Tata had complained that the place was zay wijhuh (like his face), referring to the owner.

Now, in Palestinian dialect, if you say something is like someone’s face (ex. the food is like your face), that’s no good news for your face or for the the object of that simile. Implied is that your face ain’t that good lookin’. Tata’s mistake (arguably, apart from the insult itself) was saying it within earshot of her four year-old daughter.

Some days later, the owner came by. He found the blond, blue-eyed girl sitting near the threshold. “How did you find the house, ya shatra (you good girl)?”

“Zay wijhak (like your face),” came the straight unapologetic reply.

To Tata’s embarrassment, the owner repeated to her, in her own words, her assessment of the new home. My grandparents were duly reminded that they had among them embedded journalists who, despite their smallness, had big ears and big mouths. Kids do say the darndest things.

in memoriam: sido, my grandfather

Sido had a fourth grade education but memorized more classical Arabic poetry than I will ever know.

He could tell you bittafseel al mumil (literally: in boring detail, figuratively: at length) what he did on Monday June 29 1942 (if that date is even accurate) but he couldn’t tell you his date of birth. (Like many of his contemporaries, he lost his birth certificate during the exodus).

Sido was Palestinian. He survived the British Mandate, experienced Israeli occupation and was one of the last people out of Yafa (now Jaffa). Despite his nonexistent medical training, he helped the last doctor in treating fidayeen (freedom fighters) at the hospital — men who defended Yafa until the city fell. From the martyrs, he collected identification which he used to send the belongings on their person to their surviving relatives.

I want to tell you a story about Sido. Just one because, if I used the darkness as my ink, night would expire and much would be left unwritten. So one story will suffice here.

It was Palestine. Circa 1972. Israel was working to shift demographics in an occupied Gaza strip. (Demographics here is code for the systematic transfer of land from Arab to Jewish hands, the promotion of Jewish immigration and settlement and the  evacuation of the native Arab population).

My refugee grandparents were notified by the Israeli government that their newly purchased home in Gaza would be lost to them if they could not reside in it. Of course, they could not reside in it because — truth be told — they could not reside anywhere in Palestine. As Palestinian refugees, they had no right of return. Visits to the homeland came with limited time warranties. The Man demanded a permit that only he could give, and he would not give it. Israel was acting the prosecutor and the judge.

My grandparents’ only option (apart from forfeiting the property to Israel) was to sell it to Palestinians who could live in it. But, they were told, they could not do even that unless they met a simple condition:

The house must be owned by a divorced woman with a bedridden mother.

Easy enough, right? Well, believe it or not, Sido had already written the house under my grandmother’s name. Why? Because (a) he loved her and (b) he realized that, should he suddenly pass away, he’d like to spare her a nomadic or dependent lifestyle — talk about thoughtfulness and foresight.

Also (ironically) in their favor was the fact that my grandmother’s mother was bedridden. Working against them, however, was her quickly deteriorating health.

All that remained, then, was the divorce. So off my grandfather went to the local sheikh.

When Sido told the man, “I want to divorce my wife,” the kind sheikh began a long spiel about the disadvantages of divorce, the virtues of patience and forgiveness, and the rewards of marital harmony. “Listen, listen,” my grandfather interrupted, “I love my wife. We just need to do this for them. On paper.” Suddenly, divorces were golden. The sheikh was game. The paper was drafted, rumors spread, relatives were alarmed and, with that, the (ridiculous) conditions for home-selling were fortuitously met.

But the story doesn’t end there.

The house could now be sold. But the question was: would it be sold? A potential client, my grandfather and the broker convened to set a price. My grandmother sat in an adjoining alcove, behind a curtain. (Though she did not veil, this was customary.) The men had agreed on a price when my grandmother Tata demanded a higher one. The broker brushed her off. But Sido insisted that they hear her through. The broker was outraged. He feared that the sale would yitfashkal (be spoiled) and with it his share. “This is a matter between men! Leave the women out of this! Are you going to let a woman tell you what to do? If you listen to her, then you are half a man!”

“If I am half a man,” my grandfather shot back, “then you are no man at all. Listen to her or there’s no deal. It’s her house. Not mine.” (Get him, Sido!)

Tata insisted on her price. Luckily, the future homeowner was a gentleman. He graciously met the price kirmal issit (for the lady’s sake), and the broker ate his pride — along with the bigger slice of pie that came with a successful transaction. Only fifteen days later, my grandmother’s bedridden mother passed away.

***

aA Sido and Tata were affectionately married for some 50 years. Now both of them have passed. I pray that their happily-ever-after on this earth be but a prequel for the life they’ll share in a better world than this. Ameen.