great expectations

“So,” the question emerged from one of the aunts, “Are you thinking of marrying a shabb (young man) from here or…?”

The rest of N’s female kin tuned in to our radio station. All eyes on N.

This was a hard question to answer without offending. If you said “No” there’d be a “Why  not? What’s wrong with us and our sons?” And if you said “Yes” there’d be a flurry of excitement, a few gasps at your unseemly audacity and quite possibly some (unwelcome) knockers at your door.

N was honest, brutally so.

“From here? No.” She shook her head. A dozen eyebrows asked the formidable question, so N explained, “The men here have these expectations — about their women. They expect them to cook and clean and take care of the kids.”

“And…?”

“And they act like it’s not their business. At all. The Prophet (pbuh) used to help around the house.”

“Her husband helps with the children,” they all turned to one of the women who, ironically, had a child on her shoulder and another at her foot.

“But they don’t help ‘illaw biminnu ‘aleich (except that they boast about their help), so much so that you regret accepting help in the first place.”

The women turned back to N, conceding the point.

“And men here are controlling–” N continued. She wasn’t letting anyone off the hook tonight.

“Of course,” one of the aunts remarked to her neighbor, “she’s used to coming and going without anyone standing ‘adda’ra (at her every step). It’s hard to go from this to that.” She raised her hand and tilted her head understandingly.

“So who would you marry?” They asked but looked afraid of the answer.

“An American.” Highly suspicious.

“An American Muslim –” I interjected.

“Do they exist?” Their faces seemed to say.

“Like her. Like us,” I tried to soften the blow.

“And shabab in Ameirca do those things? They really clean and help with the kids?”

“Well,” I interrupted, afraid that they’d think ours the land of Merry Men. “They don’t all do that, but there is more of an expectation that men should participate in chores, especially because women are most often working.”

“It’s because the women work!” Nods of satisfaction went around.

“I work,” one of them confessed, “and my husband doesn’t lift a finger, so I work inside and out.”

Another seconded her sentiment. Again, the swing states voted in our favor.

“It’s true. Our men don’t do that, but what are we to do? If you wait for a guy who’ll do those things, you’ll never marry.”

“Aunt, it doesn’t have to be this way,” N seized a teachable moment, “You can change this. You’re the only people who can. You’re the mothers. If you raise your sons to help out and to be less possessive vis-a-vis women, they’ll be that way. Sure, it won’t be your generation, but the next one — your daughters — they’ll benefit. That’s how society changes.”

“It’s hard. Hard.” The skeptics muttered. From others’ faces, I could tell that the  ideas were percolating.

After a long meditative silence, the aunt who posed the marriage question turned to me.

“And you? The same?”

“The same.” I said, as if indicting myself.

She shook her hands with (melodramatic) worry for us and our looming spinsterhood, and they laughed at us and we at ourselves. Then, from all around the room, little duaa’s (supplications) came flying towards us. Duaa’s for marriage and happiness. We were, after all, girls who were looking for ethereal partners, made of light, not clay. We were the kind of girls who made mothers’ hair grey early. We were girls with great expectations.

a sheepish encounter

It was all my fault.

I was the one carrying a camera the size of a small child. I was the one looking sternly across the valley. I was the one standing at the edge of a hill with a hand over my eyes, like a spy assaying the terrain, descrying the horizon.

Little did I know that, across the way were a pair of eyes — or binoculars — watching me.

My aunt’s husband had suggested that I not take pictures of of the hills opposite us because a military compound was nestled somewhere there.

I might not have taken any pictures at all, in fact, if I hadn’t held the camera in one hand and slammed the locked car door with the other. Oh, well, I figured.  Maybe I’ll photograph my aunt in her shimmering grey scarf, the white-scratched denim of the sky, the deserted bee farm or the straw-like thistles.

Then, a pickup truck pulled up next to my aunt and me. Two men in fatigues and military berets dismounted.

My aunt’s husband was further down the hill. Intuition said he’d be driving up right now.

As the men approached us, my aunt mumbled to “hide it.” But unless I was going to eat it — which would have been hard given its dimensions — there was no where to put the thing. My bag was in the car, and trees are never there when you need them. (It’s not “a tree in need is a tree indeed.”) Besides, it was no use. They’d seen it already.

The leading officer addressed us sternly but genially, “Walking around and photographing this area are strictly prohibited.” Can’t you see all the invisible signage?

“Like, we’re not allowed to be here at all?” My aunt asked.

Just then, her husband joined us as if on cue. Instantly, all their dealings were with him.

Meanwhile, we sat in the car, waiting.

They asked a few questions and he pointed about, chewed the edge of his lip and made his listening face.

My aunt rolled down her window. The leading officer asked, “Are these your girls?” but a part of me heard, “Are these your sheep?” After all, my camera and its doings, our feet and their ambling — all were somehow the sole responsibility of my aunt’s husband. He was the shepherd, we his flock. If we strayed, he’d be held accountable.

Maybe the officers do this out of a deference for women, because women ought to be given the benefit of the doubt, addressed with delicacy. Maybe they do it for fear of offending tribesmen who may consider a reprimand to “their hurma (woman)” effrontery, as if they — the husbands, brothers, fathers and cousins — were bypassed in the social hierarchy. Maybe the officers do it because they hold women to a different (more puerile) standard.

Because I couldn’t make up my mind as to why the officers act the way they do, I also couldn’t tell if I should feel slighted or honored.

My aunt’s husband liaised between us. He gave them our IDs, and my aunt and I waited for the final verdict.

In the rearview mirror, we saw that reinforcements were sent in. (Apparently, we weren’t going down easy.) Now they were six. Two for every one of us.

My aunt’s husband came to my window. “They want you to show them the pictures.”

I previewed the pictures just in case — yup — there were pictures of me without hijab. In fact, I could only show the soldier two pictures — the only two I’d taken on site — one of which was a closeup of my aunt.

“I can’t show the rest; they’re without hijab.”

He nodded trustfully, and a moment’s relief overtook me as I realized that, in this Muslim-majority context, no further explanation was needed.

More talking between men, then “please step out of the car.”

Most of the soldiers were lined up against their pickup truck, just watching us.

In a scene akin to one in Pride and Prejudice, my aunt and I took a turn around the level hilltop and weathered a half-dozen Darcys scrutinizing glances. Only, unlike Miss Bingly and Liza, my companion and I really didn’t want to be studied. My aunt and I had, for the time being, no “secret affairs to discuss” nor were we “conscious that [our] figures appear to the greatest advantage by walking.” (While we’re on Austen, I should point out that Lydia would have enjoyed this encounter to no end. Still, I doubt that she’d be as partial to fatigues as she is to redcoats.)

The leading officer handed a phone to my aunt’s husband. As ‘Ammu (Uncle) explained the situation to a superior, my aunt addressed the leading officer.

“My husband did — for this reason — recommend that we not take pictures, but we come here often enough and no one’s ever told us that just being here is prohibited.”

“You know,” he said amiably, “It’s just that the royal palaces are near. That’s all.”

The superior on the touchscreen phone forgave us our transgression. We were now free (read: required) to go.

“Can we go up this road instead of down?” My aunt’s husband asked. “On our way up here the mud clung to the tires and the pebbles were caked on.” My aunt and I had thought that the tires looked like chocolate donuts sprinkled with coconuts. (We must’ve been hungry, because we also thought that the multicolored heaps of sand looked like mountains of cinnamon, cumin and semolina.)

“Akh. No. There’s a military vehicle coming up. You can follow us out. If you get stuck, we’ll pull you out.” Yes, clearly we were afraid of getting stuck in quicksand. Still, there was no sense in arguing with men who — though kind — could arrest us on a whim.

The soldiers disappeared into the truck and one hopped into the back.

“‘Ammu, I’m sorry to put you through that.” He raised his chin as if to say, don’t mention it.

When we parted ways with the soldiers, my aunt’s husband waved his thanks.

“They took my phone number. Now, if — la samahallah, God forbid — there’s a terrorist incident,” he looked meaningfully at my aunt, “they’ll know who to call.”

unruined

I usually teach and make a run for it. I don’t stop to buy a banana or to poke my head into one of the souks outside the camp.

The day before last, however, four of my boys enthusiastically offered to show me the highlights of their neighborhood.

I had been waiting for this moment, this chance to get to know my students outside of the classroom, in their element. Yes, I had a half-hour to spare.

They showed me the King’s Gardens, gave me a history of the once-beautiful fountain, invited me to use the swings, pointed out the military bases and gave me trivia about the largest flag on earth, proudly located in their very own Nuzha.

Had I seen Jerash? Petra? They wanted to show me not just Nuzha, but all Jordan. I suspect they’d forgotten that they have mothers who expect them back in time for dinner. Still, it’s the thought that counts.

As the sun started making its alarming dive into the horizon, I called it an afternoon. Only two of the original four boys had remained.

When we reached the main street, I thought I’d let them go. Surely, they have soccer balls to kick around and younger siblings to bully. “I know my way from here. Thanks, boys, really. I had a great time.”

“Where do you get your taxi?”

“At Istiqlal (Independence) Mall.”

“Khalas, mush mushkilah. It’s not a problem.”

They walked with me up the main road, across the dirt lot, through stairs and tunnels, and out onto the side of the road. They waited alongside me, expertly hailed a cab, saw me in and waved until my cab disappeared around a bend.

See, that would have been a good time to die, because I’d have died happy.

I always tell my sister that it’s hard not to fall a little in love with a guy who holds open a door for you. Needless to say, after this extensive display of muroo’ah (chivalry), I was smitten, not with the 8th-graders so much as with the idea.

These boys had shown me both their neighborhood and a side of their personalities I hadn’t known.

I don’t know what Roman and Arab remains I’m going to find in Jerash and Petra because, really, the remnants of those civilizations that most interest me are right here.

There are indeed some national treasures you have to walk to, but there are countless others who will come walking to you.

forests for rest

I am no Hemingway. I wouldn’t recognize the smell of wine on your breath, nor would I be able to identify the drink by the shape and color of its bottle. But when I see one of those glass containers used in World War II to apply alcohol to soldier’s wounds, I know as well as the next person that that bottle dispenses a different kind of alcohol today.

There are a lot of these bottles littering Amman’s countryside and, interspersed with the rocks, shards and shards of broken glass.

In a lapse of realism, I pinned this irresponsibility on Jordan’s tourists, its foreigners, the people who, I thought, would venture out into this wilderness to have a little wild fun of their own.

“No no,” my aunt’s husband said with the authority of a local. “It’s the shabab (young people). They come out here — boys and girls together — to drink and do things. You’d think it’d be others, but” he shrugged his eyebrows and clicked his tongue.

“Christians here tell us,” he continued, “we don’t drink like you Muslims do. When you drink, you drink a kundara (literally: a shoe; figuratively: a bootful).”

I laughed so hard. “A bootful?”

My aunt’s husband smiled one of his rare smiles. “That’s an expression here. When you drink ’til you’re drunk.” He raised an imaginary beer mug to his lips, but I saw him drinking his liquor from a boot befitting Paul Bunyan. (Gosh, I love Arabic expressions.)

While he went for a walk, my aunt and I perched on a flat boulder which sat on the neck of a hill. The enormous valley before us was a sight to see. A long steep road ran between the hills, like the meeting of two pages in a book.  The sky was freckled with clouds and the ground was piebald — greens, yellows, browns and whites — thanks to recent rain. A horse neighed in the distance and a crowd of untended goats grazed a stone’s throw from our picnic. The cool wind stung our faces and the hot homemade tahini-roasted-chicken sandwiches warmed our hands.

A car drove past, and a well-dressed man in a red keffiyeh and i’gal shouted “Sahtain! May you enjoy your meal!” from the passenger seat. When my aunt’s husband returned from his walk, we told him about the cheerful passenger, how we thought it a strange but respectful gesture. He respectfully disagreed.

“Any man who speaks to strange women like that is not muhtaram (respectable). Had I been sitting with you, would he have told me sahtain?” No, he wouldn’t. He had a point. Still, my aunt and I wordlessly agreed that he was a little jealous.

A half-hour later, when my aunt and I walked past a party of three middle-aged men along an empty road, they shouted “Tfaddalu! Come join us!” We didn’t hear it actually, but my aunt’s husband (who protectively followed at a distance) heard it and more. They had been drinking, he could tell, so he suggested we move our party elsewhere.

My aunt’s husband is a chivalrous man, a man with muroo’ah who will drive me (or even my friend) halfway across Amman so we don’t have to take a taxi cab at night. He does it out of a deep sense of obligation.

He knows Amman better than I do, so when he asks me not to wander off into the forest alone, I respect his wishes. And when he asks me to climb up out of the valley because wild dogs haunt the place after sunset, I do as I’m told. (And even though I’ve encountered one or two of the coyote lookalikes, I can’t help but think of the wild dogs as metaphor.)

In several of Shakespeare’s plays — most notably A Midsummer Night’s Dream — the forest represents an escape from the law and order of family and state. The presiding authority of fathers and kings disappears under the thick forest canopy, as love triangles turn into quadrangles and pentagons, and young people and fairies run amok. In the far less known Two Gentleman of Verona, Shakespeare’s forest is also home to bandits and outcasts, and a gentle lady is nearly raped by a gentleman among the trees.

Even in a country as heavily policed as Jordan, the forest does feel like a stateless lawless place. And every act — good or bad — seems to have a bigger resonance there because in our almost-solitude society’s pressures are, for the most part, stripped away.

In the forest, the tree, too, looks like an entirely different person; it seems more sublime raising its arms up to the heavens before a sympathetic audience than when its humility is dwarfed by glass-and-steel buildings grabbing lustily at a placid sky.

In the forest valley, both the cheerful yodel and the hollered profanity have a seemingly eternal echo. In a place where the sun rays are are more perfect than a king’s crown, where the hilly horizon is as proud as a pharaoh’s tomb, where a tree threatens to outlive me and my grandchildren too — everything is exaggerated.

To escape to the forest is to find myself instantly marginalized, to feel keenly my own insignificance. The tree will shed its leaves, the rocks will crumble to sand, the wind will travel its course, with or without me.

That is why, despite the outcasts, bandits and drunkards, the wilderness feels like a refuge. A place to hide away from society beside a spider’s web and a pigeon’s nest. A place to feel alone and helpless and safe and befriended — all at the same time. All, while taking in a single breath of freshly photosynthesized afternoon air.

he said, she said (nothing)

The most respectful taxi cab drivers are hard to acknowledge because they are, by definition, subdued. And yet they ought to be acknowledged. The majority of my drivers have been excellent, getting me from point A to point B using the shortest verbal and traffic routes.

But how can I, for your benefit, flesh out a conversation that is necessarily bare-bones?

Here’s this morning’s conversation:

“Assalamu alaikum. Peace be unto you.”

“Walaikumussalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. And upon you be peace and God’s mercy and blessings.”

“University of Jordan, main gate, please.”

“Insha’Allah.”

The bearded man listens to Qur’an on the radio and, in a hardly audible whisper, recites along without affectation.

“May I drop you off before the bridge, because of the congestion further down?”

“Um hm. That’s fine.”

Then, when I pay 20 qirsh (200 pence) extra — a negligible amount — he asks while averting his gaze, “Do you forgive me for the difference?”

Come again? Oh, that’s right, I’d heard about this inquiry from my aunt. On the Day of Judgment, her sheikh had said, Allah will hold us accountable for even the pettiest transactions, until all matters are settled among us. We’ll have to ask each others’ forgiveness for moneys we’ve taken unfairly, no matter how minuscule the sums. So forgive others, he advised, and ask forgiveness now, if you can.

“Of course.” I replied as I climbed out, “Yislamu (thanks).”

As I weaved among the buses outside the main gate, I thought how strangely satisfying it is to see a man whose piety makes him want so much not to talk to me, in this life and the next.

trees and phd’s

The college town I come from calls itself the City of Trees and PhD’s. Well here are my top ten observations from another school that has its own generous supply of trees and PhD’s, the one and only University of Jordan.

10. Walking under UJ’s trees feels like a stroll through the set of a Turkish-dubbed-Arabic TV drama. The bottommost yard on these evergreens is painted white. I dismissed it as a traffic precaution (reflecting headlights) or as a quirky aesthetic touch. Wrong, and more wrong. It’s insect repellent.

9. The women far outnumber the men. Of forty-some students in my Sharia class, only two are men. (And that’s double the number of men in one of my upper division Arabic literature courses.) My empirical evidence is incomplete, however, until I step into the engineering lair, where I suspect all the men are hiding.

University statistics confirm that women outnumber men, 6 to 4, among the student population, while 7 out of every 10 professors is male. Maybe the graduation of more young women today will translate into more female professors tomorrow. Maybe not. But that still leaves us wondering: where are the young men at? I’m inclined to think that more young men than women have to drop out of school to support their families. But I could be wrong. They could just be decorating the hallways, smoking cigarettes and petting their heavily gelled hair.

8. In the College of Letters, there’s a handwritten sign on the bulletin board, offering condolences to a student whose father recently passed away. Also, outside, there’s a big banner commemorating the Jordanian military’s martyrs who passed while serving in Haiti. I didn’t even know Jordan was sending troops to Haiti.

Also, in morbid news, class was tearfully interrupted today when a niqab-wearing student requested that another leave the class with her. Their mutual friend had been in a week-long coma after a car accident and had just recently died.

To my surprise, the professor turned it into a teachable moment. She reminded us: Innassabra ‘indassadmatil ‘oola. Patience is at the first strike of calamity — a prophetic saying. She coupled that with a personal story — her brother withheld news of their father’s death a few hours, until after she turned in her Master’s dissertation. That, she said, required patience and restraint.

In a passionate speech, she suggested that we not look to society for our values and expect society to change. We are society. We should consciously choose our values and act upon them. A refreshing variation on the you-are-our-tomorrow speech.

7. When you’re a 5-times-a-day praying Muslim in America, you’re bound to have prayer stories. Like the time you prayed on the concrete in a gas station. Or on the side of the freeway. Or in the middle of the quad in high school. Here, of course, there are a thousand places to pray. They’re not all pretty or pristine. In fact, some are pretty discouraging. But they are everywhere.

Using another human compass — a Jordanian friend M — I also discovered a sisters-only lounge at the University. This has a lunch area, two disjointed prayer halls and a row of lockers smothered in safe political slogans and rainbow-colored stickers. A more austere black-and-white bumper sticker on one of the glass panes reads, “We love you for the sake of Allah.” I love you too, oh windows.

6. A spray-painted Israeli flag lies in lieu of a doormat outside some room in one of the Shariah buildings (there are two). The administration called it vandalism, the students freedom of expression.

Also, as you near the Sharia buildings, you notice that the number of boy-clusters around music-booming portable radios dwindle, while the jilbab- and niqab-clad girls multiply. Politics aside, there’s a sort of serenity about the place.

5. Here’s the breakdown on transportation to UJ from my home:

15 min.            taxi                                   JD 1

1 hour             3 buses + walking        JD 0.75

1 hour             walking                            Free

I’ve tried all three modes and, provided that the weather isn’t out to get me, I’ll probably take the road less traveled by (i.e. the sidewalk.)

4. If you’re into people-watching, be forewarned. There are a lot of people to watch, and a heck of a lot of people watching you. I don’t know if they’re lazing between classes or through classes, but there’s never a short supply of people on the benches lining the intra-college roads. After doing my fair share of walking, here’s a rule I’ve invented: When you see a couple glowing — impeccably dressed, walking together, but really wanting everyone to notice them — well, they’re probably engaged. When they’re crouching on the sidewalk between parked cars, however, they’re probably not.

3. Even though some students do mix and mingle at the U of J, the overwhelming majority do separate like oil and water. This blend of mixing and separating feels like a hybrid of my mosque and school environs in the U.S. While my transition to Jordan was arguably to a more conservative environment, a new friend E — a Palestinian living in Saudi Arabia — said her experience was the reverse. As we walked side-by-side through the campus, I couldn’t help but think that, for opposite reasons, we were each slightly awed by this new land, this middle ground.

2. I plan to perform hajj one day iA. As if it were aware of my intentions, UJ gave me a free preview. I had to jog laps between al-Safa (the College of Letters) and al-Marwa (the College of Foreign Languages) in hot pursuit of an elusive class. (Had I done it a few more times, perhaps Jordan’s water problem would be a thing of the past.) As it turns out, the class had been moved to yet a third building. That third building, of course, is casually referred to as the Old Technology Building, but all official maps deny its existence, as did several young ladies I asked. (Of course, the first young man we asked — one quietly studying from a dictionary-sized book on a staircase — he gave precise directions about not only the building, but also the exact room in question.)

Apparently, the long-sought-after building is known as the Political Science Department. A perfect place for a Contemporary Jordanian and Palestinian Literature class, right? Oh, whatever, I got there eventually, and that’s all that matters. Or is it? When I apologetically walked 20 minutes late into this 45-minute class, I found one of the only male students in the room standing at the podium. He paused in the middle of his report on a Jordanian poet named ‘Arar, and the professor turned to me, sarcastic.

- Are you in this class?

- Yes.

- And where, pray, have you been?

- I was lost.

- For a month? [Class laughs; I redden. Of course, the professor asks this because classes have been in session for a month, but I've been waiting long and hard for the necessary approval. So there.]

- I’m auditing.

- Oh! Then come on in!

That time, she mocked me before the class. Today, she mocked the class before me (and embarrassed me again in the process.) This is how she introduced me to her students, inserting pauses after every question for emphasis: “She’s an Arab American coming here to improve her Arabic. She doesn’t get grades. She doesn’t take tests. She doesn’t have to be here. Did you hear that? She studies because she wants to. Where are you from that? Where?” Hah. I’m sure my popularity skyrocketed after that speech.

1. The first time I entered his class, I almost immediately vetoed it. Gave it a double strike-through. But this was an unprecedented case of professor-redeems-himself-as-class-session-progresses. You can see the trajectory of my thoughts from my notes, which move from annoyed observations to (slightly) more content-based stuff:

“nasal voice, bald, white wreath of hair, charcoal eyebrows, thin gold-frame glasses, sitting and reading from his book, stopped in the middle of class for athan, boys in the front row, girls in next two rows, four rows empty, dust settles on everything not wiped by an arm, back or rear, floor pattern like Legos, went to Oxford (?), afandi was a person in Tripoli, Lebanon, Amina al-Saidiya + husband = democratic conversation.”

I called my mom last night, mentioned to her this class, this professor. She asks, “Does he have a longish nose? A sense of humor? Dr. So and So, yes that’s the one, I think. No, he wasn’t bald — but that was 25 years ago. He might be bald now.” Oh my God, I was hysterical. I knew this professor before I knew him. But then he was an idea, not flesh-and-blood. Can he really be the one who asked after Mama when she missed his class, 25 years ago? All the girls were abuzz about it, then. “You’re a favorite. That professor? Shoot, he doesn’t ask about anybody!”

I think every history makes its case, vies for legitimacy. The jury are always the living, and the evidence is usually extracted from the lifeless — fossils, monuments, manuscripts — things that survive the wear and tear of years better than the human body. But in this case, the human body had survived. To me, the professor was a living monument. A link in a chain that connects two college students — mother and daughter. He is now witness to my life and Mama’s.

I stayed after class today to ask him. He had shut down the student before me so curtly that I did a double-take. Was this the right time to ask? I didn’t want to wait two more days. Before my courage expired, I blurted: “Assalamu alaikum, doctor. Thanks for letting me audit your class! I have a question, if you have a moment?” No reply, so I went right to it. “My mom. She thinks she took a class with you. Years and years ago. Arabic Literature Appreciation?” I told him her full name. He looked like he was searching, searching, searching through yellowed mental files. I could tell he was trying in earnest. “I know, you probably don’t remember.” He asked about the year. A pause. He didn’t remember her, I could tell, but he smiled. “I may well have taught her.” He said it as if it were an important declaration. I beamed. “Thanks.” That was evidence enough for me.

the power to provoke

In all my time here, I don’t think I’ve ever heard him laugh out loud. He does laugh, but if you don’t look over and see him cock back his head and squint his eyes, you can go on thinking that no humor moves him. His laughter is inaudible. That’s my aunt’s husband for you. A sweet-tempered, hard-working man who’s taken blows from life and given it flowers in return.

If I had to describe him to you I’d say that the proportion of his bland to witty remarks is most definitely above average. This is in part, I think, thanks to a sharp intellect and an overactive self-censor. Not every word he thinks he says, he listens as if he couldn’t speak, and when he smiles, the laugh’s usually on you.

This Eid, for the first time in a long time, he and my aunt visited Syria for a few-days’ vacation. During their trip, their taxi driver-turned-tour guide pointed out the residence of President Bashar al-Asad. The royal residence, my aunt was suprised to learn, is a tight apartment in a shabby (but well-secured) apartment building.

“It wasn’t even a nice apartment building like the ones we have in Amman,” she reflected. “And his neighbors are all average folks. Isn’t that bizarre?”

“He lives humbly.” My aunt’s husband said, his hands fixed on the steering wheel.

“Very humbly.” My aunt shook her head in disbelief.

“And he has a wife,” he added in an even tone, “who is willing to live humbly.” The remark would have passed for innocuous if it weren’t for the smile he  swallowed before it fully surfaced. To my backseat enjoyment, my aunt then rose to the defense of all wives, proclaiming that there is no way Syria’s queen only lives there. That must have been one of their many residences, no less.

“His mother lived in that apartment before him, they say. And his grandmother before that.” He added, as if to prove that not one, but many women had happily weathered those conditions, while my aunt — he implied – made demands that even kings could not meet.

“Maybe that’s it. If her mother-in-law did it before her, she might have expected it all along. And even then, who knows if she’s happy. She might endure it, that’s all.”

I’ve noticed that, like my Baba, my aunt’s husband has a way of provoking his female kin to an argumentative frenzy, then disengaging completely and watching the fireworks go. (Beware: shift in metaphor ahead.) This, I’ve observed, often leads women like myself to catapult all our arguments into the darkness, so that, moments later, our engines are without fuel, we are without ammo and not one of our cannon balls hits its mark. Our assailant — a pirate ship in this conceit — stands by in the night unscathed.

That is exactly what happened last night, for example, when my aunt called the ladies in the car sabaya (female youth). My other aunt insisted that, no no no, our youthful days are over, and my aunt said no ma’am, we are three sabaya and one shab (male youth), referring to her husband.

“You’re not sabaya,” her husband replied moments later, “you’re sabaya.” He had replaced the Arabic letter sad with seen, which promptly converted us from young damsels to female captives collected among war spoils. With one shot of his proverbial rifle, our soaring self-confidence fell like a rock from the sky.

Predictably, my aunt harangued him: “See! No matter how educated, modern or sophisticated you make yourselves out to be — he calls himself a doctor! — you still can’t seem to overcome that, that inferiority complex. You’re all hopeless. Hopeless…”

He didn’t defend himself. He listened until the engine sputtered and the arguments collapsed with exhaustion. And there appeared briefly on his face that signature smile — sarcastic and almost imperceptible.