pressure. She closed her eyes. It was a one-way monologue. So she settled for replying to him in her mind. You don’t own me, you don’t own me, you don’t own me. I can turn off my phone and disappear for two days. Tayyeb, maybe not with your car, but I can do what I like. You don’t own me, Ziyad.
She quickly ran down the stairs to catch Abu Nidal’s last finjan of kahwa, still wearing her gallabiyya, having to hold it up so she wouldn’t stumble. She heard some children laughing from one of the balkons.
“Look, look, like what old men wear in film Misri! Walla!”
An involuntary laugh escaped her; she stopped, looked up and did some dabka steps for the kids. They jumped up and down, delighted with their reward. Majnouny all the way.
Back in her apartment, she settled on the diwan with her sketchbook. Need something exquisite here for the Yahudiyya, the Jewish woman. She went through her most recent sketches, the ones inspired by traditional Palestinian dresses. No, she’d probably want something abstract and modern. Not anything that would remind her of a history she’d rather delete.
She had practically stumbled upon Giveret Amalia a couple of weeks before in Hadar, when she was on her way to meet Ziyad. She was texting him and bumped into the elderly lady. The lady looked at her in scorn and mumbled something under her breath. Maisoon apologized and was about to walk off when the lady caught her arm a bit too forcefully.
“Wait,” she said, her face softening just a fraction. “Where did you get that necklace?”
Maisoon’s hand went up to her neck, she felt the cool stone on her fingers. “I made it, I’m a jewellery designer.”
The lady studied Maisoon’s dark face, connecting it to her accent. She thought for a moment, then took out a card from her shoulder bag. “Here, call me at this number tomorrow morning at 9.30.” She turned around and walked away, leaving Maisoon standing there with the card in her hand, people swishing around her. Amalia’s Jewellery.
On the phone the following day, Amalia skipped small-talk and asked Maisoon to bring some sample pieces of her work to her boutique. She didn’t go into any details about business; once they’d arranged a time she hung up. Maisoon was thankful that she’d been smart enough to schedule their meeting for the following Friday, which gave her just enough time to put together a sample that was representative of her work without compromising her style.
She leafed through the sketchbook but couldn’t focus. The images were moving around on the pages. The rings looked like snails and the bracelets took the form of knotted olive tree trunks. She moved to her worktable, pushing everything into a heap on the side—Ziyad was always complaining about the chaos, how can you work in such disorder?—and spread the velvet roll on the surface. She scanned the earrings and necklaces. Light blue and red beads. Translucent grey and purple stones. The yellow light that licked the jewellery made her squint.
She was still moving the pieces around in no particular order when her mobile rang—it was Shahd. Since the two nights they’d shared—one on this side of the world and the second on the other—they were on the phone at least once a day.
“Salam from the mukhayyam, habibti!” Shahd’s voice came through fresh and spicy. “Mansour is taking some men through on Tuesday night and asked if I wanted to breathe for a couple of days. Is your diwan still on offer? I’d have to spend the night.”
“Let me think about it,” Maisoon teased, “hmmm … yup, I think it should be available. But not for free.” She looked at the roll of jewellery, “You’ll have to pay for your stay by helping me figure out the pieces for the Yahudiyya.”
The following morning, Maisoon was woken by the clanking of crates being stacked on top of one another, in preparation for the big Eid. She took her kahwa to the narrow balkon and sat on a wicker chair, savouring the smell of the souk in the morning as much as she despised it in the evening. Wafts of fresh fruit—guava, saber, teen—swirled around her, carried by the gentle naseem. In these moments, she understood why people stayed on in the Wad, refusing to move on. It was the comfort in knowing that Um Muhammad would be there the next day with her fresh vegetables, that Abu Nidal would always have kahwa on the little coffee table ready for anybody who cared to sit with him and talk, that Um Tawfiq’s laundry would be fluttering in the naseem on her balkon. Nothing would be changing any time soon. No new stones would be put in place of the old.
She finished her kahwa and went inside to choose the right outfit for today’s meeting. She didn’t want to look too Arab but neither did she want to look like she was trying to shed her identity. She felt a burden descending on her as she recalled the awkward moments of non-recognition, “What’s the accent?” then the confusion, “I’m from here, born in Haifa,” and finally, the silence of embarrassment, “I’m an Arab.” Sometimes the reaction would be an embarrassed smile, or “Oh, you don’t look like an Arab,” or that all too common, “I have a very good Arab friend, Ahmad, maybe you know him? He’s got a heart of gold, and I’m not just saying it, oh and he’s the best car mechanic,” or some such version of it.
She settled on a pair of blue jeans and a plain white t-shirt. Sandals and a blue scarf tied on her bag in case she got cold in the air-conditioned boutique. No. Not the blue scarf. Not in this place where every colour was weighed down with history and meaning. Her favourite ones were forbidden to her: the black-and-white kafiyyah her father had given her. Long ago it lost its meaning; politicized when the West turned it into a symbol of terrorism, and then again depoliticized when it started being mass-manufactured by brand labels in all colours of the rainbow. In winter, she would put her kafiyyah on, wrapping it around her shoulders, and stand in front of the mirror. Then, with a thread of sadness take it off and hang it back, leaving part of her identity at home. This time it was the colour of the wrong flag, so she picked a pale green scarf instead.
She checked the roll of jewellery, the pieces Shahd had helped her choose, modelling every necklace, bracelet and ring. Shahd liked the more abstract ones, unlike Maisoon, who was more drawn to those inspired from stolen glances at old tiles, a flutter of Um Muhammad’s hand stitched scarf, the design of an ancient carpet in her father’s library. She paused at the lack of history mocking her from the black roll. Looking at her watch, she knew she was risking being late. She quickly replaced the abstract jewellery with pieces which held a secret story. There wasn’t a particular category these pieces could be defined by. But she was content that she wasn’t betraying herself, whatever the consequences.
On the bus, she sits towards the back next to a woman in her early fifties, with a bulging bag-on-wheels. Maisoon imagines her a professor of Russian literature in her native land, coming here with false dreams, ending up cleaning people’s homes so that her children can attend university. Two soldiers, kids really, stand by the back doors; their weapons casually slung over their shoulders. Three teenagers in the back are listening to George Wassouf’s ‘Kalam Ennas’ on an iPod. A blonde woman in her forties sits in front of the teenagers with a sour expression on her face.
The clear, bell-like voice of Fairouz replaces the scratchy one of George Wassouf, singing ‘Habbaytak fi Essayf’. The boys are
