A Remarkable Kindness (24 page)

“A hummus place,” Emily repeated, trying to envision it. “Not a takeout place, right? Something healthy—simple and classic?” She thought of Rob's cooking show with a tinge of embarrassment and forced herself to move past it. “You can hang up my paintings.”

“We'll hang your paintings,” he said. “You can help design the place. You can get a job at an art gallery or go back for another degree so you can teach. There are a hundred things you can do.”

There are a hundred things you can do,
Emily said to herself, but then she imagined saying good-bye to Boaz and wrenching the boys away from him and having to start all over in America. “It would be so hard.”

“What do we have to lose? We'll be together.” Ali pointed to
the rocky edge of a cliff. “See that over there? Nobody knows why, but even in the summer when there's no rain, those rocks always drip with water. They call it the Wall of Tears.”

“If that's not kitschy, I don't know what is.” Emily stared at the rocks with the trail of water trickling between them. It seemed like a sign, a message. Should she be like the rocks, enduring and stoic, and stay where she was? Or should she be like the water, reckless and improvisational, and find a way to course through the stones?

Ali stood up. He tried to light a match but the wind blew it out. He tried again. He wasn't having any luck, so he pulled his shirt over his head, lit the cigarette from underneath, and pushed his head back out, smiling at Emily.

“That's another thing. Those cigarettes have got to go.”

“I'll quit. I've been meaning to stop anyway. You know, I always wanted something else in my life. Something more. That's another reason why I left Jasmine, because she never tried for anything. I guess I was searching, but I didn't even know it until you arrived.”

“I'm sorry. I never wanted to fall in love with you. That was the last thing I wanted.”

“
La,
don't be sorry. You know, when the war broke out in 1948, my father fled across the border to Lebanon. His brothers all stayed there but he missed it here, so he swam in the sea to get back. Just think how far he swam. Maybe just to get me here to you.”

“I highly doubt that.”

Ali put out his cigarette, slipped the butt into the pocket of
his jeans—“You see, you've even trained me not to litter!”—then bent forward to kiss Emily, his lips sweet and bittersweet all at once. “Take the risk.”

“I don't know.” Emily looked down at her watch. “I'm sorry, but I have to—”

“I know, I know, you have to go.” He stood again, offering her a hand.

“I hate when I have to leave you,” Emily whispered.

“Then decide to stay with me.”

Emily's phone rang. She thought it would be Noga from the hotel with questions about the wedding and she answered.

“Oh, hi, Boaz.” Emily raised her eyebrows at Ali in an attempt to apologize. She bent low, cupping the phone close to her chest, hoping Boaz couldn't hear the wind. “What's going on?”

“The boys are asking for your boo-boo eggs,” Boaz said. “You don't think I have enough to worry about? They broke into the Troyermans again last night and this time they stole farm equipment—”

“Who broke in?”

“Who else could it be? The Arabs from Maloul. They steal and get away with it. The police do nothing! I have to go out later to patrol—”

She crouched lower, hoping that Ali couldn't hear Boaz. “Boo-boo eggs are easy,” she told him, looking down at her hands, aware that Ali was watching her.

“Do I cut the hole in the bread before or after—hang on—Shoval, would you sit down? You know you're not allowed to walk around eating—”

“What's he eating?”

“What difference does it make? A pepper, a carrot, a worm they dug up by the shed. Who knows? So I cut the holes and then I toast the bread? Or toast the bread first? One minute, Tal, you can speak to Eema after—”

“It's easier to cut the holes before and add a lot of butter—”

“Eema, where are you?” It was Tal.

“At work. I'll be home very soon. I love you. Now please put Abba on again.”

“I don't have patience for this,” Boaz huffed.

“One last thing, Boaz, please make sure Tal really chews his food and doesn't gulp it down or else he'll—”

“Throw up,” Boaz said. “You don't think I hear him in the middle of the night? I can't sleep, anyway. You sleep like a dead person and I'm just lying there. I even went out and got you papayas.”

“Thank you. You didn't have to—”

“I know how much you like them. Shoval, stop doing that!”

There was a click of the phone. The wind rose, ruffling Emily's hair. She shivered. The sun was sinking to the other side of the earth. She was cold and afraid, suddenly aware that she was alone on the boulder. Ali had already climbed down; he was standing with his back to her, looking out across the valley.

Emily stood, her heart and head colliding. She was torn and confused and desperate. She said the only prayer she could think of. “OhGodohGodohGodohGod! God of my father, God of my forefathers, help me, please. Why can't You tell me what to do?”

L
auren gazed at the grass along the sides of the road. It was another cloudless, hot day; only the start of summer, and already the green was parched and faded. She drove away from the hospital with Bruce Springsteen's “Streets of Philadelphia” on the radio, and then came the news. In a low voice, the newscaster announced that Hezbollah had infiltrated the northern border, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two others. Lauren called David as soon as she stopped at the main traffic light in Nahariya.

“The news is bad, right?” Lauren said, her shoulders sinking.

“It isn't good. The army's retaliating. There's already talk of war.”

“Oh no.”

“It will be okay,” he said. “But getting back to our reality, I'm going to take the girls to the beach. When will you be home?”

“I'm going to visit Jasmine and I'll be home after that.”

“Why do you even waste your time with her?”

“Because I feel sorry for her.” Lauren also felt guilty because Jasmine's ex-husband was in love with Lauren's best friend. “I want to try to cheer her up.”

“Whatever you do isn't going to help her,” David said, but not unkindly, in the tone of a doctor who knew the prognosis was grim.

“I know.”

“So come back as soon as you can—I saw that gourmet macaroni and cheese you made and I don't know if I can hold myself back from eating it.”

“Very funny.”

Lauren turned into the village of Maloul. It was just after the afternoon siesta, and the day was starting all over again, the village coming back to life.

She parked at the Haddad family compound. Ali's three brothers—Yusef, Amin, and Razi—were off at work. Their wives—Lubna, Aya, and Gisella—were sitting with Ali's mother and his sister in the backyard. Lauren spotted Jasmine, who stood up to greet her. Or a vestige of Jasmine; in a shapeless taupe shirt and brown Bedouin pants, she shuffled toward Lauren. Gone was the young woman with wide-set ebony eyes and an easy smile who'd greeted Lauren when she'd moved to Peleg years ago. In her place was a morose woman with hair matted on one side like she'd just woken up from a nap.

Lauren went first to kiss Wafa, Ali's mother and the matriarch of the family. She had skin the color of a gingerbread cookie, with
eyes like raisins set close to her small, crooked nose. A white hijab (Wafa had been to Mecca) was draped across her forehead and pulled under her plump chin. Lauren walked around the circle of women. She kissed Ali's sister, Suha, who wore a short-sleeved mauve shirt and trousers, then Lubna and Aya. Or was it Aya and Lubna? They were both religious. They shared the same overcast expression—as though it might rain on them at any moment—and in their mushroom-colored head coverings and matching robes, Lauren could never tell them apart. Lauren reached blue-eyed Gisella, who had met Ali's brother when he was in dental school in Romania ten years before. Gisella still looked like a duped mail-order bride.

“Lauren, please.” Suha gestured to a vacant chair next to her.

Lauren glanced at Jasmine, who sent her an imperceptible nod. Lauren sat down and Aya (or was it Lubna?) walked away, returning with a cup of coffee on a silver tray.

“So,
nu
?” Suha looked at Lauren expectantly, her russet eyes as round as dinner plates. “How is your friend Jumana now that she left Amjad?”

“Jumana's great. I'm sure you heard that Amjad was beating her up for years. Everybody knew it, nobody could stop him, and she finally got up the courage to leave. I went with some of the other nurses from the hospital to bring her a brand-new set of pots and pans for her apartment in Nahariya.”

Aya and Lubna exchanged glances, clicked their tongues.

“She should be living in the village with her parents,” said the one Lauren thought was Aya.

“It's not good for a woman to live all alone,” added Lubna.

“But she has her two sons living with her,” Lauren protested.

Ali's mother spoke excitedly in Arabic. Suha remarked, “My mother is saying that even the
qadi,
the religious judge, and some of the men in her family went to Jumana and
begged
her to make peace with Amjad and stay married. But she refused.”

Lauren nodded, and then said as diplomatically as possible, “Tell your mother that they convinced Jumana once before to go back to Amjad and when she returned, he beat her even more.”

“He gave her a little push every now and then.” Suha nudged Lauren's shoulder, hard, to demonstrate. “Jumana exaggerated the whole thing.”

“I don't think so,” Lauren replied, then gave up. She knew she couldn't argue with all of them. The women fell quiet. They sat, staring at one another, then they stared at Lauren, who'd been in their courtyard often enough to know that this was what they usually did: they sat and sat and waited for someone or something to talk about.

Jasmine announced something to the group in Arabic, and then told Lauren, “Let's go upstairs and talk.”

Lauren nodded, rising, and said to Wafa, “Next time, I'll sit with you longer.”

“
Inshallah,
” said Wafa. If God wills it. “Come back soon.”

“
Inshallah,
” Lauren repeated, going around the circle again, kissing Wafa and Suha, then Lubna, Aya, and Gisella, saying good-bye.

Lauren followed Jasmine upstairs and into her dim apartment. Jasmine's plaid slippers trundled past the living room, where white couches faced each other, their pillows plump as geese. On
a glass coffee table stood a tissue box decorated with beads and cut glass, and a large crystal bowl filled with candies wrapped in silver paper. Long drapes blocked out the sun.

When they reached the kitchen, Jasmine stopped by the stove.

“Do you want some more coffee?”

“Okay,” Lauren said, although she'd just finished a cup down in the yard. “I love your coffee.”

Jasmine poured water into a
finjan,
placed it on the stove, and waited for it to boil.

Lauren walked to the sink. Through the window, she could see the flat rooftops of Maloul. The solar water heaters, the clotheslines, the satellite dishes, and the minaret of the village mosque pointing like a finger up to heaven. She thought of the news she'd heard on the radio. Turning around, Lauren asked, “Jasmine, do you think the Arabs will ever accept the Jews in Israel?”

“No.”

“Not even if we've already been here for thousands of years?”

“Not even if you've been here for a million years.”

What could Lauren say to that?

She looked around Jasmine's immaculate kitchen, which smelled like bleach, as it always did, because of Jasmine's campaign against bad odors. On the refrigerator was a photograph of Ali with Omar and Marwa, taken when the kids were about six and eight years old; they were teenagers now. Lauren wondered what was going on with Ali and Emily. Emily had said that she'd stopped seeing Ali, but Lauren wasn't sure and she didn't want to ask. And standing with Jasmine in her kitchen, Lauren didn't want to know.

The water boiled. Jasmine turned down the flame and added coffee and sugar to the pot, but she did not stir the water. She let it boil again, stirring itself. Then she inspected the coffee, stirring and stirring, and shut off the flame.

“That isn't instant coffee.” Lauren attempted a joke.

Jasmine clicked her tongue. “Tomorrow is Ali's cousin's wedding.”

“I love going to weddings. You'll have a nice time.”

“Alone at a wedding?”

“Aren't Omar and Marwa going with you?”

“They'll be with their cousins.”

“What about sitting with Aya and Amin?”

“Aya wakes up early each morning just to sneak to the roof to steal the sunniest spots on the clothesline. And when she asked Amin not to spit his sunflower shells on the stairs, he told her that since she has nothing else to do he might as well give her some housework.”

“That's so wrong.”

“A lot of things are wrong.” Jasmine took two small porcelain cups without handles and poured coffee into them. She placed some vanilla wafers on a plate and they sat down at the kitchen table.

Lauren took a wafer, bit into it. It tasted like the ice cream cones she used to eat as a kid in Brookline: not much more than sugar and air. “How about Yusef and Lubna?”

“I begged Lubna to stop her son from hitting my daughter,” Jasmine replied. “But she told me that hitting girls is the best way for a boy to become a man.”

“That's awful.” Lauren took a sip of coffee. “Razi and Gisella?”

“What does Gisella know? She never talks. She's from Romania.”

Lauren had the urge to shake Jasmine, to get her to find something good to say about someone. “And Suha?”

“Suha?” Jasmine's nostrils flared. “What right does an old maid have to boss me around just because she's Ali's sister?”

“Suha's life isn't easy. She isn't married. She's over thirty. She lives with her parents and does everything for them. She takes them to stores, to doctors; she even cuts their toenails. When anybody in the family needs a ride, she takes them.”

“She has her freedom.” Jasmine's wan face turned an even more colorless yellow, like a statue in a wax museum. “I tried to kill myself.”

“Oh, Jasmine, no!” Lauren was taken aback, stunned and shaken.

Jasmine turned over her arms, tiny train-track scratches on her wrists. “I tried with a knife, but I didn't do a good enough job. Then I took pills. As I was falling asleep, I felt happy. But Marwa woke me up in the morning.”

“Jasmine, you can't kill yourself! We need to find you someone to talk to. A therapist, someone who can help you. There's a really nice doctor in the hospital, he can help—”

“Nobody can help me. Ali's family knows, but they don't care since he's left. Nobody cares.”

“That's not true!”

“I don't want to live.”

“Please don't say that.” Lauren's mind buckled under the
weight of Jasmine's despair. “No matter how bad things are, killing yourself is a one-way ticket.”

“I pray to Allah five times a day. I try to be a good person, but I'm the only woman in the village whose husband just left. I went to Rayad, the fortune-teller, to have my cup of coffee read.”

“You mean like someone who reads tea leaves?”

“Yes. She read the grounds on the bottom of my cup of coffee after I drank it.”

“Jasmine, the last thing I believe in is fortune-tellers.”

“Rayad told me to stop wearing my sunglasses.”

“You paid her to tell you that? I'd like to see the diploma from her fortune-telling school.”

“Only Jewish women wear sunglasses, Rayad said, and I shouldn't do anything that makes me stand out.”

“But how could that help you?” Lauren asked, exasperated. “Ali's gone, and as much as you try, and as much as you want it, I really don't think he's going to come back.” Lauren said that last part as faintly, as gently, as she could. “Let's try to think of what you can do to take care of yourself and get help.”

Jasmine ignored Lauren. “Rayad said to ask Ali's mother to take him to an exorcist. I asked, but she won't.”

“An exorcist can't change Ali's mind!”

“Rayad said I have to find a way to seek revenge against the woman who loves Ali now. I know someone else loves him. I feel it. But I know him better than anyone else ever will—”

“I don't think—”

“Her name is written here.” Jasmine picked up an old, faded,
folded newspaper that lay on the table. “I waited because I want you to be with me when I find it.”

“That's absurd.” Lauren knew there was no way Emily Freulich Lichtenberg's name would be found in an Arabic newspaper. “I can read my fortune, too.” Lauren gazed into her coffee cup, trying to change the subject. “I see that I have two daughters and my husband wants another child, but I'm not sure.”

“A father needs a son.” Jasmine sighed. “I thought when I had Omar it would be enough for Ali, but it wasn't. Ali's still angry at my father because of the money. I apologized, didn't I? My father died, didn't he?”

Lauren was silent. Even if Ali did stop seeing Emily, Lauren doubted he would ever return to Jasmine's clean kitchen and crushed self.

Jasmine unfolded the dusty newspaper and studied it closely.

“Tala,” she whispered after a while. “It's Tala Zureib! I should have known! She's a teacher in the school. Tala Zureib. She must have met Ali through our children. Of course, Tala. Tala.
Tala!
” She said the name as a mantra; she said the name as a curse. “I'm going to ask the fortune-teller to find out when they meet each other and when they're sitting in a café, I'll walk up to Ali and tell him, ‘Look at me now.' He'll see how much I've suffered. He'll see how good and pure I am compared to her. He'll see that only I—”

“Jasmine, this isn't a soap opera.”

“They cry in the soap operas, but I won't cry.”

“It could be anybody's name written on that newspaper.” Lauren knew she was on thin ice. She was supposedly helping Jasmine,
but at the same time, she was stalling, postponing the inevitable, when Jasmine found out that Ali was in love with Emily. Lauren couldn't tell Jasmine the truth. She couldn't tell Jasmine a lie. She couldn't bear watching Jasmine fool herself. “The fortune-teller couldn't possibly know who Ali's girlfriend is!”

Jasmine slowly placed the newspaper on the table. “But maybe you know.” Jasmine stared hard at Lauren. “Maybe Ali told David. Maybe you know, too.”

“
Ana baa'refesh!
” I don't know! It was one of the few Arabic phrases Lauren had learned in the maternity ward, when a woman in labor wanted to know when her baby would come. Waves of guilt rose off Lauren's body like steam off a hot road. She was lying, but did she have a choice? How could she help Jasmine and protect Emily at the same time?