In the Language of Miracles (19 page)

He had cared for those drums more than he had cared for anyone in his family.

Khaled placed his palm on one of the drums. He arched his fingers, touching his fingernails to the cool surface. The moonlight combined with the dim lightbulb, giving his fingers multiple shadows, drawing intersecting spiders that stood, waiting. Khaled pulled his hand away and looked around. In a corner of the room he saw an old toolbox of his father's. Rummaging through it, he found a box cutter. He grabbed it and
walked back to the drum set. Pushing its blade out, he stared, trying to keep his hand from shaking.

“What are you doing?” Ehsan's whisper was urgent, an alarmed hiss. He jumped, dropping the box cutter and narrowly missing his own foot.

“
Setto!
You scared me!” He walked up to the attic doorway, trying to compose himself. In the hallway, he saw his grandmother, hands holding on to the halfway pulled ladder.

“Have you lost your mind?” she hissed.

He looked at her, puzzled. “What?”

“What are you doing up there?”

“Nothing! I was just . . .” He looked around, angry with himself for feeling like he had been caught misbehaving. He spotted the pile of CDs. “I wanted to grab some CDs.”

“What CDs? His?” His grandmother never used Hosaam's name anymore.

“Yes.”

“What for?”

“Just to look through them.”

“Come down here.”

He turned the light off and climbed down, pushing the ladder back in place so violently it shrieked.

“Don't ever go up there.” Ehsan's voice was trembling with something he could not identify. Anger? Fear?

“Why not?” He faced her, looking her in the eyes. “Is he going to claim the attic even after he's dead?” His own words made his skin crawl.

“So now you want to lock yourself up there, too?”

“I didn't say that. I was just up looking for music. It's no big deal.”

“No big deal? Going into
his
space? You see nothing wrong with
that
?”

“It's just a room,
Setto
.” He knew where she was going with this: jinxes and bad luck, ill omens and traces of the evil eye, witchcraft,
sorcery, and jinn walking among us that we cannot see. All nonsense. He stared at her, prepared to tell it to her as it was if she started preaching.

She did not. Instead, she looked at him, and then asked, “Do you want more?”

“More what?”

“Music CDs. Do you want more? Is that it?”

“No,” he cried. “No, no. I was just curious. Just looking around, that's all.”

She stared at him, saying nothing, then turned around and hurried into her room. Khaled went back to his room and sat on the bed, trying to steady himself. His hands were sweaty, and he rubbed them on his pants. Ridiculous, how his heart was racing, as if he had been caught stealing. Ehsan, storming into the room, extended her hand to him, holding a stack of twenty-dollar bills, carefully folded in half.

“What's that?” He got up.

“Here. You want music CDs, you go buy music CDs.” She stuffed the money in his hand and backed up into his chair, panting. Khaled unfolded the bills—a hundred dollars, total. Six hundred Egyptian pounds, that is, if the exchange rate was still the same as the last time he was there. His throat tightened, his eyes burned, and, to his utter humiliation, he felt an almost uncontrollable urge to cry.

“I can't take this,
Setto,
” he said, walking up to her, sitting on his knees on the floor, gently placing the money in her lap.

“Why not? Is it not enough?”

“Of course it is. It's plenty. I just can't take it. I don't need any more CDs.”

“I already gave you the money. If you don't want to buy music, then go get something else.”

“But I don't need anything,
Setto
!” He placed the money in her palm.

“Don't give me back my gift, boy! Do you have no manners at all?” She pushed his hand back.

“But I can't take this,
Setto
! It's too much!”

Bending down, Ehsan kissed his forehead.
“Mateghlaash aleik ya habibi,”
she said. Nothing is too precious for you, my love.

She patted his head, the way she used to do when he was a boy, as she still occasionally did, even though he was almost a man, and Khaled realized that the house had fallen utterly silent again, the stillness interrupted only by his grandmother's prayers, murmured under her breath.

 • • • 

He opened his laptop and checked Facebook again. Nothing. The confrontation with his grandmother weighed on him and merged with his fear of losing Brittany's friendship. He had to pant to keep himself from crying. There might be many things he did not know, but one thing was getting clearer by the day: he could not keep this up, this constant fear of backlash, of humiliation, of solitude, of losing the one person he cared about.

He navigated to Brittany's page, clicked to send her a message. He had to see her again. He hoped she would let him. He knew he had to try.

ENGLISH
: Breaking bread.

ARABIC
: Eating bread and salt.

N
agla woke up to the smell of baking. Staring at the ceiling, she remained motionless, sniffed the air. The smell was unmistakable, instantly recognizable even though it had not greeted her nose in decades. She closed her eyes and she was eight again, standing by her mother in the kitchen, helping her knead the sweet bread and then roll it into sticks, every three sticks pinched together at the ends to make a boat-shaped pretzel that she would then brush with an egg wash and sprinkle with crystals of brown sugar. Her mother was baking
shoreik—
or, as she would sometimes call them,
fetir el-rahmah—
Pastries of Mercy.

In the kitchen Ehsan kneaded bread as Fatima stood by her side, elbows on the countertop. Both ovens burned hot with batches of
shoreik,
already golden brown. Verses of the Qur'an resonated in the kitchen, coming from the iPod that Ehsan had finally learned how to place on the round speaker, how to navigate to the precise sura she wanted to hear. Today, her choice was Al-Rahman
—
the All-Merciful. Nagla stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching. Fatima looked just like her mother, could have been her on any one of the many anniversaries of Mahmoud's death, when Ehsan would spend the day preparing for the annual visit to the cemetery, sacred as pilgrimage. Freshly baked
shoreik
placed in wicker baskets lined with and covered by clean white cloth, they would head to the cemetery together, where her mother would distribute the pastries among barefoot children and mothers carrying babies, all roaming the cemeteries in anticipation of charity, aware that no one gave alms more heartily than the bereaved. “Pray for my husband's soul, may Allah have mercy on him,” Ehsan would whisper, and the recipients of her gifts would readily oblige, their prayers pouring with a generosity that outdid Ehsan's gifts.

Nagla used to love those visits. Her father was buried in his family's plot, its entrance flanked by two rooms, one for the men, another for the women, joined by a tiled, covered courtyard. To the side stood a kitchenette, where her mother would make tea and coffee, offering them to the cemetery keeper and to the Qur'an reciters who would come, each in turn, and sit by her husband's grave, reading the verses in slow, humming tones in return for a few pounds, a hot cup of tea, and, perhaps, some of the
shoreik
to take home to their families. The day always seemed like a trip to the park; Nagla would be allowed to run around the two rooms, play with the children of other visitors, even have her own cup of hot minted black tea to sip in the shade. Her mother let her help the cemetery keeper splash water around the graves, causing the dusty ground to settle. Nagla would watch as the wet mud dried and cracked under the sun, and then she would water the cacti that her mother had planted all around the graveyard, the only plants that survived the summer heat. Even the
shoreik
felt like a treat, its coating of baked crystalized sugar crunchy in her mouth, the sweet bread filling, warm.

“The dead boast of their visitors,” her mother used to tell her. “They like to know their loved ones still remember them.” Her mother would sit in a wooden chair by her husband's grave and talk to him, speak as if he could hear her through the ground, and Nagla, watching from a distance, would picture her father, smiling, boasting to relatives buried
close by: “See? My wife and daughter have come. My wife and daughter still love me.” She had seen burial chambers in movies, knew that the dead were placed, side by side, in the underground room, whose entrance would then be sealed with a heavy stone, not to be opened for forty days after each death. No caskets, no clothing, just bodies wrapped in white burial shrouds, lying flat on the dirt, their faces turned toward Mecca and God's house that Ibrahim, peace be upon his soul, built so many years ago. She wondered how her father would be able to talk through the shroud that, she knew, covered his face. He couldn't move, of course—but he could talk. Her mother said he could. So she would picture him supine, wrapped in white cloth, speaking to others lying flat around him, dead as well but still listening, nodding in approval and envy as he boasted of his visitors.

“Come and try this,” Ehsan said. Nagla slowly walked toward the baking sheet that Ehsan had pulled out of the oven. “They're still hot, though, so watch out.” With two fingers Ehsan lifted one of the pastries off the sheet, swiftly wrapping it in a paper napkin before handing it to Nagla.

“Shoreik?”
Nagla asked. What did her mother expect to do with the pastries? Did she think she'd run into beggars at the Summerset cemetery? Her mother, unaware of Nagla's incredulous tone, smiled.

“Just like the old days, huh? Try it!”

Nagla stared at the pastry, a sort of birthday cake for the dead. She bit into it, and steam rose from the part that she pulled off. Instantly the sweet and chewy pretzel filled her with a nostalgia that made her gag, her eyes watering.

“You don't like it?” her mother asked, alarmed.

“It's hot,” Nagla said as soon as she could swallow.

“Careful, then,” Ehsan told Fatima as she handed her another pastry wrapped in a napkin.

Fatima tore off a piece with forefinger and thumb, blew on it before placing it in her mouth. “Oh, it's good!” she said, her mouth full.

Ehsan laughed. “Your mother and I used to bake these together and take them to your grandfather's grave, may Allah have mercy on all our dead.”

“What for?” Fatima asked, pulling another piece out and placing it in her mouth.

“Sadakah.”
Ehsan pushed the baking sheet aside and went back to kneading the rest of the dough. “Only three things can benefit a person after his death: a good son or daughter's prayers; knowledge that he left behind for others to benefit from—you know, like a scientific discovery or something; and
sadakah garyah,
an act of charity that keeps on giving after his death. These”—she nodded toward the pastries—“are a form of
sadakah,
charity given out in hopes of mercy for the soul of the dead person.”

Fatima nodded. “Kind of like people who set up charitable organizations here. Only you probably have to be rich to do that.”

“No money required for those pastries, except enough to pay for flour and sugar. And there are always enough poor people who'd appreciate fresh-baked bread.”

“Not here, though,” Fatima murmured. Her grandmother looked up at her. “I mean, it's not like you'll find beggars on the streets here,
Setto
!” she stammered, voicing her mother's thoughts. “Not like in Egypt, that is.”

“I know that, girl. I'm not an idiot!”

“Sorry,
Setto,
” Fatima murmured, glancing at her mother for help.

“She didn't mean it, Mama.” Nagla pulled out a chair and sat down.

“A tradition is a tradition. Even if we end up eating all of it. It's the intention that counts.
Alaamalu belneyyat.
” Ehsan punched the dough as she spoke.

“Sure,
Setto.
We'll take it to the cemetery tomorrow, when we go visit Hosaam,” Fatima said.

“We? Who said you're coming?” Nagla asked.

“I want to come!
Setto
said I could come!” Fatima's eyes instantly teared up.

“Let her go visit her brother!” Ehsan said.

Nagla glared at her. “I don't think a cemetery is a good place for a young girl.”

“I'm not that young anymore, Mama!”

Ehsan sucked at her lips. “I took you with me all the time, and you were younger then than she is now. Don't see how that's harmed you.”

Nagla ignored her mother. “I said you're not coming, and that's it. I don't care how old you think you are—you're still too young for this.”

“Fine.” Fatima picked up the baking sheet, dumping the still-hot
shoreik
onto a cooling rack before tossing the sheet in the sink. Nagla watched her, trying to decide whether to call her out on this edginess that bordered on anger.

Behind her, Khaled walked in, heading straight to the coffeepot.

“Sabah el-kheir,”
Ehsan said.

“Sabah el-kheir, Setto.”
He walked over and gave his grandmother a one-armed hug. “I'm sorry; I'm still not fully awake.” He looked at his mother, a nervous glance that puzzled her. “Hey, Mama.”

“Here, try this.” Fatima handed her brother a pastry. “It's
shoreik
.”

Khaled bit at it. “It's good.” He grabbed his coffee and dipped the edge of the pastry in it, took another bite. “Good.”

“It's called
shoreik,
” Ehsan explained, watching him with a smile.
“Sheen-waw-rah-yeh-kaaf,”
she spelled in Arabic. “You should write it down. Do you still do that? Write down new words?”

Khaled nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

“Haven't seen you do it in a while.”

“I still do it.”

“It's a special kind of pastry that we bake on anniversaries. To bring mercy to the dead.”

Khaled looked at the piece of pastry still in his hand, swallowed.

“Also called
fetir el-rahmah.
” Ehsan went on.

“Pastries of Mercy,” Fatima translated.

“Mercy is good. I'll take that.” Khaled stuffed the rest of the pastry into his mouth and reached for another one.

“All gathered up, huh?” Samir's voice came. Nagla, not looking, put her pastry down. She could not have swallowed another bite.

“May Allah always bring us together in good times and spare us bad ones,” Ehsan murmured. Her voice was lower than usual, and she leaned down, meticulously shaping the dough.

Samir stood still, staring at the pastries.

“Is that . . .
shoreik
?” he asked, looking from Ehsan to Nagla.

“Of course it is!” Ehsan replied, still avoiding his eyes.

“What on earth are you baking that for?”

“Why do you think? What kind of a question is that?” Ehsan asked, pinching three sticks of dough together at the ends.

“Seriously,
haggah
? Who's going to eat all of this?
”

“I'm sure we can find people to give it out to. Or are you, too, going to claim you don't have poor people in America?” she asked, finally looking up at him. “And if we find no one, I'll eat it all.”

“Don't worry,
Setto.
I'll help.” Khaled reached out for another pastry even as he still held a half-finished one in his hand. Samir glared at him. Khaled examined his pastries, avoiding eye contact with his father.

Samir looked down at Nagla, his eyes narrow. She got up and headed to the deck. He followed.

“I can't believe you're letting her do this,” he hissed as soon as he caught up with her outside. Nagla turned around and looked into the kitchen, noticed, for the first time, that the hole in the glass had been clumsily patched using duct tape.

“Do what?” she asked.

“This!
Shoreik?
Seriously? What is she going to do—walk around the cemetery with a basket on her head, giving out homemade bread?”

Nagla frowned at him. Of course he would never understand. His own family would never have done so, even if his mother had outlived his father. They would have deemed it beneath them, a habit of the commoners, an embarrassment. All anger Nagla still felt toward her mother evaporated now, replaced by a wrath at her husband for his self-perceived superiority, his insensitivity, his failure, again and again, to feel any empathy. Not with her mother, not with her children, and certainly not with her.

“You know what?” she said, slowly, inching closer to him until his face was so near she could hardly focus on it. “She can do with it whatever she wants. She can walk around that cemetery, dressed in her black
galabeyyah,
carrying the basket on top of her head and yell out loud for the
shoreik,
if she wants to.”

“Why do you always have to be so stubborn?”

“Why do you have to make such a big deal of everything? She's baking; let her bake.”

“She's teaching my children superstitions and nonsense. No one does this anymore; no one makes a party out of a death anniversary.”

“Oh. But they can have a memorial service, can't they? If it's in English it's somehow—what? Classier?”

“Careful, Nagla.” He clenched his teeth, and she grinned.

“You know what? I have an excellent idea,” she went on, speaking softly, pronouncing each word deliberately, like she used to do when she would teach her children how to speak Arabic. “Why don't you go to the memorial service tomorrow, and let me take my peasant, commoner mother to the cemetery to visit your son's grave and pray for him? That would suit you better, wouldn't it?”

“I told you to be careful, Nagla. I don't want to fight with you.”

“Because if you think I will actually go with you to that service, you're crazy; crazy and stupid,” she went on, her heart drumming with the excitement of knowing she was crossing a line. “I'm not going with you.
In fact, I'm going to spend the whole day by your son's grave, eating
shoreik.
”

She saw his fists clench, saw him blush. She watched, almost dizzy with satisfaction, as he stepped closer to her, whispered through his teeth, “Well, you know what? You
are
coming with me to the memorial service tomorrow. You
are
going to offer the Bradstreets your condolences. You
are
going to support me in front of those people as I try to undo some of the damage your son has done. Because if you don't, you can pack your bags and go back to Egypt with your mother, eat that
shoreik
on the airplane. I will do it, Nagla. I will send you packing if I have to.” He was panting with anger. She stood still, her eyes wide, watching as he walked back in, his footsteps resonating as he ran up the stairs. In the kitchen, her mother and children looked away when they saw her glance at them.