In the Language of Miracles (23 page)

“They're good,” the woman said. “Sweet.”

“Ask her who is buried there,” Ehsan said in Arabic.

“I can't, Mama!”

“What did she say?” the woman asked. Nagla looked at her, sighed. She was taller than Nagla but younger and athletic. Her eyes were
similar to Fatima's, her hair just as thick and curly, only a reddish blond, not black like Fatima's.

“She wants to know who's buried here.”

The woman chewed at a piece of
shoreik,
swallowed. “My husband,” she said, tears instantly pouring.

“Name?” Ehsan asked.

“Mark.”

“Mother name?” The
th
sound was an emphasized
z
:
mozer
.

“Excuse me?” the woman asked. Nagla glared at her mother.

“Alashaan aldoaa!”
Ehsan told Nagla.

“She says she needs to know his mother's name so she can pray for him,” Nagla said. “We pray with the mother's name. Like Mark the son of . . .” Nagla searched for a name. “Mary, for example. Mark the son of Mary. That's how we pray for someone. We have to mention the mother's name.”

The young woman nodded. “Judith.”

“Mark, son of Judith,” Ehsan repeated. She pointed at herself, and then pointed at the sky. “I pray for Mark, son of Judith, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you,” the young woman said.

Nagla pulled at her mother's arm, murmured apologies again before leading her mother back to the seat by Hosaam's grave. Once seated, Ehsan pulled out small prayer booklets and started reading out loud, praying once for Hosaam, the son of Nagla, and then again for Mark, the son of Judith. Again one of Nagla's convictions was confirmed: a lifetime of watching American movies had not taught her mother anything about American social norms. Yet every single breach of American notions of etiquette that Nagla witnessed her mother commit resulted in a connection with someone, a momentary intersection between her mother's life and a stranger's that, paradoxically, Nagla could not find fault with, perhaps even envied.

“I thought we could only pray for the Muslim dead,” Nagla said, putting the gloves back on. She watched her mother wrap up a prayer and could not help but smile.

“Says who?” Ehsan asked.

“Says everyone, as far as I know.”

“Then they're all wrong,” Ehsan blurted before looking down at her prayer book again. “People will deny mercy long before Allah does.”

Nagla looked at the gravestone. She had managed to scrub off most of the word
hell
, but she could still see it, faintly imprinted on the marble. She fished a small brush out of her bag, sprayed more graffiti remover, and started scrubbing.

“Mama?”

Her mother finished the verse she was reading before replying, “Yes,
habibti
?”

“Do you think . . .” She paused, searching for words. “Do you think God takes insanity pleas?”

Ehsan sighed. Nagla heard her close the book in her lap. “I don't know,
habibti
. He is the Most Merciful, though. He wouldn't have called himself that if he didn't want us to hope. And they do say only the sane can be held accountable.” She paused, and then added in a whisper, “Of course, we cannot know who will be considered sane and who won't.”

Nagla nodded. “It's just that sometimes I think he might forgive him the suicide, but not—” She sniffed, wiped her eyes on her sleeve. She pulled a tissue out of her pocket, blew her nose.

Ehsan sighed and said nothing. Nagla scrubbed on, until she heard her mother fumble with the shopping bags. She turned around, expecting to see Ehsan rush toward more cemetery visitors—but there was no one new. Behind her, her mother stood, a cup of hot tea in hand. A thermos was on the bench. Nagla could smell the aroma of mint.

“Here, take a break,” Ehsan said, handing her daughter the cup. Nagla sipped the tea, watched her mother sit back and fish another cup out
of the bag for herself. She wondered what else could be hidden in there: a picnic basket with lunch for six, maybe, or a portable propane tank like the one her mother used on outings in Egypt, just in case they ran out of hot tea. Nagla smiled.

“Mama, I've been meaning to tell you—” She paused. Ehsan looked at her, waited. “Thank you,” Nagla said. “For everything.”

“For what,
ya benti
?
Alshokr lellah wahdoh.
”

Ameena had said the same: thanks should be given to God alone. Nagla dismissed the questions before they assaulted her. No more.

“For everything you've done for me, this past year.” Nagla could not remember the last time she had cooked a meal for her children, the last time she had cared about cleaning house or shopping for groceries. Had her mother not been living with her for the past year, her house would have been dripping cobwebs, her children emaciated.

Ehsan nodded and sipped her tea. “When your father passed away,
Allah yerhamoh we yebashbesh eltoobah elly taht rasoh,
your aunts practically moved in with me. Not my sisters—his. Three of them, all older than I was, all married with kids. For two weeks I could hardly turn in my own home without bumping into one of them.”

“Did you like having them around?”

“I hated it. Each day I would wake up determined to tell them all off. But then one day we sat in the evening, sipping tea, just like we're doing now.” She smiled at her daughter. Nagla, lighting a cigarette, listened.

“You and your brothers were playing in a bedroom with your cousins, and one of your aunts mentioned how your father used to love
fesikh.
And then the other mentioned that, since Easter had just passed, the salted fish was, for sure, for sale everywhere, and before I knew it they sent two of your cousins out for
fesikh
in the middle of the night.” Ehsan laughed, shaking her head. “It was ten in the evening before they came back, the stench of the fish rising up the stairway before they made it to our apartment. We smelled them before we saw them. As did
the neighbors.” Smiling, she took a sip of her tea before continuing. “We spent over an hour, your aunts and I, picking out the bones and marinating the fish in oil and lemon, all the while talking about your father.
Remember that time he took us all to the park, a basket of
fesikh,
scallions, lemon, and fresh-baked bread in hand? Remember how his mother insisted he go and buy more lemons, chiding him for bringing so few? How he ended up sending one of the girls over to beg the family sitting by us for a lemon and then pretending to scold her for it? Remember when he was a teenager and he stole his uncle's car, drove all the way to Cairo and came back three days later? Remember the thrashing his father gave him?
” Ehsan laughed. “The later it got, the more scandalous the stories became. And your oldest aunt, Jameela, kept murmuring: ‘
Astaghfiru Allah
; mention the good of your dead; don't expose that which Allah has kept hidden; don't bring disgrace to those whom Allah has shielded from scandal.'”

Nagla raised her eyebrows. “And you let them speak ill of
Baba
?”

“They weren't really speaking ill,” Ehsan quickly retorted. “It was all in good fun. Nothing he wouldn't have minded people sharing, if he were still alive.”

“And what did you contribute? Stories about how good and kind he was to you?” Nagla smiled, trying to mask the sarcastic tone that had crept into her voice. “Let me guess: you told them how he used to stay up all night by your side when you were sick. How he used to bake
basbousa
for you just because you loved it.”

Ehsan sucked at her lips. “Go ahead, make fun of me. My fault for trying to make your father look good.”

Nagla smiled, shook her head, and inhaled the aroma of mint rising from the tea. “This talk of food is making me hungry.”

Ehsan reached into the bag and fished out a pastry, handing it to Nagla. She chewed, aware of her mother watching her. She looked away. The young woman was still lying by the grave, motionless.

“I wanted to tell you,” Ehsan started. “I don't know what your brothers told you, but your father was a good man.”

“Sure. He was a good man. Samir is a good man. They're all good men.”

“Don't be so bitter, Nagla. Be content with what Allah has given you.”

“Don't get me started,” Nagla murmured, chewing on a piece of pastry.

“Bent!”

“Sorry, Mama.”

Nagla waited, watching the young woman. “I think your pastry might have knocked her out,” she smiled. “Americans can't take our food. Too rich for them.”

“Nothing wrong with my food,” Ehsan assured her. “She's resting, poor soul. Probably feels better after having eaten something.”

In silence, Nagla finished her pastry, stubbed her cigarette. She had to admit the pastry did make her feel better. Perhaps there was some truth to the claim that those pastries brought about mercy.

“It's just that he had no luck, your father.” Ehsan watched the young woman. “You know how it is. No one can get more than what God has written for him.”

“So you invent stories about him to make up for his lack of luck in life?”

“I don't invent stories!” Ehsan arched her eyebrows. Nagla did not comment. “Besides, what difference does it make? I wanted to make sure you and your brothers remember him well. I only hope you would do the same for me after I die. That's all that stays, after all. Stories.”

Nagla placed her cup on the bench next to her mother and went back to scrubbing the gravestone. She was almost done, could hardly see the outline of the spray-painted words. If she had her mother's knack for stories, she would tell some about Hosaam that might make people think better of him. Not made up ones like her mother's, merely selective ones. To emphasize the good. She sighed, scrubbing on. In a way, that
was what Samir was trying to do, she realized. Tell his story. She wished she shared his conviction that people would listen, if they spoke.

“What happened?”

Nagla looked up. The young woman was standing behind her, looking at the gravestone. For a moment Nagla wished she could shield her son's name, just in case the woman knew what he had done, but it was too late. She searched the woman's face. What did she mean? What happened to her son? To her life? No, the woman pointed at the gravestone, the outline of the graffiti still faintly visible.

“Graffiti.” Nagla took her gloves off, stood up. Stared at the gravestone the woman was still examining.

“People can be so cruel,” the woman finally said. Nagla nodded. The woman looked over her shoulder at the grave she had been sitting by.

“We were married for seven months,” she said.

They stood, facing each other, the woman looking at Nagla as Nagla avoided her eyes. Again Nagla felt, as she often did, that something needed to be said, but she did not know what to say, so she remained silent.

“Well, thanks for the bread,” the woman said, both to Nagla and Ehsan. Ehsan smiled broadly, looked at Nagla. Doubtless happy the bread had not, in fact, been too rich for the American.

Nagla sat next to her mother, watched the woman walk back to her car. Ehsan watched her, too, and when the car pulled off, she murmured, “May Allah grant us all peace and patience.”

“Amen.”

 • • • 

She sat Indian-style by her son's grave while her mother finished
eddeyyet Yasin,
reading the same sura over seven times in a row, back to back, then capping it off with a long prayer. Over the past year, the days that Nagla spent by her son's grave infused the place with a strangely
comforting familiarity. The visits had become a necessity, so much so that she had joined her husband in resisting a move away from Summerset, even though Khaled had wanted it; poor Khaled, who longed for nothing more than to live in a place where no one would recognize him. If he deserved such luxury, she did not. She deserved the incriminating stares, the malicious words that people occasionally shouted at her after her son became the town's black sheep, her guilt duly recognized as equal to his, if not surpassing it. She deserved to be hated. She bit at her lower lip, took a deep breath. Besides, Khaled would soon leave for college. She saw his application packets arrive in the mail, watched, with relief, as he sat in his room filling them out months before they were due. At least he would not follow in Hosaam's footsteps and announce he was not going to apply to college anytime soon. She rested her head on her open palm, stared at the grass ahead of her. The racket Hosaam's announcement had caused. Samir had been livid. He had stood in the middle of the living room, stomping his feet, his voice probably heard blocks away. But Hosaam had only stared. And she, as always, had made excuses for him.
The boy is burned out after years of study. Let him take a break. Let him rest.

Yes. She deserved to be hated. Besides, if she were to move away, who would look after her son's grave? Who would keep the gravestone clean of obscenities? Was she to abandon Hosaam after his death just as she had failed him in his life?

Nagla traced her son's gravestone with her eyes, outlined the patch of grass on his grave. Slowly, she ran her fingers over the grass, which now stood green and dry in the late morning heat. Coarse and prickly, it reminded her of Hosaam's hair when it was cut short, the way it brushed against her palm whenever she patted his head in passing, as she always did, even after he had grown taller than she was, even after the gesture had irritated rather than pleased him.

Everything reminded her of him. The rattle of car keys. A laptop left
open. The smell of coffee in the morning. The sound of music blasting from a passing car in the summer. College applications arriving in the mail. Socks taken off and bunched up in a ball. The tart smell of sweat mixed with deodorant, barely detectable in laundry as she tossed it in the washer. The sight of a mother holding a little boy's hand. Young couples. Weddings. Funerals. News headlines. Even Khaled reminded her of Hosaam: the way he glanced sideways after a humorous comeback, the way he knotted his brows when writing.