The faucet drips.
It drizzles. It trickles.
There’s water, but no pressure.
No pressure on the pipes. All the pressure’s on us, Abdo thinks.
His fingers under the trickle. He wets his cracked lips. Tastes the water, the usual metallic, chlorine flavor in his mouth.
He washes his hands. He scrubs in that compulsive, blistering way of his, trying to clean away stains on his hands he can’t see, but which he knows are there. Some stains you can’t remove, no matter how often you wash, how hard you scrub.
His hand over the bristles on his cheeks. He’ll shave at night if there’s hot water. Rolls on deodorant. Slaps orange-scented cologne on his cheeks. Noora used to like this smell.
He fixes his tie. He insists on wearing a tie on his way to work.
His son calls him old-fashioned. He calls him many things, none of them good. Most times, his son calls him a fool.
When he gets to work, he’ll take off the tie. Bakers don’t wear ties.
His glasses are in the jar on the shelf by the door. Noora used to leave them there for him.
Noora is gone.
Her memory haunts him every day.
When the muezzins call the faithful to prayer. When he stretches his mat on the floor. When he kneels, faces Mecca, bows, prays to Allah for her soul.
There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is His Prophet.
There is no God. Muhammad was full of shit.
He prays to a God he doesn’t believe in, mumbling the words of a man he’s never trusted.
Noora did.
Oh, Noora, Noora, he thinks.
He misses Noora.
He remembers how she feared for her soul. She believed in Allah, His Prophet, His Word.
Noora prayed whenever she heard the muezzin’s call from the speakers on the minaret.
Now he prays for Noora, he remembers Noora; he places his glasses in the jar on the shelf by the door.
His son, Fuad, believes as Noora believed. Maybe more. They refused to abandon Him, long after He abandoned them. Long after He took Amal.
They’d believed before Amal got sick. When Amal got sick, Noora and Fuad prayed.
Even he prayed.
Amal didn’t pray. She was old enough not to believe in the fairy tales of childhood, young enough not to believe in the fantasies of adulthood.
“There’s nothing we can do,” said the doctors this side of the fence. “Allah wills it.”
“Allah wills it,” Noora and Fuad echoed.
“I don’t will it,” Abdo said. “We’re crossing the fence.”
Noora said, “Go on, then. Go to the Jews. They’ll help Amal, if Allah wills it.”
Fuad said nothing.
Abdo went to the hospital to get Amal’s records.
They said, “Why do you want her records?”
“I want them.”
“Yes, but why?”
“They’re my daughter’s. I want them.”
“Why should you want them?”
They arched an eyebrow.
They stared at him.
They knew why he wanted them. They wanted him to say it.
He said it.
“I want to take her to the Jews. I’m crossing the fence.”
Silence. More staring. More stretched eyebrows.
“Come back tomorrow.”
Tomorrow they told him to come back the day after tomorrow.
The day after tomorrow they said no.
“Her records are lost. A rat ate them,” they said.
Abdo still remembers how he held Amal’s hand with his index finger. Amal held his finger and his heart.
They were first in line at the checkpoint. They’d been there since four in the morning. The checkpoint opened at six o’clock, minutes before dawn. At least three hours’ worth of line formed behind them.
They crossed the checkpoint.
They crossed the fence.
They crossed a line.
“She can live,” the Jewish doctor said. “She needs a bone marrow transplant. If God wills it, she can live.”
“If Allah and the bank will it,” he said.
“Don’t worry about the bank,” said the doctor. “Find a donor. We’ll do the rest. She can live.”
Noora said, “If Allah wills it, she will live.”
He said, “I will it. She must live.”
Allah’s will proved stronger than mine, thinks Abdo.
He looked for a donor, but he never found one.
He wasn’t compatible. Neither was Noora nor Fuad. Their relatives, their friends, their neighbors—they never offered help. When asked, sadness and grief filled their eyes.
Anger, too.
Anger at him for asking the Jews for help. Anger at the Jews for providing it when the doctors this side of the fence couldn’t. Anger at Amal for getting sick, forcing them to see what they had always known about life this side of the fence but had pretended away.
Their anger was stronger than their grief.
He said to them, “My daughter, she’s dying. Please help. Please come.”
None would.
None did.
Amal died.
She was lost to them. They were lost to each other. When yesteryear’s defeats loom over us, we’re doomed to be defeated again tomorrow, and again the day after.
Noora and Fuad prayed every day. They prayed when the muezzin called. At times, his wife and son prayed even before the muezzin called, and long after.
Grief filled Noora’s heart. It filled to the brim. It overflowed with it. Her grief seeped through her veins.
Her black hair went gray. Her white skin turned gray. Her green eyes were always red, swollen, tear-streaked.
Fuad’s heart filled with rage. It filled to the brim. It overflowed with it. His rage seeped through his veins.
The boy who used to rush out calling, “Papa, Papa,” whenever he came home now walked away in silence and slammed his door. The soccer ball they had played with on Sundays before lunch, now forgotten under Fuad’s bed. Silence replaced the rock-and-roll music once blaring from the speakers.
It’ll pass, he thought of Fuad.
It’ll pass, he hoped of Noora.
It didn’t.
Noora stopped eating. What she ate, her body couldn’t hold.
He told her, “Darling, please. Let’s go see a doctor. Please.”
Noora would not. She’d had enough of doctors. She wouldn’t go see those on their side of the fence. She wouldn’t go see those on the other side of the fence. She wouldn’t go.
A mullah came. He commanded her to go; still, she wouldn’t.
And a year and a day after Amal died, Noora died.
That was four years ago.
Now there’s only his son and him.
His son: a giant nineteen-year-old, six-foot-six, slouching stranger who resembles Fuad. The same black hair. The same olive skin. Big fingers at the end of bigger hands. A cragged, unkempt beard now covers his once free and playful smile. The same green eyes, burning with anger.