As Kathmiya walked to the brick house that Jamila cleaned, the city shimmered in the light of Salwa’s promise to help. The men everywhere, in thin suits headed to government offices, in loose dishdashas milling about the market, in khaki shorts loading boats—she imagined that one of them would get her out by taking her in.
Kathmiya threw a pebble at her mother’s window.
“I told you, she sleeps late in the mornings, you should come then!” Jamila said after rushing down to stop the noise.
“I’m getting too old,” Kathmiya began bluntly. “If we wait any longer I’ll be a spinster for sure.”
“My child, I am trying, believe me.” Jamila hustled Kathmiya into the house and up to her small room. Even after so many years of working there, she had nothing on the walls except for a small woven amulet, like the one Kathmiya had given Leah when Aziza was born. Colored threads twisted around two perpendicular sticks, art made out of nothing but string and faith.
“Well, I have good news,” Kathmiya said, sitting on the mattress. It was much thicker than any they had in the marshes but would never be as comfortable because this would never be home. The marshes had exiled her, but they were still “home.”
Kathmiya told her mother about the serendipitous encounter with Salwa. “It must be the will of Allah,” she concluded breathlessly. “She promised to help!”
She waited for the smile, the encouragement, the plans. But instead, Jamila just breathed in and exhaled slowly.
“I know exactly where she lives—you can go there as soon as you want,” Kathmiya prompted.
Jamila’s lids were heavy. “That woman is poor, worse off than us,” she said, looking down at the rough brick floor. “Imagine—me, a Midaan, had to give her money.” Kathmiya was crushed, but Jamila didn’t stop. “I don’t regret it, of course not. It was sadaka, a charitable act as Allah wills. But I have no illusions that she’ll be able to help us.”
“You have to at least go and see her!” Kathmiya felt her cheeks tingle. To miss this chance would be like finding ten dinars but refusing to spend them.
“Of course not, no.” Jamila shook her head. Then she started offering the usual promises to find Kathmiya a husband.
“You’ve said that so many times—why should I believe you?” Kathmiya glared. “Why?”
“Quiet!” Jamila pinched her daughter’s arm, but this only amplified the volume.
“I am almost nineteen and I have no husband and the matchmakers in the marshes won’t help me, not the ones here either and—”
“Hey! You!” Old Nafisa.
Now Jamila slapped Kathmiya across the face. “You have to make a scene here? Is that going to help?”
Nafisa stood in the doorway in a navy dress with a high lace collar that guarded her neck like she was royalty. “So sorry,” Jamila groveled. “I’ve beat her and I’m sending her away.”
But Nafisa just shook her head. “Make her some tea,” she instructed. “The girl is distressed. But I have a few words of advice that will ease her mind.”
Kathmiya felt immensely relieved.
In the kitchen, hands cupped around a hot glass filled with black tea, Kathmiya repressed the memory of how Nafisa had turned Salwa away, instead contriving similarities between the women. Both were older, alone in the world with nothing but kindness for those less fortunate. Humbled by circumstance, maybe. Or just good-hearted.
“You will have to learn,” Nafisa said, “your place in this society.”
Kathmiya nodded and smiled. It occurred to her that this woman was wealthy, and maybe she could help. She put on her best find-me-a-home posture, hands folded in her lap, fluttering eyes attentive, eager for advice and open to charity.
“Some of us may not have so much, but we learn to enjoy the little things,” Nafisa went on. “Flowers are free, and so beautiful! Sometimes just a warm cup of tea can be simply delicious.”
“Mmm, yes!” Kathmiya smiled. And a home of my own would be nice.
“Your mother has told me all about your situation,” the widow went on. So now you’ve decided to help, Kathmiya willed.
“She’s asked me many times to use my influence to find you someone to marry,” Nafisa said. Kathmiya felt warmed by this information. Jamila really had been trying.
“I must say I thought about it,” Nafisa continued, gesturing for more sugar cubes. Kathmiya noticed the ones Jamila scurried to bring were real little blocks, instead of the big single cone Leah bought to chip into her tea. Further proof that Nafisa was not just magnanimous, but also rich. “And I’m going to tell you what I told your mother: it is much safer to stay in your class. A girl like you is adequate, some man somewhere might take you in. But you would never truly be happy. Because you are a Midaan. You should know your place and stay there. Otherwise, society will fall apart. And think of the husband—he would have to sacrifice so much to be with you. His family would cast him out. If he died, you would have absolutely no one. And husbands die, take it from me. No, you are best off accepting the ways of kismet.”
Kathmiya was crying now, but Nafisa’s concern was genuine. “Trust me,” she said. “It is better this way.”
No one had ever spoken to Kathmiya so directly. She felt endlessly grateful.
The next time she saw Shafiq, she was as calm as the lazy water in the marshes, and let him follow her to the small maid’s quarters. It might have been a dangerous place for them to be alone back when she was dreaming of a life with him, but now that she was resolved to accept her fate, they were safe.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “Life here with Leah is fine. I can smell the flowers and drink tea and be happy.”
“That’s great!” Shafiq acknowledged her major revelation only briefly before moving on to his own news. “Guess what? I applied to go to college in America.” Kathmiya knew nothing of the country and even less of how Shafiq might get there, but she understood that he was leaving. “At a college called Hope.”
As he explained the meaning of the English word, she felt her face sting worse than when her mother slapped it. There she was, all passive and accepting of fate, while he was planning to actually get on an airplane and fly to another country. To live, study, learn.
“How can you do that?” she asked. She meant it in so many ways: how dare you, how is it even possible, how could I?
“I didn’t get in yet,” he said, sounding defensive.
“So you go flying out to America and all I get is to drink tea and smell flowers?” she fumed. Suddenly, Nafisa’s advice was not tough and loving, but just tough and unsavory, like overcooked meat.
Now Shafiq looked angry. “Kathmiya, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I don’t feel so sorry about your whole situation here.”
“Oh, no?” She was furious. Little spoiled schoolboy who never even made his own bed pretending to understand her life when all she did was make beds—for others.
“No! If you don’t mind, why are you so worried about being alone? Any man in this city would marry you if he could. You act like you have no idea that you are brilliant and beautiful. Oh, poor little Marsh Arab maid. I might have thought that when I first met you, but I never saw anyone learn to write so fast. I never met anyone who has such intelligence and,” he hesitated and then blurted out, “such beauty!”
They were staring, face to face. “The old widow told me to give up,” Kathmiya confessed, relaying Nafisa’s advice.
“The old widow doesn’t know you like I do,” Shafiq said.
“But she said even if I found someone, he would have to abandon his whole family for me,” she said, the dream Nafisa had helped her to relinquish coming back into focus.
“So, why wouldn’t he? You’re way more beautiful than Cleopatra. Armies could fall for you. And so will some very lucky man.”
Shafiq. It was Shafiq. “Would you?” she asked with shy but irrepressible hope.
“Me…?” he stammered.
It was enough. Kathmiya understood, in one terrible blow, how completely deluded she had been to even hint that they could be together. Nafisa had warned her that she should not try to escape her destiny. Shafiq would never abandon everything he had just for her.
“Good luck in America,” she said, thinking, You live your life and I’ll manage a way to live mine. There were tears welling in the corners of her eyes—not from sadness; she was too hard to feel sad—but frustration that she couldn’t even storm out just then because she had absolutely no place to go.