9 |
December 1998 |
I’m fifteen the last time Ahmed lays a hand on me. We’ve moved to Egypt because it’s cheaper and because my stepfather has family who can help my mother with us kids. There are six of us living in a two-bedroom apartment in a massive concrete building in a neighborhood called Smouha. The place is dingy and in disrepair. It’s also freezing cold now that it’s the winter, because the concrete doesn’t retain heat. Still, there’s a mall nearby and a supermarket under construction. It’s not the worst place we’ve ever lived.
One Saturday, a friend from the neighborhood and I are just messing around in the street, sword fighting with sticks, when Ahmed’s son and a bunch of other kids rush over because they think we’re really fighting. Some of the kids start throwing rocks at us. Not hard, really—they’re just playing. But they get more and more aggressive, so I shout, “Stop!” I’m the oldest one there, and the biggest. Everybody stops. Except for Ahmed’s son. He just has to throw one more rock—right at my face. It breaks my glasses and cuts my nose. Everybody panics and scatters.
At home, my mother asks what happened.
“Before I tell you,” I say, “you have to swear that you won’t tell Ahmed.”
I know that there’s no way he’ll believe me over his son, and that second prize will be a beating. My mother promises she won’t say a word. So I tell her everything, and she sends Ahmed’s son to his room as punishment. I’m ecstatic. It’s a tiny bit of justice after two and a half years of abuse. That night, while I’m in bed, I hear Ahmed come home from the masjid. I hear the tinkle of glass as he drops his keys into a bowl by his bedside. I hear the chiming of hangers as he hangs up his shirt and pants. I hear him do his nightly push-ups—complete with a series of unnecessarily loud grunts. And then I hear my mother do something that breaks my heart: she tells him everything.
Ahmed calls me into their bedroom. He doesn’t say a word about what his son has done, though he must see that my glasses have been clumsily taped together and that there’s dried blood on the bridge of my nose. What he says is: “Why were you playing with sticks?”
And that question just makes me explode.
Not at Ahmed, but at my mother.
“See!” I shout at her. “This is exactly why I didn’t want you to tell him! Because he’s just going to blame me—like he always does.” I stop for a second. I’m full of indignation, and I feel the need to say just one thing more. “Because he’s an asshole!”
I take the space heater from the floor, and hurl it at a wall. The cord throws off a few sparks as it’s ripped from the socket, and the bars of the heater rattle and make a loud thong.
I walk out of their bedroom and go down to the kitchen, crying and screaming. I’m out of control in a way that scares even me. I’m punching the kitchen door over and over again when I hear Ahmed storming down the hall after me. I know what’s coming. The moment he enters the kitchen, I drop to the floor and curl into a ball as he begins to pummel me with his fists. I’m just going to take it like I always do.
Suddenly, my mother rushes into the room. She screams for Ahmed to stop. He’s so shocked that she’s come to my defense that she manages to push him away. She helps me to my feet. She smoothes my hair, and the three of us just stand there in the kitchen, panting.
My mother whispers, “I’m so sorry, Z.”
Ahmed can’t believe what he’s hearing.
“Oh, she’s so sorry!” he says, disgusted. “I am only doing what Nosair would do—what you are too weak to do yourself!”
My hands are on my knees—I’m wearing my bedclothes, a long gown called a jalabiyah—and I’m trying to catch my breath when Ahmed punches me again. An uppercut, perfected in the gym. My mother steps between us. But Ahmed just won’t stop. He jabs to the left and right of her head. He couldn’t care less if he hits her, which enrages me, so I do something that shocks the hell out of Ahmed, my mother, and me: I punch him back.
It’s a wild swing. I don’t even hit him. Still, for half a second, Ahmed’s eyes pop wide with fear. He stalks out of the kitchen, never to touch me again. It’s a victory, but a short-lived one. He just starts beating my younger brother even more.
• • •
After New Year’s, I accept a collect call from my father, who’s now at a “supermax”—short for super-maximum security—prison in California. I rarely talk to him anymore, and I can tell by his voice that he’s surprised when he’s put through. I remember the time my mother let him have it on the phone, and I want to have some catharsis of my own. I want to tell him how crappy our lives have become since he decided that other people’s deaths were more important than his own family’s lives. I want to scream into the phone. I want to lose control for once because he should know the price we’re paying for his crimes. I’m never going to see him again anyway. He’s in prison. For life. He has no control over me. He can’t hurt me—and he certainly can’t help me.
But, as always, I can’t get the anger out. I just sob into the phone. My father pretends not to notice. He asks me blandly if I’m making my prayers and being good to my mother.