Samira has never attended such a grand wedding feast. Separate musicians for men and women are a great extravagance. As a stocky tabla player prepares the female troupe of musicians with an imperious wave of her hand, snatches of conversation drift toward Samira.
“They are remembering their own weddings,” Mother Fadhma whispers to her daughter, “or yearning for one like this for someone in their family.”
Samira detects a hint of regret in her mother’s voice. At one time she too would have been envious of Anna Matroub’s good fortune. Her marriage to a boy from a respected family is an aspiration shared by many of the town’s young women. Samira watches Anna’s friend offer the bride a glass of tea and help with the red veil. Anna is in many ways the perfect daughter. Well-liked, always well presented, she never once frequented Lovers’ Lane. The lavish feast will be the biggest event of her life. Except for giving her husband plenty of sons, nothing will provide her greater satisfaction. She is a credit to her parents and a role model to her peers. Anna is all these things and one more, Samira thinks: dull.
Young women like her follow a safe path. It never occurs to them that the ground beneath their privileged feet might give away. Samira doesn’t allow herself to believe in the certainties they take for granted. “Oh, Mamma, you know I will die a spinster,” she jokes, and touches Fadhma’s elbow playfully.
The old woman assesses her daughter. “I thought as much.” She kisses her tenderly on the cheek. “And what’s the harm in that? As long as you love and are loved.”
Samira wants to ask her mother her meaning, but the musicians have started playing and she helps Fadhma and Fuad move closer. Afterward Samira takes a place among her friends on the floor cushions.
“What happened to you in the music shop?” Yvette’s voice is drowned out by the older women clapping and singing all around them.
“Your anklet, O beautiful one, resounds and gives voice.”
The women of marriageable age, including Samira and the twins, respond loudly: “Your skirt, the color of peppers, has in it the hue of life and death.”
Shrieking ululation pierces the air. The time for advice has passed. The women have gathered to show solidarity with the new bride and give her courage. The wedding bed, only a few hours away, could contain a lifetime of woe if blood isn’t found on white sheets in the morning.
Samira has attended enough meetings and study sessions under Zeinab’s tutelage to feel nothing but disdain for weddings. They have thoroughly discussed the shackles of marriage. A woman’s chance for happiness is determined by how vigorously she suppresses her opinions. Samira understands the theory, has even experienced this in her relationship with Walid, yet despite the consciousness raising, something in her still responds to the dream of the bride. She wants to blame the excitement or the music, but she’s wrong. She cannot completely distance herself emotionally. On this occasion the women have segregated themselves by their own volition, to celebrate their experiences beyond men’s reach and empower one of their own.
The tabla player carries her drum into the center of the room. From the back, a voice suddenly calls out: “Mother Fadhma!”
Surprised, Samira’s mother freezes in her seat until many other women take up the call. Samira helps her mother stand up. Only the truly honored are asked to lead the dance. A belt of metal coins is loosely tied around her ample hips as she faces the roomful of women, some at the beginning of their adult lives, others like herself closer to the end, and, at the heart, innocent Anna, on the threshold of womanhood.
Samira can see that her mother is losing her nerve, but the tabla player’s beat is infectious and Fadhma begins moving in spite of herself. After an awkward beginning she is instantly transformed. It is scarcely credible that someone her age dances so gracefully. She glides in short steps, spinning in small slow circles. Her hands perform the ritual gestures, evoking the moon and its little sister, Sirius, the Dog Star, the celestial guardians of women since the dawn of time. She stamps the floor, drawing fertility from the fields. As the tempo of the music increases, some of the women can no longer resist and they propel themselves into the center of the room, elegantly waving hands held high. The drums grow louder and they move with wild abandon around the throne of the bride.
The constraints of good manners and stiff bridal taffeta keep the veiled figure on the dais from responding to the music. Every once in a while she trembles. The dance awakes in her forces that have lain dormant. All that she wants whirls like a promise around her; in an instant, the past, the present, and the future collide.
The song, reaching its peak, unfurls like a banner drifting back to earth. Some women fall, as though entranced, back into the arms of chairs or onto floor cushions; the rest stand, sweating and disorientated. Water is passed around and for several minutes nobody speaks. The only sound that can be heard is the slow, monotonous beating of a single drum.
During the dance Samira lost track of her family and the twins. Looking to cool off, she lets herself out through a closed door and walks along an empty corridor and, on impulse, up a flight of stairs. At the top in a window alcove overlooking the garden sits Dania, from Lovers’ Lane. Instead of being with the women she has been watching the men. She makes room for Samira. “Look” is all she says.
Below, the men too are dancing. A fellow at the front entices the groom with a fluttering white handkerchief. His other hand, outstretched, keeps time to the music. The men sway in a line behind him, their arms interlocked. As the beat rises, they leap forward and backward, stamping hard and loud, over and over again, their strong, agile bodies in a display of male prowess.
“He’s so handsome,” Dania whispers.
Samira picks him out. A few feet away watching and enjoying the dance is another man Samira vaguely knows. She nearly overlooked him in the crowd, but for some reason she keeps coming back until the reason becomes clear. Mr. Ammar, the front’s political officer who knew about Hussein, is with another activist she might have met at their office. Apparently the two slipped into the house once Matroub finished his formal greetings of guests by the gate. Instinctively Samira reaches for the letter and relives the upset she experienced with the courier in the garden. She’s not a fan of Mr. Ammar’s either; she tried telling Zeinab, but none of this matters now. Samira makes her excuses to Dania and goes downstairs. On the way, she runs into Laila, who tells her to come and help with the food.
The kitchen is a swarm of activity. At the center, Matroub gingerly places the tastiest pieces of lamb, which have simmered all day in a sauce of dried mansaf yogurt, onto trays piled high with rice and roasted pine nuts. One is handed to Samira, and she carries it to the long tables in the garden beside the tent. Here the men stand and eat communally. The musicians, by now a little tipsy, are playing a jolly folk tune.
After setting down the tray Samira looks for Mr. Ammar but doesn’t find him or the other man. On her way to the house she runs into Yvette, also conscripted into kitchen duty. The twin, attempting to balance one too many dishes on top of one another, is in danger of dropping the lot. Her face is flushed around the edges.
“At the arak again?” Samira helps her friend and takes a few dishes to a table. She is rewarded for her efforts. Standing near the tent is Mr. Ammar, who nods imperceptibly. He knows that she knows. There are too many people around to make the delivery. Samira follows Yvette inside. She will meet Mr. Ammar secretly soon enough.
The friends carry their plates of rice and lamb upstairs and join the others who have started eating. Mother Fadhma attempts to coax Fuad with a tasty tidbit; the excited toddler pushes her hand away.
Samira picks at her food. It’s one thing for her to decide, but quite another to involve her family. She knows Hussein, Laila, and her nephews will be all right in the end; it is her mother who will suffer. As Fadhma’s youngest unmarried daughter, Samira is expected to care for her aging mother. She never considered herself ambitious; any plans she has remain unformed. However, since joining the women’s committee, she wants her life to have meaning. In her mind Zeinab, Syria, and Palestine have become intertwined, and she feels she must steel her resolve for what comes next—be it tonight, tomorrow, or in a year from now—even if it means one day leaving home. She is so lost in her thoughts that she doesn’t hear Warda above the hubbub calling the women downstairs.
In no time long-sleeved coats and robes cover glittering party dresses. Some of the women Samira saw dancing put on their niqabs. She follows them. Near the dining room, her uncle lies in wait.
“You, my dear, are a contortionist!”
He is in fine form, his good and bad eyes glinting. Obviously something’s going on.
Abu Za’atar reprimands her. “I don’t know why you don’t confide in me. I’m the only one in a position to help. Your mother won’t understand and Hussein is”—he gestures toward the garden—“a fool.”
Samira is having trouble following him.
“And if you do,” he promises, “the both of us will benefit enormously—you for your causes and me for me!”
Samira finally understands her uncle’s strategy: first enticement, then the stick. “And what is it you want?” She is actually curious.
“Your interesting friend—”
“Is gone.” Even if she knew where Mustafa was, she wouldn’t give him up. “He was just passing through,” she comments, “so I’m afraid you’re too late.” However, because Abu Za’atar has declared an unqualified self-interest, she doesn’t hide her own: “And I didn’t get the chance to tell him how much I cared.”
Abu Za’atar is crestfallen, amused, shocked, and guilty all at once. It occurs to Samira that perhaps the damage he intended to do has already been done. Once Mother Fadhma appears, perturbed by the sight of her daughter and brother in earnest conversation, he slips away.
In the dining room waits an elaborate six-tier wedding cake from the European bakery in the capital. With all the guests assembled, Asaf lifts Anna’s veil and a cry fills the air.
“Yabayeh! Yabayeh!”
A low, gravelly voice that could have been mistaken for a man’s belongs to Umm Omar, who sings, “I put bracelets upon thy hands and a chain on thy neck.” The song is reminiscent of desert wastes and the lamentations that follow the birth of girls. Holding the knife, together the bride and groom are poised to cut the first ceremonial slice.
With all the attention in the room on them, Samira takes the opportunity and sneaks outside, followed by Muna, waiting on the fringes of the party. The garden is empty; even the bartender is indoors. A man, slumped against a table inside the tent, casts a forlorn shadow against the canvas. Samira points out the silhouette to her cousin. Then, reminded of her uncle’s words, she investigates and discovers Hussein inside. Near his sagging head, on a side table, is a near-empty bottle of whisky. When his eyes momentarily clear and he tries standing up, he staggers as though the ground is moving beneath him. His chair becomes a raft.
“Relax, brother.” Samira has seen him out of it before, but tonight he’s in really bad shape. Her hopes from the afternoon vanish.
He regards Muna behind his sister. “Don’t you think our way of life is peculiar?” his sad voice slurs.
“La amo, la, I’m fine.” Muna means it. “I’m glad I’m here.”
“How different we are from you.” He draws his words out slowly. “I have seen the world and loved, but love is unpredictable. The more you love, the more you know, and knowing more leaves less room for respect. Here, we marry strangers and learn to respect them. The family sees to that. And love? Keep your loves for yourself.”
A thin line of saliva trickles from the corner of his mouth, and his eyes glaze over as he slips into his private world of pain. Samira pulls her cousin away. She would prefer Muna not see Hussein like this, but he can’t be her priority at the moment. Outside the tent she tells Muna to join the party and promises to come soon, she needs a few moments to compose her thoughts. Alone, she surveys the garden and spies Mr. Ammar and his accomplice near the house. Samira walks over and thrusts the letter into his hand. Without looking, he places it in his coat jacket. He doesn’t thank her.
“We’ve expanded our activities to include new people,” he states.
“Like the contact I met this evening?”
Mr. Ammar is noncommittal. As his friend moves off to keep watch, he says, “We need to talk. Is there somewhere private we can go? We have a car.”
Samira chooses her words carefully. “This isn’t a good time. Can it wait?”
He is either unsympathetic to her situation or doesn’t care. “No, tonight,” he insists.
Begrudgingly Samira points to the hills above them that grow into Jebel Musa. “My brother’s farm is up there, a half hour by car.” She isn’t sure whether this is a good idea. If they do need to talk it will have to be out of sight. She will also have to be back before anyone misses her. Then she remembers Muna and demands, “My cousin has to come too.” She sees that her demand is not one Mr. Ammar expects, so she explains, “My mother won’t worry if we’re together.” Certainly the man is no fool and can understand the importance of a girl’s reputation in a small town.
“All right,” he agrees. “We’ll meet you among the parked cars. We came late; the blue Nissan in the field is ours.”
Samira reenters the Matroub house and collects Muna. Samira tries to make it sound like an adventure: “We’re going for a ride.” As they cross the front garden, she isn’t sure why she feels it but she does: the two of them are being watched. She doesn’t remember Hussein as they pass the tent. Outside the gate she gestures for Muna to slow down and Samira takes another good look around. A woman in a niqab and abaya loiters behind them at a respectful distance. Samira and Muna start off again. In the darkness, they nearly stumble into a couple lost in each other’s embrace. It is Dania and the boy.
Parked cars line the driveway and spill into an adjacent field. As Samira attempts to pick out the car in the dark, the woman in the niqab brushes past and says in a barely audible voice, “Over there.”
Samira takes in a sharp breath. Does she know this woman? The robed figure, complete with keys, unlocks the Nissan and issues a rebuke under her breath. “You should know better than to get into a car with a strange woman.”
There’s no doubt in Samira’s mind. “Zeinab!” She doesn’t speak too loudly.
“Took you long enough.” The sly voice belongs to the mischievous moonfaced woman, who furtively unhooks her face mask. Samira’s political mentor climbs into the driver’s seat and invites Muna to sit in the middle between them.
“This is my American cousin,” says Samira, closing the passenger-side door.
A small, delicate gloved hand reaches for Muna’s. “Welcome, cousin. Has Samira told you about us?”
“Not much.”
Once the car maneuvers onto the main road, Samira can no longer contain her excitement. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to come and tell you myself.”
“Tell me what?”
“I’m going back to Syria.”
Her news doesn’t surprise Samira. This has probably been in the works long before she joined the women’s committee.
“Why now?” Samira wants to know.
“I feel I might be too late.”
“Too late?” Muna inquires.
Zeinab glances at them from the road. “I watched a news report about the last garden in Aleppo. A ten-year-old boy stopped going to school so he could help his father grow flowers and plants—there were roses—that they planted in the city’s roundabouts. It almost seemed normal except for the shelling, but the father was not afraid. He said it was like listening to Beethoven. Then a bomb killed him—a tragedy like so many others that left another child alone in a destroyed city.
“Then my aunt phoned me from Syria. She was watching the evacuation of Daraya on the TV with two friends, a man and his wife, who left the district after a massacre by government troops in 2012. They were hoping to see the son they left behind in the fleeing crowds. In Daraya, the activists are unable to return to government-controlled areas. They’ll be imprisoned, so they’re fleeing to Idlib, Daesh’s stronghold in the northwest. Torture by the regime or enslavement by the jihadists, how can it be that these are the only two choices left for the Syrian people?”
Zeinab’s smooth, open face fills with anger. “I can no longer stand on the sidelines. In my worst moments I believe there’s no difference between me and the Palestinian delegation, which broke Ramadan fast with members of the regime in Damascus. They ate a lavish iftar while a few miles away my family and friends were starving, and still are, in Yarmouk Camp.” Her tone becomes defiant. “It’s time for me to dirty my hands or those brave people will have died for nothing. Their blood cannot be wasted.”
Samira knows Zeinab is referring to the human rights lawyer Razan Zaitouneh and her colleagues from the Violations Documentation Center: Wael Hamada, Samira al-Khalil, and Nazem Hamadi. They had been verifying the identities of the dead, until they were kidnapped by a splinter Islamic faction in Douma. Zeinab was always trying to find out about them, asking people who had just come from Syria. Over a year ago she heard that the Douma Four had been sold to another front more extremist than the previous one. Then the trail went cold.
“What are you going to do?” Samira asks her.
“Whatever I can. We Palestinians have a history of woe, but we’re not the only ones at the bottom to be kicked.”
Zeinab pulls the car abruptly to the side of the road, and Mr. Ammar and his companion get in. They had found a way from behind Matroub’s house and scrambled up the rocks.
“Okay?” Zeinab peers through the rearview mirror, then checks with Samira for directions.
“Follow the road. Near the top there’s a turnoff,” she tells her.
Zeinab starts driving again. “There’s something I want to ask you—”
“Not now,” objects Mr. Ammar, “wait until we get there.”
Ignoring him, Samira whispers to her friend, “When do you go?”
“Tonight.”
Samira is stunned. “It’s too soon.” She tries not to sound upset, but her tone is terse; she is becoming increasingly anxious for Zeinab and for herself. She understands that it is selfish, but she relies on Zeinab and the other women in the committee. Without them she would be lost.
The car ascends the hills above the Matroub villa. From the road’s edge, Samira can clearly make out the lights, the house, and the tent. She imagines the bride feeding cake into the mouth of her new husband, an experience she will never know. Her involvement with the women’s committee ushered in a new era of realism in her life, which banished romantic illusion forever. But the evening showed how easy it was to become enthralled once again with the dream of the bride.
If their time together is short she has to tell Zeinab. Only she and the other women from the committee would understand. Leaning across her cousin, Samira admits quietly, so the men in the back won’t hear, “Tonight I came face-to-face with the ‘enemy within.’”
Zeinab keeps her eyes firmly on the road. “I don’t know about your cousin, but you and I are susceptible to weddings.”
From where Samira is sitting, she can see her leader smiling. It is a small consolation. Samira leans back, distraught. She glances out the window at the fairy lights from the Matroubs’ garden but she doesn’t see them. Her anxiety over Zeinab’s imminent departure clouds her vision. She also doesn’t notice a group of uninvited guests or the man they drag away between them.