Amreekiya

A Novel

Lena Mahmoud

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780813176376
• eBook ISBN:
  9780813176390
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Littérature générale

A touching debut novel chronicling the life a young Palestinian American woman between two cultures as she comes of age and as she settles into marriage.
Isra Shadi, a twenty-one-year-old woman of mixed Palestinian and White descent, lives in California with her paternal amu (uncle), amtu (aunt), and cousins after the death of her mother and abandonment by her father at a young age. Ever the outcast in her amu and amtu's household, Isra is encouraged to marry and leave. After rejecting a string of undesirable suitors, she marries Yusef, an old love from her past . . .
In Amreekiya, author Lena Mahmoud deftly juggles two storylines, alternating between Isra's youth and her current life as a married twentysomething who is torn between cultures and trying to define herself. The chapters chronicle various moments in Isra's narrative, including her parents volatile relationship and the trials and joys of forging a partnership with Yusef. Mahmoud also examines Isra's first visit to Palestine, the effects of sexism, how language affects identity, and what it means to have a love that overcomes unbearable pain.
An exploration of womanhood from an underrepresented voice in American literature, Amreekiya is simultaneously unique and relatable. Featuring an authentic array of characters, Mahmoud's first novel is a much-needed story in a divided world.
Praise for Amreekiya
"A subversive story about love and marriage . . . a feminist Palestinian project that follows its headstrong lead, Isra, through struggle and loss. This is a tense examination of what a marriage is and how gendered expectations influence love and family. It is an intimate dissection of a relationship that exists in an unequal world . . . . Mahmoud portrays the unsettling conflict between freedom and social imprisonment in Amreekiya, an unnerving novel that encourages questioning common assumptions, no matter how deep down they rest." —Foreword Reviews
"Both wise and humorous, Mahmoud's debut novel is an intimate portrayal of an early Arab American marriage, filled with passion, loss, and ultimately forgiveness. Readers will be moved by the fierce but fragile Isra, who refuses to be defined by her family, her husband, and her society." —Susan Muaddi Darraj, author of A Curious Land: Stories from Home
"Yusef and Isra's story is relevant for people worldwide. With poignant, beautiful writing, Mahmoud quickly draws readers into the novel, portraying all her characters with a sympathetic voice. A fantastic choice for book discussions and well worth a second reading." — Library Journal (starred review)

CHAPTER ONE

Though he wasn’t a real uncle, I still called my father’s cousin Nasser my amu, uncle, and his wife Samia amtu, aunt, because they had told me to do so when they took me in at eight. I figured it was best to do what they said. Back then, after my mother died and my father decided he couldn’t take care of me, I had no place else to go. But now, nearly fourteen years later, they made it clear that I had overstayed my welcome.

As family, they had to find an honorable way to get rid of me: find me a husband. But after nearly two years of lining up men, they were still unsuccessful, growing impatient with how selective I was. Why didn’t I want to marry a man who was pushing forty and already graying or a man who had been divorced and had three half-white kids? Those kids would just love me as a stepmother. Having an Amreekiya mother myself, I would be able to understand them.

It also helped that, at twenty-one, I was only ten years older than that man’s eldest child.

When I told Amtu Samia that the last thing I wanted was to be a stepmother or a trophy wife, she replied, “Is better to marry older man. This one with kids, you don’t have expectation to have many children because he already has some. With this gray-haired man, he will think you are pretty and forgive your mistakes fast, if they are not too bad.”

Most of all, she said, an older man’s mother was either dead or on her way out, so she wouldn’t be much trouble to me.

That was pretty much who came for me: older men. I guess I wasn’t the most desirable woman to have as a wife. I had a reputation for being short-tempered, and guys around my age didn’t want to have that struggle; it was too much work. Older men liked spunk; it made them feel young, alive.

I wasn’t convinced. Older men were never my type. I didn’t like that they always thought they were right and dismissed me as an inexperienced young woman. If I wanted to live like that, I might as well stay in Amu’s house, cooking and cleaning for an old guy but at least not having to sleep with him.

Amu rarely came home before eight, so whenever I saw his car parked in the driveway, I knew that he was early so he could introduce me to a man. Today there was an older Nissan parked at the curb, my usual space. I parked behind it and looked in the windows. An enormous biology textbook lay on the front passenger seat, an undershirt in the back, and some used napkins and wrappers and bags from fast food restaurants barely hidden on the floor. This man’s car was only a step above my fifteen-year-old Toyota Camry. I wondered why Amu Nasser even had him over.

I turned the doorknob slowly to catch Amu and Amtu off guard, but I was the one to be surprised when I stepped inside. I kept myself from blushing when he came to shake my hand, thinking of how bad my messy bun and drab clothes made me look in front of my latest marriage prospect.

Amu talked more about himself than Yusef did over dinner. It was typical for Amu—when he was around—to talk about his colleagues and clients as if we knew them all personally, though there were long periods of time when we heard nothing about them because he worked late most of the time. The information Amu gleaned from Yusef was that he was almost done with a master’s program in biology and working part-time at a research institution and a community college, as well as teaching a lab at the university. He had moved out of his parents’ house almost three years ago and lived on his own with various roommates over the years, but he was living alone now. His apartment was just north of campus, a complex I passed every time I did the grocery shopping after school.

“Well, Yusef, you sound like a diligent young man. You believe so, Isra?” He looked over at me, a stiff smile letting me know there was only one acceptable response.

“No,” I said.

Amu glared and pursed his lips. “Why is this?”

“Scientists strut around school thinking they’re better than everyone.” I rolled my eyes.

Yusef looked from my face to Amu’s and laughed. Amu Nasser followed suit uncomfortably; Amtu Samia elbowed me under the table.

“Tell me how to impress you.” He looked me straight in the eye, challenging me.

He had me there. I took a minute to think of a response. “If you can cook and clean for yourself, I’ll be impressed.”

Amu shook his head. “No, she jokes. Be nice, Isra.”

Yusef stayed until almost eleven. I kept the tea and sweets coming on Amtu’s orders, and it felt like the evening would never end. Amu Nasser droned on about his work as a lawyer, and Amtu Samia kept nudging me to do things that she believed would make me more desirable to Yusef.

My cousin Hanan came home from a choir recital in the middle of the visit, the only relief. She changed clothes and helped me with the trays of sweets and fruits. While we were both in the kitchen, I told her, “Shoot me now. I can’t take this for one more second.” I let out a long sigh. “Actually, just shoot your parents. That’d be better.”

She giggled. “I know you have a crush on that guy. Yusefee! Yoo-see-feee! Don’t take your green eyes off me!” she sang quietly.

I rolled my eyes. “Shut up.”

Yusef tried to catch my eye the whole time, but I kept mine somewhere else, on the armrest of the couch or on my tea or on Amu’s stiff face. I wouldn’t give him confirmation. I wouldn’t make it easy for him.

On the way out the door, he smiled at me. I found myself smiling back.

I had missed him so much.

Amtu lectured me about what a catch Yusef was and how lucky I would be to have him, even though I knew they wouldn’t even think of him as a candidate for Hanan, not only because she was sixteen but because his family was too poor and uneducated for them. That didn’t matter in my case. Baba, my father, came from a refugee camp in Ramallah (Amu came from a family who were slightly better off in Jerusalem), and I was practically an orphan living off Amu Nasser’s charity, so I had no right to expect better. I tried to drown out the sound of Amtu Samia’s voice as I cleaned up the house.

“Listen to me, Isra. You are acting as a child!” She went on to say she didn’t know how exactly I met this boy before and why he wanted to marry me, but, knowing me, something indecent went on between the two of us, and I was lucky that he was still willing to commit to me.

I slammed a soaped-up dish back in the sink and turned around to glare at her. “Calm down! It’s not like I said no.”

“You want him as husband or not?” She put her hands on her hips and straightened her back, her eyes narrowed.

“I’m thinking.”

“What? You think he wait around forever? Or that you have many men to choose from?” She threw her hands up in frustration. “Have there been that many men here since you’ve been a woman?”

Amu Nasser was usually gone by the time I got dressed, but the next day he stayed a half hour later so that he could talk to me over breakfast. His approach was different from Amtu Samia’s: he spoke in a reasonable tone and presented the advantages I would have if I made such a marriage. “Yusef does not come from much money, but he is hardworking and has a good education, and he will be able to give all you need and most of what you want.” Then he inserted further persuasion. “You must know this: You have come from very little, and look at what you have made of yourself. Yusef is a young man as well.”

“I know. I’ll have to spend the rest of my life with him, so I need time to think.”

“But life will not stop for you, Isra. You must not take too long.”

“He can give me a few days. I’m sure he had longer when he decided that he wanted to ask me.”

He sighed. “You do not know what he has done to come here. His parents did not think we would consider Yusef for you, so they did not want him to come. If you agree, he will bring his mother and father.”

I should have been touched by that, but I found it funny instead. Yusef’s parents should have seen all the old and/or divorced men who had come for me. It seemed like almost everyone we knew was aware of the way Amu Nasser and Amtu Samia regarded me. “I wouldn’t want to seem desperate by accepting too quickly.”

He shook his head and sighed again. “Have your time.”

I thought about it during all my classes and later at the doctor’s office where I worked, thinking about what it would be like to be a wife. Yusef’s wife. My parents never married; Mom didn’t see the point of it. It wouldn’t have made Baba any less of a deadbeat or her family any more accepting of the fact that she had a child out of wedlock with an Arab.

Then there was Amu and Amtu’s marriage. They could barely stand each other and hardly spoke. Amtu Samia still did things for Amu Nasser sometimes, like having Hanan and me help her cook up big breakfasts on the weekend, but he never noticed or even said thank you, especially for the last few years.

At the end of the day, Yusef showed up just before closing with flowers and a smile on his face. The waiting room was empty, but the nurse was filling out some charts in the office with me. “Isra, you didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend,” she said.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I whispered and stood up to meet him at the window.

I opened it and thanked him for the flowers as he handed them to me. He reached in to squeeze my arm. “Sana told me when you got off, so I thought, if you had the time, we could talk.”

I nodded, unable to fully meet his eyes. “Sure.”

He rested his hand on mine for a few seconds and then settled himself in a seat while I finished up my work for the day. I set the flowers on the table away from my area so they wouldn’t get in the way, but I kept glancing at them, and I knew he saw me each time.

Yusef took my hand in his on the way to my car, telling me how happy he was to see me after all this time. He got in on the passenger side of my car and made small talk at first, asking me how things were going, how I liked my job, but it didn’t take him long to get to the point: What did I think about his proposal?

I took a deep breath. “I’m still thinking about it.”

He reached over and took my hand. “I thought we were … you know …”

“I’m not sure about marriage in general.”

He laughed. “Isra, who doesn’t want to grow old together and have babies and all that good stuff?”

Did he think it was that simple? His parents’ marriage must have been perfect, or else he was completely oblivious, or maybe it was just that much easier for men. I never saw Amu or Baba stress or suffer because of the women in their lives. I would never be able to make him understand. “It’s not so perfect.” I paused and set the flowers down on the dashboard. “I would think you’d understand. You’ve lived a lot more life than I have.”

He blew air from his mouth and tapped his fingers impatiently on the dashboard. “I know that, but things get complicated anyway.”

I wanted to ask him what he knew about life’s complications. He was the cherished only son who had the support of his family for nearly all his endeavors (except for those related to marrying rich girls, apparently). His family didn’t seem to have a lot of money, and he’d always had to work hard in school. But that was far from being complicated.

And what if I had a different vision of my life? What if I didn’t have room for him in that? “I said I would think about it, and I’ll take my time. I gave you yours. It took you long enough to even ask.”

He raised his eyebrows and grinned. It lit up his whole face, showing his white teeth, his green eyes sparkling. “So you wanted me to ask?”

I folded my arms and looked out of the window.

He pried my right arm from the other, took my hand in his. “You should have said something. I would have been here in a minute.”

I wasn’t in the mood to argue, but I refused to agree with him. “I can’t help that I need time to think.”

He reached over and kissed my cheek softly.

If I had known that Yusef had daisies waiting for me when I came home, it wouldn’t have been so hard for me to leave the roses to wilt in the car so Amu and Amtu wouldn’t see them. Amtu Samia had set the new bouquet on the coffee table in the living room. She was sitting on the couch watching television, and she reminded me that this sort of behavior wouldn’t continue in marriage. “But is nice he took the time to do it before,” she said, her arms crossed, her gaze turned right back to the TV. I expected to hear another lecture, but she must have been absorbed in her show, because she said nothing else.

“So are you going to marry him?” Hanan asked, reading from a textbook on the loveseat. I had told her all about him the night before. Well, at least about how I knew him through my friend Sana, and that we went to high school together for a year.

“I don’t know,” I said reluctantly, dropping down next to her.

“Imagine you as a wife,” Hanan said. “And him as your husband.” She must have been the only one who didn’t want me to get married. She said that I would be leaving her alone with her brother Rasheed because he’d probably never marry, or move out, or even graduate from college (he was already in his sixth year).

“I was her age when I married, and your father was not many years older than Yusef.” Amtu wagged her forefinger. “In Amreeka, you girls have too long to grow up. You have too much time to think, ‘I cannot do this. I will have to be woman.’” She shook her head.

She was exactly the reason why I would never want to grow up fast, the way she did.

“Going to college is grown up,” Hanan said.

Amtu dismissed the idea with her hand. “Laa, no, it’s only more school. You don’t have to be adult in schools, not at these American ones where the teachers spoil their students.”

CHAPTER TWO

I found out that Amu was having an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Five
• Chapter Six
• Chapter Seven
• Chapter Eight
• Chapter Nine
• Chapter Ten
• Chapter Eleven
• Chapter Twelve
• Chapter Thirteen
• Chapter Fourteen
• Chapter Fifteen
• Chapter Sixteen
• Chapter Seventeen
• Chapter Eighteen
• Chapter Nineteen
• Chapter Tewnty