Balcony on the Moon Page 15

  “Can you believe that after all the time I spent helping Mother with school she wants me to get engaged when I need to be most focused on my studies?” I say.

  “Do not be sad,” Mona says. “Think of Mother as Cinderella’s mean stepmom, and talk to the man. Maybe he is a prince. Maybe you will have a fairy-tale ending, where all injustice ends with fairness.”

  “But Mother is not a mean stepmother only. Sometimes she is a whole staircase. And she wants me to have an un-fair-y tale, with my right to self-sovereignty taken away. I must defend my dream of freedom.”

  “All right, forget about Cinderella. Let us pretend that we are in Little House on the Prairie on channel six. Didn’t you say you will speak to this man in English only? I am certain that you can do something mischievous that would delight even Laura Ingalls.”

  “I hope you are right, Mona. And you, what do you dream of accomplishing after finishing school?” I ask.

  “I have two plans. I want to become a flight attendant or a nurse.” She rubs her hands in delight.

  “Why?”

  “Because in both professions I can wear a beautiful uniform, put my hair up neatly under a hat, and be the one in charge at important moments.”

  “You cannot be a flight attendant in the West Bank,” I tell her. “We do not have Palestinian airlines, and the only airport we have is Qalandia, which has been out of service since the Six-Day War.”

  “Then that’s destiny telling me to take the nursing path,” she says, giggling. “But being Palestinian teaches you to be ready for any destiny.”

  Now we are silent for a long time.

  “What if we go to different countries and cannot see each other?” she asks. “What if we are separated for years like Aunt Amina and Mother? Like Grandma and Grandpa? Like us and Basel now—not knowing when we will next meet?”

  “Let us have an imaginary balcony on the moon,” I say. “If we cannot see each other in person, when the moon is full, and we can see it from wherever we happen to be living, we can gaze upward, climb to the sky like we climb the staircase of the Salah Building, and meet there. If I don’t find you when I get to our moon balcony, I will leave you a long letter with my news. Don’t forget to do the same.”

  “All right,” Mona replies excitedly. “I also will plant some imaginary flowers so that fragrant petals will glide from the sky to the earth on moon rays, and because we have the most beautiful family name in the world—Barakat, meaning blessings—I will paint a sign saying: WELCOME TO THE BALCONY OF BLESSINGS.”

  “I want to be there with you, too,” Jamal says, reminding us that he is nestled between us and has heard everything we said. We both embrace him.

  Before we go to sleep I tell Mona that I have a plan for how to respond to the man who wants to ask for my hand, but she has to wait to learn what it is.

  * * *

  Our guests will arrive this afternoon. My parents are different people in the presence of visitors. I ponder why strangers are welcomed with cheer, when family members are treated in ways that are often thoughtless.

  To prepare for the visit I aim to look as ugly as I can. Mother sees the clothes I put on, and demands that I change into something more feminine. She picks out a dress that I refuse to wear at first but finally accept to avoid a fight. It is true that I do not want to marry. But I am certain I want to live, and Mother has the look she reserves for special occasions. We call it the RBJ look, referring to Soviet-made rockets.

  Suddenly Mona rushes in from the balcony, saying that the guests are at the entrance of our building. “There are eight of them!”

  Mother leaves me and goes to put on the last touches in the room where we receive guests.

  I hear the doorbell ring; the minutes pass by slowly until Mother comes to get me: “The empty seat next to him is for you.”

  I raise my hands to the sky for divine help and follow her.

  “Ma sha’ Allah…” Everyone praises the Maker for my beauty. I sit next to the man who appears to be in his early twenties, not knowing what his name is. I never asked or wanted to know. On the coffee table are roasted pistachios, fresh fruit, and pastries. There is also Arabic coffee and tiny cups, which I had refused to carry on a tray and take to the guests as most girls do when someone comes to ask for their hand in marriage.

  As minutes tick on the wall clock in front of me, I am more and more certain that I can solve this problem, but I am anxious and everyone sees it. To ease what everyone perceives as normal girl shyness, one of his relatives begins speaking about politics, the most common social topic of all Palestinian life after religion and food.

  They comment on the American hostages in Iran, who were finally released after 444 days. They wonder if the new American president, Ronald Reagan, will do anything useful to help end the Israeli occupation.

  Mother switches the topic to the engagement of Princess Diana. I know that she is reminding me to speak to the man.

  I turn to him and say: “Let us speak in English.”

  He adjusts his posture to indicate that he is ready.

  Before starting, I ask if anyone else in the room speaks English and can converse with us.

  They all say no, except for Mother, who can speak some. But I know her level of fluency, and if I speak quickly, she will not understand. So I begin.

  “Your family owns a watch shop. The word watch in English is a verb and a noun. Are we watching time or is it watching us?!”

  “Is this philosophy?” he protests without looking at me. “I do not like it. It gives me a headache.”

  “All right, no need for philosophy. What do you know about the history of keeping time and the science of making watches? Who invented the first saa’ah, the hourglass?”

  “I do not know,” he replies, now appearing annoyed.

  That makes me feel I am succeeding in making him dislike me.

  “If we marry, I will be speaking about philosophy, history, and science all the time. That is what I know and like. Besides, I do not know how to cook because questions about cooking do not interest me.”

  “You do not know how to cook?” He raises his eyebrows. “Most girls who do not cook pretend that they do to appear ready for marriage. Why are you telling me this?”

  “Does it make a difference if you marry me or another girl?”

  “Our shop is on Main Street, and I watched you walk to school and back every day for some time and decided that I wanted you.”

  “What if I do not want you?”

  He is silent.

  “I do not want to marry you. My dream is to finish school, go to college, travel, and discover the world. People say women should stay at home. But home for all people is all of planet Earth. So, law samaht, please, I ask that you tell my family that you do not want to marry me, because if we do marry, against my wishes, I promise”—now I take a deep breath before I continue—“to make your life miserable!”

  “You must be in love with someone!” he challenges. Everyone hears the word love and looks at us. I get up to leave with careful steps and an averted gaze as though I am embarrassed to go on with the conversation and the talk of love.

  In a week he tells Father that he did not understand everything I said to him in English, and that he wants to wait longer before choosing a wife.

  “The man looked somewhat unhappy as he spoke,” Father adds.

  “What did you tell him in English?” Mother now demands to know every word.

  “I forget!”

  “Yallah! That is all right,” Mona jokes. “Time heals all wounds. He is a watchmaker and probably knows that. Tick. Tick. Tick.” She taps with her fingers on the wall where she is leaning.

  My father decides to spare himself further arguments with me. He announces that he will tell anyone who asks that only after the end of the summer will he consider any proposals. I embrace him.

  I am now free to go to the Tawjihi exams with nothing on my mind but my dream of completing high school with a high grade-
point average. No, no. With a high grade point, above average!

  Result

  Only a few days are left until the Tawjihi final comprehensive examinations. Like thousands of other students I have walked miles and miles with open books between my hands, head down as I studied a page. I skipped social activities, television, many hours of sleep, and many meals. I have memorized whole books, the periodic table with all the elements, a long list of equations and proofs, Qur’an verses for religion class, hundreds of poetry lines, biology facts, intricate Arabic grammar, and English rules.

  There was also a small folder titled “Arab Society and the Palestinian Problem” that was half handwritten and half typed. This is the first time in twelve years of school that we studied anything about Palestine. There were no maps in it, no flags, no mention of Palestine or Israel, no history or United Nations resolutions, no possible solutions, only a description of the problem with vague references. We are meant to copy the folder, read it alone, and not have any discussions in class about it. Many students created jokes to mock this folder and called it sharru al-baleyyah, the worst of a tragedy, after the Arab saying: The worst of a tragedy is what makes a person laugh.

  The feeling about this subject is heightened by the news from Lebanon that has become difficult to ignore. The civil war in Lebanon is entering its sixth year, and this week the Israeli air force entered Beirut to bomb the PLO headquarters and the main Palestinian refugee camps there. But I tell myself that all Palestinians everywhere, even in the refugee camps of Lebanon, would want me to focus on the exams ahead.

  I ask Mother in the evenings how she is doing. She complains that no matter how much one prepares, nothing guarantees the outcome. She is right, and we face many other difficulties. Our textbooks are determined by Israeli authorities, while the test is created by a testing organization in Jordan and we get a copy of the exam. So even though our textbooks are copies from the Jordanian textbooks, because when Israel occupied the West Bank it kept the same textbooks for our schools, they do not get updated because of the political tensions between Jordan and Israel. Also, some passages and references have been deleted from our textbooks by the Israeli military supervisor. We may be asked questions about subjects that students in Jordan have been taught but we have not. After the results are announced, there is no appeal process. Students who fail or who wish to take the exam again to raise their grade-point average have to repeat the school year.

  And not every one of our teachers is qualified to teach in his or her field. My chemistry and math teachers do everything they can to help us learn and be ahead of other schools. My biology teacher is also helpful, although when it was time for the one-hour class on the human body, she let the principal invite a male science educator from a boys’ school because she was too shy to talk about body parts.

  My physics instructor has a degree in agriculture. No matter what we say to her in class, she repeats her lesson plan like a radio program that never varies. We know less after she teaches us because her confused knowledge shakes our confidence in what we thought we understood before she taught us. This leaves many of us searching for outside help.

  * * *

  On the first day of exam week, Mother and I are ready. The first exam subject for me is mathematics and for her is history. We have breakfast together. Open books leave little space for our plates on the table. We chew our bread and mix sugar into milk slowly as the sunrise mixes colors into the darkness, turning gray into purple into pink and red and then daylight.

  As she eats, Mother prays and then says, “I must remember to breathe.”

  “Or you can sing,” I joke affectionately.

  We laugh, get ready, and then part like a pair of compasses that will draw a circle only when we come home at the end.

  Arriving early with many others, I see proctors asking everyone to empty their pockets, making certain that we hide nothing we can cheat with. Some students hurry to look at their notebooks for the last time before dropping them in the book-and-backpack corner.

  I have no cheat sheets hidden anywhere, for I prepared those and let go of them weeks ago. I wrote out all the information that I wanted to cheat on because I was worried about it, then studied it first, making cheating on the day of the exam unnecessary.

  The proctors stand alert. Most of them are teachers who have come from other towns, cities, and villages. Our own teachers work in other centers with students whom they have not taught.

  All is ready and the timer is set. The room is silent except for the proctors’ footsteps along the rows, and faint grating of sharpeners against pencils. The best sharpener for the mind in this hall, however, is the mix of anxiety and excitement filling us. The doors are closed and a teacher starts the timer. Pencils then touch paper, and there is no stopping after this moment.

  I glance at all the pages of the booklet to determine where best to start. Most of the sections are multiple-choice questions. We are to do the needed calculations on the back of the booklet and not use any extra paper. I write down the formulas I have memorized that give shortcuts to answers. From question to question my cheeks become hotter as though I am running a race. I only stop when one proctor leans close near my ear and whispers: “I am told that you are a good student.”

  At first I am puzzled. Then I understand when I notice a girl I don’t know, a few seats away from me, weeping and shaking quietly.

  “Some of the students,” the proctor whispers, “have not studied well enough because of hard circumstances. Will you help?” She looks me in the eye and raises her eyebrows. I know that some people cheat on exams, but I have never heard of a proctor facilitating this.

  As I try to decide what to say, I remember Wafa from Beitunia and the death of her mother. She never had a chance even to be here. And I have heard of many incidents of hardship. Some high school students, mainly political activists or those who encourage demonstrations, are arrested by the army the night or the morning of the exams to punish them by depriving them of completing school that year. Those who come from poor families that cannot afford the expenses of another school year then have their dream to hang a certificate on the wall taken away. I think of Mother, whose circumstances made her wait for twenty years before she could continue.

  “Come back in fifteen minutes,” I say. “I must finish all of my work first.”

  “Shukran, thank you.” She nods quietly as she leaves to whisper to the weeping girl. Now I solve test problems and worry whether I should do this or not. My father comes to mind. Sometimes when I ride with him in his truck, I see that when a police car is anywhere in the area, all the drivers warn each other by flashing their lights as they pass. The policeman hiding behind a bend in the road is then surprised by all the cars that move like turtles near him and the drivers who wave hello to him, too.

  My conclusion is that for me to help someone on an exam like this is not cheating. It is un-cheating. Something in me says: We are made to live with no land, no country, no rights, no safety, and no respect for our dignity. The world is cheating the Palestinians, and it is cheating girls even more. To give what I know here to someone might not make her pass, for I cannot be completely certain that my answers are correct. But if I do help, one person will remember forever that the world is good and someone was willing to help her, just like I will forever remember that Mr. Baha’ al-Din helped me by sending me money and encouraging me to keep writing.

  The proctor is here again. I am ready to share my answers. She has a piece of paper and a pencil. I open my booklet with all the multiple-choice sections completed. She writes the numbers of the questions and next to them the letters I chose as correct. And she scribbles some notes from the proof-based solutions to non-multiple-choice problems.

  She is grateful, offering me a big smile. I remind myself that one of God’s attributes is al-aaleem, one who knows our reasoning and intents. With that, I am content.

  Walking home, I pass by other testing centers, and notice that a few male s
tudents who finished early are on the streets shouting answers at the top of their lungs, hoping that those who are using all the allotted test time because they are having trouble may catch an answer to a difficult question. Some helpers are even climbing trees to be heard better. I know that they are mostly distracting those inside.

  * * *

  When exam week is over, I organize my books so that someone else in my family may use them later on. I wish Muhammad would use them. If he had stayed in school, he would have graduated by now.

  “Is there a chance you will be doing Tawjihi anytime?” I ask him.

  He shakes his head. His eyes are filled with sadness. I wish he would tell me what happened that made school a place of pain for him.

  Mother refuses to make even one comment about how the tests went for her until we get our results.

  To entertain ourselves, Mother and I watch the recording of Madrasat al-Mushaghebeen (School of Troublemakers) over and over again. It is an Egyptian play about students who drive their teachers and principal to the furthest edge of patience. We laugh for hours without stopping. They do exactly what we wanted to do with some of our teachers.

  Then Muhammad comes home saying that he has changed his mind about traveling. Because many of the Palestinians who have left the country are not allowed to come back, Muhammad fears that if he leaves the West Bank, he may never be able to live in Ramallah or see us again. And he does not want that to happen. “I do not want to speak another language,” he says. “Why should I? What is wrong with Arabic? I do not dream to be anyone else other than me. And I do not wish to add more complications to my life.”

  Part of me understands exactly what Muhammad says. The other part of me, which wants freedom at any cost, is why I am certain I would travel no matter whether I was allowed reentry or not, and would learn all the languages of the world if I had to.

  Muhammad sits for a driving test and gets his driver’s license. He does not speak about traveling anymore.

  Mother distracts herself on the last days of waiting for the outcome of the Tawjihi with Princess Diana’s wedding on television. All I celebrate is the news of Diana’s refusal in her marriage vows to say that she will obey her prince. Love is enough, I think.