Balcony on the Moon Read online

  * * *

  Within the first month after we move into our apartment, Mother follows the Palestinian custom of introducing our family to our new neighbors by sending me to deliver a plate of delicious food to each of them.

  “You are the safeerah, our ambassador,” she explains. “This is an important responsibility. The neighbors will judge all of us by how you behave when they meet you. Do not pester them with questions; just deliver the food.” She shakes her hands up and down for emphasis, and waits for me to nod that I understand. “Remember to greet the person who opens the door by saying, ‘Marhabah, hello, I am the daughter of your new neighbor, Um Basel, Mother of Basel. Please accept this food from her.’ Any questions?”

  “Yes,” I reply, even though I know the question I have is one she doesn’t want to hear. “Why do you always have to be called Um Basel? Can’t you be called Mother of Ibtisam on some days?” I ask for the hundredth time, although she has explained that a mother in Arab culture is called by the name of her first male child. “Can’t we change that custom in our family?”

  As usual, she ignores me, and that makes me sad every time because I do not ever count in her name, not even on my birthday.

  As Mother’s ambassador, I first go to meet the old man who lives above our apartment and owns the entire building. His name is Haj Hamd Allah. He always wears white-and-sky-blue-striped pajamas and a white knit cap, and carries the traditional phosphorous glow-in-the-dark masbahah of thirty-three prayer beads. Both Father and Grandma Fatima have a masbahah. It means that a person praises and thanks Allah all the time.

  Haj Hamd Allah’s apartment is on top of our half of the basement and has a glass-enclosed veranda. He sits there in the afternoons to rest. We can see him from the street. When he goes inside, we hear his footsteps moving above us like a slow bear, and we know exactly which room he is in.

  Haj Hamd Allah watches me suspiciously as I climb the white stone steps that lead to his veranda, then stand at the door holding the plate of food. He seems to dislike children as much as I dislike his frown.

  He calls for his granddaughter, Izdehar, to answer, and I am relieved. I met Izdehar shortly after we moved in. She visits him at the end of every week to cook his food, wash his clothes, and clean his house. For her last chore, Izdehar rolls up her sleeves to her elbows, her pants to her knees, and stands on a chair to clean the glass of the veranda. Then, with soapy water thick with bubbles, she scrubs the white stone steps.

  The second time Izdehar and I spoke, she asked me if her grandfather goes out during the day. I told her that he only goes out occasionally to harvest some fruit from the trees in his orchard. Even though I did not mention that his frown frightens me, she said that Haj Hamd Allah is a kind man but has become withdrawn since her grandmother died.

  Now Izdehar takes the plate and nudges her grandfather, who says to me, “I told your parents that you must stay away from my fruit trees, including the ones near your door. But I’ve changed my mind. Choose an apple and a plum tree to harvest.”

  I thank him and fly down the steps to tell Mother the news; then in minutes I am back at his door: “Mother says we will prune the orchard in return.” As Haj Hamd Allah shows a rare smile, he also shows his perfect white set of dentures. When I leave I am glad that he is happy. But the pruning, I think, will not only help him, it may help console Father for the loss of his goat because Father also loves to garden.

  * * *

  The second visit I make is to Um Ibrahim, the woman who lives in the other half of the basement. She wears a colorfully embroidered black thawb, the traditional Palestinian dress for women, and a white shawl, and has one brown eye and one blue eye. Seeing the food, she praises Mother’s thoughtfulness and wants to know more about our family, especially the number of children.

  “Three boys and two girls,” I say. “The oldest is ten and a half, and the youngest is one.”

  “Ma sha’ Allah, children are blessings,” she replies.

  “My parents want to have two more boys, so we will be five boys and two girls when that happens.”

  Um Ibrahim laughs. “But what if the babies are girls?”

  “My parents prayed for boys only, and I am certain that Allah listens to people’s prayers.”

  Against Mother’s instructions not to do anything but deliver the food, I ask Um Ibrahim about herself.

  “Come,” she says. “I will show you.” She leads me to a room that has two giant shiny steel containers. Together they are the size of a big bed and fill up most of the space. When she opens the first container, waves and waves of steam rise up as though the contents are boiling. But when I look inside I realize that the containers hold tubs of red and yellow ice cream.

  “I make ice cream and my son Ibrahim transports it in thermoses to sell in villages every day. That is how we earn a living.”

  I stand there mesmerized with pleasure, breathing in the fragrance of vanilla. I open my mouth to lick the ice cream fog and chase it with my tongue. Um Ibrahim laughs.

  I have heard Ibrahim’s motorcycle’s annoying loud noise and seen the thermoses secured behind him, but never guessed that only a wall separated me and my family from a roomful of ice cream. Um Ibrahim empties the plate I brought to her, washes it, and fills it with the two flavors: strawberry and vanilla. She gives me sugar cones, too. The surprise at home turns our day into a feast. We do not have a refrigerator, so we eat it all at once.

  The last family that lives in our building is the Asfoors. Their apartment is identical to Haj Hamd Allah’s, including a glass-enclosed veranda. But while Haj Hamd Allah’s veranda has a prayer rug showing the ninety-nine names of Allah, the Asfoors’ veranda has a big painting of the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus.

  Mr. and Mrs. Asfoor stay home like Haj Hamd Allah. They have a son and a daughter, Nicholas and Camellia, in their twenties, and a young son, Issa, who is my age. Nicholas and Camellia go to work every weekday, but Nicholas works full-time and Camellia works half a day, coming home early to help her mother with housework.

  It is Camellia who answers my knock. After taking the food, she offers me a cup of lemonade, which I drink. Gazing at the large painting of the Virgin Mary, I want to ask Camellia about Christianity but wonder if Mother would be upset if she knew. I ask anyway.

  I tell her that although my family is Muslim, one of Grandma’s sisters became a Christian nun. That happened during the Great Depression, when many Western countries faced extreme economic hardships. Palestine and other regions that had come under British control after World War I, and had their political and economic lives ruled by Britain, faced severe hardships, too. A church adopted Grandma’s sister and changed her name from Amenah to Mary. Now she lives in a convent in the Old City of Jerusalem, near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Because Mother calls her Aunt Mary, all of us do, too.

  As a nun, Aunt Mary cannot marry or have children. She spends her days reading the Bible, praying, lighting candles, working for the church, and studying history, using the several languages she knows. She rarely speaks about Christianity to us. The only time she did was when she mentioned the name of Allah in a conversation. I asked her if Christians believe in Allah like Muslims do. She explained that as an Arab Christian she prays to Allah using the same name for God that Muslims use. Allah is the Arabic word that describes the One God that Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad believed in. The Hebrew Bible has the word Elohim.

  Camellia acts like Aunt Mary. She does not want to talk about Christianity but says that she likes being a Christian living in Ramallah. She feels it is sacred to walk on the same land where Yasūaa’, Jesus, walked and grew up.

  “His footsteps are right here, under our footsteps,” she says. “His voice is under our voices.”

  “What did Jesus say?” I ask.

  “Love your neighbor!” she replies, smiling.

  That makes me feel wonderful. Camellia is telling me that it is important to be good to your neighbors. I know that Islam says
this, too. I wish someone could tell me how many religions there are in the world and what they believe.

  Camellia then fills the plate I brought with a food I have never eaten before: living snails, inside their shells. “Take them to your mother,” she says. “Tell her they are delicious sautéed in garlic and olive oil.”

  I take the snails to Mother and she asks that I deposit them, one by one, inside the stone wall around the orchard so that they can go on living.

  “Are they a Christian food?” I ask. Muslims, unlike Christians, don’t eat pork or drink alcohol. Maybe we aren’t allowed to eat snails either.

  “I only cook what your father can eat, and snails are not among your father’s foods,” she says.

  * * *

  In December, the Asfoor family sets up a tree decorated with lights in their glass veranda. It changes the feeling of the entire street. They are preparing to observe Christmas. I have not seen Christmas lights so close before. After looking at their tree, I make a finger-size one from pencil shavings that I glue around a stick planted inside a cup of dried mud. Small dots from Mother’s red nail polish are the lights. As I hear Christmas hymns played on the radio, I admire my tree.

  Issa tells me that Baba Noel, Santa Claus, will be coming in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve to give him a present.

  “In the middle of the night? Is he not afraid?” I ask.

  “Santa only works at night. He is not a normal person.”

  Camellia adds that Baba Noel travels the world on a sleigh pulled by deer to help celebrate the birth of Jesus, which happened centuries ago in the city of Bethlehem, less than an hour from where we live in Ramallah.

  “Is Santa’s sleigh similar to Aladdin’s magic carpet?” I ask.

  “He has reindeer helping. Aladdin has a genie,” Issa says.

  On Christmas Eve I find every excuse possible to open the door and run outside to see if Baba Noel has arrived in our neighborhood. I want to glimpse him even if for a second. Finally, Mother locks the door and puts the key in her pocket. I stand by the window waiting, but in spite of myself, I fall asleep before midnight.

  I wake up to my parents speaking. “Who could be knocking at this hour?” Father says.

  “I hope they are not soldiers,” Mother murmurs. My brothers and sister quickly wake up, too.

  Standing near but not opening the door, Father asks, “Meen elly barra?” Who is outside?

  The answer comes back gently, almost like a whisper, accompanied by a tiny bell ringing softly: “Baba Noel.”

  “Baba who?” Father has no idea who Santa Claus is.

  The voice answers again: “Baba Noel looking for Issa.”

  Now Father opens the door to see Santa’s face, beard, and red suit.

  I shout that Issa’s apartment is on the other side of the building.

  Soon after, my parents, brothers, sister, and I hear a car drive off.

  “He is only a man wearing a costume,” Mother explains, hoping to calm us down. “I can make a suit like his and let you wear it, too. Now go to sleep!”

  But I stay up thinking about Issa’s present. The next day when he does not volunteer to tell me what Santa gave him, I do not ask. But I ask everyone in my family what they would want if Santa could bring them something.

  Muhammad: The best food, and to be the strongest person in the world so no one can hit me …

  Mona: A whole shop of beautiful clothes and toys …

  Mother: To become rich and spend all my time learning new things …

  Basel: No one has asked me this before. I want to think about it longer before answering …

  Me: One big book that has all the stories of the world in it, and a tree that grows pens and pencils …

  Father: Freedom, and a cure for narcolepsy …

  Everyone nods their heads, adding to their wishes a cure for narcolepsy.

  Fingerprints

  It is the middle of February, the month nicknamed shbat al-khabbat, the batterer, because of the big cold storms that whip our world. Outside, the wind is whistling. A thick fog is making it hard to see the orchard from our window. It has not stopped raining all day. There is so much rain that the large well in the yard filled up as fast as if it were a teacup. I am happy that February is a short month.

  We are gathered around the tall green space heater, rubbing our hands together for warmth as we wait for Father to come home from work. The chattering of our teeth magnifies the trembling of our hearts.

  “Ta’akhkhar ktheer! He is so late,” Mother says. She bites her lip and holds back tears. She also holds her pregnant belly. There is nothing she can do. Father does not tell us where he goes each day because he does not know his destination. After he leaves in the morning, he drives to places he is told to go to pick up or deliver goods, and comes home in the evening not wanting to speak of work, except on the days when he reaches the sea or visits a new city, town, or village. He also tells us about when he passes by old Palestinian towns that have become depopulated because of wars and are now nothing but names and neglected ruins. He has seen many of them when they were full of people, so he describes to us how they were in the past, too, and with his words he brings them back to life for us.

  My brothers Basel and Muhammad are passing the anxious time by talking about the accident our father had in Jerusalem several months ago during a school vacation when they were with him. Because Father has narcolepsy, he often falls asleep while driving, so Basel and Muhammad, when not in school, accompany him so they can wake him up if he falls asleep. Whenever his head droops, they shout and shake him. He usually wakes up quickly. But the accident last year left Father with broken ribs and Basel with his arm in a cast for weeks.

  Father’s narcolepsy has worsened over time. It started when he was twenty-five years old, ten years before he married Mother, and he has tried many medicines and ways to cope. But even the three electric-shock treatments he received from doctors in Jordan could not heal him.

  He falls asleep while doing anything. It can happen every five minutes or every few hours. Sometimes, halfway through dinner, his spoon hangs in the air, then drops from his hand. As he sleeps, Father slides lower and lower in his seat.

  When guests visit us, he often closes his eyes while they speak to him. After he wakes up, he is confused and embarrassed. But everyone ignores what has happened, and someone makes a quick summary of what has been said so he can rejoin the conversation.

  Father takes many anti-sleeping pills, prescribed for him by a psychiatrist in East Jerusalem, drinks mud-thick coffee and deep-dark tea, but all of this has become ineffective. I am disappointed in medicine for not offering a cure for narcolepsy and wish the famous Muslim doctor Ibn Sīnā could come from the eleventh century to the twentieth and help him.

  Father fights for his life every work hour as he tries to stay awake while driving, especially because the hum of the road lulls him to sleep behind the wheel. In Islam we believe in angels, so I imagine that Allah sends many angels who work frantically to make sure that Father is safe.

  We have begged him to find different work, but driving is the only job Father loves to do. He makes clear to all of us that he will continue getting up at dawn, before the sun rises, praying to Allah, then going to work, until he is dead. “Have your feelings and let me work.” He shrugs. “What other family in the world has a father who can drive with his eyes closed?”

  Finally we hear heavy steps splashing in the puddles outside and see Father appear in the fog. He is swaying left and right, and we see that he is holding his hand tightly.

  “Take me to the hospital,” he mutters the moment Mother opens the door.

  There is blood on his wet clothes.

  Instantly I am at the Asfoors’, knocking on their door and explaining that Father is hurt and asking them to make a phone call for a taxi to take him to the hospital.

  When the taxi arrives, Father, leaning on Nicholas and supported by my older brothers and the driver, is driven
to the hospital. I write a prayer in the form of a letter to Allah asking for forgiveness for any mistakes I might have made that contributed to Allah making Father get hurt, and then I ask Allah to protect Father’s life.

  Father comes home early the next morning with a bandaged hand and a pale complexion. Several days later he is able to speak about the accident for the first time.

  He says that even though he lost part of his thumb, he is happy he did not die, and for that he will pray extra times in gratitude. He then explains: As he was coming home he got a flat tire, so he parked the truck on the side of the road. He was only half a mile away, but he thought that because of the rain and fog and the lack of streetlights, it would be unwise to leave the truck there for the night. Other cars could easily crash into it, risking someone’s life. So he raised it up on a jack to fix the tire. He had done this many times before. But because of the mud, the jack slipped, and the truck fell onto his thumb and severed it.

  Without thinking, and before the shocking pain overtook him, he picked up the piece of his thumb and pressed it back to where it was before. He then ran and walked in the storm, sometimes silent, sometimes howling his pain, until he got home.

  * * *

  “Behyat rabbak, by the name of Allah, find a different kind of job,” Mother pleads once again when Father is ready to go back to work. He resists at first because he does not want to hear such talk, but then he finds a job as a school guard. He sticks with it for a few weeks, then quits because when he falls asleep the boys sneak out through the school gate. He cannot wake up to stop them, and he feels ashamed and humiliated when the teachers see this.

  At home, he bangs his fists on the wall in impatience, angry tears in his eyes. And he grieves that in losing part of his thumb he lost part of his fingerprint, his identity. When letting himself feel this loss, he also finds himself remembering how much he misses a world that his thumb once touched: his mother’s face, his father’s hands—both of whom are dead—his many relatives whom he does not see because borders are closed.