My parents hardly ever visit us. Before the baby was born, they never did. Generally they stay about fifteen minutes, and leave. It’s been two months since ‘id el-fitr, our last visit to Tira, and this time Mother asked Father to make it a longer visit because she misses the baby. All week long she begged him to stay for at least an hour. My father agreed, but under one condition: he wanted Fatma, a friend from his Jerusalem days, to come along. On the way to Jerusalem, he called her and invited her to our house in Beit Safafa, a kind of official meeting place. My mother agreed, as long as she was given a chance to spend as much time as possible with her granddaughter.
Mother detests that Fatma. She won’t let anyone even mention her name. Every now and then, Grandma or Father or one of my aunts does, and it always gets on my mother’s nerves. She says Fatma’s a shameless whore. I’ve never seen Fatma. All I know is that she screwed up my father’s life. Grandma told me once that she’d found a whole bag of letters from Fatma to father — and she burned them all.
The phone rings, and before I have a chance to answer, Father says, “That must be Fatma. Tell her how to get here.”
The husky voice of an older woman says my name and notes that I sound like my father. Fatma says she’s at the “coiffeur,” the hairdresser, and her choice of words leaves no doubt that she belongs to the urban class, the one that uses a lot of European words. She’s from Ras el-Amud, but her hairdresser is in Talpiyot, on Ha-Uman Street. She doesn’t want detailed directions and makes do with the name of our landlord. One of the workers at the hairdresser’s is from Beit Safafa, and he’ll tell her how to get here.
My wife pulls me to the side and says we have nothing in the house. If it was only my parents, maybe it wouldn’t matter so much, but there’s a guest now too. She says I can’t go to the store, because I haven’t washed my face or brushed my teeth, and my eyes are swollen. She’ll go to the store with my brother. He’ll help her carry, too. My brother’s a good guy. Never lets you down.
My wife hands the baby to my mother, and the baby starts crying. My mother strokes her, rocks her, walks back and forth with her from the sink to the garbage in the living room, three steps away, trying to calm her down. It’s no use. My father lights another cigarette, and I take one too. I don’t usually smoke when the baby’s around, but since he’s smoking anyway, I don’t suppose my cigarette is going to make a difference. He smoked when I was little and I’m fine. All my brothers turned out fine.
I open the door. Fatma comes in, wearing a long black dress. She’s about my height, my father’s height. She has a red scarf over her shoulders. She’s dyed her hair and had it blow-dried. She’s fifty, maybe more. I don’t try to decide whether she’s prettier than my mother. They’re different. She looks like the society ladies who get interviewed on Jordanian or Egyptian TV. You don’t see any wrinkles, but you can still tell her age by the area around her mouth and eyes. Her eyelids are heavy. She blinks slowly as if she can hardly lift them.
She shakes my hand and smiles. She asks if I recognize her, and says that she saw me once when I was very little. My father tells her it wasn’t me, it was my older brother. My mother takes one arm off the baby and shakes Fatma’s hand, studying her. Fatma is thinner than she is. Fatma asks how she’s doing, smiles, and strokes the baby, whose crying grows more insistent. Fatma asks, “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” and says I have a beautiful daughter.
Father sits down on the couch, with a cigarette. “You haven’t changed,” he tells her.
She shakes his hand, sits down, and says that actually she wouldn’t have recognized him. His hair’s gone white, and he’s gained a lot of weight.
Father says, “I haven’t gained any weight,” and pulls in his stomach as he draws on his cigarette. He goes into the bathroom to find a mirror, then comes back and says, “I haven’t gained any weight,” and looks at Mother for confirmation.
My wife and brother are back, carrying two bags. My wife looks disappointed. She wanted to get back before Fatma arrived, and now the guest will know that we shopped specially for her. A bottle of Coke is sticking out of the bag, and Fatma says, “Why all the fuss? I don’t want anything. I don’t drink Coke.” She shakes my brother’s hand and says he’s as good-looking as his father once was.
My wife brings out some glasses and pours Coke for the guests. She arranges some bananas, oranges, and apples in a dish. She pours some peanuts out of a brown paper bag and serves them. She clears away the economy pack of wipes and the breast pump and places the tray near Fatma. “You have an adorable baby. She looks like you,” Fatma says, and my wife insists it isn’t true.
The couches are all taken by now. Father and Fatma are using two seats, and my brother and wife another two. My mother remains standing with the baby and I pull up a chair and sit opposite Father and Fatma, who are trying not to exchange glances. “Since when have you known each other?” I ask, and exhale some smoke.
Everyone looks at me, as if I’ve asked a taboo question. In our family, people don’t talk. We’re experts at concealing details.
“Since when?” Fatma repeats. “I’ll tell you since when.” My father is still preoccupied with his stomach, pulling it in and running his hand over his shirt, as if trying to make it smoother. “I was a young teacher,” Fatma says. “I was teaching in a school in the Et-Tur neighborhood, and after the war in ’sixty-seven they took all the teachers to visit the university. That’s where I saw your father. That’s how we met.”
“And then what? How did you start talking?” I ask again, and my mother says she’s not going to vote in the next elections. My father says that he thinks the Arabs owe it to themselves to vote. Fatma doesn’t have the right to vote anyhow, because she’s not a citizen. But even if she was, she wouldn’t take part in elections for the Israeli Knesset. Fatma has stayed thin, she’s stayed single, living with her brother and the family. Everyone’s in the tourism business. They have a lot of money, a lot of buses. This week, they bought a huge house for one of their nephews. Fatma likes to buy her clothes abroad, preferably in London. She has money. She’s vice principal of a school in Et-Tur. She clears seven thousand, and she has no use for the money. Thirty-two years now she’s been teaching, two years more than my mother.
“How exactly did you meet?” I ask again, trying to use the opportunity to find out about Fatma and her letters.
“I was the best-looking guy at the university,” my father says, and forces a smile, but Mother frowns. Father says he and Fatma wanted to get married. Fatma cuts him short and says it’s lucky they didn’t. “Look how much weight you’ve gained,” she says, trying to be a friend of the family. “How do you let him get away with it?” she asks Mother, and Mother has nothing to say. She feels unwanted and makes do with a nod.
Father says the reason they didn’t get married was that he got stuck. First he spent a few years in jail, and then under house arrest, and he didn’t leave the village. Mother breaks into his story and reminds herself out loud that she still has some cooking to do. That’s it; she doesn’t want to stay with the baby any longer. She’s sorry she ever agreed to Father’s condition. She wants to go home. The baby’s getting sleepy anyway. Everyone realizes it’s time to leave. Fatma says it’s Friday and the stores close early, and she still has to buy a birthday present for her niece.
The baby’s fallen asleep. I’ll have another cigarette and then I’ll go back to sleep. I’m on duty at the bar tonight too. I ask my wife if she’s seen my lighter, and she says that because of me we looked like beggars. It wasn’t enough that the house was filthy because I’m so lazy and primitive, it didn’t even occur to me to wash my face and change out of my sweats. She doesn’t know where my lighter is, but she thinks Fatma is pretty and knows how to take care of herself. “What’s the real story between her and your father?” she asks, and I tell her my father’s stolen my lighter.