Chapter 2: 3eib!!!

Adila did not notice that for the past half hour her husband was still sitting in his bedroom missing the rest of his show, until he called for her. She was entangled in the three-way conversation where she found herself the center of attention for once. As soon as she heard him though, she rushed to him. She was not afraid, but it was rude for him to call on her when they had guests. Back in Syria, the guests would think they were not welcome; both Adila and Mehsen maintained good social etiquette. They were both from very small and remote villages, but they were raised with traditional values. One of these values was “the guest is a king in your house.” But here, in this case, Adila went too far in Mehsen’s opinion. She hurried to the door of their bedroom and hushed him quickly in worries that the guest might be offended.

Mehsen asked, “Who exactly is this female? And why is she not leaving yet? What does she want?” When Adila assured Mehsen that the girl is looking for their neighbor, Mehsen interrupted: “The bachelor with the dark hair?” “I don’t know who,” and she quickly recited to her husband how she encountered the girl. “We talked about Syria, how we got here, Mustafa is translating.” Then Mehsen told her that the neighbor is this guy “who is not married and does not have kids, why is the girl visiting a bachelor in his house unaccompanied?”

Mehsen saw the bachelor in question a couple of times, he pointed out. Then he asked Adila if the girl has plans to leave, and Adila impatiently replied: “I don’t know, I can not ask her to leave, 3eib" (which means shameful). She closed the door before her husband could squeeze in any more complaints and went back to the kitchen. The girl was standing, holding her purse, and she already put her coffee cup in the sink. Moustafa was showing her his truck and how his big wheels are stuck because Ibrahim, his friend, stepped on it few days ago.

Adila smiled dramatically to make sure that the girl does not detect any problems with any arrangements and that no one is bothered by her presence. But the girl wanted to leave, so she extended her arm to Adila, then decided that she wanted to hug Adila, so she hugged her; Adila froze. Now that was not expected, for some reason she was a little bit uncomfortable with that gesture from the American, then she hugged her back tightly, and before she knew it she cried, and then she sobbed.

The girl did not know what to do, so she sat Adila down: “Are you ok? Are you ok?” She turned to the boy: “Is she ok?” Moustafa stood unknowing what to do. He told his mom that the girl is asking her if she were ok, and the mother told him to tell the girl that she was fine. She just misses her family. “Of course” the girl understood the sentiment, but she was pressed on time, and she wanted to know if her friend was back. So she told Adila that she thought her “very brave, and very kind, and very strong.” Adila loved these words, they made her smile, and made her stop crying, and she thought that she really really liked this girl; they have a connection. She asked her to come back often for coffee. The girl nodded, “Sure!”

She walked her out and waited for her until she knocked, and the door opened, and she went in with a quick wave back to Adila and a pop of the head from the dark haired neighbor and a smile and a nod, and it was all over. Adila went back in with a sinking feeling, she walked passively to the table and sat down. She was sad. For some reason she was very sad; she did not want the girl to go. She looked to the sink and saw that her dishes were still there, so absentmindedly she started rinsing them off, then she remembered her husband trapped in the bedroom, so she sent Moustafa to get his father out of there.

Mehsen was fuming, he complained some, but he realized Adila was silent more than usual, and she looked like she cried, so he wrapped up his complaints and went back to the T.V. He was aware of the sadness that was overwhelming his wife; somehow every time she remembered Syria, she cried. She missed her house, her mother, her sisters, and her neighbors.

Adila never really went anywhere, and she was always quiet. She recognized the alphabet, she knew a few sentences in English, but she didn’t know how to drive, and she never finished high school. Also, he didn’t approve of his wife working, and even if he did, his mother would not let him hear the end of it, and even if he was able to convince his mother, Adila does not have any skills to allow her to work anywhere. She was also very shy and quiet.

Mehsen knew that Adila is a good woman, maybe her kitchen skills are very limited, but the poor thing tries. She had been very patient with the misplacement that happened. He knew it was not easy.

Mehsen met Adila in his village when she was visiting his aunt, then he asked his aunt about her, and his aunt praised Adila on her upbringing, and he arranged to meet her parents, and within few weeks he was married to her. Adila was 20 back then; now she was almost 27. She was quite uneventful and uncomplaining; things were going well. He respected her, and he valued her quite enough.

Out of respect for his wife’s feelings, Mehsen kept the T.V on a very low volume so she could listen to her Fairouz which reminded her of home; that makes her calm down. Mehsen never knew how to soothe his wife, but he had a lot of trust in Fairouz. “Fairouz is quite magical,” he thought. He praised himself introspectively for being so savvy in women’s needs for space, so he gave Adila a lot of space most of the time. Almost always.

Adila finished the dishes, Fairouz was starting to get on her nerves, so she turned the music off. She looked at her counter-tops, they were clean, but she felt that she wants to give them a thorough scrubbing; she needed something to do to keep her mind busy. It was all too quiet. In her head she was back home, with her sisters, watching Arabic soap operas … she smiled bitterly, her eyes watering … then she heard something, a noise. She wrinkled her brows -“someone is in pain” she thought, oh here is that noise again, it sounded familiar, it was like moaning. She had goosebumps, but she did not know why, “Maybe someone is giving birth? GIVING BIRTH?!? What an idiot thought, of course no one is giving birth! It sounds like someone is … this sounds like utterances that her husband makes when they are together in bed … oh my … oh no, but the girl is making them as well! I should not be hearing this, maybe I should turn the music back on.” Her hands were now shaking, she felt like she was exposed to something that she did not want to be part of, something she shouldn’t hear. “Can Mehsen hear that?” She glanced quickly at her husband who was reclined nonchalantly on the sofa, quite comfortable with his relationship with the program. Then she tiptoed to the side of the kitchen where no one could hear her, and she pressed her ear to the wall.

Adila could not turn the music back on, she ­­­­knew that in a little bit this girl is going to realize that she has been shamed, and she is going to be crying. “Oh, how did I let this girl fool me? I thought she was a good girl, she seemed like she is a good girl, oh this man has tricked her, maybe he made her drink something, and he is taking advantage of her.” Adila was quite upset now. She was worried too. “What if Mehsen hears this? He is going to think that I am welcoming girls in my house that are of low character.”

“He is going to think that he married someone who does not know good from bad, and then he will talk about the incident with his mother, and his mother will report back to her daughter, and the whole village is going to be talking about how terrible Mehsen's choice in wives is. Oh no, this will bring shame to my family, my father will be too embarrassed to show his face on the street.” But Adila, with all of her overwhelming feeling of doom and shame for herself, she could not resist thinking about that poor girl’s fate. “When that poor girl’s father or brother know about this, they will kill her!”

The moaning escalated, and Adila pressed her ear to the wall even harder, then she was quite bothered by new “shrieks,” so she pulled back and hit the fridge, from the far right side of the kitchen where her husband could not see her. Then she stood frozen. She heard nothing. She pressed hard again, and nothing was on the other side. She heard her husband move in the living room, so she opened the cabinet and emptied it and removed the pots and started cleaning the lower cabinets. But she moved slowly and quietly to make sure not to cover the noise if it were to happen again.

She cleaned and rubbed, she was worried, and nothing was happening. Time was moving slowly, then the door opened outside. She knew it was apartment 409. She stood up quickly, and pressed her ear to the door; the girl was giggling, she was speaking in English, and she was not ashamed! She was not crying! Nothing! Maybe he gave her drugs or ALCOHOL! Adila heard since she was little that alcohol is bad, it is the works of the devil, and it makes you do things without knowing that you are doing them. They had a man who lived two doors down back in the village in Syria, in Deir EL Zor, that man used to drink, he was an alcoholic. “Oh poor girl!” Adila decided that the man next door is a terrible person, but he might redeem himself if he marries her.

She opened the door slightly and quietly peeped out, and she saw the girl walking away towards the elevator with a bounce to her step. Adila was puzzled.