Several days ago, Khalto Riham found them on the green apartment’s balcony, swaying on the porch swing. Instead of scolding them, she sat down and read verses from her small, worn Qur’an.
“There’s a war,” she told them. “People are fighting, bad things are happening. People are dying. We can’t do anything but wait. And pray.”
They’d sat out there for nearly an hour, the sun setting over the water, the sounds of traffic screeching below, but Khalto Riham didn’t flinch once, her voice strong and even as she went over the suras.
“O Allah,” she said, at the very end. “Please keep these darlings safe.”
During the summers, Linah plays with Zain’s friends from school, all neighborhood children: Camille, Alex, Tony. Zain has been friends with them since third grade. Before the war, the five of them would hang out on the Corniche, talking about video games and movies, as waves crashed behind them.
The connection among all of them—something Linah has suspected for a while but been unable to put into words, something she’s been understanding more and more—has a lot to do with difference. There is something about them that feels unlike the other kids, especially those back at her school in Boston. Tony spends a lot of time in trouble. Alex has a sister with Down syndrome. And Camille, who is beautiful with long blond hair, is painfully shy except in their little group, spending her time drawing seascapes in her notebooks.
They all come from elsewhere. Alex’s father is Jordanian, Tony’s is Swedish, and Camille’s mother is British. They are all mishmashed and mixed up, which draws them together, Linah sees, just like the siphonophores she studied in biology last year.
As for Linah, she feels her difference glow through, something phosphorescent beneath her skin. Weeks ago, Linah and Camille were getting ice cream at Malik’s when the most popular girl at Zain’s school, Marie, overheard Linah talking about Jbail.
“You’re not even Lebanese.” Marie’s voice rung out loud and sharp, several patrons in the store turning to stare.
Taken aback, Linah stammered through an answer. “W-we have an apartment here, we come every summer—”
The other girl’s mouth twisted meanly. “You think that matters? With your weird accent in Arabic.” A couple of girls behind her tittered. “You think your people deserve to be here? My mom told me all about them. Palestinians killed my uncle during the war.” Linah felt dozens of eyes upon her, heard whispering. Camille froze like a deer.
And Linah felt confused, was speechless, wanting to say something about how no one ever really talked about being Palestinian in her house, the same way no one talked about being Iraqi, that when either set of grandparents came over, they spoke of things like villages and bombings with a sort of mournful resignation, as though the places in question had vanished into thin air. She wanted to say something about how she’d never been to Iraq or Palestine, that she knew only Boston and Beirut, that this was her home in the summers, and Marie must be wrong, because whoever it was that killed her uncle, it wasn’t Linah’s people, whatever that meant.
But her voice felt ghosted and so she said nothing at all.
There is the sound of footsteps in the hallway, and, a moment later, the door opens and her mother appears.
“Lunchtime.” Her hair looks greasy; dark circles smudge her eyes.
“Is it more chicken?” Zain makes a face.
“I’m not hungry,” Linah says.
“I think there’s some rice too. Linah, you haven’t eaten since the morning. Come on.”
In the kitchen, Tika stands over the sink, rinsing a pot. Budur pulls out two dishes and sets them on the table, slightly too hard. “Tika, please, can you fix them something to eat?”
“Chicken?” Tika wipes her hands on her apron. “There’s some underneath that foil. I’ll heat it up.”
Linah peels back the foil, eyes the cold, greasy chicken. She gestures to Zain and they grimace.
“Can we have pizza?” Linah asks as her mother turns to leave.
“No, Linah, you can’t.” Her voice is tense. She takes a breath; Linah watches the guilt travel across her face. Her mother brushes several strands of Linah’s hair from her eyes. “Maybe tomorrow, monkey.”
Tika heats up two plates, places the food in front of them. Linah and Zain peel the crispy skin off the chicken and eat glumly. “It tastes like rubber,” Zain says.
Tika laughs. Zain turns to her and asks, “Can you make us potatoes and eggs?”
“Yes!” Linah slips out of her chair, rushes to her. Tika is tiny, barely Linah’s height even with the small stool she uses to reach the sink. “Please. Please, please, please.” She ducks her head and bites Tika’s arm lightly, a gesture from when Linah was younger. Linah loves Tika, sometimes dreams about her in Boston. “Please,” she says through her open mouth. Tika’s skin tastes like soap and sweat.
Tika yelps, shakes her arm. “Get off of me, savage child.” She grins. “You want mild or spicy?” Linah and Zain look at each other.
“Spicy,” they say in unison.
Sometimes, if Linah begs enough, Tika will show her photographs of her home. Her town is named Matara and Tika once wrote it for her using Tamil letters and then gave Linah the slip of paper. It looked like dancing lines, a curlicue of beetles, not an alphabet.
In the photographs there are rows of huts with moss-covered rooftops and gardens of leafy plants. There are palm trees, some bent over so far the leaves graze the houses, as though they are kissing their cheeks. A group of people stand in front of the huts, all dark and tiny like Tika, the men with thin mustaches, the women wearing stacks of bracelets all the way up to their elbows. Last summer, after Tika went home to visit, she returned with boxes of rainbow-colored bracelets for Linah and Manar, made of glass and metal, dotted with rhinestones and small mirrors.
Because this is my job, not my home, Tika told Linah when she asked why Tika never wore any bracelets herself. She said it gently, but the words still stung Linah. She knows there is a boy, Manar’s age, back in Matara, reedy-looking, wearing glasses in the photographs—Tika’s son.
Manar never wears the bracelets, always dressing in flannel shirts and jeans, even in the summer, so Linah took hers, stacks them all on both arms. Linah loves the sound they make, like an orchestra, whenever she moves. The colors, watermelon pink, lemon yellow, vibrant purples, make her mouth water.
Tika sets the plates of bright red potatoes and eggs on the table, then two glasses of milk.
“For the spice,” she says, smiling.
The eggs are delicious and peppery, a welcome change from the chicken and bread they’ve eaten all week. Linah’s eyes water and Zain’s face mottles.
“God,” he sputters, gulping the milk.
“It’s not that bad,” she says, shrugging. Her throat is on fire. She sips the milk nonchalantly.