She’d looked for her great-grandmother’s house for hours, finally showing an old photograph of Alia’s to marketplace vendors who shrugged and gave vague directions toward the cliffs. She walked and walked until she saw a pale minaret in the distance, remembered in a flash her grandfather mentioning a mosque, and headed for it; she eventually arrived at a row of houses and, suddenly, there it was: the pitched roof from the photographs, a hedge of jasmine bushes. A house unmistakably shaped like the one in the photograph, though different, the front yard smaller, the exterior repainted blue, the wire clothesline gone.
Manar stood there for a long time, holding the photograph in her hand, her grandmother and grandfather half a century younger, a bearded man next to them, his arm casually draped around Alia. Her great-uncle. Mustafa. He’d died a long time ago, before any of them had been born. Manar looked at the grainy photograph, then the real house, then back again. She bade herself to feel something, some internal tectonic shift. But she just felt like an interloper, trespassing on memories that had nothing to do with her.
This morning, Manar decided on a whim to visit Jaffa. The city has a pacifying effect on her, the shoreline jutting out to meet the sea. The city is worn, shabby but enchanting, the walls scribbled with graffiti. Up close, Jaffa shows its age.
Even here in the restaurant, the tables are cracked, the wood faded. The waiter brings Manar her fish decorated with lemon slices, a sprig of mint tucked at the corner of the plate. She is touched.
“Enjoy,” he tells her.
Manar lemons and salts the fish. She chews slowly, the tastes a revelation—lemon peel, coriander, mint. She watches the coastline, the trio at the nearby table. The woman has twisted her dark hair into a bun and, in the dusk light, her profile is regal. She makes a dismissive gesture toward the men, frowns. The three of them speak in animated, accented English but the waves are loud, and Manar can hear only snippets of the conversation—something about a day trip, a lost suitcase, the woman’s desire to go to Petra.
As the sky darkens, the waiters light lanterns. The effect is romantic. On the beach, some hundred yards away, a veiled woman sits with two small children on a bed sheet spread over a rock, all of them eating fruit.
The bearded man catches Manar looking and smiles at her. He lifts his glass, raises it in a gesture of salute. Manar does the same, then looks away, her cheeks hot.
The family on the beach has finished eating. Manar watches the mother fold a shawl over one of the children’s shoulders and brush her hair back. At the nearby table, the woman stretches and yawns.
“Ariana,” the unbearded man says. The woman’s brow furrowed.
“Don’t start with me, Robert,” she says, sipping at her lit cigarette. Italian, Manar thinks.
“It’s just for a day. Two, max.” The man is blond, generic, with a British accent. He looks like the men who flood the financial district in Manhattan, except that he is dressed like an expat—cotton pants, pale button-down shirt. He smiles at the woman even as she rolls her eyes and looks over the water.
The mother on the beach, Manar knows, is married, has a husband somewhere, a home where she folds blankets and sprinkles salt over pots of rice. She wouldn’t have met her husband at a bar or on vacation but through her family, their fathers deeming the match suitable. Manar envisions a simple ceremony, matrons ululating as she entered the courtyard, her father taking the husband aside—a tall, nervous man—and whispering a few stern but kind words, telling him to take care of his daughter.
Unexpectedly, Manar’s eyes well up, and her plate, the beach, blur into greens and yellows. She ducks her head, blinks.
She won’t have that with Gabe. Her father, indistinguishable from most white men in Connecticut save for his trim mustache, is absent. Her mother will be confused but happy for her. Her grandfather will say nothing. Manar will never have, she knows, the stability of a preordained life. They have all forfeited that—her friends, Linah, even her own mother—most of all Manar herself. By saying she wanted a different life, by choosing the pubs, flirtations with strange men, and, yes, the sex. The night after night of dating, shaking the hands of men who would break her heart, wearing lipstick and straightening her back. A pregnancy out of wedlock. Yes, she thinks. Something has been lost.
“American?”
Manar blinks. Over at the next table, the woman is staring directly at her. Her voice is throaty.
“Uh.” Beautiful women make Manar anxious. “From all over. Partly from Palestine.”
The woman’s face breaks into a smile. The men are smoking, eyeing Manar with interest. “We work at an NGO here. I’m Ariana.” Her accent is lilting. “What are you doing in Jaffa? Travels?” She pronounces it Yaffa, like an Arab.
Manar nods. “Just visiting.”
The bearded man speaks, stubbing his cigarette out. “We’re going to a festival near the water. Some friends put together a concert, like a fundraiser. It’s not far from here.”
Ariana props her elbow on the table, drops her chin into her hand. She smiles, alluringly.
“You should come.”
The walk is short and pleasant, and though the sun has set, there is a lingering heat. The men and Ariana bicker. The bearded man is Jimmy, the blond Adam. They have known each other for years. The four of them walk in a row, taking up the entire width of the sidewalk. From the way Adam often glances at Ariana, Manar deduces a history, some unrequited love or a former fling. Jimmy, however, looks at Manar when he talks, his mouth frankly sensual. In her loose, flowing blouse, she isn’t showing yet.
“When I first moved here, I gave myself one month, two, tops. All the shit here, those goddamn checkpoints—I figured I wouldn’t be able to handle it.”
“Then what happened?” Manar has heard a hundred versions of this story since her arrival.
Jimmy shrugs. His shoulders strain against the thin fabric of his shirt. “Fell in love. All of us did. It breaks your heart, but it’s impossible to leave.”
“Don’t let him bullshit you,” Ariana calls. “Jimmy’s about as romantic as a steak knife.”
“You the pot or the kettle, Annie?” His teeth gleam as he smiles.
“Don’t call me that.” The sulkiness in Ariana’s voice betrays their dynamic. Adam in love with Ariana. Ariana secretly drawn to Jimmy. Jimmy a free agent.
Which makes me what? Though Manar knows the answer—random girl at the restaurant, tagging along for some music and company, then disappearing back into her life and out of theirs. Something about the simplicity of it is perversely appealing.
“There.” Adam points. Manar can see a twinkle of lights up ahead. Music pulses from the distance, a mix of electronica and dirbakeh.
“Quick toke?” Jimmy fumbles in his pocket and they all stop obediently.
Jimmy lights a slim white joint, and the scent of hashish fills the air. They each take long, luxuriant tokes. When Adam hands it to Manar, she is reluctant but inhales deeply, overcompensating, and is rewarded by an instant rush. She silently apologizes to Gabe. One toke, she reasons. It can’t hurt.
“Christ.”