Chapter 4. The Shatat #4
“Oh, hi Rania,” Benjamin says. He’s standing in the foyer, an entirely white, marbled space with a small fountain in the middle. Modern paintings line the walls in uniform blocks of color and a spiraling staircase splits into two mirror images at the back of the room.
“Hello, sir,” she says.
Benjamin snaps his briefcase shut, rubbing a hand over his balding head. He walks over to her in the way that he always does: a brisk, flighty trot that makes it seem like he’s too important and too late.
“Can you please get the kids’ bathrooms today? They’re disgusting.”
“Sure.” The house is large enough that there is something new to clean every day. She still hasn’t seen all of the rooms.
“They’re such pigs, I swear.” They both turn their heads at the sound of footsteps ticking down the stairs. Noa—Benjamin’s wife—descends, dressed in a long, flowy dress.
He grabs her face and kisses her on the cheek. “Bye, honey.”
Between bits of Arabic, English, and Hebrew, they are able to communicate with each other. Rania is glad that no party is entirely fluent in a common language—she wouldn’t want to speak to them more than she already does.
Rania gives Noa a polite smile and heads up one of the spiral staircases, but Noa asks, “How’s your family, Rania?”
She stops and turns. “They’re well, miss, thank you.”
“Nice. Great.” She nods, a half smile on her face. “And how are the kids?”
Rania nods, mirroring Noa. “They’re good.”
“How old are they again?”
Rania is confused, but she doesn’t let it show on her face. “They’re all adults. Grown. With their own kids now, hamdillah.”
Noa flips her eyes. “Ugh, so wonderful. You’re a grandmother now.”
“For many years.” Rania smiles.
“So, when did your kids finally leave home?” Noa’s voice no longer needles and instead stands firm, finally having reached the question she wanted to ask after having to wade through pleasantries.
She crosses her arms over her chest. “I just ask because … well, Jacob is about to turn eighteen. He’s going to go to college, obviously, but he needs a bit more of a push than that.
I’m afraid he’s going to want to stay at home for too long—you know what I mean? ”
“Oh.” Rania blinks. “My children all left when they got married.”
Noa’s full, painted lips droop at the corners and her long lashes nearly touch her eyebrows as she looks up in exasperation. “No, that won’t work—it’s too long.” She lowers her voice conspiratorially. “And who knows when Jacob will even find someone!”
The expression on her face says what Rania doesn’t dare to. There could be something missing in translation, but Noa’s hopeful smile asks that Rania laugh and relate to her—but she can’t. Noa speaks of her son as if she didn’t bring him into the world.
Noa’s smile fades with Rania’s shocked silence. “Oh, don’t be so serious, Rania. I’m just kidding. Every mother teases their child!” She waves her hand. “It’s good for them, anyway. You have to strengthen them before they go out into the world.”
“Mmm. Of course.” Rania nods and turns up toward the stairs, knowing that Noa thinks her dense for her response. But even if she were to speak freely, there aren’t words.
The hallway leading to the children’s bedrooms is like the foyer: all white and filled with expensive artwork. Several marble statues are lined up in front of each room.
Jacob’s bedroom is carpeted in magazines, some of which Rania pretends not to notice.
A guitar lies on the bed, always prepped but never played.
She can tell from the dust that sits on the frets.
Upon entering the attached bathroom, Rania covers her nose.
Stray hairs and built-up grime cover the entire countertop, and the sink is filled with still, cloudy water through which floats bits of white toothpaste. Rania cleaned it only last week.
Despite the years of chemical scent accompanying Rania nearly every day, her nose still burns every minute of every hour that she cleans with bleach.
Her grandson Khaled had once bought her small, plastic pincers for her nose, but they caused her to inhale through her mouth instead—oxygenating her lungs with the sting of chemicals.
No, Rania bears it every day. She simply grits her teeth and breathes it in.
Rania finishes with the bathrooms just in time for her lunch break, and she exits the house with the scents of vinegar and bleach still clinging to her like perfume. She heads to a local shawarma place, passing the house on the way. Her breath holds. The sign is still up.
In the window, something like the face of a young girl appears. It is achingly familiar, down to the two dark braids falling over her small shoulders. Rania blinks, and as quickly as it came, the face disappears.
She smiles to herself suddenly with the hope that it will remain unsold.
As the bus pulls away and exhaust covers her in a dense blanket, Marina stands in Haifa for the first time.
It is her return.
Despite the exhaustion of the jet lag, Haifa’s anxiety still hovering over her, and Marina’s own heart breaking into dozens of tiny pieces, she can’t help but feel joyful.
There is a lightness in her soul, even as she stands in a city her grandmother wouldn’t recognize.
Cyclists whir down the tar-hot streets and seagulls peck at food scraps on the sidewalk.
Tall skyscrapers tower in nearby clusters, and they somehow miraculously stand, paper-thin, beside old stone houses whose age shows through their pitted skin.
And yet, people walk past, oblivious to the contrived absurdity of this colony implanted over a city.
She breathes in and an unexpected lump restricts her inhale; a dry sob forces its way out. Dust settles into her eyes and she tries not to blink, for if she does, tears will come. This is her grandmother’s city. It is her city—a place where she could be herself. Fully. Wholly.
Marina clutches the paper with directions in one sweaty palm, trying not to look at it too often and give herself away as a tourist, despite her suitcase clacking at regular intervals on the sidewalk behind her.
There is an unexpected darkness to the city that clings to her like a shadow; as Marina picks up her pace, heart fluttering with each step, she has a sense that she is being followed.
Her eyes dart behind her but there are only a handful of people in sharp suits and another set of tourists wandering slowly.
But still, this heavy darkness nips at her heels and there is a sense of pleading, as if it were begging her to sink herself into it.
The gleam of a diamond store flashes in the sun from across the street, and in its reflection Marina watches herself walk into a puddle.
Red liquid gleams against the glare of the window as it splashes up around her leg, staining her clothes and seeping into her skin.
It is oppressively warm—the same temperature as her body—and streaks down her legs in a thick, heavy bloodstain. Marina gasps and looks down.
The puddle is just water.
Panting now, Marina walks faster, keeping her eyes trained on the directions in her hand. I didn’t sleep well on the flight, she tells herself, even as she avoids looking into any other reflective surfaces.
Hassan’s place is in a small apartment building, on the third floor.
The stairwell is somewhat cool from the stone, but the sun still warms the inside like an oven as Marina heaves her luggage up the steps, her breath slowly returning to normal in the bare-bulb lighting.
Her mother’s written instructions rub up against her stomach.
Turn right, then walk past three doors. Hassan’s is the fourth. She knocks.
“Marina?” An elderly man appears before her in a blue polo and jeans. His back is hunched slightly, putting him at Marina’s height.
She nods, and he smiles so comfortably that she finally feels her shoulders relax.
“Ahlan wa sahlan,” he says, welcoming her as he opens the door and motions for her to come inside. “You are Philippe’s cousin, ah?”
Marina murmurs “ah” and takes in her surroundings as he leads her to her bedroom.
The living room floor is covered in a Persian rug and the wall is decorated with a tatreez map of Palestine and other embroidered decorations.
A small concrete balcony opens up to the neighborhood.
The scent of Turkish coffee encircles the room like a familiar, warm hug, but nothing boils on the stove.
The bed-and-breakfast is less of a proper accommodation and more of a small flat with two extra bedrooms that the elderly host rents out to travelers.
“Here is your bedroom,” he says, placing a key in her palm. “No one else is staying here right now except for you. Breakfast is served every morning from seven AM to ten AM.”
“Shukran,” she says quietly. He closes the door for her and shuffles back down the hall, leaving her in her own silence.
The room is crafted from the deep blue of the ocean.
The ceiling is a light baby blue, and the wave-patterned bedsheets and the chair in the corner are both midnight blue.
The knickknacks on the bookshelf have a clear aquatic theme: there are fishing poles, cornflower-blue dolphins, and cresting-wave figurines.
A small surfboard glitters with cobalt-blue text: RIDE THE WAVES.
She sits on the bed with a strange sense of sadness weighing on her.
For her entire life, Marina has always associated the city of Haifa with her grandmother’s home.
It’s an altogether different kind of grief to visit for the first time and stay in a stranger’s home.
Even now, she still exists on the fringe.
In pieces. She shakes her head—it doesn’t matter.
In her grandmother’s house is where she will finally find herself.