Chapter 8. Already Gone #3
The dark hospital room is sparsely lit with long rectangles from the fluorescent hallway lighting, the echoes of creaky wheels and footsteps scoring the night.
Marina stares at the door, sleeplessness her companion.
Rania has only left an hour ago after spending nearly all day shuffling between doctors and nurses, asking after Marina’s care and demanding that she be discharged soon.
Just before she left, she made Marina promise not to read the pages until she’s had a full night of rest. But sleep evades Marina—and it will continue to.
After a moment, she sits up in her cot and turns on the small light above her bed. She takes the bundle of translated papers into the crook of one arm and reads.
7 August, 1947
I took a detour when I went to school this morning.
I went to the beach for a bit and just stood at the edge.
The sea feels like a great big breath. I missed a bit of my first class, but it’s okay—I got to practice rock skipping!
I searched for smooth, flat rocks, and gathered them all in my shirt.
I had a pregnant belly full of rocks. Once I was properly laden with stones, I let them fly.
There was a tiny, calm pool without any waves.
The highest number I got this time was five skips!
I’ll bring Tariq next time and show him how good I’ve gotten.
Marina reads voraciously, hungrily. Tears blur her vision.
Nuhad was once the same age as Marina—younger, in these pages—and dealt with the same complaints and highs and lows of life.
She couldn’t have known that her words would become a time capsule for her future granddaughter to read on her return to Haifa.
27 September, 1947
Today Rania and I hung out with Amira. It was weird, because when we were in her room hanging out, we started to hear voices.
Her parents were fighting in the next room, and Amira just pretended like she didn’t hear it.
Her cheeks flushed, so I know she did. And her parents were really, really loud.
It sounded serious. I think her dad hits her mom, too, because that just didn’t sound like a normal fight.
Rania thought the same thing. I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell someone about this, but I asked Tariq if it ever happened to any of his friends. He didn’t know.
A lump of unshed tears forms in Marina’s throat; to think of her grandmother as a young child who didn’t know what to do feels overwhelming. To think of her grandmother—as a young girl.
12 November, 1947
Yunis doesn’t seem very interested. I asked to borrow a pencil in class, but he just shrugged me off, and then later I caught him staring at me while he sat with his group of friends at lunch. So weird. I guess I won’t waste my time.
The lump melts at the idea of her grandmother having crushes on boys in school.
Marina has never known many men. Her father left shortly after the divorce, only to be seen a few weeks each summer, and both of her grandfathers died before Marina was born.
Neither Haifa nor Nuhad ever remarried. It feels like a door that has been opened into another plane of existence.
14 November, 1947
I HATE TARIQ! I hate Tariq! He’s so annoying.
He stole my journal and read it and started making jokes and dropping hints about the things I wrote in front of everyone, including Mama and Baba.
I’m going to start hiding my journal somewhere he can’t find it.
I wish I had a younger sister instead of him.
I wish Rania could be my sister. Sisters are so much nicer.
At least they act like they actually like you!
Marina reads these last sentences over and over again. Her brain is not processing the words properly, and she just keeps going over them again and again. A sister? A sister.
As she puts the packet of papers down, she notices that her hands are shaking.
She sits on them. The tremors still move through her limbs and before she realizes it, her entire body is shaking.
She sweats despite the air-conditioning and now her eyes are pricking with salt and every inch of her skin feels wet.
Marina tries to slow down her breath, gasping at intervals until it finally calms. She reads the words over again.
Her grandmother wishes she had a younger sister instead—which means she had a brother.
Nuhad had a brother. Horror and embarrassment form a strange dance in her heart; she feels as if she’s invaded her grandmother’s secrets and yet she’s suddenly angry to have never known this.
What else was buried?
Where is Nuhad’s brother? He could still be living in Palestine. She flips through the pages and notices that his name appears semi-regularly.
Did Haifa know about her uncle? Did she purposefully keep this from her, or did Nuhad never tell anyone about a long-lost brother?
“Tariq.” The name is unfamiliar in her mouth; her tongue rolls over the new sensation of having an uncle. “Tariq.”
Nuhad had a brother. Marina has a great-uncle.