A Woman Is No Man

Six weeks after arriving in New York, Isra discovers she is pregnant. Fareeda is ecstatic and predicts by Isra’s lack of morning sickness and cravings that the child is a boy. Adam is also happy, but he reminds Isra the burden of raising their child will fall completely on her shoulders. He works long hours to support his family, so she cannot expect any help from him. She understands. It is her duty, after all, although she has doubts about motherhood. What can she offer a child, she wonders, when she knows so little about the world?

Isra also notices the dynamic between Sarah and Fareeda. Sarah is more assimilated, and she wants to go to college like her brother, Ali, but Fareeda forbids it, and so Sarah rebels subtly. She lingers over a book when Fareeda calls her for chores; she sneaks books home in her backpack; she decries the unfairness of a culture that treats women as inferior even when Fareeda threatens to slap her. Observing Sarah, Isra feels a connection to her even while envying her boldness. The two women discuss their mutual love of literature. Isra describes to Sarah the contemporary relevance of A Thousand and One Nights. The character of Scheherazade, she argues, personifies “the strength of a single woman” (99). Sarah, on the other hand, prefers “more realistic” fiction like Lord of the Flies or To Kill a Mockingbird.

That night, Adam and Isra go out for pizza and ice cream. Isra is amazed by the vibrant, rich flavors of this food she’s never tasted. As they walk, Adam laments his long hours of work, and, in a rare moment of connection, Isra understands that his hard work is an investment in the future of their children.

Fareeda has arranged another meeting between Deya and Nasser. Musing on how this tradition makes women like chattel, Deya asks Fareeda if she misses Sarah, who married a Palestinian man and whom Deya has not seen since. Fareeda bristles at the question: “What does it matter?” she replies (104). Fareeda angers easily when questioned about her family, and Deya realizes her grandmother may never tell her the real story of Isra’s death.

Deya skips school and takes the subway into Manhattan to meet the bookstore manager, even though she’s never been outside of Brooklyn on her own before. She observes the mass of humanity riding the R train—many different ethnicities but all of them distinctly American in their self-confidence. She feels she’s being stared at, judged by her strange clothes, by her difference. As the train enters the tunnel running beneath the East River, she marvels at the engineering involved. She wonders if she will ever accomplish anything that might change the world, but then she resigns herself to marriage and a life of dull routine—unless, of course, Nasser would “let her be who she wanted to be” (108). 

Isra delivers a girl three weeks before her due date. At the hospital, Fareeda refers to the baby as balwa, a burden. She openly weeps, and she warns Isra that if a woman can’t give her husband a son, he will look elsewhere for a woman who can. Adam is more conciliatory, but he is still reserved. He tells Isra, “’Don’t worry […] You’ll have a son, inshallah. You’re young. We have plenty of time’” (110). Despite Fareeda’s disappointment, Isra experiences the full joy of motherhood. She names her daughter Deya (“light”), and for the first time, she feels blessed. For the first time, she appreciates what Allah has given her.