He kissed her lightly and turned around, without salamat. She grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him to her. Their bodies collided, the cold stone against her back. Warmth spreading down her legs. His tongue on her neck. Fingers invading her belly, stealing their way downwards. Feeling the muscles of his back tense at the touch of her palms. The very subtle groan—almost a whisper—released involuntarily with his outbreath.
Two teenage boys were approaching, their laughter pushing the wind ahead of them. She cupped his face in her palms, kissed him violently, pushed his body away, and disappeared into the dark stairway. “No shakshooka tomorrow. I want a restaurant. Good night albi.” Her voice tumbled down from the top of the stairs with the same force as her kiss.
It was 11.30 and Maisoon still hadn’t dressed, her hair was a mess and Ziyad’s smell was all over her. Not one piece sold. She wants me to clear up the shelf.
“Shai?” Ziyad’s voice brought her back up from the depths she was sinking into.
“Come with me, Ziyad. Maybe we can go down to the beach after,” she said into her cup of shai.
“I think I’ll just stay here and wait for you.” He saw the worry in her eyes. “Hey! Don’t jump to any conclusions. Maybe she sold everything and she wants to commission more? If she does, then we’ll go out and celebrate tonight. Ach, a bottle of wine, just you and me, the rocks and the sea. Yalla, khalas, smile habibti. It will be all right, Inshallah.”
Inshallah. Inshallah. How she envied him his faith at such times. Inshallah. If God wills.
The trip to Amalia’s Jewellery seemed to take forever. I will try some boutiques in Nazareth or Akka next week. Still immersed in her plans when she walked in, her thoughts were caught by the absence of a single ring; it was the one Amalia had tried on three weeks ago. So the lady pities me and bought it for herself. Or—maybe she likes it after all.
“Shalom, Amalia.”
“Maisoon.”
She got the name right this time. But she wasn’t wearing the moonstone ring.
“Come, let’s have a cup of coffee. My housecleaner brings me good Arabic coffee from her village, the best, really.”
Amalia was smiling at Maisoon as they sipped their coffee. “Somebody bought that ring yesterday. A wedding present.”
Maisoon remembered the two women from last time.
“A young man was interested in one of the necklaces for his wife—an anniversary present—but he said it looked too … how did he put it, traditional, too heavy, for his wife’s taste.”
Maisoon just nodded, uncertain where this was leading.
“I think I will give you a chance. Like I said, the pieces are too unusual for my taste, but we’ll try for another month. You can have that big window over there. Two shelves.”
Maisoon looked disbelievingly in the direction of the window; it was still in the farthest corner. A narrow one, but it was a window. All to herself.
“This is yours. 70 percent.” She handed Maisoon an envelope.
“But this is 500 shekels, Amalia …”
“Well, you can’t expect me to sell this kind of jewellery for the ridiculous price of 380!” her smile broadened.
Maisoon leaned forward to hug Amalia but stopped herself. Instead, she reached out and closed her hand on Amalia’s fragile fingers. “Thank you so much, Amalia. You’re wonderful!”
She felt Amalia’s hand jerk back for a fraction of a second before loosening up. That pulling back was almost enough to give Maisoon doubts, to keep a wall between their worlds.
But Amalia said softly, “Even though it’s not my personal taste, I do have to admit you’re an amazingly talented artist.” It was the first time anyone had used the word artist in relation to Maisoon.
Waiting for the underground Carmelit to reach the Carmel mountain, she called Ziyad. “One bottle of wine, one big rock, a piece of the sea and the sky of night please.”
“On my eye and on my head, ya hayati.”
Over the next month, almost half of Maisoon’s jewellery sold. After two months, she was given one of the three large showcases inside the boutique. It was also then that Amalia asked her if she could come twice a week to replace her in the afternoons, “for a modest salary,” was how she put it.
Ziyad would dangle this news in front of his friends like a trophy he’d won. Except it wasn’t a trophy. And it wasn’t his. Maisoon felt that under those boisterous grand words lay a wounded pride about his own impotence. He was still working shifts, earphones on, calming down furious clients, giving away free air-time in response to their threats to move to the competitor’s cell-phone company.
Layla is ecstatic about her daughter’s small steps in the real world. Majid stays quiet, he is still upset at Maisoon for abandoning medical school but he has no power over this or her choice of a partner. Maisoon asks them to drop by the boutique, hoping that he will see that she hasn’t thrown away her future. But her father doesn’t join her mother as she enters the shop. Instead he waits in the car while Layla unleashes her exultation in unreserved mashallahs and ya salams, much to the alarm of the one client who quickly disappears.
Majid looks through the car window as Layla links arms with their daughter and is led around the shop. Maisoon working for this Yahudiyya … she could have done much better. He fumbles in the console for his cigarettes and lighter. His lungs pull the smoke deep inside, he holds it before forcing it out. As it hits the glass he thinks about his own career, if he can call it that.
He ended up a clerk in a bank, working overtime most days, correcting the mistakes of others, mentoring all the new clerks. In the first few years, he trusted his abilities, strongly believing that he would get promoted—every year he’d tell the family “Next year for sure.” But—next year never came. He watched as those same clerks he welcomed and taught climbed up the ladder, becoming heads of departments, one even becoming his own boss. Oh, but he did get compliments. All the time. How professional he was, how responsible; a pat on the back every now and then, a bonus twice a year. But nothing more. Because he didn’t belong. Because his name was Majid.
And he accepted it, for he was of the generation today called the subservient. Those who never dared raise their heads. Those who grew up under military rule; fear becoming an inseparable part of their very essence.
Maisoon had never known her father in any other way. To her, he had always been the meek, obedient citizen, making an effort to be as inconspicuous as he could be with his choice of clothes, behaviour, the radio stations he listened to in the car. Or the way he lowered his voice when pronouncing his name. Very rarely, when he felt extra brave, he’d put on Fairouz but he would turn it off when they neared a public space with security guards.