Sweet Dates in Basra by Jessica Jiji

Author:Jessica Jiji
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

There was only one other person who might help piece together some of this wayward history, and the spoiled, willful, determined girl that Kathmiya was would never get anywhere with her, so she came at Fatimah from a completely different angle.

“You have no idea what it is like to be out and alone while everyone else is embraced by their family,” she began.

It seemed so simple and surefire, like catching a chicken, all squawk and pride when it was really at the mercy of its butchers, but Kathmiya drew only a confused stare.

“Me?”

This wasn’t coy Fatimah, wanting Kathmiya to follow up with, “Of course you, the one who is so much more lucky and cared for than I ever could be.” This was a whole new type of sister than any Kathmiya ever had: hurt and wondering.

“But you’re the one…” Fatimah began.

“I’m the one?” Kathmiya couldn’t even muster a hollow laugh.

“…who our mother worries about and fusses over and always did.”

“Our mother? Our father watches over you and let you marry. Who cares what she does…it makes no difference in a person’s life.” If Fatimah couldn’t understand that, she was worse than a squawking chicken—she was about as smart as the shell of an egg.

“That’s just because he has to make up for, you know, the way she treats me.”

Kathmiya covered her face in her hands before looking up again. “How can I explain this?” she asked. It was like trying to make little Aziza stop from crawling under a bus, the consequences were that enormous and clear to Kathmiya but invisible to her sister. “You got married on the first try. I have a choice between becoming an old maid now or having Baaqir Zain use me up and then send me out to the land of old maids later!”

“I never really thought of it that way,” Fatimah confessed.

If Kathmiya didn’t need information from this woman, she might have smacked her ignorant face. Of course you thought of it that way—you never stopped rubbing it in.

“I mean,” Kathmiya said slowly, “you always, well, bring up the fact that I have to work in the city and sometimes”—sometimes I think you are twisting the dagger that our father stabbed me with—“sometimes I think you know how painful that is. It’s tough being single and working all the time.”

“Yeah, but besides all that—”

“That’s all there is! Don’t you understand? Nothing else matters!”

“—you and our mother talk, you are so close, she fusses about you constantly…I’m back here with crying children and you two are in the city riding horse-drawn carriages and everything.”

“You two talk just as much!”

“Not hardly.” Fatimah sniffed.

Kathmiya threw her head back and stared at the open sky. Had she made watermelon and taxicabs sound that fun?

“Fatimah, I’m so sorry it’s been horrible for you. The truth is, we are very close and we talk a lot.”

“I know!” Fatimah gurgled, trying to evolve up from egg to chicken.

“But there’s one thing she’s never told me, and I was hoping you might know.

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