{"id":12038,"date":"2022-12-15T10:09:14","date_gmt":"2022-12-15T08:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=12038"},"modified":"2023-01-27T07:59:57","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T05:59:57","slug":"broken-glass-a-short-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/broken-glass-a-short-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Broken Glass<\/em>, a short story"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Sarah AlKahly-Mills<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cSharmouta<\/em>.\u201d Nadia expels the word from her chest like a breath held in too long, a late answer to a question that didn\u2019t really need one. Anyway, she has only said what everyone else is thinking. \u201cThat\u2019s the sort of woman who goes and does a thing like that, ya<\/em> Giselle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thin Giselle sits in Nadia\u2019s vinyl chair with her knees pressed tightly together and her elbows firmly by her sides. She raises her black, over-tweezed eyebrows in sympathy and passes a forefinger along the indigo enamel patterns of the coffee tray resting on her narrow lap. On the street below Nadia\u2019s fifth-story balcony, men in yellow vests sweep up the shattered glass of the bank\u2019s window where last night a woman fired shots, demanding her deposit.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour son, how is he handling all of this?\u201d Giselle asks, blowing on the froth of her hot coffee before taking a loud sip.<\/p>\n

Nadia\u2019s gaze remains on the scene below. The sun bakes cracks into the asphalt. \u201cYou see that glass down there?\u201d she asks. In the corner of her eye, she can tell that Giselle is watching her. This is how it has been for weeks now \u2014 her privacy a perforated, see-through thing with the eyeballs of everyone stuck into the spaces of its screen mesh, following her movements, blinking audibly. Even a trip to the neighborhood dekan<\/em> has become a matter of running the gauntlet, dodging stares, some pitiful, others vindicated. All shiny with a thick glaze of judgment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will never sweep it all away,\u201d she says. \u201cThere will be pieces left behind. You\u2019ll be walking there, thinking it\u2019s clean, and a little shard will catch the sunlight and remind you of what happened. That is what that bitch H\u00e9l\u00e8ne did to my Joseph with her lies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The heat has become oppressive. They move back inside. The maid collects their cups, trays, rakwe<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Everything started out well enough; Nadia felt nostalgic for those early mornings when, seated alone at the kitchen table before her husband Marcel awoke, her ordinary morning reflections were pleasantly imbued with the novelty the girl brought them. Joseph met H\u00e9l\u00e8ne at university, where he was studying medicine and she music. He introduced her to them a few years ago, and she was, by all accounts, lovely: well-dressed, clean-smelling, from a good family, warm, polite. Muhtarama<\/em>. Over dinner one night, dark eyes glittering with mischief, she made a strange crack Nadia thought was inappropriate, something about laundry and cooking and Arab men and Joseph needing to pull his weight when they got married, and it felt like a putting on of airs, like H\u00e9l\u00e8ne was trying to establish something too rigid, too soon. Couldn\u2019t she be bothered with domestic tasks, or were her little music lessons taking up too much time? But then Nadia had wondered if it was not simply H\u00e9l\u00e8ne\u2019s way of saying, \u201cSee, Tante<\/em>, I\u2019m not overstepping. I\u2019m not taking your son away from you entirely. You can still spoil him in a way I won\u2019t, if that is your choice.\u201d Yet the idea of not wanting to dote on one\u2019s own husband was, to Nadia, unfathomable \u2014 and dangerous. It left fissures in the foundation of marriage that someone could easily sneak into and widen.<\/p>\n

There were many red flags, now that Nadia considered it all with the aid of hindsight, glaring warnings she could just kick herself for not heeding. The fact that H\u00e9l\u00e8ne enjoyed her own company far too much, for one. She even called it \u201cme time,\u201d like that, in English, like she was some woman in an American movie who was kicking her heels off after a busy day at a law firm, drawing herself a bath, and talking dirty on the phone to a lover. With a kind smile, as if in acknowledgment of her own childishness, she would say her goodbyes after lunch, protest offers to stay for a while, claiming she needed to retreat into her bubble, where she could \u201crest\u201d her head and be frumpy in peace. Nadia had almost wanted to say something mean. What are you resting from? From being single? From playing your flute? From not dyeing your own damn grays? <\/em><\/p>\n

But she\u2019d held her tongue. H\u00e9l\u00e8ne was a good girl, after all. She just lived in her mind too much, carved out a special place for herself as though it were for someone she loved, the way Nadia might have set aside treats for grandchildren, had she had any. Alas, Joseph was an only child \u2014 a miracle one at that, and a boy to boot! One and done. No, pregnancy was not for Nadia. Neither was it for H\u00e9l\u00e8ne, apparently.<\/p>\n

Then there were the \u201cdebates.\u201d That\u2019s what Nadia and Marcel called them when they chewed over their evenings with H\u00e9l\u00e8ne after she\u2019d gone. Her parents must have never taught her the art of polite conversation. Nothing was off the table for that girl. She made Nadia squirm in her seat and glance up at the maid every five minutes during that unnecessary homily on the rights of foreign workers. It made Nadia sweat at her temples as though the parish priest had written a sermon especially for her, though she\u2019d done nothing wrong, no, she would even go so far as to say she had done everything too right with the young Sri Lankan woman, so much so that she began to fear her kindness was being taken advantage of \u2014 too many day-off requests to tend to a sick child no one ever saw, a silver tea set poorly polished. And when foreign workers were not the cumbersome centerpiece at the table of dinnertime conversations, the Palestinian cause took their place, and Nadia, like a child made to feel guilty or else protest a false accusation, declared how she had donated money to funds for Palestine when she was young, before the civil war broke out. Other times yet, something unfortunate would befall a woman and it would be in the news and then it was the plight of women that kept H\u00e9l\u00e8ne\u2019s tongue occupied, and Nadia couldn\u2019t help but sigh or roll her eyes. The child had no idea how good she had it.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know about the women who came before you, my dear, how bad it was for them?\u201d she retorted one day.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, Tante<\/em> Nadia,\u201d H\u00e9l\u00e8ne said, holding her gaze in a way that Nadia might have mistaken for affectionate. \u201cThat\u2019s why weeds need to be pulled up by the root.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that one October, before the pandemic, before the blast, before everyone became either too tired or too angry, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne took to the streets with protesters\u2019 slogans scrawled all along the bare flesh of her chest and arms, a loudspeaker in her hand. On Facebook, she put up videos of herself denouncing ministers, and spent much of her time rallying her friends and organizing distributions of food and aid to needy families. Nadia couldn\u2019t put her finger on what H\u00e9l\u00e8ne seemed to be doing wrong. Perhaps it was the loudness of it all, the intense emotion behind everything the girl did that felt like too much, like ostentatiousness, like a vulgar shriek by someone wanting to be seen and heard. Truth be told, though, the video that made the rounds online and in WhatsApp chats of some woman kicking a minister\u2019s gun-toting bodyguard square in the groin tickled Nadia no end! Khai! <\/em>She felt something flare in her chest to see it, and then she wondered if she was a bad person for being so amused. What was it about H\u00e9l\u00e8ne, then, that failed to inspire the same admiration, or at least amusement, in her regard?<\/p>\n

It must have been intuition. She must have known that H\u00e9l\u00e8ne, sooner or later, would disappoint, though Nadia would never have imagined she would accuse her own husband of being a monster.<\/p>\n

How could someone with as clean and righteous a public image as H\u00e9l\u00e8ne\u2019s be so corrupt? Nadia thought of Joseph, how needlessly he must have been suffering, how gracefully he carried on in his work, quiet and poised as ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow did it come to this?\u201d Nadia asked her son one evening, shortly after H\u00e9l\u00e8ne did the irreparable damage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, Mama,\u201d he said, still in his lab coat, his face haggard.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s always liked performances, that one,\u201d Nadia said through her teeth. She fetched a rag and went to town on the porcelain curios atop the credenza, the slivers of space between books lining the shelves, seeking out specks of dust the maid had overlooked in her perennial rush to get out of their house.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe has no proof,\u201d Joseph said after a long silence during which he stared at his shoes and Marcel paced the floor of their apartment with his hands behind his back.<\/p>\n

\u201cA violence like that carries signs, always,\u201d Marcel said.<\/p>\n

Nadia had wanted to say something then, but in the moment that opened between thought and vocalization, a frightful thing happened in her stomach that felt very much like falling down a shaft.<\/p>\n

She put a hand over her belly to quiet the terror, gripping her dust rag with the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou would kick so much, Joseph,\u201d she whispered, the gesture reminding her of the fact. She almost felt a ripple, the echoes of a child who couldn\u2019t wait to leave the womb, and everyone gathering around the undeniable blessing it was.<\/p>\n

Only suffering is lonely<\/em>, she thought as she dyed her hair copper in front of the bathroom mirror, even when it is a spectacle<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Ya 3ayb el shoum 3alaya<\/em>, Nadia\u2019s cousin Hoda texts in their family WhatsApp chat. H\u00e9l\u00e8ne seems to have dug her heels in only further, the latest update from her reaching Nadia via a screenshot from Hoda.<\/p>\n

I am not interested in preserving a pretense of family peace. If you are trying to convince me to lie to myself and to others, then spare yourself the trouble of texting me<\/em>, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne wrote. The juxtaposition of her words and her smiling profile picture was jarring.<\/p>\n

It was validating at first for Nadia to see everyone rush to her side, to defend Joseph and denounce H\u00e9l\u00e8ne. If everyone saw things a certain way, then they must have been so. But a suspicion began to tug at the corners of her mind. Whenever the group chat would become inactive, someone would find an excuse to revive it, as though it were a divertissement for them. To acknowledge it soured Nadia\u2019s tongue with disillusionment.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you believe these prices?\u201d says a man to her left at the supermarket. She looks to him. He holds up a jar of peaches in syrup. He has a full head of gray hair now but also the same hazel eyes, as warm as ever, and a smile that has never failed to make the heat rise to her face.<\/p>\n

\u201cKhaled?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was you, Nadia. How long has it been? You look the same, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not true at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

He returns the peaches to their shelf. \u201cHow are you doing, Nadia?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs well as anyone can be doing here. How are you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMeshe el hal<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last I heard you were in Dubai.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI still work there. I\u2019m visiting now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n

Khaled laughs, and Nadia prays that she is not too pink under her eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis place is a liquor that calls you back to the bottle even after you\u2019ve promised yourself you\u2019d never give in again,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s switch places, then. I\u2019ll go work abroad and you can stay here getting drunk.\u201d<\/p>\n

He laughs again, and she never would have thought they could fall so swiftly back into easy camaraderie. But then again, when was the last time she even allowed herself to think back on Khaled without shooing the thought away like a pigeon on her balcony or a temptation come to alight on her shoulder and whisper bad things in her ear?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou still make me laugh like a schoolboy, Nadia.\u201d<\/p>\n

They linger at the market for a while and reminisce. Wartime never seemed so pleasant as when recounted by Khaled, its brutalities mercifully omitted and only its shared university courses, escapades to the cinemas, and stolen \u2014 forbidden \u2014 kisses exalted. Of course, he doesn\u2019t say that last part out loud, but Nadia fills it in, like a mind making up for the obscured details in a dark room, working solely off good memory. They exchange phone numbers and promise to stay in touch, and Nadia wonders about the wisdom of this. Before leaving the market, she sighs to see Marcel\u2019s sister wave her over.<\/p>\n

Later, she learns what else Khaled has omitted \u2014 a terminally ill mother he has come to retrieve and whisk away to Dubai \u2014 and he sends her a message: I heard you\u2019ve been having family troubles. I am very sorry for this, dear friend<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

How quickly even the most unremarkable news travels, like a bad smell in a closed room. Nadia can hear the sharp, tinny blink of eyes all around her. She relives the pain of leaving Khaled all those years ago, of settling into a practical and sanctioned marriage as though it were a career choice, accounting instead of theatre, of the nausea and despair coiled at the mouth of her stomach, waiting to spring into words full of venom.<\/p>\n

They never did. She resents her silence, resents Khaled for reminding her how much music she once had inside of her.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a friend from my university days, Marcel,\u201d she tells her husband. \u201cNothing more. I wonder what your sister was trying to achieve, though, making it seem like I\u2019m some flirtatious floozy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t flip the script, Nadia,\u201d he slaps back, as efficient as a fly swatter. \u201cThis isn\u2019t about my sister. She only said she saw you with a man she didn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes she know all the men in the world?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy didn\u2019t you tell me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDakheel Allah<\/em>, ya<\/em> Marcel, what is there to say? That I ran into an old friend? Do I need to report back to headquarters, to account for everything I do or say?\u201d<\/p>\n

This outburst earns her a silence prolonged over days, which Marcel interrupts only that evening to say, as he eats the mloukhieh<\/em> she\u2019s made: \u201cThat whore\u2019s red hair color is positively garish on you. Have I ever told you that? Why don\u2019t you do something sensible, like that Giselle?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

She has never done anything like this before in her life, so she wants to try, just once, to be perfectly cruel and vindictive. She\u2019s taken the sharpened paring knife from her kitchen and gone to wait outside the apartment H\u00e9l\u00e8ne is staying in now that she\u2019s moved away from Joseph. She knows well the girl\u2019s schedule \u2014 H\u00e9l\u00e8ne will be leaving for university lessons soon \u2014 and has timed the proceedings in a such a way as to have the satisfaction of seeing her reaction. It is early morning and still dark out. H\u00e9l\u00e8ne\u2019s old white Kia is parked along the curb. Nadia begins with the front tire on the driver\u2019s side, working quickly, turning her face away from the hiss of air.<\/p>\n

When H\u00e9l\u00e8ne emerges from her apartment and reaches her car, she doesn\u2019t notice right away. She sits inside and starts the vehicle up. Nadia watches her from across the street, flattened against the wall of one of its buildings, holding her stomach in as best she can. H\u00e9l\u00e8ne turns off her car, steps out, and examines the damage.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s see the show she puts on for us now<\/em>, Nadia thinks, expecting the girl to smash the windows in and wake up the whole neighborhood with her fury, but H\u00e9l\u00e8ne only slumps down the side of her dusty and dented car and, hugging her knees to her chest, cries quietly as the sun breaks over Beirut. Nadia recognizes it. The Last Straw Cry. It is lonely and resigned.<\/p>\n

Nadia clutches her purse closer to her body, feeling the outline of the knife\u2019s wooden handle through the soft leather. She moves away from the wall.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome,\u201d she says, and it sounds more like a clearing of her throat than words, \u201ccome,\u201d and she is walking toward H\u00e9l\u00e8ne without understanding why.<\/p>\n

H\u00e9l\u00e8ne lifts her head. Her face is streaked red. Her dark eyes, always so large, are pinched small.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy car is parked just down the road. Come. I\u2019ll give you a ride.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy?\u201d H\u00e9l\u00e8ne whispers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow are you going to get to your lessons?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy is your car parked down the road?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s none of your business. Now if you want a ride, come with\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t need your help.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWas it you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you do this?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid I slash your tires? Do I have nothing better in life to do? Don\u2019t be absurd.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have no reason to want to help me, Nadia, and I understand that. I accept that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor God\u2019s sake, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nadia begins the short walk to her car and, to her surprise, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne retrieves her bags from the back seat of her Kia and follows. The ride is quiet. Nadia can smell the discreet scent of H\u00e9l\u00e8ne\u2019s lavender perfume, and it reminds her of the day they made atayef<\/em> together, when she and Joseph were just beginning to court.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat have you gained?\u201d Nadia asks. \u201cI want to know what you have gained by doing what you have done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSlashed tires, Tante<\/em>, and handwritten threats delivered to my door.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy whole life, I did everything right. And this is my reward. What proof do you have anyway? A violence like that always carries signs. Like Mona. Ya haram<\/em>. Covered in bruises. No one doubted her. Do you see what I mean, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne? It isn\u2019t personal. It\u2019s just that \u2014 why should anyone believe you? It\u2019s he said, she said.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd when Mona came to you all, what did anyone tell her but to be patient and that her husband loved her and that he was stressed?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe hasn\u2019t complained about him for years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would she turn to the same people who told her to stick it out, to see how much pain she could take?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJoseph would never do what you said he did!\u201d Nadia slaps the steering wheel with both hands. \u201cNever!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought so too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI raised him!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt isn\u2019t your fault.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI gave my life to him.\u201d She can feel her throat close in on her voice. \u201cI gave him everything. I did everything right.\u201d She pulls the car to the side of the road before they reach the university. \u201cThis is as far as I can take you, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne. Please get out.\u201d<\/p>\n

H\u00e9l\u00e8ne gathers her things. After stepping out, but before turning to leave, she bends down to window level and says: \u201cMy mother always says the same thing, that she did everything right. But for someone who does everything right, she is so deeply unhappy because she doesn\u2019t understand that there are people you\u2019ll never satisfy, no matter how good a beating you can take and stay quiet. I\u2019m sorry this happened, Tante<\/em> Nadia. I loved the way you would sing while you cooked.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

At home that night, as Nadia cores zucchini, she hums through her tears. Marcel watches the news, so she cannot sing at full volume, as much as she would like to test her voice. She would sing for Joseph, when she was pregnant with him, just to feel him move, to know she hadn\u2019t lost him like the ones that came before.<\/p>\n

She leans over the counter, the pile of vegetables to her left, the paring knife in the grip of her right hand. She throws it into the sink and pulls at the strings of her apron, tearing it off herself and knocking an empty glass pitcher to the floor, where it shatters. She sinks to her knees.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is going on in here?\u201d Marcel asks, having rushed in. Squatting, he takes her hands in his. \u201cAre you all right?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you remember when we were younger, much younger, just before he was born, and you wanted to and I didn\u2019t, I was too far along, I was worried for the baby\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you talking about? Come, stand up, or I\u2019ll be picking glass out of your knees for days to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

He holds her up by her forearms, but she shakes herself free.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you remember that night?\u201d<\/p>\n

He shakes his head and sighs. \u201cNo, Nadia. What\u2019s making you think about one night decades ago?\u201d He retrieves a broom and dustpan wedged between the fridge and the counter and begins to sweep up the glass.<\/p>\n

Nadia covers her face with her hands and weeps. Marcel leans the broom against one of the kitchen chairs to hold her and rub her back, and she rests her chin on his shoulder. Beyond him, in the window of the living room, she can see a dozen pairs of eyes watching her. She collects herself, wipes her face with a corner of her apron, picks up the paring knife, and resumes hollowing out the zucchini.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many times I could have blabbed about things but didn\u2019t, just to keep the peace!\u201d she says. \u201cHow hard is it just to shut up? How hard can it be? People talk, but they\u2019re not there to pick up the pieces. They\u2019re not there. Where is she now?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the society surrounding them begins to break down, a Beiruti family’s troubles echo the macrocosm. 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