habibi
page 2 of 6“Excuse me, the manure. This woman’s taste is not to be trusted, Sameira, she has a secret love for Madonna.”
Fatima laughs. “Madonna can sing! So can you, but all that you do in that silly band is scream." She shudders extravagantly. "I went to one show, I had a headache for a week! And all of those people, those women who look like men..."
Mariam says something sharp in Arabic, and I lose track of the conversation again. I slip my olive pit into a napkin and have some baba ghanoosh instead.
After dinner we go outside to have coffee on the back porch. Mariam comes to sit by me, gently takes my cup when I have finished with it. "Let me tell your fortune," she says, wrapping long fingers around the tiny cup, and setting it upside down on the saucer to rid it of the dregs. "Look. See here, like a mountain? You have a difficult way ahead of you."
She passes the cup to her cousin, who says something sharp in Arabic before handing it back. Mariam shakes her head and turns to me again. "See here? She sees a snake--that means a bad friend. But I don't think so. And look--" indicating droplets on the inside of the rim. "Good tears--you will be crying with happiness soon." Her fingers brush mine when she hands back the cup. I watch her elegant lips as she smiles.
When we leave she kisses her cousin on both cheeks and says something to her in Arabic. All that I catch is the word habibti. Honey, maybe? Habibti must be for family, habibi for friend.
Fatima kisses me on both cheeks. I thank her very seriously for dinner.
"Bring her back," she tells Mariam. "We'll teach her some Arabic."
Back at her apartment Mariam sits on the battered living room couch and I sit on the only chair. "My cousin made it possible for me to move here. She found me my job, through a friend, and I stayed with her while I looked for a place that I could afford."
"I don't think that she liked me."
"She’ll take a little while to get used to you. And she wonders why you don't speak Arabic, since your father is Arab. Why didn't he teach you?"
"I'm not sure. I think it was different when he came here--he didn't want me to speak English with an accent. To go through what he went through. He wanted me to be American."