She opened her eyes to find the mattress drenched. She turned to Mansour’s bed and saw his form submerged in his deep breathing. She wanted to get out of bed to awaken him but she sensed the water still gushing out and felt too embarrassed to move. She closed her eyes again to go back to sleep and saw him coming to her, and climbing on top of her to lie in all his heaviness on her chest. She cried to him to move off of her — he would kill her son, she cried — and she heard Mansour’s worried breathing next to her bed as he asked what was wrong.
The waters, she said. Water all over me.
It’s your water sac. We must go to the hospital immediately.
No. . not today! she said. Tomorrow — I will have the baby tomorrow.
He got her up and told her he was going to get a car.
Today. . no! she said. It will not be today. And anyway it’s raining.
Get dressed, hurry, and get yourself ready. I’m going to bring the car.
Milia was right. The rain was relentless. She knew that her baby would arrive on the night of the twenty-fourth of December. The sign would not be the waters from the water sac, but other waters.
This was what the doctor told them when they reached the Italian Hospital. He told her to go home and asked her to wait for the water.
But the water, doctor — there was a lot of water.
The doctor smiled and told Mansour not to worry. He warned Mansour not to sleep with his wife in her final days of pregnancy.
I swear, I haven’t done anything, Mansour protested.
The doctor showed his astonishment and said that the examination he had done indicated that her birth passage and uterus had been active during the previous night. It might have been nothing more than a dream, he said. Pregnancy does give women dreams. No need to be afraid.
She was in bed and already asleep when he came to her and kissed her on her forehead before going to his own bed. He saw her sit up in bed. Light shone from her hair and oil stood on her neck, even spraying the air around her gently.
Come here, come to me, she said.
He found himself getting out of bed and coming to sit down next to her.
Bring some cotton.
He got up and went over to the wardrobe, opened a drawer, took out a roll of cotton and came back to her.
Wipe the oil from my neck with the cotton and then put it away for the boy, she said.
He blotted the oil on her neck but it continued to seep thickly. Soon the entire roll of cotton was heavy with oil.
I’ll bring a towel, he said.
No need. But you must remember that this oil is for the boy. Rubbing him with this oil will protect him from sickness.
She saw his shadow figure in the gloom of the Jaffa house. Her mother-in-law had put her foot down; their residence in the family home was to be permanent. It’s his father’s home, she said. No one abandons his father’s home. She told Milia that Amin’s widow, Asma, would remain in Amin’s room with her children, who would be moved from Mansour’s room to their own father’s room. Milia and her husband and daughter would live in Mansour’s room. There was absolutely no need to build an additional room onto the house.
God’s will be done, Milia responded, and then looked her mother-in-law in the eye. A boy, Aunt, it is a boy in my womb, not a girl.
Even before her pregnancy, Milia was certain that her child would be a boy. For his sake she had endured this long voyage of hers. She tried her best to get Mansour to understand that her love for him was her love for the child inside. She tried to make him see that ultimately a woman lives a single love story in her life. Hers was her love for her child, she wanted him to know, because the secret and unfathomable bond that comes into being between a woman and her womb resembles no other tie.
But she sees him, standing in the shadow in the darkened passageway linking the dining room to the kitchen in the Jaffa house. He stands there, still, and Asma is pressed close to him as if he is embracing her. The short dark full figure hangs on to Mansour’s neck as if she were scaling his body and Mansour bends down to meet her, burying his face in her neck. She walks toward them. She coughs to let them know she is here and that Mansour must stop. But he does not hear. She is right behind him now and she can see Asma’s small open eyes turned upward as if they are traveling to a faraway place. She sees herself float between them as though she were a ghost who could pass through doors and bodies. She turns and gazes toward her life and she dwindles away again, now, just as she did in the dream of Najib when she saw him holding the other woman and understood that this man would leave her.
This was shameful, she told the two of them. The fellow has been dead only a month, aren’t you ashamed of yourselves?
They did not hear her or see her, as though they were immersed in a sea of pleasures and secrets. She circled around and stood directly behind Mansour. She put her hands on his shoulders and shook him. Then, in the distance emerged three boys, two as alike as a pair of facing mirrors and the third darker with curly hair and greenish eyes. The three came up to the man embracing the woman and the pair disappeared among the four intertwined legs. Milia ran toward the dark child, who lay sprawled on the floor, blood trickling from his eyes. Ya waylak min Allah, she shrieked at Mansour. Don’t you see the boy? She leaned down to pick up her son, to flee with him, and then everything went black. She saw herself floating on gelatinous waters while the small child thrashed and panted as though he could not breathe. A tiny fish, its lead-gray skin made to glisten by water and salt, gasps as though it cannot get air it needs. It opens and shuts its eyes as if beseeching help. Milia cups the fish in her hands and swims amidst towering waves. Holding the fish while standing on the rocky shore trying to cover her tiny breasts with her small hands, she sees Mansour swimming. She shouts at her little brother to come. Don’t abandon him, brother! This is my son whom I have named Issa, and I am alone, brother. Hurry, hurry before the boy’s lungs fill up! Musa has disappeared and the fish swims to Milia, still standing at the water’s edge. The fish’s skin turns reddish threaded by streaks of white. It rises to the surface and floats on the surface of the water.
Mansour advanced toward them. He took hold of the dead fish and threw it out into the sea. He turned toward Milia and ordered her to come home with him to Jaffa.
But our home is in Nazareth.
Our home is in Jaffa now. Pick up your belongings and follow me. Milia opened her eyes at the sound of the short nurse’s voice. The nurse stood facing her and Milia heard the other nurse’s voice behind her, saying that this birth was a difficult one and the doctor must do something.
Step back, said the doctor, and she heard a deep hoarse voice. Do not fear, my daughter, for I am here with you.
The nun appeared. Haajja Milana was old and blind now, and her black gown could not contain her body. In front of her knelt a woman of pure white in a long white robe, her white-blond hair a candle-lit halo. As the woman wept, the nun patted her head, and from her eyes sprinkled pearl drops like the tiny pearls strewn across the stone courtyard at the Church of Our Lady of the Tremblings.
Little Milia appears and stands behind the kneeling woman. She bends over the pearls and tries to pick them up but the pure white beads roll out of her tiny hands.