A sepia-colored photo next to the front door caught his eye, striking because it was on its own on the small stretch of blue wall.The edges had faded, the quality was grainy, but the image was clear: an older man was twirling a young girl around on a beach, in front of a small brick house.
“That’s stunning.Where’s that?”
Smiling, Sami stepped closer to the photo.“Isn’t it?That was my family’s home.Back in al-Tantura.”
“Why did you move?”Chicago was far from ugly, but there was something special about that picture, something serene and elysian.
Sami’s index finger traced over the image.“Well, when a bunch of armed soldiers bulldoze into your house and demand you leave or else they’ll kill you, if not worse, you might be persuaded to move too.”
Baz blinked.“I’m sorry, what?”
Sami’s gaze was loaded with something Baz couldn’t grasp.The air between them grew thick.“Tantura, Palestine, Baz.”
Oh.Sami was… his family had been… “Oh.”
“Told you I’m from nowhere I can go back to.”
“Yeah, but… Oh.”It wasn’t good enough, he knew that, but better words escaped him.
“I know.It was a small village, they were outmatched, but my great-grandparents still tried to defend their home.They were murdered in that house, right in front of my teta when she was only a child.She never spoke about the massacre she witnessed, but she cried every year on May twenty-second.”
“What happened to her?”Baz’s voice came out hushed.
“She and everyone else were forced to abandon our land.She joined the neighboring family, and they built a new village for Palestinian refugees in Jordan.That’s where she brought up my mother and it is where my mom fell in love with an American geologist.She followed him here.Well, to California.They brought teta along too, but she never liked it there,” Sami chuckled sadly.A flicker of pain ran over his face.
“It’s weird.I’ve never been to that house, but my teta told stories about how she’d go fishing with her dad or play on the beach, and I just…” His eyes glazed over under his rapid blinks.“When I think of home, this is what I see.My mom still wears the key around her neck, every day.”
The heaviness of his words threatened to tear Baz’s heart into pieces.He lowered his hands on Sami’s shoulders, slowly, ready to withdraw any second.When Sami didn’t flinch, but put his on top, Baz leaned his forehead against Sami’s temple too.
“I’m sorry,” Baz whispered.He wished he had the magic words that would somehow make this better, but his brain came up blank.What was there to say in the face of such profound pain he couldn’t pretend to understand?
“Yeah.Teta made this, you know.”With more care than Baz had ever seen him handle anything, Sami pulled an off-white, square shawl off the wooden coat stand by the door.The tassels along its edge danced at the movement.Some loose threads stuck out.“My kufiya.Apparently, my mom swaddled me in it when I was a baby.I barely wear it, it’s too special for that, but, you know.I like having it on display.Reminds me of her.”
Baz couldn’t begin to fathom how precious of an heirloom it must be—and still, Sami folded the shawl into a triangle and threw it over Baz’s shoulders.He arranged the cotton ends on Baz’s chest, gently smoothing out the fabric.
“Suits you.”
The ‘What doesn’t?’got stuck in Baz’s throat.The moment was too fragile to risk breaking with a joke.
“You must miss your teta.”
“I do.I miss her joy.She was the funniest person I’ve ever known, always a quip on her lips.And whenever I tried to talk back, she’d shove some food into my mouth.”
Baz could picture it too well, a young Sami, ever the menace, engaging in a battle of wits with his grandma just to get a snack.
Baz’s relationship with his mother had always been distant, and still, the grief of losing her had knocked him out.Still did.He couldn’t imagine how much of his own grief Sami hid under that sunny exterior.
“She sounds awesome.”
“She was.Mama always got real bad secondhand embarrassment from her because whenever something good happened, no matter where we were, she started dancing and singing.I remember this one time, we were all going to the beach, and on the way, teta found a dollar on the ground and broke out dancing and singing in the middle of the sidewalk.”
“And let me guess, you joined?”
“Of course I did!”Sami bounced on the balls of his feet, eyes shining.“Mama told her to cool it because people were staring, but teta said she was becoming too American and that ‘My freedom is to be what they don’t want me to be’.That’s from Mahmoud Darwish, her favorite poet.I have a first edition poetry collection of his in my room that she used to read to me.She gave it to me the day before she died.”
The buzzing energy around him faded as a shadow darkened his features.He pulled the kufiya off Baz’s shoulders, cradled it against his chest, and buried his nose in the fabric.
“Her entire life, she only wanted to return home.See the sun set on that beach one more time.But she was denied that right.All of us are.”Sami’s shoulders drooped from the invisible weight placed upon them.Baz couldn’t imagine how big it was.
