One Half from the East

  “No,” I whisper back.

  It is quiet for a moment. We can hear my father’s snores through the thin wall. It’s not the reason why I can’t sleep. That’s the sound I’ve been sleeping through all my life.

  “Are you okay?”

  I don’t know how to answer that question. I should be okay. I haven’t been stung by a scorpion. I haven’t fallen off a ledge of wet rocks. I haven’t been disowned by my parents. But I also don’t know what I am. I really want to be a boy, but my mother’s told me that’s not going to happen because rainbows don’t actually have powers. I refused to believe her and figured I’d start feeling more changes soon.

  I went to the outhouse before I came to bed. I had to pee crouched down, just like always.

  “Did you hear me? Are you okay?”

  “I guess so.”

  “They’re so angry,” Alia says. “I’ve never seen Madar so upset! I thought she was going to rip her hair out. Do you think she’s going to be mad forever?”

  “No,” I mumbled. I sigh at Alia’s ability to make everything sound worse than it is. “She wasn’t that mad. Besides, I’m the one who should be upset. Not her.”

  “You?”

  “Yes, me. I’m the one they want to make into a girl.”

  “You never ever complained about being a girl when you were one. Not once.”

  “You don’t understand. You don’t know what it’s like. It’s so much better being a boy.”

  I don’t mean to sound like I’m talking down to her, but I don’t know how else to tell her how I feel.

  “Sometimes, Obayd or Obayda or whoever you think you are, sometimes you are a real hardhead.” That’s not Alia. That’s Neela. Our whispering must have woken her.

  “I am not,” I say defensively.

  “Yes, you are,” Meena whispers angrily. “You never stop to think that maybe what you do comes back to us—especially when you’re not around.”

  All four of us are awake.

  “You just don’t get it. None of you do.”

  “Why do you have to say that?” I can’t tell if that was Meena or Neela. “Do you really think you’re that different from us? You know it was just a pair of pants. That’s all it was. Your hair will grow back. Nothing else about you changed. You were Obayda all along. You’ve always been a girl and you always will be.”

  It’s Neela. Even in a hushed voice, she sounds more like a mom than a daughter. I feel my face flush, realizing that I haven’t been thinking of my sisters’ feelings. This whole thing has been all about me. I remember the way they looked earlier in the night, sitting on the sidelines and watching. They’d probably had to sit through hours of my parents worrying and yelling. I think about what Meena just said. My mother must have asked if they knew where I was. I could picture Meena wondering if I’d gone back to the warlord’s compound and debating whether she should tell my parents about it.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell them. Things haven’t been fair to them ever since I became Obayd. I’ve probably known that for a while but ignored it because I could. My apology doesn’t sound like much, even to me, but I do mean it. “I really am sorry. I just don’t know what to do.”

  “There’s nothing to do,” Neela explains. “You just go back to being you.”

  “But don’t you think . . .” I’m really glad it’s dark in the room as I ask this question. “I went all the way to the mountain and passed under a rainbow. It wasn’t the biggest rainbow, but it was there and I did it. Don’t you think that’s going to do something?”

  “Honestly?” Meena says. “Maybe it did work. You were Obayd when you went there. The legend says it changes boys to girls and girls to boys. So maybe it changed you from a boy to a girl.”

  I roll onto my back and my eyes go wide. I hadn’t thought of that possibility. Did I bring this girl-ness upon myself?

  “Meena, what are you talking about? People don’t just change like that. Rainbows can’t change your . . . your body parts.” Neela is careful with her words. None of us really wants to get into the real differences between girls and boys.

  “But do the body parts matter?” Meena asks. “Are you a boy because you have those body parts or are you a boy because you get to do boy things?”

  “Of course it’s the body parts.” Neela groans.

  “I don’t know,” Alia replies. “Obayda didn’t have the body parts, but she was a boy because she did all those boy things. She even made that crutch that Padar was using today. That was pretty neat, by the way.”

  “She wasn’t really a boy. She was just pretending.” Neela sounds so frustrated with us. I think that’s just part of being the oldest, though.

  “Everyone said she was a boy,” Alia retorts. “And everyone treated her like one. And, even more importantly, she ate like one. I don’t think I’ve had a single drumstick since she became Obayd.”

  Meena and Neela have to stifle their laughter.

  “Is that what you’re worried about? A piece of chicken?”

  “The drumstick is the best piece,” Alia says in her most wistful voice.

  The room is quiet again. My sisters are probably thinking about drumsticks, but I’m thinking about what they’ve said.

  Was I really a boy or was I just acting like one? That makes a big difference. Meena’s theory about the rainbow turning me back into a girl isn’t totally crazy, even if it does make my head spin just a little bit to think about.

  It is starting to sink in, though, that this girl-ness is for real. The tightness in my chest is gone. I don’t feel weird anymore. All I feel is sad that things are never going to be the way they were when it was me and Rahim. I reach behind my head and pull the Wizards cap on. I miss my best friend a lot tonight.

  Thirty-One

  “Madar?” I say quietly from the hallway. It is barely morning and my sisters are still fast asleep in our room. I snuck out without waking them. They didn’t get much sleep last night, thanks to me.

  I wish I could stick my hand into the everything room and feel out my mother’s mood. I don’t know if she’s as angry as she was last night or if the hours between then and now have turned her from red hot to summery yellow. It’s wishful thinking to imagine her a cool blue.

  “Mm?” She looks up at me. She’s hunched over a plastic tray of uncooked rice. She sifts through the rice with her fingertips, looking for the teeniest rocks that get missed when they bag the rice grains. She always does this, ever since Neela chipped a tooth when she bit down on one years ago. It occurs to me that Madar spends hours doing things like this for us, trying to make things as perfect as she possibly can. If she’s decided to change me back into a girl, it’s not because she wants to hurt me.

  “I’m sorry about yesterday, Madar-jan.”

  Her eyes glisten and she lets out a soft sigh. That’s all I need. I run over to her and bury my face in the soft space between her shoulder and her chest. I feel her arms wrap around me.

  “I’m sorry too.”

  I want to ask what she’s sorry about it but I’m afraid to. My mother nudges the tray of rice away and pulls me in closer. It’s not easy, but somehow I snuggle up to her even with her round belly.

  The sky outside is dark orange and yellow. The sun is still tucked behind the mountains.

  I feel something push against my side where I’m nuzzled against my mother. When I feel it a second time, I pull back.

  “What’s that?”

  My mother smiles and puts a hand on her belly.

  “Did you feel it? That’s the baby moving.”

  Could she have said anything crazier? The baby is deep in her belly and somehow managed to push at me.

  “Really? Does it always do that?”

  She nods and tilts her head in a way that tells me she’s not red-hot mad anymore. She’s not even yellow.

  “Is the baby coming out soon?”

  My mother purses her lips and thinks for a moment.

  “I think it’ll be another six or seven w
eeks,” she says. “And things will be a little different then. Babies don’t sleep much at night, and they cry. They are really small and need a lot of attention. But it might be good for your father to have a new baby at home.”

  “Only if it’s a boy.”

  My mother pulls back and looks at me.

  “What did you say?”

  “Only if it’s a boy,” I repeat. “If it’s a girl, I don’t think you or Father are going to be happy at all. That was the whole point, wasn’t it? You wish we’d been born as boys, so you made me into a boy.”

  My mother grips my shoulders and looks directly into my eyes. I feel my face flush, thinking I must have said something wrong to make my mother look at me so strangely.

  “It was wrong, Obayda. It was very wrong of us to do that to you. I want you to understand that I know that now. Whatever reasons we came up with, it was the wrong thing to do. I wish you could have seen how happy your father was when each of his daughters was born.”

  I can’t keep my mother’s stare. I look down. I guess this is her way of apologizing. It doesn’t change anything, but it does make me feel a little better. I woke up yesterday as a boy. Today, I woke up as a girl who kind of looks like a boy. I’m either a totally new person or haven’t changed at all. I can’t really tell.

  “Are you hungry?”

  Just as my mother asks the question, my stomach lets out an attention-seeking growl. With everyone so worked up last night, I totally forgot to eat. My mother reaches to the small metal tray on the other side of her and butters a square of still-warm flatbread. She pulls a pinch of brown, coarse grain sugar from a ceramic bowl and sprinkles it over the butter. I take it from her and feel the sugar crystals melt on my tongue. The butter is salty, but that only makes the sugar taste even sweeter.

  “Thank you,” I mumble between bites.

  “Your sisters are still sleeping?” My mother goes back to sifting through the grains of rice. There’s just enough light in the room for her to see, but it’s still dark enough that she’s squinting a little. It’s leaving a crease in her forehead, right between her eyes.

  “They’ll probably be up soon.”

  “I doubt it. You were all up most of the night whispering. I was surprised to see you awake this early.”

  I stop chewing and look at her from the corner of my eye.

  “What were you girls talking about?”

  I start chewing again so I won’t be able to answer immediately. Thank goodness for my excellent manners.

  “You’re going to keep it a secret?”

  “It was nothing. Can’t even remember what we were talking about.” I shrug.

  I see the corners of my mother’s mouth turn up, just enough to tell me she sees through my forgetfulness.

  “Yes, I’m sure it was nothing,” she confirms.

  I lean up against my mother again, feeling especially close to her because she seems to have forgiven me for everything that happened yesterday. I feel a thump against my flank again.

  “Whoa—that was a serious kick!”

  “It sure was.”

  “With kicks like that, it must be one strong baby. Definitely a boy.”

  My mother stops sifting and takes a deep breath.

  “Each one of you girls kicked just like that before you were born. At least that strong, if not stronger. You should know better than anyone not to assume a girl couldn’t do that.”

  I break out into a full smile, teeth and all. Maybe it is a baby sister in there, and maybe she kicked me for thinking so little of her.

  I hear three slow taps and realize the snoring has stopped. It’s my father. He’s standing (STANDING!) in the hallway and poking his head into the everything room. He rests his weight on the walking stick and tries to finger-comb his bed head. It doesn’t work.

  “Good morning, Father.” I stand up and walk toward him slowly. I’m just as excited as I was last night, but I’m afraid to start talking about the crutch. I need to see what kind of mood he’s in this morning. There are no color signs on him, either.

  “Good morning, Obayda,” he says groggily. He keeps one hand on the crutch and reaches his other arm out toward me. I let his arm pull me to him, and he kisses the top of my head. I want to say something but am certain that if I try to make any sound at all, I will end up in tears. I couldn’t say exactly why, but my chest is a bubble ready to pop.

  “You’re up early,” my mother comments.

  “I think all that fuss yesterday is still working its way through me,” my father says. I’ve got my ear pressed against his chest and can feel the vibration of his words.

  “I’m really sorry I made you worry. And I’m sorry you had to go looking for me.” My voice is a squeak.

  “It was unacceptable—something you must never, ever do again.” His voice is deep and warm. The anger from yesterday has melted into a stern warning. I can breathe a little easier.

  “I know. I won’t do it again.”

  “Did you really go up to the waterfall?”

  I nod slowly.

  He lets out a soft moan.

  “The things that could have happened to you. That’s why you were asking me about the waterfall? If I’d known what you were planning, I never would have . . . But how did you find the water?”

  “You told me how to find it, Padar-jan. I went to the camel’s head. Everything was just like you said it would be. I found the ear, went behind it, and followed the sound of water.”

  “It’s such a long way from here. And it’s not an easy place to get to. There’s barely a path, and it’s rocky. You’re lucky you didn’t get bitten by a snake or . . . You really went alone?”

  “Yes.”

  There is a moment of silence as the three of us imagine what could have gone wrong. I don’t have to imagine that hard. I just think back to the creatures I saw along the way. I can almost feel the tickle on my foot even as I stand with my father.

  “Put a jacket on, Obayda. The sun hasn’t yet warmed the sky, and it’s a little brisk outside.”

  There’s a green sweatshirt on the wooden chair in the corner of the room. I slip one arm in, then the other.

  “Do you need me to bring something from outside, Padar-jan?”

  “Yes, bachem.” It’s nice to hear my father call me his child. For a daughter who was in deep trouble yesterday, I’m feeling awfully loved today. “We need water from the well, and I think some morning air would do us both good. How about a walk with your father?”

  If he’d asked me that question yesterday, I would have been out the door before he could finish his sentence. But that was yesterday, when I was a different person. I look down at myself and see a dress that looks like it’s on the wrong body. I outgrew it while I was a boy, but I know telling my mother that won’t get me back into my boy clothes.

  “But, Padar, what if people are outside? I look so strange with this dress and short hair. What will people think?”

  “What do you think is a stranger sight to see—a girl with short hair or a ghost walking with a crutch? I promise, the only eyes that will be on you will be the ones wanting to see what magical child managed to drag a one-legged spirit out for a walk.”

  Thirty-Two

  Under a sky ribboned in purple and gold, my father and I walk. We circle once around our neighborhood block. I remember racing Rahim from one corner wall to another, me chasing the dust clouds his plastic sandals raised from the ground. We walk past my uncle’s home down the street and, over the wall, I hear my cousins just starting to wake. In a cry that would shame a rooster, my cousin yells that his brother has been sleeping too long. It is morning, he shouts, and only girls sleep this late.

  My father and I look at each other and share a conspiratorial smile. Outside of the house and standing upright, I can see just how thin he is. His face is gaunt beneath the scruff he’s grown. The hairs on his chin are peppered with silver. I don’t remember seeing that before. His clothes hang limply with nothing to cling to. I r
emember what he said about being a walking ghost. I hate to think how perfect his self-description was.

  From the corner of my eye, I watch him walking with the crutch. I remember the day he took me to the doctor to get checked. I remember walking with him to the pharmacy. He’d had to slow his step so I wouldn’t fall too far behind. Today, his steps are short and I have to slow down so I won’t get ahead of him.

  His body swivels a little with each stride. He doesn’t look totally comfortable. He stops every few yards and readjusts his stump or his grip on the crutch. I wait for him to tell me it’s not a very good crutch or that he’s too tired and wants to go back home.

  He says neither of these things. He only takes a deep breath and starts again.

  We walk beyond the four pomegranate trees with sad, barren branches and stop at the well. I’ve got a three-gallon plastic container and a funnel. The well is a metal neck that sticks out of a concrete square. The square is half as tall as I am and makes for a solid base. The metal of the pump is bright and looks out of place in our village. The neck sprouts a long lever on one end and a short, fat spigot on the other.

  I put the funnel into the mouth of the plastic container and place it directly under the spigot. My father is watching me, not saying a word. He wipes his forehead with a handkerchief and works on catching his breath. I cringe to think how hard it must have been for him to roam the streets last night looking for me.

  “I’ll pump,” my father says. He takes a few hop-steps to the long handle that sticks out parallel to the ground.

  There is a green plastic chair by the well. My father looks exhausted, and we still have to get back home.

  “Padar, why don’t you sit? I can pump the water. It’s usually my job anyway.”

  “No,” he says, shaking his head. He takes a quick look around to see if anyone from our neighborhood is around to see him. No one is. He clears his throat and takes a deep breath. “I can do this.”

  It’s been months since I’ve seen my father doing anything more than hobble from one room to another. I can’t believe it’s my walking stick that’s gotten him this far.