Free That Other Me by Maha Gargash Page B

and the discussion could carry on until the end of the meal.
    With the exception of pleasant-faced Nadia, my daughters are not easy on the eyes: their eyebrows flit up and down like bat wings, their mouths are pinched, and their eyes are scrunched and wrinkly like prunes. They have hard faces with voices to match, an undertone of spite and vindictiveness, a viper’s hiss, as they spit their words out. I don’t look at them. I gather a handful of white rice and pour chicken curry on it, stirring the mixture to the right consistency: not too dry and not too soggy.
    â€œMother, I think you were too good to that maid,” says Amal. “You gave her money for her mother’s gallbladder operation, for her children’s schooling in the Philippines; you even fixed her rotten teeth.”
    â€œYeah,” says my youngest daughter, Nouf, who is Mariam’s age but like her twin, Badr, is still struggling to finish school. “They were yellow and black when she arrived, and she left with a set of white fangs.”
    The teenagers laugh as I finish molding the lump of softened rice. It fits like a ball in my palm. Hunched over the mat, I cram it into my mouth in one quick move while glancing at Shamma, who has lifted her finger and is about to chide them over their lack of sympathy toward the destitute. But Amal cuts in, “And the clothes! So many dresses you gave her . . .”
    â€œSlippers, too,” Mona adds, her face reddening at the memory of the treacherous maid. “And then what does she do—what does that sneaky girl do—to repay us?” She pauses for effect and skims the bewildered expressions around her, even though it’s a story they can all recount backward. “She gives favors to men, and in her quarters at the back of the house, too. Right under our noses!”
    â€œI just don’t understand why she did this to us,” says Aisha.
    â€œBecause she’s a snake,” says Nouf, laughing like a maniac. No one else reacts, and there’s a lull as the verbal slaughter abates. The only sound is my mother’s teeth crunching ice, a habit she developed the day she discovered ice. She’s been quiet; her practice is to filter information, squirreling away the bits that reinforce her beliefs and chucking out the rest. And when there’s a comment to be made, she’ll make it in a voice of self-proclaimed wisdom. Her bangles clink as she shifts on her chair.
    â€œIt’s always better to have a stupid maid than a clever one,” she declares. This opens another discussion, but I can’t follow it because they are all speaking at the same time. So I busy my head with what Mustafa told me earlier.
    â€œA composer,” he had said, “means that someone wants to be a singer.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, someone? Stop speaking in riddles and tell me!”
    The hairs on his head were starting to rise. He dipped his fingers in his glass of water and smoothed them back in place. “Your daughter Dalal.”
    â€œHow can that be? Doesn’t she know the scandal she would cause? What’s she trying to prove?” Then I asked Mustafa a question that was both pointless and absurd. “How can her mother allow it?”
    Ah, that Zohra! She had been a neglected child. Orphaned at fifteen when her parents died in a car accident, Zohra had been taken in by her reluctant maternal grandparents. They fed her and clothed her. They did their duty in providing a roof over her head. And in case she didn’t notice, they made sure to point out their sacrifices daily. I took her away from all that.
    â€œI don’t think you should panic, bey,” said Mustafa, his voice barely audible. “You know what the chances are of getting into that business.”
    â€œNo, I don’t.”
    He looked at me. “Well, they’re small.”
    â€œHow small?”
    â€œVery, very small. Tiny. I’d say a