Eid Mubarak
The house across the street was vomiting its contents onto the curb — at least that’s how Fatima’s mother described it. Their neighbor was moving out, and the process may have started orderly, but eventually discarded boxes collapsed under the weight of others. Beige rectangles spilled into the street. Fatima, who wasn’t an eye-roller, pressed the corners of her mouth into a neutral frown. Sure, trash was trash, but these boxes were dry and neatly sealed. For their neighbor, moving out of a house that big must have been momentous. Kids on the school bus marveled at the size of the latest boxes. A pink velveteen loveseat with ornately carved legs now surfed atop them.
All evening, pickup trucks mangy with rust idled while men swept the curb with flashlights. Fatima’s mother watched from their living room, sucking her teeth. “We came here for this?” she’d remark occasionally, gesturing through the window at the small crowd of scavengers.
Her dad said nothing. Her parents had immigrated before she was born, so maybe he was different back in Egypt. In America, he had developed the belief that if he politely insisted and told enough jokes, someone would give him a discount. There were decades worth of free swag packed away in the attic. He gazed mournfully at the crowd on the street.
“It’s raining tomorrow,” he said, meaning “All this free treasure will be ruined.”
“Don’t even think of it,” her mother hissed.
A few days later, when Fatima hopped off the schoolbus, her mom’s van wasn’t in the driveway. The neighborhood houses seemed empty, and traffic existed only as a concept, or distant sounds in another neighborhood. As long as she could remember, someone had lived in the white two-story Victorian across the street, though she’d never seen them. The lawn was mowed regularly, and every winter, a maintenance truck plowed the driveway. In middle school, as Fatima studied into the evening, a warm orange light sometimes appeared in the neighbor’s bedroom. On those evenings, Fatima felt as if they were the only people awake in the whole world. It did seem odd, though, that single light. Such a big house. Now, its sole inhabitant was moving out. Was it possible to miss someone you’ve never seen?
*
Fatima walked along the curb, peeking into boxes torn open by scavengers. Cookbooks, picture frames, whisks. Her mom could return any minute. Under the last box was a black rectangle wrapped in plastic. Without thinking, she yanked it out and tucked it under her arm as a car passed. She kept her pace steady, her posture straight, as she crossed the street into her own yard.
*
In school, they’d just finished “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and Fatima pictured the black book pulsing under her bed. She was sure her mom somehow knew about it but decided to play it cool. At dinner, Fatima casually asked about their neighbor.
“Someone said she’s communist. I heard her husband died. Very sad,” her dad said.
Her mom said, “She always put a wreath on her door for Christmas, and lights. Maybe her husband did. The first year here, she put a Christmas card in our mailbox. Then, after … no.”
After September 11, she meant. “Then, in December —” her dad said.
“Ah,” her mother said, closing her eyes.
Her dad said it like a punchline: “In December, there’s a card, white inside, and handwritten: Eid Mubarak. I nearly fell over.” Few of their neighbors knew that Eid was the Muslim gift-giving holiday. Back then, even fewer cared.
“Americans,” her mom said. In this case, she meant “Americans. They’ll surprise you every time.”
Fatima asked, “Did you ever meet her?”
Her dad stared into his coffee. “I meant to write back, say what the card meant … to us, but my English back then … No, I never saw her.” Neither parent had. So how did they know it was a woman?
“The handwriting,” her mother said, shaking her head like a musician hearing a new, perfect chord. “Beautiful, beautiful.”
*
Afterward, in her bedroom, Fatima unwound the plastic, then took a dramatic breath and raised book to the light. A pressed flower fell and crumbled onto the carpet. She held the book upside down, taking in the dry papery scent, and shook it. A coupon fluttered out.
The loveliest handwriting she’d ever seen leapt across the pages. At first, she thought it was Arabic, which she couldn’t read, but then the words resolved themselves into familiar Western shapes. On some pages, the author had pressed hard, nearly carving the words into the paper, but the letters retained their grace. On those pages, the ink was smeared. Tears, Fatima thought, remembering the husband’s death, the weak light in the window. Her cheeks heated, and she snapped the book shut.
*
“It’s not a diary,” her best friend Courtney declared. They were passing the book around during study hall.
“You can read it?” Fatima said. Americans, full of surprises.
“Naw, there’s no dates. It’s like a letter.”
“Look at these words,” Miryam said, sounding one out like she was delivering an aria, hand on chest. Pascolo. Mozzafiato. French, the language of love.”
“Pretty sure it’s Italian,” Fatima said.
She flipped to the first page. “It’s addressed to someone,” she said, squinting at the name. None of them could decipher it. She turned the pages, picturing the author in bed, her hand steady in the dim light as she etched her longing in exquisite loops and curliecues, all for a man who would never read it.
*
The next morning, Fatima’s dad pointed to a small rectangle in the newspaper. “Neighbor died last week,” he announced.
The idea hadn’t occurred to Fatima. In fact, she’d been thinking of ways to return the book to its author. She felt a chill pass through her, as if the delayed spirit had just dissolved into the air. She reached for the newspaper. The obituary listed dates and dry, respectful adjectives. The funeral was this afternoon, and in lieu of flowers, the deceased requests donations to noble causes, with a joyful heart.
“Serafina Trenta.” Fatima said the woman’s name. She sounded like a retired spy, or a perfume connoisseur. “Are we going to the funeral?” Fatima asked. Her father’s head jerked back like she’d cracked a tasteless joke.
*
In school, she bounced her knee and ignored her teachers, focusing instead on the smallest, lightest book in her backpack. She fully expected to be called into the principal’s office. Her mom would be there, along with a mass of witnesses. “We saw you take it,” they’d call out in unison, advancing on her.
***
Ride-sharing is wild, Fatima thought as she sat alertly in a stranger’s backseat, her eyes glued to the car icon inching its way across the map. You just download an app and a stranger drives you anywhere. They don’t ask your age or anything. Also wild: smartphones, from which you can access a sea of information, including obituaries and church addresses. She was skipping school for the first time and marveled at how easy it was. Plus, a hijab was basically an invisiblity cloak: since most people don’t know what to make of you, they tend to treat you like a benign ghost.
The cathedral doors were surprisingly heavy. As her eyes adjusted to the dark interior, steps emerged leading to a carpeted stage and a wooden podium engraved with a cross. On a table, rows of candles flickered in transparent red cups, and in the room’s center stood an open coffin. Fatima felt her knees shaking and collapsed onto a hard wooden pew, thankful she couldn’t see inside.
She had no idea what happened next. Her parents were raised Muslim but rarely discussed religion. She mostly wore the hijab because her childhood friends did. The church smelled faintly of dust and wax. As she was gathering her courage to leave, a priest entered and nodded at her, as if it was perfectly natural that a wide-eyed girl in a hijab, backpack on her lap, was the sole mourner at this funeral mass.
After a man on a balcony at the rear of the church sang a hymn in a beautiful alto, the priest gave a speech that was probably about sadness and loss. His tone was soothing, but Fatima couldn’t follow the words because any moment, someone was going to silently approach, tap her on the shoulder and whisper, “There’s been a mistake, miss. You’re not supposed to be here.”
The speech ended, followed by another song. She kept her head tilted toward her lap, and when she looked up, the priest was exiting down the aisle, his robe rustling quietly. The sanctuary was expansive; at the same time, it felt like there was just enough room for Fatima and the coffin. She had a fantasy of placing the book in Serafina’s hand—had that been the plan all along? As she stood, she knew she couldn’t approach an open coffin. Not today, not ever. The best she could do was to picture the figure inside: a woman with a lined face and long, white hair, sleeping peacefully.
The black book — well, Fatima would just have to keep it. As she moved toward the lobby, the priest blocked the exit, hands folded at his waist. Beside the door was a wooden stand bearing a ledger. He gestured to it. A bookmark bore a photo of Serafina when she was younger—a round, unlined face, striking gray eyes, and a daisy tucked behind an ear. Fatima signed her name at the bottom. It was immeasurably sad that hers was the only, but maybe other mourners were on their way, stuck in traffic. You never know.
*
Weeks later, during dinner, a stranger arrived at Fatima’s house. He wore a crisp dress shirt and a purple tie. He introduced himself as Father Christopher. “You have no idea how many Fatima Alis live in this city,” he mumbled as Fatima’s dad ushered him into the living room.
She blinked and recognized him as the priest from the funeral. He looked different in street clothes.
“How can we help?” her mother asked.
He explained he was on official business as the executor of the Trenta estate. “She didn’t have children or living relatives. In her specific bequest, she asked for her estate to be divided among attendees of her service. Funeral,” he said to Fatima’s mom.
“I don’t understand,” she replied, narrowing her eyes at her husband, who was slowly piecing together a narrative: the discarded boxes, newspaper obituary, his daughter asking about the funeral.
Fatima kept her gaze trained on Father Christopher. “I found a book she wrote, like a diary except it was a letter. I tried to return it.” She sprinted upstairs, grabbed the book, and handed it to him. He balanced it on the chair’s armrest.
“You didn’t want to just toss it in the trash. You’re Egyptian, right? The other Fatimas were, mostly. Anyway, your people once believed they carried their possessions to the afterworld.”
“Things have changed a bit,” her father responded drily.
Fatima could still feel her mother’s gaze on the back of her neck. As long as someone else kept talking, she didn’t have to explain why — or how — she’d attended the funeral.
As if anticipating the question, Father Christopher told her dad the first distribution would arrive soon, pending sale of the house. Fatima should have felt relief, or the exploding confetti of pure elation. Instead, it felt like the air in the room had thickened and she was struggling to breathe. She’d just relieved herself of Serafina’s passion and secrets, and now, here she was, part of the woman’s estate.
“Can someone explain?” her mother demanded, gesturing toward her daughter. These Americans, full of surprises.
“I didn’t know Mrs. Trenta well. She tithed and abstained from the sacrament of confession…had a husband and son who passed on in the war. She used to own a bridal shop called The Jewelry Box, but it went out of business. She loved dogs, but I suppose she couldn’t have one due to her health. That must have broken her heart.”
Fatima pictured the light in the window across the street. As if reading her mind, the priest said, “You’ll have new neighbors soon. I hear it’s a large family. Such a blessing to fill that old house.” To Fatima, he said, “I’m not sure how old the kids are. The closing is next week, so I imagine you’ll meet them shortly after.”
He said it with the tone adults use when offering small children a treat, but Fatima felt the queasiness return. In her mind, each window of the house across the street remained dark. Tendrils of ivy peeled away from the rickety white trellis. Even at night, shadows fell across the lawn, and silhouettes flitted past the curtains. Ever since stealing the book, it felt like some new gravity pulled that house toward their own, and now it practically loomed over them.
Wanting to push it away, to re-light that solitary window, to pause and breathe, Fatima said, “Tell me more about Serafina.” What she meant was, “What causes would she have deemed noble?”
The priest listened for the question beneath most questions placed before him, which concerned fairness and mercy. He readied his usual answer, a quote about loving one’s neighbor as one’s self, but paused at the girl’s hijab, the grainy photos of Cairo and the pyramids on the wall behind her. The girl’s mom wore a majestic pair of purple velour sweatpants and a sensible cotton blouse, as well as a wary expression. The dad looked like he was rapidly performing calculations in his head.
The quote about neighbors was more of a commandment, and the longer Father Christopher held it in his lungs, the more it felt out of place. At some point, someone would answer the questions beneath their questions. A scrap of the Desiderata floated to the surface of his mind: the universe is unfolding as it should.
Father Christopher gently picked up the book. He opened it, and the gesture revealed an expanse between, ripe with possibility. Aware the whole family was watching him, he mouthed the first few sentences as his eyes followed them across the page.
“It’s magnificent,” he said.
“You know what she’s saying?” Fatima asked, so quietly that the priest wasn’t sure she’d spoken until he saw her expression.
“Not exactly,” the priest said after a pause. He knew Latin, which of couse wasn’t Italian. He smiled at Fatima and gently moved his hands palm-down to his thighs, meaning he was about to stand and depart. “Serafina never learned English. I guess she never had to. That means she listened differently.” He saw that the young girl didn’t get it. “The listening —” he said, making a vague gesture with his hand. It took effort to leave the sentence unfinished, but sometimes, silence was necessary. He may have considered it as a matter of faith, the pause in a call-and-response. In the years to come, Fatima would take it as the uncurling of a blank page.