Chapter 1

1

WE lived in a stone house in al-Abdali, on the seam between East and West Amman, where my parents landed after fleeing the civil war in Lebanon, privileged enough to bypass the east’s refugee camps but not yet sufficiently affluent to settle in the west. One Friday in May, after our customary chicken tikka lunch takeout, Baba turned in for his siesta and Laith and I helped Mama clear the table. Tata took Nadim, five years younger than me and then still a baby, and put him down for his nap.

“Every week the same routine,” Mama grumbled. “We never do anything exciting. There’s a whole world out there, and all he wants to do is sleep.”

Her discontent gnawed at her, whether we were out in the world or not. Laith looked at me and shrugged, then cruelly sniggered as he pointed to the raised step at the top of the tight corridor leading from the sitting room into the kitchen, where I had one day tripped and broken my arm. I shoved him as we followed Mama, placing the dishes in the sink next to where she was furiously scrubbing. “Go get dressed, boys,” she declared, as if announcing a long-planned excursion. “We’re going to Jerash to see the ruins.”

Laith had been begging for weeks to visit the film set where part of Indiana Jones was being shot. After Mama had made sure Tata would not mind staying in and watching Nadim, we left. We drove for almost an hour, north out of the city, through the hills surrounding Amman, and down to Jerash, the town nestled between the ruins of a long-lost Roman world and the ruins of ours, in the form of the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan, which had sprouted right next to it. Majida al-Roumi was blasting from the radio and Mama was lost in thought. Laith and I were in the back seat, bursting with excitement over this unexpected adventure, putting our faces by the open windows as warm air gushed in. My tongue, stuck out, was dry as cardboard. We were driving on the overpass built above the entrance to the camp when Mama turned the volume down. “Look how they leave them to rot in this place,” she said, pointing to the camp. “Just look.”

Laith scooted over to my side as we both stared out the window. The buildings were haggard, brown and stained, unlike Amman’s polished limestone, and the streets denser and more cramped than other parts of the city. But I was not sure why Mama appeared so aggrieved. The scene did not look much different from al-Abdali or Amman’s downtown—generally chaotic and overcrowded. Laith must have thought the same. “What am I looking at?” he asked. “And who’s ‘they’?” I added, thinking that those people congregating in the markets that had sprung up around the mosque after Friday noon prayers looked like they were free to go anywhere they wanted. Mama glanced back at us in the rearview mirror and said nothing for a few minutes. “The big shits,” she said, as she turned the volume back up. “Men with fat asses who think they know what they’re doing.” I giggled as Laith—five years older than me and thinking himself an adult—leaned over to the front seat and tapped Mama on the shoulder. “Mama,” he whispered in her ear, “you can’t say ‘shit’ in front of Tareq!”

That was the spring of my fifth or sixth birthday, days before Jerash’s annual summer festival was set to begin. We arrived in that part of the afternoon reserved for slumber—when the midday sun had not yet cooled enough to entice anyone out of their homes, and those who had ventured out carried themselves lethargically. We entered the ancient city through the Arch of Hadrian and walked into the esplanade that led to the grand Oval Forum, an expanse which gave a sense of the vast scale of the once-thriving metropolis. Merchants were setting up their stalls around the perimeter of the central courtyard in preparation for the throngs who would descend come dusk and stay late into the night.

We crossed the forum and strolled along the corridor lined with Corinthian columns, all the way to the Temple of Artemis. The vanilla-colored boulders carpeting the floor were like an obstacle course, uneven and scattered. Apart from two or three sweaty tourists, with cameras dangling around their necks and sizable backpacks on their shoulders, we were the only people walking in the heat. The film set that Laith was after had been constructed on that main corridor, and here, more people, mostly foreigners, were milling about. Laith got swallowed up by the crowd. Mama and I stood close by to watch. Even though the energy was frenzied, not much appeared to be happening, and I lost what little interest I had, becoming distracted, restless, my mind fixating on the market stalls we would walk through on the way back, heaving, I anticipated, with mounds of toys.

The sun was low by the time we returned to the Oval Forum and reentered a space that had, in the short span of time we were on set, somehow morphed from an imposing, majestic Roman arena into a bustling market resembling the one we had driven by on the way to Jerash. The smell of chestnuts and roasted peanuts wafted through the air and mingled with the steam from tubs of boiling water cooking sweet corn. “Lemons, grapes, oranges, grapefruits!” Merchants were shouting, riffing off one another and adding to the din of the gathering crowds. “Kitchen supplies, cooking utensils, bargains to be had!” Stalls piled high with fresh fruit and vegetables from the surrounding valleys had been set up next to others with stacks of socks and underwear, spices, and kitchenware. Shoppers had begun congregating in the market, haggling as they walked through. Arabic pop songs blasted from speakers that DJs had hung on the intricately carved crowns of the columns, which had been lit in purple, blue, and yellow. The space had a carnival-like atmosphere and I knew, before she said anything, that Mama would be itching to leave within seconds.

“We should head back,” she said, on cue. “Baba will be waking up soon.” My eyes scanned the stalls. It was the sparkle that caught my attention. I pulled Mama aside and into an alley. Tucked between rows of merchandise, dolls had been hung from the iron metal bars holding up one shop front. They were much larger than normal, more figurines than dolls—almost half my size and dressed in the most grotesque outfits. Mounds and mounds of chiffon and sponge-like material had been stitched around their waists to create bell-curve gowns that fell as almost perfect circles around their legs. The dolls had round, painted faces and their eyes were large and maniacal. Glittering beads had been sewn onto the gowns and the dolls had tiaras attached, glue visible, to their heads. The fabrics were washed-out pastel colors: light green, pink, and blue.

I latched on to an orange-brown one, transfixed, barely registering Mama’s halfhearted attempts to nudge me to move on. “Come, let’s go. We need to head home. Baba will be asking for us.” Her efforts were futile; within seconds, the doll and I had become inseparable, destined to be together. Mama shook her head and turned to the vendor, an elderly man who offered an amused smile and a shrug of his shoulders. Defeated, she made the payment and walked away from the stall, with me and Laith in tow. I held on to my precious companion, her small, plastic hand in mine, fretting that her outfit might be crushed by the crowd. We made our way out of the market toward the North Amphitheater, where the stage was being set for an opera. Before walking to our car, we sat on one of the bottom steps for a brief rest. I made sure my doll had a comfortable position on the hard stone next to me and glanced up with satisfaction. The look Mama and Laith gave me was one I would become intimately familiar with. It was a look not unsettling enough to upset me, yet not so innocuous as to be forgotten either.