“What’s funny?”

“Here.” Susu held out her soda. “This is Red Label.”

I recognized the smell. “It’s alcohol! I thought you were drinking cola.” Still laughing, Fifi said, “Just drink it. Don’t pretend here. We know all you Palestinians drink alcohol.”

I remembered Mhammad. And my father. I could almost hear Mama yelling that he reeked of khamr and sin. That he should go back to whatever whorehouse he had been to. I took the glass from Susu, sniffed the fumes, and swallowed a large gulp. This alcohol wasn’t like the stuff Mhammad had introduced me to. It wasn’t even the same color. Fire spread through me. I thought I would vomit. I coughed it up, my eyes watered, and snot shot out my nose. They all laughed.

I ran to the bathroom. The makeup I had admired moments before was smeared, kohl and black mascara running down my face.

“You look like a cat that just ate her kittens,” Um Buraq said, standing at the bathroom door. Deepa was smiling next to her. “I’ll fix it for you, darling.” She seemed almost maternal.

“Do you drink that terrible stuff?” I asked Um Buraq.

“Not me. But I don’t judge. I’ll show you how to drink it,” she said, and Deepa added in broken Arabic, “Not drink like water, Almas. Drink slow.”

Deepa fetched a damp towel and handed it to Um Buraq, who dabbed it gently on my face. My head was already spinning.

“Just let go. Trust me. You will have the time of your life. We women deserve to have fun in this world,” Um Buraq said softly, even lovingly, as she reapplied my makeup. “God didn’t make us just to have babies and serve the needs of men while they run around and do whatever they want.” I thought about Mhammad again, and the sting of abandonment shot through me. She went on, “They’re vampires who leave when they’ve sucked your last drop of blood.”

“Mama, Ajay needs me,” Deepa interrupted.

Um Buraq waved her hand. “Make him wait. Let’s get this girl together.”

I would learn over time that Um Buraq tolerated Ajay for Deepa’s sake, even though she took half his earnings every month. Um Buraq would have taken all of it were it not for Deepa. Ajay could do nothing about it. He had been disgraced in India and had nowhere to go but Kuwait with Deepa. His work permit was held in Um Buraq’s name. She owned him and was making him pay for leaving Deepa, a kind of proxy punishment of her own husband, who had taken a second wife and abandoned her. Um Buraq’s husband had told her to be grateful to him for sparing her the shame of divorce. But Um Buraq knew that it was simply cheaper for him to keep her as a first wife than to pay her mo’akhar, the divorce dowry, which is intentionally exorbitant in some marriages to prevent divorce.

Until I met Um Buraq, it had never occurred to me that patriarchy was anything but the natural order of life. She was the first woman I met who truly hated men. She said it openly and without apology. I found her persuasive.