Jehad had been back from Amman less than a month when American soldiers swarmed our streets. He was a few centimeters taller and his whiskers had bloomed into a proper mustache and beard. I wanted to hear about university, but in that month he was preoccupied by our situation and spoke of little else.

“I think the Americans orchestrated all of it and our stupid leaders, especially Saddam, are playing right into their hands,” he said, taking a hit from his inhaler. I noticed he was doing that more frequently now. He wanted to help the resistance defend Kuwait, but he felt the same kinship with Iraqis as he did with Kuwaitis. He could not fathom harming Iraqis and cursed Saddam for bringing such division among brothers. He cited historical examples of American treachery, spoke of Iran’s shah and several CIA coups against Arab leaders. The malice of it all vexed him.

I was both impressed and annoyed with him. I didn’t want my brother to be engulfed in politics the way so many men were. I was so emotionally invested in his future that I neglected to examine my own ambitions. I too wanted to learn. I wanted to leave and love and live something else. I didn’t yet know what, mostly because I needed to ensure that Jehad could find his way first.

“Teach me something in Russian,” I begged. “Please?”

“Kak pozhivaesh?”

“What does it mean?”

“It means, how are you?”

“No. I want to know dirty words.”

I learned several fabulous words that day but forgot them all except one superb line: “Otva`li, mu`dak, b`lyad!” It means: Fuck off, you asshole, fuck!

Jehad’s second semester started at the end of January, and he tried to persuade us to go with him to Amman. But none of us wanted to leave. For my part, it was perhaps a false sense of security, an inability to truly fathom war at our doorstep. I also wasn’t keen on being in Jordan. Sabah had painted a bleak image of Amman as an economically depressed and corrupt place. But it was Sitti Wasfiyeh who persuaded my brother it was pointless to try to make us flee. She had been listening to us, uncharacteristically quiet, then she asserted, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m tired of being chased out of wherever I am in the world. Out of Haifa, then out of Ein el-Sultan, then Jordan, and now Kuwait? No. I’ll just die here instead of facing another exodus. I’m too old for this shit that these shit people keep doing to us. Shit. All of it—shit!”

My brother begged, but it was no use trying to persuade my grandmother. Jehad despised Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait, but he feared American intervention and decided to stay with us rather than leave. I was furious. “Mama and I work day and night to make it possible for you to study, and you think you can just decide not to go? As if your life is yours to do as you please without regard to your family?” I yelled.