I have a recurring dream that I’m drinking coffee with Saddam Hussein. I am desperate to speak to him, but we sit in silence, staring at each other. We turn our cups over to allow the coffee grounds to paint our fates. Um Buraq arrives to read our fortunes, but I insist we wait for Jehad to arrive. Then both Saddam and Um Buraq point to an olive tree in our midst, and I am satisfied Jehad is with us. But the tree is also Bilal. Um Buraq contemplates Saddam’s cup and after a moment laments that Jehad should have left Kuwait before the Americans came. Saddam shrugs and motions to my cup. I turn it over and, to my horror, I see faceless men beating my brother. I seek Bilal for help, but the olive tree is gone. I wake up in panic, sweat, and regret. Then I try hard to get back to the dream to rescue my brother, to leave Kuwait before the Americans come.

Unsteady Earth

UNSTEADY EARTH

ONE OF THE families in our caravan had a home in Amman, where we stayed for a couple of weeks until we could find a place. We eventually rented a one-bedroom, furnished apartment. It was the best we could afford at the time. Sitti Wasfiyeh got the bedroom. The rest of us rolled out our bedding in the family room. In fairness, Sitti Wasfiyeh urged Mama or Jehad to take the bedroom, but we insisted it was hers. She was our elder, after all.

“May God bless you, my children. Um Jehad, you are the only real daughter I ever had,” she said on her way to bed that first night, leaving us shocked by her sincere gratitude. I think it broke her heart that her daughters, who lived in Jordan, had not insisted she live with them. The three of us watched Sitti Wasfiyeh’s small, hunched body shuffle to her new room. Jehad jumped up to help her walk, and for the rest of the night, even in my dreams, I thought of my grandmother, her anguished life in a world that could not spare a space for her.

Amman felt like the worst place in the world, even though I had rarely traveled outside Kuwait, and never beyond our region. The small buildings with shops, passed off as malls, were uninspiring and overpriced. The quality of everything from food to clothing to hair salons was inferior to what I was accustomed to in Kuwait, yet cost nearly twice as much. I tried to find work, but unemployment in Jordan was already high before half a million Palestinians displaced from Kuwait descended on the country.