The Inheritance of Exile

The

Inheritance

of Exile

Copyright © 2007 by Susan Muaddi Darraj

Published by the University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana 46556

www.undpress.nd.edu

All Rights Reserved

Published in the United States of America

Reprinted in 2014

Library of Congress Cataloging in-Publication Data

Darraj, Susan Muaddi.

The inheritance of exile : stories from South Philly / Susan Muaddi Darraj.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-268-03503-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-268-03503-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-268-16226-9 (hardback)

1. Arab American women—Fiction. 2. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 3. South Philadelphia (Philadelphia, Pa.)—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3604.A75154 2007

813'.6—dc22

2007002523

ISBN 9780268162276

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [email protected].

For

Elias & Mariam

Contents

Acknowledgments

NADIA

Back to the Surface

The New World

Survivor

ALIYAH

Aliyah’s Fan

Reading Coffee Cups

An Afternoon in Jerusalem

HANAN

Preparing a Face

Sufficing

Costumes

The Journey Home

REEMA

Chasing Valentino

Intervention

The Scent of Oranges

Acknowledgments

As a fellow writer recently told me, “Having a short story collection published is no mean thing in this age of the blockbuster novel.” How true. I owe thanks to Barbara Hanrahan at the University of Notre Dame Press for e-mailing me in the spring of 2006 to say she loved my stories, to Rebecca DeBoer for helping me polish and shape the manuscript, and to Margaret Gloster for including my ideas as she worked on the book’s design.

I am grateful to the members of my writing group: Lalita Noronha, Barbara Westwood Diehl, Meredyth Santangelo, Lara McLaughlin, Patricia Schultheis, Rosalia Scalia, Susan McCallum-Smith, and Andria Cole. We have been meeting monthly for three years, and they have been my first audience for nearly every story here.

It is difficult to describe the immense debt I owe my family: my parents, Bassam and Alice Muaddi, and my brothers, Aboud, Jawad, and Samy Muaddi; my husband, Elias Darraj; and my daughter, Mariam. My growth as a writer is deeply rooted in their love and support.

Some of these stories have appeared in the same or a slightly different form in the following publications:

“Back to the Surface,” New York Stories, Spring 2001.

“The New World,” Dinarzad’s Children: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Fiction, edited by Pauline Kaldas and Khaled Mattawa (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, November 2004).

“Aliyah’s Fan,” Mizna, December 2001.

“Preparing a Face,” The Orchid Literary Review, November 2004, Issue 4.

“Sufficing,” Mizna, Spring 2003.

NADIA