Other Words for Home

by Jasmine Warga

This one’s for the Nazeks, especially my father, who crossed an ocean, my uncle Abdalla, who loved me from across one, and my cousin Jude, whose name I borrowed.

It is almost summer and everywhere smells like fish, except for right down by the sea where if you hold your nose just right you can smell the sprawling jasmine and the salt water instead.

Our city does not look like what they show on TV of Syria. I remember the first time Fatima and I saw a story about Aleppo on the news. We felt proud.

Our city is on the sea. It sits below the mountains. It is where the rest of Syria comes when they want to breathe. No one is going to come this year, Fatima says. And I wonder if that is because there is no one left who needs to breathe.

The two benches are empty. The one potted plant of mint has grown out of control. It smells like strong tea and is spilling out of its container, taking over everything around it. No one knows how the mint got there; someone should do something about that. But everyone is waiting for someone else to do it. We are still waiting.

But when we get home and she is spreading the spice rub over the lamb legs, she talks to my brother who is finally home for a dinner.

Issa sits at the table. He is having an asroneyeh to hold him over until dinner is ready. He rips a piece of pita bread in half. I know, he says, and his eyes meet mine. An invitation. A dare. I am not going to stop wanting better.

I still smile at everyone in the street. Not everyone smiles back, though. When they don’t, I want to say, You don’t have to worry about me. I am just a girl who likes movies.

His new apartment is covered with a tapestry of mismatched rugs; a scratched coffee table sits low to the ground and it is covered with stacks of newspapers that have been marked up with a pen. Names have been circled, crossed out, and amended. It feels like a place where ideas live. There is an energy in the room that excites and frightens me. There are so many faces, girls and boys. Issa introduces me to everyone. I do not know which faces actually live in this place and which faces are only visiting, like me.

When Mama first tells me, it’s just us sitting at the kitchen table, sharing a snack of feta cheese and olives. It’s only a visit, she says, to see my brother. My heart drops into my stomach. Her brother lives an ocean away in America.

It is our last day and I am supposed to be packing. Fatima and Auntie Amal have come over to say good-bye. I wanted to have a big party but Mama said no. She says there is no need to make a big fuss when we will be back soon but the way she says soon with the click of her tongue makes it sound like a wish instead of the truth.

I am on my second slice of cake my hands sticky with the vanilla bean icing when Fatima says, You won’t forget me, will you? I laugh and my knees go weak so I sit on the floor but Fatima swats at me. Don’t laugh, she says and her voice cracks, thick with emotion, driving a rushing river between us, with her on one side and me on the other bank. I want to swim back toward her, but for the first time ever, I’m not sure how.

She always wants me to be serious. She likes dramas where people fall in and out of and into love. Where they cry and sigh and cry some more. I like comedies where people laugh and then laugh some more. No one ever tells people in comedies to grow up.

I take the scarves from her, one by one and neatly place them in the one bag Mama has given me to pack up my whole life.

I’ll write to you every day, I say. Promise? I nod and the river that rushed between us before begins to dry up and even though I am leaving and she is staying, it feels like we’re standing on the same shore again.

Aren’t you going to miss me? I ask. He pulls me close, and whispers, Akeed. But you’re going to have so much fun in America. It’s going to be an adventure. He must be able to tell I’m about to argue with him Because he kisses the top of my head. Then he brings his face close to mine and whispers in my ear, Be brave.

But then I see Baba embracing Mama. He is gently patting her stomach and I have never seen Baba look so proud and so worried all at the same time. And that’s when I realize I don’t have a choice. I’m going to have to learn how to be brave. We’re all going to have to learn.

From the window of the plane, I see a muddy river framed by green rolling hills that are dotted with houses. I wonder which of those houses will now be mine. We arrive, in a city that I cannot pronounce, a city called Cincinnati.

Mama reaches into her purse and hands the man an envelope. We watch as the man opens the envelope and looks through the documents. He studies each one as though it were a precious artifact and every organ in my body holds its breath as I watch him make up his mind about us.

The man stamps our paperwork. Welcome to America.

Mahzozeen, Mama whispers under her breath. And I know she is referring to the fact that our papers worked, that we are not still stuck in that line, that we were not sent back. It is so strange to feel lucky for something that is making my heart feel so sad.

I cross my arms over my chest to show them— my uncle, his wife, his daughter— that I am not a stray animal they need to adopt. But my resolve starts to fade when his wife walks toward me and clasps my hands in hers. Welcome to America, she says. Her voice sounds like an American movie star— clear and sprinkled with sugar.

I keep expecting to see a cliff in Clifton but so far, I’ve only found really big hills, and even bigger trees.

Aunt Michelle tells us that their house is over one hundred years old and I can tell she is proud of this, but I’m not sure why. Everyone back home wants a new house not an old one. When I ask Mama about it, she says, Americans don’t have much history so they like things they think are old.

But one morning, when I wake up, the floor creaks and it sounds like the house is saying hello and that makes me feel less alone. The old house is slowly becoming my friend. My first American friend.

When I say this to Mama she scoffs and tells me our town is not that small but when she doesn’t know I’m looking, I see her eyes fill with wonder as she takes in the cold, air-conditioned stores, each one bigger fancier than the last.

Then I start to notice the man on the corner with a sign begging people for help, the tired woman waiting for the bus with shoes that are cracked at the sole. America, I realize, has its sad and tired parts too. America, like every other place in the world, is a place where some people sleep and some people other people dream.

Aunt Michelle’s old house is washed with sun. She leaves all the windows open. And it is decorated with white pillows, white chairs, and white couches. Too much white, Mama says. Boring, Mama says. Once I hear Mama ask Uncle Mazin, I don’t see anything from home here. Uncle Mazin turns to her and says, This is home.

Mama says, She’s too American. I say, She is American. Mama says, She doesn’t speak a word of Arabic. I say, Why would she? She’s American. She says, She has made Mazin forget his home. I want to say, This is his home now, but I look at Mama’s belly and don’t say anything.

Back home, food was rice lamb fish hummus pita bread olives feta cheese za’atar with olive oil. Here, that food is Middle Eastern food.

Baguettes are French food. Spaghetti is Italian food. Pizza is both American and Italian, depending on which restaurant you go to. Every food has a label. It is sorted and assigned.

Just like I am no longer a girl. I am a Middle Eastern girl. A Syrian...

Americans love labels. They help them know what to expect. Sometimes, though, I think labe...

Of course, she says. I walk over to the bed and hoist myself up onto the mattress. Mama wraps her arms around me, pulling me close to her, and she smells like she always has, agarwood oil and rosewater. It is the smell of home, of love, of safety.

If you didn’t want me to forget, we shouldn’t have left. Mama takes my face in her hands, she pulls me centimeters from her, and it feels like we are sharing one breath. Don’t you see? I know you will have a better life here, but that breaks my heart. You are too young to understand, Jude, but someday you will.

Sarah bounds in and leaves me staring up at the enormous old building which is new to me.

I am less afraid of getting wet than I am of what is inside. I swallow the knot in my throat and replay my brother’s parting words to me, Be brave. Be brave, be brave, be brave echoes like a chorus in my head as I climb the stairs and enter my brand-new world.

I have seven different classes, English, science, social studies, math, art, gym, and ESL. ESL means English as a second language. It is a class for kids like me, kids whose English is sticky and slow. Kids who were from somewhere else, but are here now.

Pre is an English preposition that means before. Pre Jude knew the way to all her classes, Pre Jude never showed up late.

I walk across the classroom and I feel everyone’s eyes on me. Pre Jude reveled in her classmates’ attention, but now I just want to blend in.

The whole classroom is silent, still, and then a boy seated in the front row volunteers. He walks to the front of the classroom. He is wearing a T-shirt with a photograph of a galaxy on it, millions and millions of twinkling stars. The boy works quickly and when he is done, he walks back to his desk without saying anything. Mr. Anderson checks his work, and claps as he announces that all of the boy’s answers are correct. I stare at the back of the boy’s head, imagining and thinking about all those swirling stars on the front of his shirt, all those different worlds.

She says she doesn’t like that lots of words in English sound the same like knight and night and weather and whether and sometimes it’s hard for her to figure out which is which. Ben Omar and me all laugh a little when Grace says this, each of us looking at one another, a little afraid to admit that we relate to what Grace said, but so relieved that there is someone else in this school in this city in this country who feels the same way about knight and night.

Dough, he says, and then Omar says, Yeah, that’s a COOL word, and we all laugh again. I was wrong about not wanting to be in Mrs. Ravenswood’s room.

My school is filled with kids who do not look like me. Kids with pale freckled skin, kids with hair the color of summertime corn. And kids with skin darker than mine, kids shorter than me, and kids taller than me. I have never seen so many different types of people in one place. I write to Fatima and tell her that sometimes it feels like the whole world lives at my new school.

You’re so lucky, she says. I wish I spoke Arabic. At first, I don’t understand why she is saying this, but then I see the way she looks longingly at Uncle Mazin and Mama who are in the kitchen speaking in Arabic and laughing. Lucky, I whisper to myself that night. I wonder if I say it enough times, if it will start to feel true, come true.

There is an Arabic proverb that says: Her luck splits open rocks. I am still waiting to feel like the force and less like the rocks.

I still don’t understand the word soccer, Omar says as he devours his cupcake, icing smeared at the side of his mouth. Feet. He points to his feet. You play with your feet. Football. This makes all of us laugh.

I cut into it and let out a cry. It’s bleeding, I shriek. Uncle Mazin laughs and shakes his head. No, he says. It’s perfect. In Syria, they overcook meat. I look at the light pink of the meat, my stomach turning at his words, at the small puddle of blood on my plate. I pick at the baked potato instead. I have been learning that in America, they add something called butter to everything.

I may not be able to see the appeal of bleeding meat, but butter, I understand.

He smiles, but not in a way that makes me think he finds me childish or uneducated. He smiles at me like he is seeing an old picture of himself or reliving a memory that he had almost forgotten.