Once in a Promised Land
by Laila Halaby
Summary
This is the story of a Jordanian couple, Jassim and Salwa, living in Arizona, chasing their individual dreams of opportunity and freedom. Although far from Ground Zero, they cannot escape the nationwide fallout from 9/11. Jassim’s work is threatened by an FBI witch hunt for domestic terrorists. Salwa, grappling to put down roots in an inhospitable place, becomes pregnant against her husband’s wishes and then loses the baby. This account of two parallel lives is an honest look at what it means to straddle cultures, to be viewed with suspicion, and to struggle to find safe haven.
Excerpt
One minute before Jassim Haddad’s alarm was scheduled to hammer through the quiet morning, his eyes opened, and he lay awake in darkened siolence for a few seconds before his naked arm stretched out to turn off the buzzer. Four days a week he woke up at this time, usually a minute or two before the alarm, so he could drive to the Fitness Bar, swim, come home, and still be able to spend morning time with his wife, Salwa.
Jassim delighted in the stillness the morning offered, a time before emotions were awake, a time for contemplation. This day was no exception as he got up, washed his face, brushed his teeth, and relieved himself, the beginning of a morning ritual as close to prayer as he could allow. His thoughts hovered over the internal elements of self and world rather than the external. Jassim did not believe in God, but he did believe in Balance. At five o’clock, with the day still veiled, Jassim found Balance.
He went to his bedroom once more to look at Salwa and topick up the duffel bag he had packed the night before.
Have a good swim, Father of Water Preservation,” whispered Salwa.
“Thank you. Have a good sleep, Miss Pajamas.” Sometimes he walked to the side of the bed and kissed her forehead, but usually he did not. Today he did not.
Outside, the darkness was almost warm, the desert’s refusal to accept autumn. Though they had a garage, Jassim often parked his Mercedes sedan in the driveway, under an acacia tree, so tha the could step out into the day before he got into his car. Radio off, he took a couple of deep swimming breaths before pulling off his property and looping down the hills in a silent nine minutes. Driving alone in the dark, alone anywhere, anytime, filled Jassim with peace and pleasure; driving was a secret drug, a secretgod.
In a blink he arrived at the end of the road where the Fitness Bar was lodged, at the edge of a wash, a few breaths from the mountains. He parked in the bright-for-safety lot, amazed as always by how many cars were already there.
ID approved by Diane, the early morning clerk, he entered, smiling politely, though believing that it was within decorum not to greet people at this time of day.
His goal was the outdoor Olympic-length pool at the heart of the gym; the building was U-shaped and the pool nestled within its inner walls. The east lanes were used by the faster and more serious swimmers (ex-competitors, he imagined, judging by the way they flipped when they came to each end), so while the west lanes were more apt to be subject to doubling, Jassim usually chose one ofthem.
Jassim put his duffel bag down at the end of lane #2. First he warmed up in his T-shirt and shorts: ten push-ups, ten sit-ups,twenty jumping jacks…
Reviews
"Brilliant, insightful, heartbreaking, enchanting"--The Washington Post
“Halaby is spot-on in her observations of how slowly a once-idyllic union can crumble"--USA Today
A BookSense Notable Title for February 2007
Author's Biography
Laila Halaby was born in Beirut, Lebanon, to a Jordanian father and an American mother. She speaks four languages, won a Fulbright scholarship to study folklore in Jordan, and holds a master’s degree in Arabic literature. Her first novel, West of the Jordan, won the prestigious PEN Beyond Margins Award