20. The Statue of Liberty

No sooner had Nakhla al-Maʿṣūb’s parents taken joy in him—that is, married him to a decent girl, as people say—than the necessity of going to America to build a future entered his head. Despite his parents’ tears and their entreaties that he remain, he bade farewell to family and friends and set out with his bride for America, the Kaaba of wage earners.[73]

His bride was a girl ten years his junior; he was twenty-eight. At the beginning of their marriage he was a prince in his house. He had planted fear in his wife’s heart, and she regarded him as a master more than a husband. She labored to win his approval in everything he required. He loved her dearly, but, as a man, he continued to preserve his station as master of the house and head of the woman. First place and command belonged to him; her duty was merely to please him and follow his orders.

At first he thought for a long time of going to America alone and then sending for his wife. But he could not bear to part from her, for he felt her love and his need to keep her near. Thus he took her with him and traveled to Beirut, then Marseilles, New York, and the interior, finally settling in a large village in Ohio.

During his first year, Nakhla al-Maʿṣūb suffered terrors in earning a living. Only after great effort did he find work that would meet the family’s expenses, and debts to relatives and friends accumulated. At last he worked, though his labor scarcely covered what was required. His condition remained so for three years: sometimes he sold goods and at others he labored for wages in factories. He and his wife continued to eat and drink, but debts to other people tightened around his neck. Although the creditors were among those dearest to him, they had not lent their money so that it might remain his forever. Whenever they met him, they alluded to it. He understood their purpose and put them off with promises until his devices ran out.

A successful relative who owned a large store in town came to him. The shop sold popular merchandise needed by satchel peddlers. “It appears your affairs will never improve,” the man said. “Even with great effort you can scarcely keep the household standing. Why do you not make a move that will pay your debts, clear your obligations to your creditors, and save a few dollars for yourself?”

Nakhla answered with a sigh from his scorched heart: “And what move could make me earn more than I do now?”

“The move is for you to stay at the factory and Mrs. Idmā to go out selling. I shall fill a large satchel for her and train her in the work. She will help you improve your situation. I assure you, one year will not pass before you shake off your debts and have a sum in the savings bank.”

Nakhla resisted with all his strength. Tears nearly fell from his eyes at the necessity of his wife’s working. His relative persuaded him, however, by explaining that the matter was perfectly simple. It might be difficult for those newly arrived in America, especially if they belonged to respectable families back home, but here in America women were more successful at work than men, and a woman competed with a man in labor.

Nakhla accepted the proposal. Not six months passed before Mrs. Idmā had become a thoroughly successful saleswoman—after, of course, the misery of learning, training in the arts of salesmanship, and snatching the English language from the tongues of its speakers.

After six years Nakhla’s family moved from Ohio to New York City because it had grown: God had given him three children. His wife continued to seek out the doors of livelihood, while he cared for the children during their mother’s absence. He left his work, and the entire life of the man and his family came to hang upon the lady’s satchel.

After this stage Nakhla was no longer a prince in his house but a servant to his wife and children. She became head of the family. She had risen by degrees from one condition to another until hers was the command and the prohibition, while her husband’s answer was, “At your service—your slave stands before you.” He did not dare object. He could not utter a word of criticism or suggestion, only approval and gratitude.

Nakhla continued to swallow his cares and digest them until the stomach of his endurance ceased to function. One evening Mrs. Idmā returned from work and did not find him at home. She saw the children crying and gasping. After putting their affairs in order as best she could, she went out to look for her husband with the fire of rage blazing in her heart.

She found him sitting on a bench in Battery Park, absent from this world in his thoughts.[74] He was comparing his condition back home, where he had been a prince, with his condition in the mahjar, where he had become a servant. Idmā poured abuse and reproaches upon him, led him home, and warned that if he did such a thing a second time she would throw him out of the house and hire someone to care for her children while she was away for less than she spent on his food and tobacco.

The vessel of his patience now empty, he answered, “Throw me out of the house! Am I not the man of the house, the children’s father, and your husband?”

“You are the man of the house, the children’s father, and my husband in your country,” she said. “In America, I am everything. So long as the Statue of Liberty raises her hand—and she is the statue of a woman—I have the right to raise my hand in my house, to command and forbid. If that pleases you, very well. Otherwise, choose whatever you like for yourself.”

At that moment Nakhla remembered the Statue of Liberty and understood the meaning of her raised hand with its light gripped inside it. In Battery Park, where he had taken refuge to occupy his mind, he had first pondered what the statue’s raised hand meant. Then his thought had wandered into his former life and what America had brought down upon his head.

Now he answered his wife in a low voice: “If that statue raises one hand, then I wash both my hands of every affair.[75] But when we return to our country, God willing, I shall become a man again, and possess the rights of men.”

NOTES

[73] Calling America the ‘Kaaba of wage earners’ makes it the destination toward which labor migrants turn, by analogy with the sacred center of Muslim pilgrimage.
[74] Battery Park occupies the southern tip of Manhattan and faces New York Harbor. The Statue of Liberty is visible offshore; the park was also adjacent to Castle Garden, an earlier immigrant landing station.
[75] Arabic uses the idiom arfaʿ yadayya min, ‘I raise both my hands from’ something: I renounce responsibility for it or wash my hands of it. Nakhla’s two raised hands parody the statue’s single torch-bearing arm.
