Arab Detroit: From Margin to Mainstream

What They Did

What They Did Hayan Charara You died. And because your father and mother were Muslims, the next door neighbor, a hajji, washed your corpse and prayed over your body. When they brought you to the mosque on Joy Road and Greenfield you were wrapped in green, veiled so that only your face shown. As was the custom you hated, women sat to your left and men to the right, a sheik knowing you were a teacher said that you were not a teacher, but a school. Everyone cried, even the father of a boy you taught and fed once because the boy was hungry and forgot his lunch, the father cried although he never met you. Forty times the mourners read the Fatihah to help you out of the streets into that place beyond prayer. At the cemetery they lifted your casket in the wind and chanted God is Great, the lid blew open and silenced the crowd. Dirt was poured over your eyes and placed in each palm Reprinted from Mudfish 10 (1997), 136-37. 203 Religion while workers dug a grave in the March earth. A woman noticed your grave beside her sister's and she was relieved her sister would have company. Even in the ground, your husband and daughter did not believe, your son stared at the space in front of him, under a widening spell. For forty days people met secretly to pray for your soul. And the day the angels were to take you away, everyone rejoiced, in their own way. Your sisters cried, your husband waited for a tree to burst forth, your schoolchildren sat quietly after the morning bells, your parents welcomed another daughter at the airport, and after the first gentle dream in weeks, your son woke and sat down at his desk to write you a poem. 204 ...