No Land to Light On

by Yara Zgheib

Genres: Family Life; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

From the author of The Girls at 17 Swann Street comes a “masterful story of tragedy and redemption” (Hala Alyan, author of Salt Houses) “written in soul-searing prose” (BookPage, starred review) about a young Syrian couple in the throes of new love on the cusp of their bright future when a travel ban rips them apart on the eve of their son’s premature birth.

Sama and Hadi are a young Syrian couple in love, dreaming of their future in the country that brought them together. Sama came to Boston years before on a prestigious Harvard scholarship; Hadi landed there as a sponsored refugee from a bloody civil war. Now, they are giddily awaiting the birth of their son, a boy whose native language will be freedom and belonging.

When Sama is five months pregnant, Hadi’s father dies suddenly, and Hadi decides to fly back to Jordan for the funeral. He leaves America, promising his wife he’ll be gone only for a few days. On the date of his return, Sama waits for him at the arrivals gate, but he doesn’t appear. As the minutes and then hours pass, she becomes increasingly alarmed, unaware that Hadi has been stopped by US Customs and Border Protection, detained for questioning, and deported.

Achingly intimate yet poignantly universal, No Land to Light On is “a tense, moving novel about the meaning of home, the risks of exile, the power of nations, and the power of love” (Kirkus Reviews).

Release date: January 4, 2022

Publisher: Atria Books

Print pages: 208

Sample

January 28, 2017: Sama

January 28, 2017 SAMA
It is much too hot in here. Only my hands are freezing, even as they sweat onto the railing. Come on, Hadi, call.

So loud in this airport. Someone is shouting. More join in. I wish they would stop, that they would stop pushing. Officers and dogs. Angry protesters. Discombobulated chanting. Something is going on, but I don’t have the strength, or the space, to turn around. I just want to sit down. My feet won’t hold my weight, and the baby’s, much longer. I contemplate dropping to the floor. If I do, I’ll never get up. I think of the old woman I saw trip at a demonstration once.

The stampede crushed her fingers. How she screamed. This isn’t Syria, this isn’t Syria. People don’t get crushed in Boston. People don’t get crushed by frantic mobs at Logan Airport.

A heavy woman—her shirt is soaked—pushes me from behind, digging into my back, shoving me into the railing. A cramp. Too mild a word. A punch to my abdomen. I wish I could tell her to stop. I wish you were here; you would. But she knocked the air out of me, and you are somewhere beyond Arrivals. Another shove, cramp, like hot pliers reaching in, squeezing. I shield my stomach with my arm. A cowardly, futile attempt to protect the baby.

The iron rail seeps cold through my sweater, yours, the soft white one you wore the day before you traveled. I told you the stain would come out. I had to roll the sleeves. It doesn’t smell of you since I washed it. Come on, Hadi, call. Please call.

You should be here. No, we should be home. Your plane landed too long ago. I didn’t want to call; it would have ruined the surprise. Now, I don’t want to because of the cold, heavy stone in my stomach. And another feeling, higher, like when you miss a step on the stairs, except longer.

The table is set at home. I left the hummus on the counter. A sudden force from behind hurls me into the barrier. My breath bursts out of my lungs. The phone nearly flies out of my hand, lighting up in the same moment.

“Hadi?”

“Allo? Sama!”

My breath catches. I know that Allo, those soft, gravelly as in my name.

“Hey! Where are you!”

There is much shouting around you too, but in your chaos, unlike mine, one voice thunders over the others, barking words I cannot distinguish.

“Hadi! Can you hear me?”

“Sama?”

You cannot. I press my mouth to the phone:

“I’m outside!”

“At the airport? What the hell are you doing here?!”

“I—”

“Are you crazy? Go home!”

“What? No, no, I’m waiting—”

“Sama, I can’t come out!”

More shouting on both ends of the line. The shoving behind me. Crescendo. Distinct chanting, pounding: Let-them-go! Let-them-go! The ground shakes with their anger.

“What do you mean you can’t come out?”

Another blow in my gut. I double over.

“I don’t know! No one’s told us anything! They took our passports… it’s… What the hell is going on around you?”

“They took your passport?!”

Let-them-in! Let-them-in!

“Sama, the baby!”

I know.

“Is it your travel permit? It can’t be!”

“No, they didn’t even look at it! Listen—”

But the pounding, this time on your end of the line, drowns the rest.

“… just go home! I’ll figure it out and—”

“Hadi? Are you there?”

Another spasm. My awareness crashes back into Arrivals. The crowd in furious waves. Let-them-in! A shove. I lose the phone. The next blow throws me headlong, belly, baby first, to the ground. Instinct buckles my knees; they take the impact.

The mob rages. My memory hears that woman’s fingers break, but through blurry patches in my vision, I see the phone and lunge for it. Bursts of fire in my stomach, but I nab it.

Gasps for air and light. I grab someone’s jeans.

“Help me, please!”

But my voice is too hoarse, the chorus too loud. I pull, and pull, and pull at those jeans. Then I bite. The foot kicks me in the nose. I yelp but do not let go, crying through my clenched teeth until I am yanked, finally, up, feeling something wet and sticky run down my upper lip. I taste salt.

Surface. White spots of light and cool, cool air.

“Please!”

I sputter, begging the faceless arms that lifted me.

“Please, I’m pregnant!”

The grip tightens. A voice shouts:

“The lady’s pregnant! Get out of the way! Get her out of here!”

In lurches, he pulls me, using his back to part the crowd. Every hit is a stab in my gut. I hold on like I am drowning.

“Move out of the way!”

More voices join. More arms drag me out of the raging sea, to the exit. The spots in front of my eyes clear: signs, people waving flags, some wearing them like cloaks and capes. Not all are American. I recognize the Syrian flag: red, white, black, the two green stars. Some have painted it on their cheeks.

“Ma’am!”

Another voice. A uniform.

“Do you need an ambulance?”

I try to speak but another contraction hits. Too early. I gasp and nod violently.

“Do you have your ID?”

My purse…

“Who are you with?”

Hadi…

Gurney. Steely hands, blue gloves. A rotting smell of sweat on rubber. We burst out into the icy air. Ink-black sky, and ahead, blue, white, red lights, wailing like a diabolical arcade game.

Spasm through the ER doors. The blood drains from my face.

Another bang. My fingers grip your sweater, soaked with my sweat, and clench. Every muscle follows, hardened lead. I bite my scream.

“Ma’am, is there someone you can call?”

“My husband!”

“Is he on his way?”

“He doesn’t know I’m here!”

Blindly, I wave my phone.

“Hadi. His name is Hadi!”

My voice is chalky. I try again:

“Hadi…”

She takes the phone, dials, eyes on me.

“No answer. Is there someone else?”

Whirring, chafing rubber wheels on linoleum. Shouts, but unlike at the airport, these are cold, disjointed.

“Still no answer, ma’am.”

The contractions come, too fast. The pain shoots up, down. My feet jerk, teeth crash against one another. My lungs suck shut, cling to my ribs, like I’ve been plunged into ice water.

“How far along?”

I cannot see the faces. Twenty-eight weeks, but there is no air underwater.

“We need to stop the contractions.”

“How dilated is she?”

“Seven centimeters.”

“Too late. Get an OR ready.”

Drowner’s reflex.

“No, wait!”

Fire as I force air in.

“My husband is coming!”

Though that cannot be true. You cannot even know I’m here, but maybe if I scream louder.

“Sama.”

Someone said my name. Someone said my name.

“Your placenta has ruptured. We need to get this baby out, now, or it will die. Do you understand? Sama?”

Sama Zayat, wife of Hadi Deeb who won’t answer his phone, who promised he’d assemble the crib, who promised he’d be back, who promised all would be well, and duty-free Baci chocolates. I nod and shut my eyes against this entire scene.

Now, it isn’t happening. I am not in labor and the baby isn’t dying. No one took your passport. I misheard, Hadi. You said you forgot to buy the chocolates, or you bought dark, not milk, or left your passport at the register.

Someone found it, found you, and now you will find me. I don’t want the chocolates, Hadi. Just come, find me. Let’s go home. The hummus will have soured. We’ll throw it out. You’ll be angry because of the starving people in Syria. I’ll feel guilty, but I’ll still be pregnant, and it will be all right and we’ll just order a pizza. I’ll give you my olives, you’ll give me your crust. Contraction. I howl.

“The OR is ready!”

Your sweater is ripped away from me, my last proof of You-and-I. Cold hands strip me naked and slip me into a robe: blue, anonymous.

“Ma’am, give me your arm!”

No one and nothing waits. An IV in my right arm, a name bracelet on my left. The stretcher bangs through more doors. Boom! Boom! like bombs. Why were there Syrian flags at Logan Airport? Hadi, why aren’t you here?

How careful we had been; no coffee, wine, air travel. How futile now, slamming into the OR, sweating and freezing. I look around for you, frantically, stupidly, knowing you are not there. I look anyway, heart convulsing. Green scrubs. Blue walls. Three round white lights.

Voices and surgical tools dart about. Something cold, a blade. I scream.

My arms flail. Hands hold them down. My legs are strapped in, spread.

“Ma’am, calm down!”

But my screams are all I have left.

“The baby is crowning! You need to push! Hard!”

I push and cry, like that night of raining glass. My ears scream. My eyes are squeezed so tight that around them I feel blood vessels popping.

“Good! Keep pushing, ma’am!”

“I can’t!”

“Come on, Sama!”

I push. For you, Hadi. For our son. Pain bursts out of me, but this explosion is fireworks shooting and burning pink and green sulfur, and I keep pushing and crying, and my entire life is this moment. Nothing ever existed outside it.