Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [96]
One day Zuhra runs into my office, Adhara on her heels.
“Tell her,” says Zuhra.
Adhara shakes her head, turning red.
“Leysh? It’s okay.”
“Please,” says Adhara. “Please, Zuhra.”
“What is it?” I say.
Earlier, I had told Adhara to give her story to Ali to copyedit. It didn’t even occur to me that this might be awkward. But the prospect of talking to the handsomest man in the office overwhelmed Adhara, who is painfully shy. It was as if I had asked her to please interview Brad Pitt. Petrified, she had gone to Zuhra for help.
“Ali is very nice,” I reassure Adhara. “You don’t need to worry.”
“I told her!” says Zuhra, who no longer fears men, handsome or otherwise.
Eventually, Adhara and Zuhra together get the story to Ali. And over time, Adhara’s fear ebbs. One day, I walk out of my office and look out the front door to see Adhara and Ali sitting on the steps side by side. Ali is smoking a cigarette, and Adhara is talking easily to him. Almost as if he is just another human being. I can’t stop smiling at the sight.
LIKE NAJMA AND NOOR, Adhara is fortunate to have parents supportive of her ambitions. But this doesn’t mean all three don’t face barriers at work. The carefully cultivated modesty of women is at odds with the requirements of their profession. My women are often nervous about approaching men or about being perceived as too aggressive. Najma and Noor deal with this by working as a team. They accompany each other on reporting excursions, write stories for each other’s pages, and edit each other’s English. Rarely does one leave the office without the other. I’m impressed with their cooperation and the creativity they use to find their way around restrictions. The men could take a lesson.
Radia, whose official title is Faris’s personal secretary, has also begun reporting and writing stories. Like Adhara, she doesn’t ask me if she can become a reporter. She simply hands me a story one day. She writes in Arabic and gets one of the men or Zuhra to translate. Her reporting is good, though her writing and storytelling are weak. I spend hours with her, helping her find the news angles and fill in reporting gaps. One of her first pieces is a back-page story on the rising price of fabric. It sounds dull until she tells me that these rising prices are hurting brides in particular, many of whom have begun sewing their own dresses and settling for plainer fabrics. We refocus the story on the plight of brides, and it transforms into something eminently printable.
Soon, Radia isn’t just writing back-page features. She is covering car accidents, human rights issues, and explosions, turning in several stories for each issue. One day she runs into my office to tell me that she has a good story about a “hot phone.” I have no idea what she is talking about. When she can’t make me understand, she fetches Enass, who laughs. “She means hotline,” she says.
Yet she is not a reporter and continues to make the mere $100 a month Faris pays her to be his secretary. She asks Faris for more money, which he denies her, because she is “not a real reporter.” Never mind that she writes more stories per issue than any of my men. She accepts this as something she is helpless to change. I’ve repeatedly tried to get higher pay for my women, but every time Faris just tells me he is paying the fair market wage. My hands are tied.
ZUHRA IS ALSO FLOURISHING, largely because she asks more questions than anyone else and never leaves my side when I am editing her work. One day, Luke comes into my office after editing a raw story of Zuhra’s. “I didn’t realize how good her English has gotten!” he says. “It’s been so long since I saw her raw copy. I’m amazed at how much better her stories are than they were in the fall.”
Her stories are so intriguing that it is weeks before I realize how often she is quoting Kamil al-Samawi. It’s clear why HOOD is such a crucial source of human rights stories, but Kamil can’t be the organization’s