78 pages • 2 hours read
Suleika JaouadBetween Two Kingdoms
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Key Figures
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaPart 1, Chapters 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary: “Stateside”
Chapter 5 begins by introducing Suleika’s parents, Anne and Hédi, whom she has always called by their first names. Anne grew up in Geneva, Switzerland, and moved to New York City in the 1980s to be a painter. To pay for rent she started a language school out of her apartment and painted houses. Suleika’s father, Hédi, originally from Tunisia, taught at the United Nations International School and translated Arabic and French on the side.
Her parents passed down their bohemian values to their children. As a child, Suleika and her family moved from New York City to the Adirondacks to France, Switzerland, and Tunisia. They always returned to the US. Her father became a professor in upstate New York, and the family settled there. Her mother continued painting, but her creativity flourishes as a mother. Suleika’s childhood included bedtime stories and playing with paints. She always felt close to her mother, telling her everything. She revered her father and grew closer to him in high school and college through their shared love of literature. When she graduates from college with high honors and several thesis prizes, her father offers “a rare vocal display of parental pride” (40).
Her parents gave her a red suitcase with swivel wheels as a graduation gift. She used the suitcase to move to Paris and, on her arrival back in the US, she waits at the airport for her father with the red suitcase beside her wheelchair. He shows deep shock when he sees her “swollen cheeks, [her] bluish lips, and the sweatshirt that hung off [her] emaciated torso” (41). They drive to their home in Saratoga Springs. Her mother greets her and responds, “Mon dieu […] Why didn’t you tell me it was this bad?” (42). Her parents note her mouth sores and their concern increases.
Suleika retreats to her room and sleeps for hours. Later, still too depleted to walk down the stairs, she sits on the landing and overhears her parents discussing her symptoms. Anne says that she likely won’t be well enough to return to Paris in two weeks. Hédi speculates that she has HIV. “Did you see how much she and her friends were drinking at graduation? And that was in front of us. Who knows what she’s been up to when we’re not there” (43). Suleika feels furious that they are speculating about her health and making assumptions about her behavior. She notes that it’s getting more difficult to believe the maxim she’s heard her whole life: “Everything is going to be all right” (44).
Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary: “Bifurcation”
In New York, Suleika goes to doctor’s appointments, walks with her parents, and Skypes with Will. She feels deep anxiety waiting for answers. A doctor recommends a bone marrow biopsy, “‘Precautionary’ was the word the doctor used […] [for] a torturous, humiliating procedure that entailed lying face down on an examining room table, my jeans around my ankles” (45-46). The doctor inserts a needle into her spine and removes a piece of bone marrow for examination. He doesn’t expect to find abnormalities in the biopsy, but he must be sure.
A week later, Suleika and her family receive a call from the doctor’s office. They need to come to the hospital as soon as possible. They arrive late in the day to an empty office. The doctor meets them in the waiting room and tells Suleika that she has acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer that attacks the bone marrow. Jaouad writes, “I repeated the diagnosis over and over in my head. Loo-kee-mee-ah. Loo-kee-mee-ah. Loo-kee-mee-ah. It sounded like an exotic flower, beautiful and poisonous” (46-47).
The doctor explains that the cancer is aggressive, and she needs to begin treatments immediately. She wonders, “How do you react to a cancer diagnosis at twenty-two?” (47). Suleika finds that she feels confusion and shock but also relief at knowing that she has a reason outside of her behavior for the symptoms. The diagnosis is grave and bifurcates her life into “an irreparable fracture: my life before, and after” (47).
Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary: “Fallout”
Suleika and her parents process the diagnosis in their own ways. Suleika calls a close friend from college, but her friend hangs up quickly after she tells him the news, not calling her back for weeks. Then she calls Will, unsure of what to expect. Suleika tells him the diagnosis and that she won’t be returning to Paris: “I have no idea what’s going to happen. I know you didn’t sign up for this” (49). After a few moments of silence, he replies that he’s catching the first flight to be with her. Then, she begins to cry.
Friends and family hear about her diagnosis. They leave messages, bring meals, and offer support. They receive an appointment reminder from a “Cancer Guru.” Suleika and her mother received his name from an acquaintance. They were hopeful that he might be able to offer an alternative approach to her treatment.
Suleika and her mother arrive for the appointment. He assures them that traditional chemotherapy will kill her. The ‘Cancer Guru’ tests her muscles, says he can cure her leukemia, and regales them with stories of people who went to the hospital and never left. They do not stop him, and Suleika reflects that “being afraid for your life can scramble the senses, can turn your tongue to chalk” (51). Next, he tries to take blood from Suleika with “unwashed hands.” Her mother insists that they need to go. They leave, both sorry they went in the first place. After returning home, Suleika researches him and discovers he’s a veterinarian convicted of unauthorized medical practice on humans.
Will arrives in Saratoga Springs and meets Suleika’s parents for the first time. Her first chemotherapy treatment is scheduled for a few days later. Jaouad writes, “I wasn’t sure what made me more nervous: Will meeting my parents for the first time or the chemo” (53). Her parents are glad that Will is there. Her father thanks him, whereas before he barely acknowledged her boyfriends. They allow Will to stay in her room; she and Will have sex surrounded by the pink walls and posters of her childhood bedroom. Will cries when they finish and says, “A lot of bad things are about to happen […] We need to put our relationship into a box and to protect it with everything we have” (53).
Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary: “Damaged Goods”
“Damaged Goods” begins with Suleika’s music lessons as a child. Suleika played the double bass in the elementary school band. At 16, every Saturday, she went by train to a precollege program at Julliard and stayed with a friend in New York City. This is the same route she will take for treatments, and the same friend offers their apartment to Suleika’s family.
Suleika, her parents, and Will arrive at Mount Sinai Hospital for her first chemotherapy treatment. Dr. Holland, a founder of chemotherapy, gives Suleika rules for living with a depleted immune system, and he urges Anne, Hédi, and Will to take care of themselves to support Suleika.
The chemotherapy will target the leukemia or “blast cells.” Suleika takes extensive notes but finds the new jargon overwhelming. Dr. Holland begins to examine her, but in the middle of the exam, several doctors interrupt. When he returns, he tells Suleika she has “pre-leukemia,” which causes itching and exhaustion. The condition usually comes from exposure to toxic chemicals. Her mother wonders aloud if having Suleika in her studio as a child caused the cancer. Dr. Holland responds, “Sometimes these things happen, and we don’t know why. You mustn’t blame yourself” (59).
Dr. Holland informs them that bone marrow produces the body’s blood cells. Suleika’s condition means that blood cells can’t leave the bone marrow or if they do, they die shortly afterward. Typical chemotherapy treatments would fail to kill her cancerous cells, and she would go into “bone marrow failure” (59). A bone marrow transplant is Suleika’s only hope for a cure, and to be able to receive the transplant, she needs chemotherapy to move her blast numbers under 5 percent and find a compatible donor. The likely source will be a family member.
Later that night, Suleika looks up the side effects of her treatments and learns about infertility. She delays chemotherapy intending to freeze embryos. Will offers to be her sperm donor, but the social worker questions this decision, citing the potential legal difficulties if they separate. In the end, she decides to freeze unfertilized eggs.
Part 1, Chapters 5-8 Analysis
The introduction of Anne and Hédi’s emphasizes that Suleika lives in-between. Anne and Hédi’s graduation gift to her, the red suitcase, is a symbol of their peripatetic and bohemian legacy to her. This symbol of Suleika’s pre-diagnosis life also reflects her dream to be a foreign correspondent.
The reader learns about her closeness to her mother, and her father’s pride and support, particularly in her academic pursuits. From her mother, Suleika learned to paint and the value of creativity. Suleika also notes, “Hustle is our family’s defining trait” (36). This characterization introduces their family’s relationship to hardship and obstacles and foreshadows what will carry them through hardship and uncertainty in the chapters ahead.
When Anne and Hédi see Suleika after she returns from Paris, her mouth sores and wan complexion echo the dream on the plane. Her father didn’t recognize her, and her body looks older than it is. Her parents’ speculation about her future and their doubt that she will be well enough to return to Paris in two weeks makes her angry and increases her uncertainty. Suleika continues to separate her present sick self from the person she was before by reconsidering a fundamental belief: “Everything is going to be all right” (44). Suleika’s symptoms cause her parents to surmise that she suffers from AIDS, which foreshadows the potential seriousness of the situation and the introduction of Suleika’s mortality.
The biopsy, though only “precautionary,” reveals acute myeloid leukemia. Suleika calls it a poisonous and beautiful flower, which juxtaposes how the illness simultaneously will connect her with others and spur her to write while it ravages her body and relationships. The chapter title “Bifurcation” utilizes medical terminology to show the intensity of Suleika’s experience of pre- and post-diagnosis existence: “The diagnosis had formed an irreparable fracture: my life before, and after” (47). The illness severs Suleika in two, a past, illness-free life and now a life of illness.
The diagnosis reveals the degree of love and connection in her relationships. The first person Suleika tells about her leukemia is a college friend. He gets off the phone quickly and does not talk to her for weeks. When she tells Will, his faithfulness and kindness set his response apart from other supposed friends, even though they are just getting to know each other. The difference in their responses highlights for Suleika how much Will cares for her, and how many people whom she believed to be her friends didn’t know what to say and didn’t say anything at all.
Emotions become difficult for Suleika to identify and express during her illness. The focus is survival and the next treatment. Her and her mother’s muteness with the Cancer Guru shows how deeply in shock they are after the diagnosis. This incident with the Cancer Guru makes Suleika determined to learn everything she can about her diagnosis and treatment. Their visit to the Cancer Guru also demonstrates how she and her parents respond with tangible action (logistics and appointments) over expressions of emotion.
Will arrives in Saratoga Springs and meets her parents. Their immediate acceptance of him foreshadows the trust and bond that Will and her parents have throughout her illness. This trust is symbolized by the fact that they allow Suleika and Will to sleep together. This has never happened when she has had a boyfriend visit, but the seriousness of illness causes her parents to reprioritize what they choose to accept and what they will fight for. Suleika’s pink room and childhood posters uneasily hover over the sex and illness. This mismatched scene opens the reader to the tenuous relationship between life and death. Will, too, is aware of this and his prophetic admonition that they will need to “protect [their relationship] with everything we have” becomes their salvation for a time (53).
In “Damaged Goods,” Jaouad introduces Suleika as a musician. She notes, too, that the bulk and novelty of the bass reflect the weight and uniqueness of her name, a reminder of the heaviness of a life lived across multiple identities. Jaouad also describes how the same train that took Suleika into the city for music lessons as now takes her to her cancer treatments. Her old life parallels the new reality and reiterates the haunting of the past self in the present.
Suleika takes notes on her treatment and conditions instead of journaling, showing a growing distance between her internal world and dreams and a focus on survival. By suggesting that they all take care of themselves to be present for Suleika, Dr. Holland foreshadows the ways that they will all struggle.
With each stage of the treatment, leukemia steals Suleika’s sense of certainty. The bone marrow transplant is described as a “dangerous, complicated procedure with a high mortality rate,” but it is her only hope of a cure (59). She learns that finding a compatible donor is no small task for an immigrant from a Swiss-Tunisian family. This detail reminds the reader of how Suleika’s background increases her uncertainty. Fertility is uncertain as well. Suleika doesn’t know if she wants children, but she wants the option in the future, and she grapples with the possibility of becoming infertile at 22. When Will wants to be her sperm donor, Jaouad writes:
I loved that he had shown up for me during the worst week of my life. […] And I loved that he was willing to delve into the difficult subjects—of eggs and sperm and embryos, of my future children, maybe even our future children, and how they could be brought into the world (63).
In the end, Suleika feels pressed to make the decision and comments that the timing is too rushed even given the hope she has for her relationship with Will. The ending indicates that even as they try to stay together, the illness and survival will be a wedge between them.
