by Samra Zafar
“You girls can be anything you want,” Papa said. “Anything.”
And we believed him.
At other times, our dinner conversation centred on what each of us had learned at school that day. Four little voices bubbled up, each of us vying to tell our stories and share our new-found wisdom.
Education and learning were, after all, Zafar family pastimes. As soon as I could read, each day of my childhood started with a ritual. I would take my seat beside my father at the kitchen table. My mother brought me and my sisters eggs and orange juice. Then my father handed me a section of the morning newspaper.
“All right, Samra. Find something interesting to read, and then tell us all about it.”
My sisters waited while their baji (elder sister) wrestled with the huge newsprint pages. I dipped in and out of articles until I found something that I could read and digest, then I explained it to everyone else at the table.
“Now we are all learning!” Papa would say with delight.
* * *
My father encouraged us to stretch our minds, but he had no formal education himself. It was my mother who had moved through the halls of academia and into a professional career. It was my mother who showed us the possibility in all of Papa’s promises. It was my mother who was our true role model.
Mama was an elementary school Urdu teacher—and for several years, she was the Urdu teacher at my school. While most of my friends’ mothers stayed home and devoted themselves to domestic duties, mine walked out the front door with us each day, her arms laden with student assignments and lesson plans, her expression often lost in thought, as if she were already fully absorbed in the day to come. We parted ways by the time we entered the schoolyard, but I always felt a flutter of pride as I saw her standing in front of a blackboard or chatting earnestly with the other teachers. She was smart, well read and accomplished—and she had at least a small measure of authority. My mother both showed us the rewards of hard work and demanded we put in the same kind of effort as she did. In the two years I had her as a teacher, she always reminded me that she expected me to work diligently, perhaps more so than the other students, because she knew what I was capable of.
And so, from our earliest days, we Zafar girls knew that whatever else happened, education would be in our future. Marriage, well, my father made it clear what he thought about that. When his friends and family teased him about the expense of having four daughters to marry off, he would wave them away. “I don’t have to save for weddings. I have to save for university.”
* * *
My sisters and I attended a co-ed private school that followed the British system of education and was staffed largely by men and women from the UK. The student population was a lively mix of ex-pat Pakistanis, Arabs from various countries, and a few white students from Europe and elsewhere. With fewer than five hundred children, it was a small, intimate environment, an easy place to get involved or try things out. In my middle school years, I convinced some of my friends to start a girls’ cricket team, which the school staff happily supported. And then the following year, in grade eight, I had another idea: a school newspaper. I made posters asking for short stories, articles, poems and jokes. In the end there was no shortage of material to choose from, but as we went through everything we had collected, I noticed that all the poems, stories and opinion pieces were by girls. The boys wrote exclusively about sports. That’s when I decided that I would be the cricket columnist. I figured I knew just as much about the game as anyone.
After three or four months of hard work, my friends and I photocopied our first venture into the fourth estate. On the cover, just under the title, it said, “Samra Zafar, Chief Editor.” I thought of all those conversations my sisters and I had at the dinner table about our possible future careers. Doctor, lawyer, engineer, teacher. It had all seemed quite a long way off, but now I was holding in my hands a first taste of the world of professional work, perhaps a small harbinger of a glittering future. Samra Zafar, Chief Editor. My fingers tingled.
My middle school years slid happily into high school. There wasn’t a class or a course that I didn’t enjoy. I worked hard and did well, my love of school only dampened slightly by my hunger for perfection. Any lost marks, no matter how few, had me scrambling to find out what I had done wrong, vowing to study harder or be more careful next time.
But that need to succeed didn’t keep me from an active social life. My friends and I—both girls and boys—would hang out together at lunch and before and after school in the student lounge or the schoolyard. Sometimes we’d play tennis or go to the local fast food restaurant after school or on the weekend. We listened to the Backstreet Boys, were fans of The X-Files, and watched Bollywood movies and the occasional American blockbuster in the big theatres in Abu Dhabi. Compared to some Western teens and pre-teens, we might have been a pretty tame bunch, but we weren’t aware of it. There seemed to be enough excitement and intrigue in our flirting and romantic alliances, even if they were more a matter of status than a reflection of intimate involvement. (I had my first “boyfriend” in grade eight. We didn’t even hold hands. The whole thing lasted for two days.)
And while I fit in easily with Ruwais teen society, I was aware that I enjoyed a bit more freedom than some of my friends. By the time I was about fourteen, my parents would give my sisters and me our pocket money, and maybe a little extra for clothes or other necessities, and drop us off at the big malls in Abu Dhabi or Dubai, so we could spend the day shopping and eating on our own. While we knew to choose shirts long enough to cover our behinds and to avoid short skirts, we loved being able to pick out our own clothes.
On our first unchaperoned trip to the mall, my parents squabbled during the whole drive into the city. My mother was annoyed that my father had given us so much spending money. My father was irked that she was once again questioning his financial sense. And then my mother began to fret about our safety. What if we got lost or failed to find our way to the meeting spot at the end of the day? I had promised to watch out for Bushra, but she was only about eight. Were we all a bit too young for this? To this objection, my father responded with reassurance instead of anger.
“They will manage,” he said to my mother, as we sped along the highway. “It’s important that they learn to do things on their own.”
I suspect, now that I reflect upon it, that he thought getting lost—just a little—might do us good. It was like his approach with the roller coaster. He believed that fear could be stifling, and he seemed determined to make us face it.
I came to realize that I had another kind of freedom, too.
It happened during one of our girls’ cricket games in middle school. One of the male students was officiating, and he made a bad call. I pointed out what he had missed, but he shrugged me off. “What does it matter? Everyone knows that girls can’t play cricket.”
I had been annoyed that he wasn’t paying attention to the play, but this dismissal of me—and of all my friends out on the field—infuriated me. I let loose and punched him in the nose.
A few minutes later, I was sitting, chastened, in the principal’s office, while he phoned my father. “Mr. Zafar, we have a very serious problem here. We would like you to come down immediately.”
The minutes sitting on the hard metal chair, waiting for my father to arrive, seemed to go on forever, but the wait was not as difficult as listening to the principal tell Papa how disappointed he was in me. My gold-star-student status was now a little tarnished.
When we finally exited the principal’s office, my head was bowed and my shoulders slumped. All of the satisfaction I’d felt at putting that stupid boy right was overshadowed by feelings of guilt and shame. But as we walked outside into the sunshine, my father smiled and bent his head towards mine.
I had forgotten. If fearfulness was to be resisted, so was meekness.
“Way to go,” he whispered in my ear.
* * *
It was hard to believe that a girl who had be
en congratulated for socking a boy, a girl who had, just a few months ago, taken the bus into Abu Dhabi by herself to go shopping, a girl who had been talking about university with her high school teachers and applying for scholarships was now sitting alone in her grandfather’s house, waiting to be married to a stranger.
The night following my mehndi, Ahmed’s parents held their party for my family. I was left alone with my grandfather. I watched a movie on TV and dozed on the sofa. I was exhausted. But I was still up when my parents and sisters arrived back at the house much later that night, dragging a big suitcase.
“Your wedding dress,” my mother called to me. “Come see.”
We all moved into one of the bedrooms, and my mother lifted the suitcase onto the bed. Then she opened it to reveal a long crimson dress with gold trim and embroidery. My mother began to pull out glittering pieces of gold jewellery from the bag as well—bangles and earrings and a teeka for my forehead. My sisters clapped their hands and exclaimed over the beauty of my wedding finery.
All I could think of was my last creative writing assignment. I had completed it just after becoming engaged. It described a young woman sitting on a bed, dressed in red and gold, her arms covered in bangles. The bangles were in the shapes of snakes and serpents, and they were beginning to wriggle and slide, slithering up her arms and around her throat, slowly choking the breath from her.
How had I known? I rushed from the room in tears.
* * *
Just a few days later was my wedding. The evening before, miserable and anxious, I slipped out onto the balcony outside my room right after dinner. My sisters and cousins followed me, but I shooed them away. I wanted to be alone.
I started to talk to Allah, praying that Ahmed would treat me well and let me have the kind of future I had always dreamed of. I told Allah that I was trusting he would make the marriage work. But even as I was telling God that I was putting myself in his hands, my eyes were following the scrolling metalwork below me. Would it be possible to climb down? Could I collect what little money I had among my belongings and make my escape? Someone catcalled from the street below, and I pulled back from the railing. If I had been in Ruwais I might just have climbed down, but Pakistan scared me.
I went back inside and crawled into bed. As I thought about my aborted escape, the tears began again. I wondered what would happen if I went into my parents’ room and begged them to take me home. Still, I stayed in my room, sleepless and weeping, for the rest of the night.
By the time the sun crept through the curtains, my pillow was a sodden lump. I got out of bed and looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes were as swollen and as red as the henna mehndi tracing up my hands and arms. I picked up the green-and-yellow dress that I had worn at my mehndi ceremony and all the days since. I was to continue wearing it until the legal papers were signed this morning. After that, I would be whisked off to a beauty salon to have my hair and makeup done before I was wrapped up in all that red chiffon.
I slipped the dress on and lay back down. I felt empty. Defeated. My crying and dread had accomplished nothing. I had to hand myself over to my destiny.
I could hear soft footsteps in the hallway. Then my father was standing by the side of the bed. He was wearing his new clothes—a white shalwar kameez—and there were tears in his eyes.
Then Papa said, “Say no, Samra. Just say no if you want to. Even now, there is time.”
I sat up and looked at him. He was waiting for me to say the words. Now that he had made this offer, I had to admit that I didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t want to get married, but how could I reject something that was the envy of all my friends and young cousins? I didn’t want to leave my family and move away, but how could I give up the opportunities that I had been promised in Canada? I didn’t want to make a decision I would regret for the rest of my life, but how could I know which decision that was? And even if I wanted to run away from the wedding, I knew I didn’t have that kind of rebellious spirit. Hitting a boy in the nose was one thing. Turning my back on this wedding, ruining so many people’s happiness, causing such embarrassment to my family—that was another. What I did know was that I wanted to be a good girl. My father took in my silence and then reached over and hugged me. I threw my arms around him and began to sob.
My mother entered the room as we were huddled together. “What’s going on?” she asked. Her voice rang with alarm.
“I told her she could say no,” my father replied. “I’ll take care of it.”
“We can’t say no, Zafar! Think of the shame and dishonour. Everyone is already here. All the arrangements have been made.” My mother sounded more frightened than angry.
My father’s eyes turned towards my mother, but to my surprise, he didn’t snap at her. Instead he nodded, as if he were acknowledging that his offer to me had not been realistic.
“Samra, you want this, right?” Mama continued.
I nodded.
A look of sadness and relief washed over my mother’s face. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She and I both knew she had good reasons for wanting me married. But they weren’t all happy ones.
CHAPTER 2
TIME BOMB
It was a weekend. We were in the kitchen, getting ready for a late morning meal. Papa was already sitting in his customary place as my sisters and I pulled ourselves up onto our chairs. My mother was a flurry of motion, shuttling back and forth between table and stove, putting down glasses of orange juice, a pot of steaming tea, a jar of honey. Sunlight poured through the windows, but despite the brightness, the air in the room was heavy and dark. My parents had been fighting from the moment they awoke.
My father had taken his chair just moments before, issuing a long, loud rebuttal to my mother’s previous point. I’m not sure he said anything different than what he had been saying all morning, but everything in his tone broadcast that these words were his closing statement. He was the man of the house. He had spoken. They were done arguing.
My mother paused at this, standing at the table, a plate of paratha in one hand, a spatula in the other. The edges of her mouth were working furiously, as if her facial muscles were pitching their own little battle. Finally, something gave way and her mouth opened, words spilling forth.
“Zafar, no, that’s just not—”
Before she could get the rest out, we felt an explosion.
“Shut up!” my father was screaming. “Don’t say another word!” He was getting out of his chair, his angry face rising higher and higher like a flame.
My mother did what she was told, yet it seemed that every ounce of restraint she could muster was spent keeping her lips pressed together. There wasn’t enough left over to control the fury that was channelling through her hand. She dropped the spatula on the table with more force than was necessary. It made a pronounced snap as it bounced against the Formica.
What happened next was like watching a hurricane blow through the house.
“You want to break things?” shouted my father. “I’ll show you how to break things.” He bent forward, sweeping his arm across the table. The air burst with noise. The watery crash of the teapot. The metallic clamour of forks against the stony floor tiles. The popping explosion of glass after glass.
My sisters and I scrambled off our chairs and backed away from the table. Papa was at the kitchen cupboards, throwing open the doors.
“No, please, Zafar,” my mother begged.
But my father did not relent. His hands fell on plates, bowls, coffee cups. One after another, they took flight, landing with successive blasts, like firecrackers. The kitchen floor quickly transformed into a glinting carpet of china shards, as the cacophony of shouting, crying and shattering dishes continued for several seconds. I looked over at Warda, Saira and Bushra, huddled against the kitchen wall, shuddering with sobs.
“Come, come,” I said, holding out my hand. Then I hurried out of the kitchen and over to the hall closet. I opened the door and my sisters bent down
to move under the coats. I followed, pulling the door tight behind me.
“There,” I said, trying to sound calm and soothing. “Safe.”
My sisters continued to sniffle as we hunkered down, now insulated from the destruction by a wooden door and a layer of hanging clothes. The explosive sound of splintering porcelain continued for just a few seconds more, before being replaced by the thunder of my father’s footsteps as he left the house. There was a short silence and then the soft swish of a broom across the floor, the tinkling of glass against a dustpan. I opened the closet door and reluctantly moved out into the light, coaxing my sisters to follow.
* * *
That was not the first time we had hidden in the closet to avoid my parents’ fights, nor would it be the last. For as long as I could remember, my parents had argued. Very often, they fought about their finances. My mother felt my father was both impulsive and reckless about money. And as I got older I too could see he didn’t believe in saving: his unbridled optimism seemed to have convinced him that whatever he spent could easily be replaced in the future. While my mother returned again and again to her jewellery box, taking one piece of wedding gold and then another to sell to pay our debts, he continued to make extravagant purchases and plan expensive family vacations.
My father, of course, did not react well to my mother’s criticism. And he harboured his own grudges and resentments. He often accused my mother of being distant or expressed jealous suspicions of her. When he got angry his rages were ferocious. More than once, he slapped or pushed her.
As we got older, my sisters and I weathered these storms with a certain amount of resignation. We stopped hiding in closets, shed fewer tears and came to accept that home was an unpredictable place. We might return from the calm safety of school to a happy, chatty family dinner or to a meal eaten in stony silence. We might spend the weekends making dolls’ clothes with our mother or building a playhouse with our father—or we might spend hours in our bedrooms, escaping into the comfort of homework as our parents did battle with each other in the rest of the house.