A Good Wife

by Samra Zafar

  I let the conversation drop. But I didn’t let the idea go. I knew that the one weak point in Amma and Ahmed’s fortress was their adoration of Aisha. Later in the week, I once more made mention of how beneficial the program might be for her. How could they deny their granddaughter this opportunity? Reluctantly, they agreed that Aisha and I could try it out.

  * * *

  Ahmed drove me over to the centre my first time. He escorted me into the room and looked about. It was a large space filled with tiny chairs, plastic toys and a cluster of mothers and toddlers. There were no men in sight. What’s more, the head of the program was a Pakistani woman named Nuzah. Ahmed deemed it all harmless enough.

  Yet as soon as he left the room, I was seized by uncertainty. I felt self-conscious and conspicuous. Surely everyone could see what Ahmed saw—a useless mother and a worthless girl. But Aisha was clearly delighted by the sight of so many new toys and so many other children. I had to work to keep up with her as she moved about the room. Before long, I was sitting at the crafts table with her, playing with poster paint instead of thinking about myself.

  A few days later, I made my second visit. Amma and Abba were chilly as I packed up the stroller. This time, I would be walking over by myself.

  It had been almost three years since I had ventured out on my own. I’d felt overwhelmed by the foreignness of my new home back then. Now it was familiar and yet, strangely, even more frightening. For the last few years, whenever I asked about going anywhere, Ahmed had shut down my suggestions with grim warnings. The safe haven he described to me when I was in Pakistan had vanished. No Western man could ever be trusted by a woman. Men were only interested in sex. And most of the white people who filled the streets hated Muslims—especially Muslim women. All alone, a Muslim woman might be a target for violence, and no one would come to help. By keeping me indoors, he was both protecting me and safeguarding my honour from Western corruption.

  None of our family trips to the shopping malls or grocery stores had ever given me evidence of this kind of danger, and for the most part I suspected that Ahmed’s rhetoric was just an attempt to curb my interest in going out. But now that I was finally on my own, I realized his words had burrowed deep in my mind.

  As I left our quiet, dead-end street, the world seemed so much bigger than when it was rushing past our car windows. Once I got onto the busier roads, I was unnerved by the people and the traffic. Each time a vehicle passed me, the drum of its engine and the gust of air had me quickening my pace. Each time another person approached me on the sidewalk, I cast my eyes down and held my breath until they were past. At any moment, I thought, I might be run over by a car, or kidnapped and raped. I had found the catcalling and harassment by Karachi men upsetting and stressful, but the quiet streets of Mississauga were positively terrifying.

  Even at the drop-in centre, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t safe. Why would any of the women want to talk to me? And what would I talk to them about, even if they were willing? I didn’t trust myself to keep my misery in check. If word got back to Ahmed and Amma that I had been talking with strangers about my life or making non-Muslim, non-Pakistani friends, I would never be allowed to return.

  So, during my hours at the centre, I focused tightly on Aisha, joining the circle of moms and caregivers to sing songs or listen to stories but rarely exchanging words or looks with anyone other than my daughter.

  One afternoon Nuzah introduced a craft that was taking longer to complete than usual. I was sitting at a low table with Aisha, nervously watching the clock as the usual end time of the program came and went. Getting increasingly agitated, I tried to hurry Aisha along.

  Nuzah came up to the table. “Do you need to be somewhere soon?” she asked.

  “I have to get home,” I said—and then noticing her questioning look—“or my family will be angry.”

  “Why would they be angry if you spend a little extra time here with your daughter?”

  I couldn’t answer that.

  Aisha had finished gluing pompoms on her picture. I helped her get off the chair and was about to gather our things when Nuzah pulled me aside.

  “Is everything okay, Samra?” Her voice was softened with such care and concern that I felt tears filling my eyes. But I couldn’t say a word. What if she told my husband? What if she called the police? I simply nodded at her and moved off quickly to get the stroller.

  Nuzah began to approach me every time I came to the drop-in. She would chat casually, asking how I was, offering opportunities to talk. But I resisted.

  One afternoon, however, I was even more silent than usual. I had awoken in the morning with a headache, which made me subdued with Amma. Ahmed was angry, accusing me of being rude and thoughtless. I had been feeling fragile already, so Ahmed’s yelling shook me more than usual. I cried the whole walk over to the drop-in centre. When Nuzah tried to talk or smiled at me during an activity, I had a hard time responding.

  After the program was over, Nuzah asked me to stay behind for a minute. She took me over to the carpet where we had circle time and sat down beside me.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “You can trust me, Samra. You can tell me.”

  I still wasn’t sure this was true, but before I could stop myself the words were spilling out. I told her that Ahmed wouldn’t let me out of the house save for my hours at the centre. I told her that he wouldn’t allow me to make friends. I told her about the yelling and shouting. I rattled off all the bad words he called me. I said that I had no idea how to change things, how to make him happy.

  “Do you want to leave?” Nuzah asked me.

  I started. “No, no, I can’t,” I said. “I don’t want to lose my daughter.”

  “You won’t,” Nuzah said. She was holding my hand. “Next time you come, I’ll give you some numbers to call, places that can help. You can use my phone.”

  The next afternoon at the drop-in, Nuzah took Aisha from my arms. “Don’t worry about her,” she said. “I’ll look after her. You go into my office and make some calls.”

  She handed me her phone and a list of numbers. The Assaulted Women’s Helpline was on top.

  My hands were shaking as I dialled. A female counsellor came on the line, and I began to tell her what I had told Nuzah. The counsellor asked if I had children. When I told her about Aisha, she asked if Ahmed swore or yelled at her.

  “No, no,” I said.

  “Okay,” she said, “but does he call you bitch, slut, whore in front of your daughter?” I could hear the change in her voice, the shift from gentle support to sharp concern.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “That’s a real problem,” she said. “We have to report that.”

  A chill ran through me. I snapped the phone shut. As Amma had often reminded me, I was a penniless woman without resources. I knew that if someone came to check on Aisha’s well-being, they would snatch her away from both Ahmed—and me. What had I done? In my self-centred desperation for some comfort I had nearly lost my daughter. I went back into the play room, grabbed Aisha and started to pack up the stroller.

  Nuzah noticed my frenzied actions and rushed over to me. I told her about the phone call. She reassured me that nothing would happen. I hadn’t put my daughter in peril. I should call again another day, gather information, get some words of advice. But in the future, perhaps I shouldn’t mention that Aisha had witnessed Ahmed’s tirades.

  I let some time pass before I had the courage to call again. The next time I called, the counsellor listened with compassion and empathy and let me know that what was happening in my home life was not okay. She suggested I consider leaving Ahmed and mentioned that there were shelters and resources for women like me. She assured me the authorities would not take Aisha away.

  And while it was a relief to know that I wasn’t crazy, that others found my distress and unhappiness completely understandable, I wasn’t able to shake the feeling that the counsellors didn’t quite understand. They were both white people (or
at least I assumed they were). They didn’t know my culture. They didn’t believe that the fact Ahmed was not hitting me or cheating on me meant I was a lucky woman. Nor did his occasional flashes of tenderness and generosity—like bringing me fast food while I was studying at night—strike them as hopeful signs. Their words, while soothing, could not banish from my mind the message I was getting from Ahmed, Amma, Abba and even, sometimes, my parents: You are making a big deal out of nothing. After all, these counsellors talked about a kind of marriage I had never witnessed and suspected wasn’t possible for anyone in my world.

  In the end, I came away feeling that Ahmed’s words and actions were not acceptable but that it was up to me to find a way to stop them. Perhaps if I worked harder around the house, did my chores more quickly, wasn’t so gloomy, or made Amma and Abba happier Ahmed would relax and return to his old self. Outsiders couldn’t help me do any of that. They would only put my family at risk.

  * * *

  While Nuzah provided much-needed support, she also helped me with my parenting skills. Aisha had plenty of toys at home, but English-language storybooks were in short supply. Nuzah suggested I check out the library. There was a branch near the strip mall that housed the drop-in centre, so I began to pop in after the drop-in program was over.

  Amma and Abba noticed my late arrival home. “Where were you roaming?” demanded Abba.

  I explained about the library and the benefit of reading to Aisha.

  “Just another excuse to roam around shamelessly.”

  He was not entirely wrong. I was still a little nervous about being out on my own, but I was always reluctant to rush the walk home. The thought of what awaited me in that salmon-coloured house weighed upon me and slowed my steps. One afternoon, as I was crossing the bridge over the Credit River, I stopped. A small path leading from the road to the water had been beaten into the grass at the end of the bridge. It was a little steep, but I thought I could manage to get the stroller down and up again. I made up my mind. I hadn’t gone to the library that afternoon, so I could steal a few more minutes and sit with Aisha on the riverbank.

  Lying back on the cool grass, surrounded by trees and bushes that I had no names for, I felt as if I had been transported to a tiny corner of paradise. The roof peaks edging the horizon were easy to ignore. The sound of water burbling at my feet was all I heard; the cars and trucks barrelling over the bridge had been silenced. Aisha was cooing and chattering, her round legs kicking as she watched the dragonflies dart through the air. The air smelled aquatic and alive.

  Tension seemed to flow out of my neck and shoulders into the earth below. My outstretched limbs felt lean and powerful. With my eyes closed, I imagined what it would feel like to be standing on soft ground, maybe on a cricket pitch, and then kicking out, running and running across the grass.

  Aisha’s gentle burbling brought me back.

  It is so lovely lying in the fresh air, I thought. What would happen if I just stayed here? If I refused to go back?

  I let fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes slip by. But then I could feel my heart beginning to beat a little faster. Would they miss me now? Had I lingered too long? What would they say? Reluctantly I sat up, brushed the grass from my tunic and trousers and turned Aisha’s stroller towards the path.

  But I knew I would be back.

  CHAPTER 8

  SHOPGIRL

  It was another short delay in my return home from the drop-in centre. A quick stop at Tim Hortons to get a donut with sprinkles for Aisha. I stood at the counter after ordering and dug into my coat pocket to retrieve the toonie I was sure was there. But I couldn’t find it. I stepped back from the counter, searching all of my other pockets and then turning my attention to the diaper bag. My embarrassment was ratcheting into panic.

  Even as I anxiously worked my way through the bag, I knew my search was fruitless.

  I never had any money on me. I had a bank account, which I’d been required to open when we got the mortgage, but it sat empty. The only deposit had been a thousand dollars that my father wired to me for my birthday the spring that Aisha turned one. I’d managed to buy myself only a few toiletries with that money before Ahmed transferred everything into his own account.

  And Ahmed gave me no spending money of my own. If we were out shopping and I needed to buy something for Aisha or for the house, he might hand me a few dollars. “Why do you need money?” he once said. “It’s not like you go anywhere without me.” He had been right, of course, but every once in a while I tried to squirrel away a few coins, like the one I thought was resting in my coat pocket.

  I had moved the stroller away from the counter and was getting ready to slink out of the store when I heard a voice.

  “Excuse me, can I buy you a coffee?”

  I looked up. A white man in his early thirties was standing before me. He was pointing to the counter.

  “No, thank you,” I said, mortified. “I don’t want coffee.”

  All the things Ahmed had told me about men were beating through my mind. Why was the man doing this? Was this some way to get me alone? To attack me?

  “What did you order, then?” the man asked. I glanced quickly at his face. His eyes were kind and soft. And his tone was sympathetic—not seductive, not coercive. He felt sorry for me.

  “A donut,” I said weakly, glancing down at the stroller.

  The man smiled at Aisha. “Let me get that for her.”

  I protested, but he put the money down on the counter and handed me the bag with the donut. “Have a nice afternoon,” he said, as he headed out the door. I watched him get in his car and exit the parking lot. Then I pushed the stroller outside.

  Sitting on a dusty bench, feeding small pieces of donut to Aisha, tears overtook me. I wanted to be grateful for the man’s generosity, but all I felt was stinging humiliation. What kind of life was I living that I didn’t even have two dollars on me? And what kind of person was I that people took such pity on me?

  The answer was obvious. I was poor. I was powerless. I was pathetic.

  By the time Aisha had finished eating, I came to another conclusion. My father had thought that money didn’t matter. I always suspected he was a bit misguided, but now I was convinced he was wrong. Money mattered. Or at least, not having it did. Just like in my parents’ marriage, a lack of money was making my bad marriage worse. It was certainly fuelling Ahmed’s surliness. And perhaps most important—it was trapping me.

  None of that was actually going through my thoughts, however, when a few months later, Ahmed made an unusual demand.

  Despite his new job, he simply couldn’t keep up with the costs of running the house, keeping the family car on the road and providing for Aisha and me. He often had to resort to payday loans, and he even began to talk of selling my wedding jewellery, just as my mother had done with hers.

  One day, he came away from his computer with a look of misery on his face. “You need to get a job,” he said to me. “It’s impossible to pay for this place with only one salary.”

  He got his jacket and left the house for the evening, slamming the door behind him.

  I knew he must have his back to the wall to have said this, and that he would hate it if I actually did start working, but nevertheless I was elated. A job! Another way to be out of the house and away from Amma and Abba. Time on my own. Responsibility. Things to learn. A chance to be with people.

  That night, after I got Aisha to sleep, I went to the computer to type up my resumé. While I hadn’t quite finished my Canadian high school credits, I wrote that I had completed my British O-levels. But I had no work experience at all. I dug deep into my past to fill the page.

  When I told Ahmed I was ready to apply for jobs, he was grim. He didn’t offer to drive me to the malls so I could start the process. A few days later, he was muttering again about the need for more money—and about my lack of contribution to the financial health of the family.

  “Ahmed,” I reminded him. “I can’t leave the house to apply
for jobs. You have to take me!” The logic of this annoyed him. Ambivalence, frustration, suspicion, humiliation—I could see the emotions roiling through him.

  Eventually, however, he hustled me into the car, driving me from store to store as I dropped off my CV.

  Much to my surprise, I quickly got two interviews, and then an offer from a discount department store called Zellers. And then another surprise—Ahmed actually let me accept the job.

  * * *

  Amma and Abba were deeply unhappy—with both Ahmed and me. They couldn’t understand how he could even contemplate having a working wife.

  “What does he want you to do?” Amma asked when I told her the plan. “Sit on the roadside naked so people will pay you?” Any sort of work outside the home, no matter how ordinary, was a sort of prostitution as far as her family was concerned.

  The shame of having a working daughter-in-law was compounded by the inconvenience. I would not be around as much to help with the house or chat with them. And in my absence, they would have to take care of Aisha.

  Ahmed was working the day I had my first shift. There was nothing for me to do but take the bus, all by myself, to the store. I had travelled by bus once or twice with Amma, but this would be my first solo journey—and the first time I had left the house without Aisha. As I stood beside the bus stop with the warm breeze ruffling my clothes, I was filled with a giddy awe. I couldn’t believe I was here, alone. I had seen other hijab-wearing women working at dollar stores and Walmart. They always seemed as exotic as peacocks to me. How did they get there? How did they achieve such responsibility and independence? How was it possible to do something as daring and extraordinary as work at a checkout counter?

  Now I would be one of them—a woman with a paid job. I could barely wait to slip into my uniform and take my place on the floor.

  * * *

  The manager at the store was charmed by my British-accented English and decided that the ideal spot for me would be on the switchboard, making store announcements. In truth, the switchboard was just a phone, set up outside of the women’s changing rooms. I would also be in charge of those—letting customers in, checking their merchandise and cleaning up the stalls after.