Infidel

by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  The whole household was miserable and in an unsettled state when my mother’s older brother, Uncle Muhammad, arrived like a breath of fresh air from Mogadishu in December 1985. Uncle Muhammad was tall and vigorous; it was a good feeling to have a man like him in the house. He looked just like my mother, although he was much taller and far more playful. He used to sit on a mat on the floor, wearing a sarong, with a shawl over his shoulders, and joke with us that we were women now, cooing and teasing us that we should be getting married soon, and that he had fine, rich, young husbands for us back home in Somalia.

  Uncle Muhammad brought with him news of my father, and of the SSDF. Key leaders of the movement were defecting, he said. They were taking up jobs in Siad Barré’s government. A lot of muttering went on downstairs between the adults. Late one night Haweya, who had been eavesdropping, came into our bedroom with huge, startled eyes and hissed, “Ayaan, we have a sister. Abeh has married somebody else. He has another family.”

  I crept halfway down the red staircase and listened. It was true. Uncle Muhammad was talking about a woman our father had married. He was living in Ethiopia with this new wife of his, and they had a child.

  The next morning I demanded more information. “Does Abeh have another wife?” I asked Ma. But it was Grandma who answered, very snooty and superior. “We won’t discuss your father’s wives,” she said. “We know that men marry. It will not be said of my daughters and granddaughters that they are jealous.”

  In our clan, jealousy is considered demeaning. It is unspeakable, a feeling so low that you may not admit it. So I knew I must not ask more about Abeh’s new wife, but I did ask, “Do we have a sister, then? How old is she?” Again, it was my grandmother who answered, in the same strained but airy voice: “Oh, she must be nine years old now.” Then my mother turned around and said in a strangled tone, “No, I think three or four.” And in the silence that followed, all of us did the math. Our father must have married right after he left us behind, in 1981—perhaps just a few months later.

  I thought about my father’s succession of wives and children: how he had abandoned his first children, and then us, and now had made another daughter, whom, I thought, he would surely abandon, too. I felt a sudden wave of compassion for Ma, with all her worries: trying to find us a decent house to live in, having to take charity from my father’s clan, dealing with Mahad dropping out, and worrying about my wayward sister, Haweya. If my father had been with us, none of this would have happened.

  I was also crushed. I felt as if all the hope had suddenly drained out of my bones. I almost never admitted it to myself, but in those days I still imagined in the back of my mind that Abeh would come home one day and make us a proper family again, re-create that sphere of closeness and warmth. To learn he had another child—this was a betrayal, as if he’d slapped me hard in the face.

  In the next days and weeks, I told myself that I would never let this happen to me. I would never be dependent on anyone in this way. My mother had so little control over her own life that she hadn’t even known when her husband had gotten married again. I raged internally when I thought about it. I raged for her. Life seemed to be so unfair to Ma. She could be cruel, but she was loyal to my father and she was always there for us children. She didn’t deserve any of this.

  I was beginning to rebel internally against women’s traditional subjugation. In those days, I was still wearing a hidjab. I thought a lot about God, how to be good in His eyes, and about the beauty of obedience and submission. I tried to still my mind so it would become a simple vessel for the will of Allah and the words of the Quran. But my mind seemed bent on being distracted from the Straight Path.

  Something inside me always resisted the moral values behind Sister Aziza’s lectures: a small spark of independence. Perhaps it was a reaction to the stark gap between the behavior demanded by the Holy Writings and the realities of actual daily life, with all its twists and turns. Even as a child, I could never comprehend the downright unfairness of the rules, especially for women. How could a just God—a God so just that almost every page of the Quran praises His fairness—desire that women be treated so unfairly? When the ma’alim told us that a woman’s testimony is worth half of a man’s, I would think, Why? If God was merciful, why did He demand that His creatures be hanged in public? If He was compassionate, why did unbelievers have to go to Hell? If Allah was almighty and powerful, why didn’t He just make believers out of the unbelievers and have them all go to Paradise?

  Inwardly, I resisted the teachings, and secretly I transgressed them. Like many of the other girls in my class, I continued to read sensual romance novels and trashy thrillers, even though I knew that doing so was resisting Islam in the most basic way. Reading novels that aroused me was indulging in the one thing a Muslim woman must never feel: sexual desire outside of marriage.

  A Muslim woman must not feel wild, or free, or any of the other emotions and longings I felt when I read those books. A Muslim girl does not make her own decisions or seek control. She is trained to be docile. If you are a Muslim girl, you disappear, until there is almost no you inside you. In Islam, becoming an individual is not a necessary development; many people, especially women, never develop a clear individual will. You submit: that is the literal meaning of the word islam: submission. The goal is to become quiet inside, so that you never raise your eyes, not even inside your mind.

  But the spark of will inside me grew even as I studied and practiced to submit. It was fanned by the free-spirited novels, the absence of my father, and the frustration of watching my mother’s helplessness living in a non-Muslim country. Most of all, I think it was the novels that saved me from submission. I was young, but the first tiny, meek beginnings of my rebellion had already clicked into place.

  * * *

  Our family had never been very united, but it seemed to fall apart completely after that December. Uncle Muhammad went back to Somalia and Mahad went with him, to find his way and become a man. I was glad to see him go—he was a bully—but I was also envious. Mahad could travel and have adventures. Nothing like that could ever happen to me, because I was a girl.

  A month after Mahad’s departure, the eviction police arrived and our household was flung into crisis. After years of clawing a few months’ more delay out of the owners, Ma had still not found us a place to live. It was Grandma who finally found a practical solution—through the clan network, as usual—and we moved to temporary lodging in the house of an Isaq man in the neighborhood.

  This man, whose name was Abdillahi Ahmed, was a recent widower. His wife had died a few months before, and Grandma had spent a few weeks at his house, helping; these are the sorts of things you do for people in your clan. When he heard about our plight, Abdillahi Ahmed naturally offered to take us in.

  Abdillahi Ahmed had many children, but he had moved the younger ones to his farm out of town. Only his two oldest daughters, Fardawsa and Amina, lived with him now in his house in Nairobi. Abdillahi Ahmed was a businessman and a Somali, so he had no idea how to bring up teenage girls. An older woman, Hanan, who was a relative, lived with them and was supposed to take care of that.

  We lived in one bedroom: my grandmother in one bed, Haweya and me in bunks, and my mother on a mattress on the floor. Our stuff was stored under our grandmother’s bed or in various houses in the neighborhood. We shared the kitchen. Mostly Fardawsa or Amina would cook for their family, and I would cook for us.

  Fardawsa and Amina had grown up in Kenya, and both their Somali and their English were poor. We spoke to each other in Swahili, though this disgusted my mother. After dinner we used to joke around in the kitchen, making the dough for the next morning’s angello, the traditional Somali pancake. Amina, the older girl, was outgoing and Haweya liked her; I preferred Fardawsa, who was mild and sweet.

  But my mother and Hanan stalked each other like a pair of scorpions. Hanan chewed qat. My mother couldn’t believe she had to live in the house of a woman who stooped to something so low. Alth
ough qat-chewing is prevalent in Somalia, Muslim doctrine opposes any kind of intoxication, and Ma saw it as particularly horrifying in a woman. Whenever Hanan chewed qat, Ma would stare at her with her eyes narrowed and stomp off to our room.

  In the morning, when Hanan was hungover from her qat habit, she could be vicious. But after a few hours’ chewing after lunch, the qat made Hanan patient and pleasant to be around. Her supervision was far more lax than my mother’s at the best of times. Amina and Haweya began sneaking out of the house in the afternoons. Amina had a boyfriend, Farah Gouré’s youngest son, the prince of the estate. He was cool and drove his own car. She was Isaq and he was Osman Mahamud; it was terribly romantic, like Romeo and Juliet. As for Haweya, I think she mostly went to the movies.

  Fardawsa and I began sneaking out sometimes, too. We would go to movies with Hawo, Jim’o Musse’s older daughter, who lived in the house directly opposite Abdillahi Ahmed’s house. Hawo thought my hidjab was absolutely a joke; when she saw me coming home from school in my black robe she’d howl with laughter. Then she’d pull me to the Odeon to see some improbable Bollywood epic.

  One day Kennedy caught sight of Haweya at an afternoon disco and asked her for news of Mahad and me—especially me. The two of us had barely seen each other since Mahad had dropped out of Starehe Boys School, which Kennedy was still attending, in the equivalent of grade 13. (In the British system, secondary school begins in grade 8; you take O levels at the end of year 11, usually called fourth form, and A levels in year 13, called sixth form.) Kennedy gave Haweya a note for me with his phone number.

  When I saw that note my legs shook, and of course I called him. When we spoke, I stammered, and all my nerve endings seemed to come alive with excitement. My black hidjab didn’t shield me from the effect Ken had on me. We agreed to meet in the house of one of his relatives; in a cinema or a park, someone might see us.

  I went robed from head to toe. I told myself I would tell Kennedy about Allah. I would tell him that if Allah had willed us to fall in love, then we should get married one day—it was meant to be.

  When I rang the bell, Ken was startled to see me cloaked in black. He said, “What’s happened to you? Are you mad?” I said, “No, I’m not mad. I’m taking my religion seriously. You should, too.” He took my hand and smiled. He was so nice, such a very nice person. Then he took me into the house, and I took off my robe and folded it, pretending there was nothing at all unusual about being alone in a house with a grown man.

  Underneath the robe I was dressed in a long skirt and a blouse buttoned up to my neck. I sat on the edge of the sofa, and Ken and I made small talk for a little while. Then he kissed me. And again, it was as if a switch had clicked shut in my mind. I knew the angels were watching me, but I kissed him back.

  When it got dark Ken prepared dinner. I had never been served by a man. It was fun; Ken was thoughtful and kind and interesting; he indulged me—he was completely unlike my brother. After dinner, as we sat together, I asked him, “Tell me, really: your name is Yusuf, right?” Here I was, risking my soul, coming to see him. I thought I had a right to know his real name and his people.

  He said, “No, I told you, my name is Kennedy.”

  I thought he was still joking, because I had convinced myself that the whole Ken thing was some kind of gag, another way for him and Mahad to tease me for being so gullible and protected from the outside world. But Ken said, “The truth is that my name is Kennedy Okioga and I’m from the Kisii tribe. I’m not Somali. Mahad invented that so your mother would accept me, because your ma is new in this country. I’m Kenyan.”

  I was stunned. I said, “So you’re not a Muslim?” and he said, “No. I’m not.” “But you will have to become a Muslim!” I burst out, and Kennedy began laughing. “Of course I won’t become a Muslim,” he said. “Then I would have to look like you.”

  I got all earnest and told him, “But men don’t have to wear these clothes.” And Kennedy said, “I know that, but I’m not going to become a Muslim.”

  Then he told me he was an atheist, that he didn’t believe in any God. I was horrified. I couldn’t believe such an evil thing was possible, coming from someone so kind and so handsome. I burst out, “But you will burn!” Kennedy said, “There is no Hell, you know. It’s all nonsense.”

  There was a horrible silence. I realized that we must never see each other again. It didn’t matter how much I liked him, I could never marry a non-Muslim. It wasn’t just because of the rule that a Muslim woman must never marry an unbeliever. It was my clan’s Somali bigotry, as well. Ayaan Hirsi Magan could never marry a Kenyan. The clan simply would not stand for it. If I married Ken, he might even be killed.

  If Ken had been willing to convert to Islam, I could have tried to argue that we are all equal under Allah, no matter the clan or tribe. Perhaps the Osman Mahamud one day could have accepted that, though all of them would certainly have sneered at me my whole life. But at age seventeen, even I could not conceive of marrying an unbeliever.

  So everything had to be over. It was horribly painful. When I left, I told him, “I really think the two of us is impossible.” Ken answered, “I know about the Somalis, but love is stronger than anything—let’s give it a try.” It was sweet, but futile; that kind of childish wishing was behind us. I just looked down and mumbled, “Please, can I think about it?” He knew—both of us knew—that we were saying good-bye.

  * * *

  It was not a good time for anyone in our family. A few weeks later, just before she turned sixteen, Haweya announced that she was dropping out of school. She told me about it the night before she told Ma. I begged her not to do it. She had only two more years to go before her O-level exams and she had always been so effortlessly clever. I had to work far harder than she did, for worse grades. I told her, “If you don’t get a diploma, you’ll be nothing—you’ll be like Ma.” But Haweya was adamant. School was stupid. She wanted to go to Somalia, like Mahad. She wanted to live anywhere but in the one bedroom we shared with Grandma and Ma.

  The morning after she told me about her decision, Haweya went over to Farah Gouré’s house, where Ma used to stride every month, head high, to accept her allowance. It was a huge courtyard, always full of Somali men, and Haweya just walked in, wearing her usual clothes: her school skirt, no headscarf. She announced, “I have come for a consultation with Farah Gouré.”

  Everyone laughed at her and told her to come back with her mother. A young girl can’t just talk directly to an older man with no intermediary. But when Farah Gouré emerged from his house, Haweya walked up to him and said, “I am the daughter of Hirsi Magan and I have come to ask you a favor. You can hear it, and say yes or no. Or you can tell me, right now, ‘Go home, you are not welcome,’ and I won’t come back.”

  Farah Gouré started to laugh. He asked Haweya if she wanted a cup of tea and she said, “No, I want to go to Somalia.” Just like that. She said, “My brother is in Mogadishu, my family is in Mogadishu, and my father will be in Somalia soon, when Siad Barré is finally defeated. I don’t want to be in Kenya any more. I have dreamt of Somalia since I was a little girl, and I know you go there twice a month, so please take me.”

  Farah Gouré asked, “Does your mother know this?” and Haweya said, “Yes, she does. If you agree to take me she will let me go.” Which wasn’t true, of course.

  Farah Gouré was quite a character. He was small and round, an Osman Mahamud; we shared the ninth grandfather, I think. In 1987 he must have been about sixty, and though he couldn’t read or write he owned a whole fleet of trucks that traveled all over eastern and southern Africa. But although Farah Gouré had made his wealth from his own initiative and efforts, it wasn’t his in the way that a Westerner’s wealth belongs to him alone. Farah Gouré believed in the clan and in the SSDF. By taking care of the SSDF families in Kenya, he believed he freed his countrymen to fight. It was the sort of thing the Osman Mahamud have always done. Farah Gouré shared his money and good fortune with the clan and the cause:
his house was open to almost any Osman Mahamud who wanted to be there.

  Much later, we heard the story of how he met Fadumo, his wife. When Farah Gouré was fifteen, he left his parents to make his fortune. That is the tradition in Bari, where he was born: a man must prove himself, alone. So Farah Gouré left Bari and went to Kismayo, in the south. He was young, he didn’t understand the people or the accent in Kismayo, and there was nobody looking after him or doing his laundry. His money ran out very quickly and his clothes were a mess, but he couldn’t go home a failure: the shame of it would have been intolerable.

  One day, walking through the market, Farah Gouré saw a young woman about his age making angello, cooking the pancakes on a charcoal brazier on the ground, rolling them up with sugar and butter, and selling them to passersby. He walked up and down smelling the angello and she called to him, “So, you look hungry,” and he laughed with relief, because her accent was from Bari.

  Farah Gouré and this young woman started listing their ancestry, as Somalis always do. Both of them were Osman Mahamud, so they could call each other brother and sister. He asked what she was doing in Kismayo, and this woman, whose name was Fadumo, said, “I told my parents I would leave to make my fortune and this is what I did. I have an angello stall but one day I will buy a truck. You can start an angello stall, too.” Farah Gouré said, “Of course I can’t, I’m a man.”

  Fadumo made him an angello, and when he said he couldn’t pay for it she offered to let him earn his pancake. She said, “I’ll make sure that you have breakfast every morning, and you can go and find out how the truck business works. I have to be here with the angellos and I’m a woman, so it’s not as easy for me to look into it as it will be for you.” That’s how Farah Gouré apprenticed himself to a transporter. He and Fadumo talked every day about her dream to have trucks working all over Somalia. He offered to marry her and she said, “Of course not. I’m not going to marry a man who can’t even earn his own breakfast.”