The Zanzibar Wife

by Deborah Rodriguez

  Though the weekly reminders of potential new suitors awaiting her response were still popping up in her inbox, Ariana had fallen into the habit of deleting the messages without even a glance, choosing instead to concentrate more on the weddings of others than on her own.

  Now Nasir was saying something about work. Or was it Nasim? She flipped her long, dark hair over her shoulder and scrolled through a thread she’d barely been paying attention to.

  … Need to ask you something. Job related.

  … What, you need a bit of arm candy for some chichi work event?

  … Call me if you can. Easier to explain.

  … And interrupt your hot date?

  … Ha ha. I’m alone. At the shisha bar.

  Ariana could practically smell the sickly sweet smoke through the phone as Nasir answered the call. How he could actually enjoy ending his evenings in a cloud of tobacco in a downtown hookah lounge was beyond her.

  “Hello, doll,” she greeted him with a chuckle.

  “Hello doll yourself,” he countered. “And why are you at home on this lovely night?”

  “Because Brad Pitt has the sniffles, and had to cancel at the last moment.”

  “Pity. Why don’t you come on down and join me? All the other guys will be here soon.”

  “I don’t think so. Too much traffic.” And besides, she thought, I am so not interested in being one of the guys. “So what was that about your job?”

  “I need a fixer. Know anyone?”

  “Depends. Just what is it you want fixed?”

  Nasir explained. He usually worked as a part-time local journalist, but occasionally also did work with foreign correspondents, filmmakers, corporations and NGOs to get whatever they needed done—interpreting, guiding, finding sources, procuring access, basically helping to pave the way.

  “And?” Ariana asked.

  “I was supposed to do a job with a photographer next week, but a big story has come up so now I can’t do it.”

  “And?” she asked again.

  “And I need to find someone else who can.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “You? A fixer? You can’t even fix your own dinner!”

  “Thanks a lot, my friend. You know damn well how good I am at what I do. Remember the Ilyas’ wedding? You were there.”

  “That was a great party. But honestly, Ari, this is different.”

  “Really? If I can manage to organize a good time for hundreds of people at a pop I can certainly deal with one little journalist.”

  “It’s a photographer.”

  “Okay. A photographer. How hard can that be?”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Come on, Nasir. If you can do it, I can do it.”

  “You sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Don’t be such a sexist pig.”

  “Okay, okay.” He laughed. “Just don’t blow it. It’s my reputation that’s at stake here. And actually, it’s not all that difficult.”

  “Speak to me.”

  “So an American photographer needs to have her hand held over in Oman. You’ve been to Oman, right?”

  “Only on a visa run,” she answered, thinking about those monthly pain-in-the-ass five-hour round trips to the border when she’d cram into a van full of other expats all looking to get their passports stamped. “I really don’t know much about it.”

  “So start studying. You’ll be needing to book hotels, hire drivers, locate whoever and whatever she wants to see. Google it. I’ll forward you the email with the specs of her assignment and her contact info. You’ll be fine. I hope.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Ariana stood and silenced the chirping alarm on her iPad, and headed down the hall. “I’ve got to run. I’ll ring you tomorrow.”

  “Yay. A job,” she said to the face in the mirror as she stood at the bathroom sink twisting off her rings, one by one, and placing them carefully on the back of the basin. “And money is money, right?”

  ‘Bismillah,’ she whispered softly before passing her hands slowly under the running faucet three times. She opened her mouth and splashed in a handful of water, swirled, spat and repeated twice again. Then it was three times for the nostrils, the face, the right arm and then the left—like a doctor scrubbing up for surgery—and then a wipe of the head, the ears, the back of the neck, and finally a triple rinse of both her feet, the right, as always, before the left.

  She then crossed the hall to her bedroom, where she pulled the black abaya and shayla from the hook behind the door. The feel of the shiny fabric as it slid down her body and nestled around her head always comforted her, as if all the loose pieces were coming back together, and as if, for the moment, she was part of something bigger and more important than herself.

  Ariana took a deep breath and stood up straight, her feet pointed toward the far corner of the room, facing Mecca, her eyes on the rug before her. She raised her hands to the level of her shoulders, her palms facing forward, and began reciting isha, the fifth and final prayer of the day.

  3

  Muscat, April 2017

  The knife danced through the glistening onion at lightning speed, Miza’s hands transforming the orb into perfect little cubes with machine-like precision before scooping up the pieces from the counter and dropping them into the hot oil to brown. The ginger had been mashed and the garlic chopped ahead of time, just like her mother used to do. She remembered first learning to make pilau, standing on a stool in the kitchen of their house in Zanzibar, back when her parents were still alive. She would wonder at her mother’s long, dark fingers flinging pinches of cardamom and cumin and ground cloves into the pot, as if she were a sorcerer concocting her magical brew. Then her mother would add the browned potatoes and leave it all to simmer, bringing alive the smells of the Darajani Market they’d visited that morning.

  Miza had loved going shopping with her mother, and had treasured the time they would spend wandering through the narrow lanes of the old Stone Town section of Zanzibar City hand in hand, just the two of them, picking through the plantains and cassava and the spiky durian, so stinky it would make water spill from her eyes. The covered halls and twisting alleys would become thick with shoppers as midday approached and they’d hurry to finish their rounds, Miza holding tight to make sure she didn’t lose her mother in the crowd, before heading home for lunch. That was before the wonderful and horrible day Miza’s baby sister had come into the world, the same day she lost her mother for good.

  Miza added cold water to the rice, pouring from a coffee cup until the amount of liquid matched the distance between the tip and first crease of her index finger, and checked the time. Still at least a half-hour before her husband would arrive—plenty of time to start the octopus curry. How odd it felt to call Tariq her husband, even after over a year of marriage. Sometimes she still pictured him as the boy he once was, the spirited child who would come from Oman each year with his younger sister to spend holidays at their great-uncle’s house in Stone Town, trading the brutal Muscat heat for the tropical breezes of the Southern Hemisphere. Even though he was a few years older than the two girls, the three of them had been friends back then, until the year Miza turned fourteen and her grieving father had no choice but to move the tiny family to his older brother’s house in the village he had grown up in. It would be twelve years before she and Tariq would see each other again.

  Miza pushed up the sleeves of her blouse and tore open the package of octopus she’d found at the local grocery. Back home she used to accompany her parents to the beach to find the pweza, her father searching the coral during low tide for a glimpse of one of the tentacled creatures stranded among the rocks. Her mother would scrub the ink out into a saltwater pool, kneading the octopus’s body into the sand before rinsing and repeating until the water ran clear. Then she’d whip the animal up into the air by one of its eight legs, bringing it down with a thud against the rocks over and over again until it was sure to be tender. This, Miza thought as she ran the
sliced white meat under the faucet, was certainly easier.

  In fact, everything was easier here in Oman. But that did not mean she wanted to stay. She had heard of plenty of Zanzibaris who were happy living here, among the hundreds of thousands of others who were either born here or came from parents who were. The ties between the two countries were deep—deeper than the ocean they shared—going back to a time centuries before when the island fell under the rule of the Sultan of Oman and became a prized source for the trading of ivory, spices and slaves. It was true that Swahili could be heard on just about every street corner in Muscat. But Oman wasn’t for her, even though the apartment Tariq had set up for her here was more than nice, she thought as her eyes scanned the thick white walls and plump armchairs sitting atop soft Persian rugs. Perhaps it was not quite as grand as the large home where he stayed with his other wife—his first wife, Maryam—but Miza didn’t care. Though the law said that a man who takes more than one wife must provide for them all equally, her stay in Oman was a temporary one, and she was grateful for what Tariq had already done for her.

  The day they had reconnected after so many years was one of those days where the turquoise ocean matched the sky so perfectly you felt like you could dive down far below and soar back up over and over again like a hungry tern in search of dinner, until you burst right through the horizon onto the other side of the world. At least that’s what Miza had been dreaming of as she stood knee-deep in the water, her back aching from being bent so long over the mwana seedlings, stringing the little seaweed plants one by one onto nylon tie-ties, then attaching the thin ropes to the wooden sticks she’d dig into the soft sand in neat rows that seemed to stretch out forever. Harvesting seaweed was hard work that started early with the low tides and often ended late with feet shredded from the sharp shells and stones on the ocean floor, with skin itching and scarring from so many hours under a relentless sun made even more powerful by the glare of the saltwater. Miza feared she’d soon start looking like Bi-Zena, the farmer who’d hired her, a woman who had to be more than twice, or maybe even three times, her age. But worse was her fear of the venomous stings from stonefish and stingrays that lurked innocently in the shallow waters where she worked, until they were stepped on. An encounter with one of those beasts was bound to end in painful tetanus injections and a month of lost wages. Yet, as brutal as it could be, the work was welcome. For most women it was the only way to keep their families alive. Mwani was money, they said. A gift from the ocean. For Miza it was the only way to keep her uncle at bay. She’d learned that his lust for money was even greater than his appetite for flesh.

  Miza had been approaching the shore, balancing a bundle of leftover wooden sticks on her head, her long yellow dress dragging in the rising tide, when she heard someone call out her name. Mi-mi, it’s me! But perhaps she had been in the sun too long, as nobody had called her by her childhood name since her parents had gone.

  She dropped the sticks onto the dry white sand and stretched her arms high to the sky, her spine creaking like an old, rusty hinge.

  Mi-mi!

  She turned to see a tall man in a clean white dishdasha and with a neatly trimmed beard, who looked more like he belonged in an office than on a beach. Her first instinct was to run. What could this man want from her? But if he were after something, how did he know her name, and why was he smiling so broadly? It wasn’t until he was practically on top of her that she recognized Tariq. Those warm eyes as brown as chocolate took her instantly back to the carefree days in Stone Town. Miza smoothed her sand-crusted dress and tucked her scarf tighter around her head.

  “What are you doing here? How did you find me?” Miza furrowed her brow.

  Tariq laughed. “What, are you not happy to see me? Are you going to tell me to take my things and go home, like you used to?”

  Miza had to laugh as well. She remembered being tough on her old friend, who always showed up at her door every day no matter what. “I am happy to see you. But what are you doing here, on this beach?”

  Tariq then told her about how he took the five-hour flight back and forth from Oman to Zanzibar quite often for his work as an importer. He had inquired about Miza’s family a number of times around Stone Town, but it wasn’t until this trip that he had come across someone who knew of her situation.

  Miza was well aware of how, among her people, gossip spread like blood dripping into water. Tariq would have heard about how her father had died from malaria shortly after their move from Stone Town, leaving Miza and her sister, Sabra, in his brother’s hands. How her uncle, the village elder, ruled both the town and his family with an iron fist and a greedy palm. How Miza fought to protect her sister and endure under the brutishness of the man and the abuse from his wife.

  “But why would you do this for me?” Miza asked when he offered his help, her eyes narrowing to slits in the afternoon light.

  That is when Tariq turned quiet, a flush of pink rising from behind the high collar of his dishdasha. “You are my friend,” he finally said. “I never forgot that.” And Miza, remembering now how he used to look at her with those eyes, suddenly understood what she had been too young to grasp. Her chest swelled with a warmth that rivaled that from the sun above.

  But when Tariq, several visits later, suggested marriage as a solution for getting her out from under her uncle’s grasp, she had respectfully declined. She treasured the kindness Tariq showed her, and could not deny the feelings growing inside that made her miss him more and more each time he headed back home. But leaving Zanzibar was out of the question. The island was a part of her, as much as the blood that had run through the veins of her grandparents and parents and into her own body. And what about her little sister? Her uncle would never agree to let go of what was considered his property. And there was no way Miza could ever leave Sabra behind.

  “Do not worry about your sister,” Tariq assured her. “I can take care of your uncle.”

  And, of course, there was also the matter of Tariq’s wife. Miza was not eager to be a wakewenza, a co-wife, to share the man she was coming to love. And Tariq was reluctant to walk away from the obligation of his marriage, as broken as that marriage seemed to be.

  In the end it was Bi-Zena who came up with the solution. “It does not matter if you are his twentieth wife,” the old woman said after Miza had confided in her. “You must marry this man and get yourself and your sister away from this place for good.” Though Bi-Zena was known to be a quiet, guarded person, one who never engaged in the local gossip, she was keenly aware of everything that happened in the village. She had known enough about the goings-on in the village elder’s house to have taken it upon herself to dare approach him one day, the seaweed slung around her neck like a feather boa and her low, heavy breasts swinging freely under her damp cotton dress, to suggest that she take his niece into her employ. To others Bi-Zena showed only her firmness and diligence as a mama, a boss. To Miza she showed only care. “You will become Tariq’s second wife,” she insisted. “And you will stay in Zanzibar, in Stone Town. That way, when he is with you, it will be as if you are his only wife.”

  Of course, Tariq was thrilled with Bi-Zena’s idea. He would spend half his time in Zanzibar. Maryam, his first wife, would barely notice he was gone—as long as she had money to spend and servants to care for her.

  Where is that man? Miza pulled the rice off the burner and checked her phone. Tariq had assured her he’d be home by now, that his meetings would be done in plenty of time for dinner. Yet she had not heard from him since he had called to say he was on his way, more than two hours earlier. He had said he was coming straight to her, not stopping at the house across town that he shared with Maryam, hadn’t he?

  She took off her apron and padded down the hall in her bare feet to the bathroom, with its cool tile and gleaming white porcelain. Even the toilet was decorated in marble. What a ridiculous luxury to have this all to myself, she thought as she checked her reflection in the mirror, the space between her two front teeth
gaping back at her like a door someone had forgotten to close. If only her sister had been able to come here with her, to stay until the baby was born. But Miza had decided it was more important that Sabra not interrupt her studies, as she, herself, had been forced to do so long ago, once her uncle had gotten a taste of the money she could bring from the sea. And Sabra had sounded perfectly happy back in their Stone Town flat with Hoda, the maid, when she and Miza had traded messages earlier that afternoon.

  She ran her fingers lightly over her smooth cheeks, now fuller and shinier than ever before, and inserted a thick hoop into each earlobe, the gold setting off the darkness of her long neck. With a fresh scarf tied around her hair—the green and purple one with flowers that Tariq had once admired—and a quick swipe of color across her lips, Miza headed back to the kitchen to wait.

  Her stomach rumbled, from both her hunger and the life inside. “Soon, little one,” she said out loud as she rubbed her churning belly. “Soon you will come into this world as a true Omani baby, just as your father wished. And soon we will be back home in Zanzibar together, where I will teach you to fish and play mamba,” she promised, recalling the tug-of-war game she’d played as a child. Of course, thought Miza, sighing as she added the turmeric and coriander into the curry, it was cooking she had most been looking forward to teaching her child, as mothers had taught daughters for generations back home. But that was not to be, for now. She couldn’t wait to share today’s news, from the visit to the doctor, with Tariq. How thrilled he would be to learn that his firstborn child would be a son.