“This is what they do if you’re uncovered, don’t look up, take no notice and keep walking,” she advised us.
We got to the shop which was only about ten minutes’ walk away from the flat, and once inside we looked around to see what we wanted to buy. There wasn’t really much food that we recognised because the packages were different from back home and everything was written in Arabic, but what we did see was cornflakes, so we got a few packs of those, we also got some chocolate Mars bars. Once we had what we wanted we made our way home, happy with the fact that we had enjoyed half an hour out by ourselves without any grown-ups!
We got to the top of the steps and were greeted by a furious Uncle Nasser who was waiting for us outside Nahla’s flat. He was shouting and cursing at Nahla in Arabic, so we couldn’t understand what was being said, but we knew she was in trouble. Nahla waved at us saying she would see us later, she looked concerned as Uncle Nasser shoved us into our flat telling us we shouldn’t have gone out alone because it could have been dangerous for us.
Once inside the flat he snatched the bag out of Yas’s hand to see what we had bought, then once he was satisfied it was only food he gave it back.
Even though we were upset and scared by his behaviour, we were getting used to his outbursts by now, so we just let him rant on and tried not to get upset. We gave him a few snide comments in quick English, that way we knew no one but us three could understand, and then we took our goodies and disappeared into our room.
The next day we went to see Nahla, but her sister said she wasn’t in. When we asked her to pass on a message that we had called, she told us that Uncle Nasser had told Nahla she was no longer allowed to hang out with us or talk to us.
We confronted our uncle when he came back and tried to ask him what his problem was. He said he didn’t like Nahla and thought she was a bad influence on us; he forbade any more contact between us. We told him he couldn’t stop us from having friends especially female friends, and that we would carry on seeing her no matter what he said.
That night we wrote a letter to Nahla and asked her to meet us while Uncle Nasser was out. We told her we missed her friendship and we promised to keep our friendship a secret. We passed the letter to her sister who reluctantly passed it on to Nahla. She wrote us a letter back.
She told us our uncle had threatened to have her sent back to her family, and her education taken away from her, if she continued any contact with us. She told us that our uncle could make up any lie he wanted about her, she said she would not be able to defend herself or be listened to; this was just how girls got treated in Yemen.
This letter broke our hearts; we couldn’t understand how our uncle could be so heartless as to do this to our friend just because she was trying to be nice to us. For Nahla’s sake we decided to leave her alone. I hated our uncle from that moment onwards, no matter what he did I would never trust him, or have any love or respect for him ever again.
It had been fifteen or so days since we arrived in Aden and out of the blue Dad’s other brother Uncle Mohammed arrived from Sanaa, South Yemen. We had never met him before but he was fluent in English because he had lived most of his life in America.
The first two days with him were great; he took us to a beach in Aden that we didn’t even know existed. We weren’t allowed to swim of course because that was forbidden for females, but we sat on the beach and ate ice-cream. He also took us to a cinema, we sat and watched a whole film in a language we couldn’t understand, but we loved it because we were out of the flat!
He spoilt us so much more than Uncle Nasser had, but that was just to soften the blow!
One afternoon after lunch we were sat in our room lazing about. Both our uncles and Jalal were in the main room while the other women were in another room. We were all excited when Uncle Mohammed came to our room and told us he needed to tell us some important news. Thinking he was going to tell us Dad was coming we were eager to listen to what he had to say, but devastated when he started talking.
He told us the next day Issy and I were going to be travelling with him to Sanaa in South Yemen, but Yas was not coming with us. He said she was going to live in Uncle Nejmie’s house in another part of Aden, as she had been promised to him in marriage, she was now his wife.
We all started to panic. “What do you mean promised in marriage?” Yas gasped, trying to catch her breath. “I’m just a kid, are you joking? This is a joke, right? You’re winding us up, aren’t you?” she mumbled.
“This is no joke, your father promised you to Nejmie before you left England, the arrangements have been made, you will go and wait for your husband to arrive from England. His family are good people and you will stay with them until he arrives.”
Uncle Mohammed stood up to leave the room. “You all need to pack your clothes because we leave first thing in the morning.”
We all stood up and blocked the door to stop him from leaving, holding hands. I just cried, I couldn’t speak because I didn’t understand what was going on.
“No, no, we won’t go, we called Nejmie ‘uncle’, Dad wouldn’t do this to us, he wouldn’t do this to Yas, his own daughter! This is all you and Uncle Nasser, you can’t order us around and tell us what to do and you are not giving my little sister to a pervert, she’s just a kid!” Issy yelled in Uncle Mohammed’s face.
Our uncle stood calmly in front of us as we stood blocking the door. “Believe me when I tell you this, your father is the one who arranged all of this and you will all do as you are told. I am only doing what my brother has asked of me and your sister is no child; she is a woman, you are all women, and you must all start behaving like women!”
He pushed past us and left the room, leaving us all holding on to each other, stunned, afraid and shocked!
I didn’t really understand much of what was going on around me. I listened to Issy and Yas as they discussed events that had happened back in England, how Uncle Jim must have known this was going to happen to us because he had tried so hard to stop us from coming, and how we should have listened more to his advice. How Dad had always been so friendly with Nejmie, and must have had this planned all along.
Although I didn’t know much, I knew we needed to be worried, I knew my big sister was about to be taken away from me and I was petrified! I also knew Dad had lots of Arabic friends back in England and here. How could he do this to Yas, and what did he have in store for Issy and me?
That night we made plans to run away, we didn’t know anyone or where to go, we had no passports or money, but we couldn’t stay to get given away to men like this.
We decided we would wait till late that night and sneak out. We refused to speak to anyone or eat anything for the rest of the day, shutting ourselves away in our room.
When everyone finally went to sleep we opened our bedroom door and went to sneak into the hallway. Uncle Mohammed made us jump as he spoke; he was sat outside our room hiding in the corner.
“We are not stupid so don’t treat us as such,” he warned in a low stern voice.
“Why shouldn’t we? You treat us like we are stupid!” Issy shouted back at him. I was so scared I instantly burst out crying and hid behind her; within seconds Uncle Nasser appeared in the hallway.
“We won’t do as you want!” Yas cried, grabbing my hand and pulling me back into the room.
We could hear Issy arguing in the hallway with our uncles. They were making it clear they would stay outside our door all night so that we couldn’t go anywhere, she was making it equally clear to them that they were not taking our sister away from us.
She finally gave up arguing with them and came back into the room, slamming the door as hard as she could. “I hate them sooo much!” she shouted as loud as she could so that they could hear.
We cuddled up together on one bed, talking and crying at the same time, terrified of what the morning would bring.
Every now and then Issy would open the door and check to see if the hallway was clear for us to escape, when she was
met with disappointment she would slam the door as hard as she could, just to piss them off.
I nodded off at some point but I don’t think my sisters did because when I woke up in the morning, they were still talking.
The next morning, when that horrible moment came, our uncles came into the room.
“Time to go,” Uncle Mohammed calmly said, looking directly at Yas. We were all cuddled up together on the same bed, holding on tightly to each other.
“No way, I’m not going anywhere with you!” Yass voice was shaking.
Both our uncles came over to separate us and we all started screaming as they grabbed her to take her away.
The look of total fear and desperation in my sister’s eyes, knowing what was about to happen to her, and the fear I had of losing our sister was unbearable and indescribable.
I could feel my heart breaking as we begged and pleaded with our uncles not to take her away from us, but when that failed, we kicked at them, punching and scratching as much as we could to keep them away from her. But that only ended up with us tugging her back and forth.
Jalal, Sofia and his mother and grandmother heard the screaming and came rushing in to help our uncles take her away. In the end all we could do was try and hug her and kiss her and tell her how much we loved her, that we would sort things out to get her back.
We were pushed back into the room while the door was blocked by Jalal and his family, whilst our uncles dragged Yas away kicking and screaming out of the flat, down the stairs and out of our lives.
It seemed like things were happening in slow motion, but at the same time things happened so fast.
Issy and I were left sobbing on the floor, helpless. We lay there and just held each other and cried, then all of a sudden Uncle Mohammed came back upstairs.
Issy jumped up wiping the tears off her face, a look of hope in her eyes. “Where’s my sister?” she pleaded, looking behind him.
“I told you, she has gone to her husband’s home, your Uncle Nasser has taken her and we are going to Sanaa now, so come on bring your things, let’s hurry, the car is waiting,” he said as he picked up our bags.
“Why are you doing this to us? I want to be with my sister,” I sobbed. But there was no sympathy in his voice.
“Please let’s not have a repeat of what just happened, we need to go, now hurry!” Uncle Mohammed made a gesture with his hand that he wanted us out the door.
“Come on Issy, we better go,” I sobbed as I grabbed her hand and made my way to the door.
Issy followed quietly, we both knew we were going to be made to do as we were told, by choice, or by force.
We were escorted to a big open-back jeep. Uncle Mohammed sat up front next to the driver and we sat in the back seat; the open back was full of men who were also going to Sanaa. They stank and whatever teeth they had left were stained, and they did nothing but stare at us for the whole journey.
We cried throughout that journey. Mostly silent tears, as we ignored Uncle Mohammed’s failed attempts to engage us in conversation; it was as though he had no idea of what he had just done to us. Taking away our sister was like ripping away a piece of our heart, and for us to know she had been given to a man she had once called uncle was something we couldn’t bear to think about!
As we drove out of the tarmac roads of Aden and on to the dirt roads that lead to wherever we were going, the views started to change. The hills and mountains stretched for miles and miles. I could see in the distance on top of the many hills what looked like villages and houses that were so high up. I wondered how people could even get to them with these roads!
We passed small villages with farms and I could see both men and women working in them. The women had different coloured clothes on the further we drove, but they were all covered; some had their faces covered by black veils and some didn’t.
The houses looked ancient and it looked like the small ones were made from mud but the bigger ones were made from stone as well as mud.
The little houses had little round holes for windows, while the big houses had huge big square windows that had wooden shutters painted in all different colours.
Some of the bigger windows had metal bars on them; I wondered why they had them. Were they there to stop people from falling out, or to stop people from escaping?
There were hardly any cars or trucks on the road but there were lots of people riding along the side of the roads on donkeys. The donkeys were weighed down on each side by huge saddle bags that looked packed with stuff.
There were women casually walking along with huge buckets and other things on their heads, as if it was the most normal thing to do!
One minute we were driving through green fields and villages for miles and miles, the next we were driving through rough rocky mountains that looked as if it had been burnt by a huge fire because it looked so black and ashy.
We stopped every now and then by a road side shop. All the shops along the road just looked like a little huts but Uncle Mohammed stopped every now and then to buy us refreshments. We accepted drinks from him purely because it was so hot and we were thirsty.
If this had just been a holiday, and we hadn’t been in such a bad situation, there could have been many questions I would have asked on that journey, but everything looked horrifying to me and I knew we were going to be taken to a place that we didn’t know, or want to be in.
We had been tricked into thinking this was going to be a fantastic holiday, but now it was anything but a holiday.
I couldn’t get the image of my sister being ripped away from us out of my head. Issy held my hand real tight all through the journey. As I lay my head on her shoulder and we quietly wept together, I began to realise what had happened to us: we had been kidnapped!
Chapter Three
Dad’s Secret Family
When we arrived in Sanaa it was early evening and it was dark. We had been travelling all day and we were tired and in no mood to talk to anyone. So when we got to our destination and were greeted by a screaming lady who was running towards the jeep we really didn’t know what to do, or how to deal with her.
She was wrapped in what looked like a huge red, black and white tablecloth that covered her from head to toe, except her face. Her face was separately covered by what looked like a scarf that was shaped like a balaclava, with only her eyes showing.
We got out of the jeep and she just came at us, hugging and kissing us, she just wouldn’t let us go!
“That’s your sister Nebat,” Uncle Mohammed said as he pulled our bags out the jeep. Issy and I looked at each other in utter disbelief.
“We don’t have another sister!” we both said, as this woman continued touching us as if she was trying to make sure we were real.
“She is your father’s first born, your father married Nebat’s mother and had Nebat before he left for England,” Uncle Mohammed continued.
“This just can’t get any worse! I’m getting really freaked out by things we don’t know about Dad!” Issy hissed through her teeth as she held tightly onto my hand.
“Come on, it’s OK, I got you,” she told me, trying to reassure me, but I was shaking with fear and she could see it.
Next to Nebat was a tall thin man who was her husband Ahmed. He and Nebat chatted away as they took us inside and sat us down, but we couldn’t understand a word they said to us; they didn’t speak English.
Nebat could see from our faces that we were upset so she turned to Uncle Mohammed for an explanation. He must have told her we were upset about Yas because she came to try and comfort us and started to ramble on in Arabic.
“What is she saying?” I asked him. I really didn’t want to speak to him but I wanted to know what she was saying.
“She’s saying she’s your sister now, that you can come to her if you need anything,” he replied, looking at us both. Issy stared at Uncle Mohammed, her eyes full of hate and welling up with tears.
“Are you really crazy or just plain bloody stupid?” she snap
ped. “You don’t just take away one sister then try and replace her with someone we didn’t even know existed until a few minutes ago, we don’t want another sister! We want Yas back!”
Issy burst out crying, then so did I. Straight away Nebat came over to try and hug us but Issy pushed her hands away, screaming out.
“Just get off me! Leave me alone!”
At this point so much had happened in the day, things had gotten too much and Issy and I were both crying out loud, we couldn’t stop ourselves; then Nebat started to cry.
Uncle Mohammed didn’t know what to do or say to shut us up, so he came and knelt in front of us to try and calm us down. For the first time since meeting him I looked at his face and thought how much he looked like Dad. He was a little taller than Dad but they had the same hair, eyes, nose, mouth, they looked so alike.
“I know you all want to blame me for this, but like I have told you, I am only doing what has been asked of me by your father, when your father comes you can shout and scream at him, but please, I don’t want you to shout at me anymore,” he said, trying to defend his actions.
“But you don’t seem to understand how we are feeling, you just expect us to shut up and do as we are told,” Issy sobbed, not wanting to give in to him.
“Until your father arrives yes, you need to do as he has asked. Once he is here you can talk to him and try and change his mind; your father will be here next week. Until then let’s try and not shout at each other.” Uncle Mohammed stood up and went away, leaving us to wipe our tears.
I looked at Nebat; she had taken off her covers by that point and was only wearing her hijab so we could see her face. She too looked sad; I couldn’t help but feel for her. I couldn’t help but wonder what she must have gone though in her life.
A Father's Betrayal Page 4