I fight hard to not instantly dislike him. I think he has the glib charm of a psychopath. What in the world does he use on his teeth to make them dazzle like that? Gunpowder?
I am introduced as if delivering a fresh rabbit to a lion. A little snack. The women wait with glistening eyes to see if I am acceptable.
I would like to think in another world I could be friends with some of these ladies. But I doubt it. Although a Muslim, I am not one of them. I am a convert. They are very different, solid rocks of frozen lava, radiating centuries of unhappy women with few choices. They excel in manipulation, especially their sons. It's part of their DNA. I am a threat. I then realize they are less worried I will steal Kazan's affections, than being closer, I will be more able to manipulate him.
Perhaps I am being unfair.
As Rabia continues to ask Mother questions, Kazan looks at me, studying me, without emotion. His amber eyes have burnt orange centers, fading to the color of dried corn, rimmed with a fine, dark-brown line. There is something behind those ridiculously long eyelashes. A glimmer of perceptiveness.
I meet his glare, matching his cool intensity. I will not back down. I get no sense if he finds me pleasing or not. Perhaps it makes no difference to him at all.
The corner of his mouth twitches upward. He looks away.
When his mother asks if he has any questions for me, he asks a couple innocuous things—Do I like Turkish food (He expects me to cook?), Do I plan to bring servants with me (Are you kidding?), Do I like to travel (Sure, every weekend. We're at war!) His voice is warm, possibly amused. He looks mildly interested in my demur answers, and is, above all, polite.
Then he asks if I am circumcised. The women gasp and cover their mouths. I blush crimson and mutter no. “I was thirteen when the law passed,” I say. “I was considered too old for the operation.”
“Good,” he says. “I don't want a circumcised wife.” A ghost of a smile, enjoying my embarrassment. Mocking me?
This sparks a debate among the women. Apparently the older women think being uncircumcised is inappropriately “Western” for the daughter-in-law of a member of the Islamic Council. Others say that it has never been part of Turkish culture, and is unnecessary. I worry there is going to be a brawl.
I relax my face, trying to conceal how appalled I am that the women cling to the rules that oppress them more ardently than their menfolk. As if they want to make certain that their daughters suffer as much as they do.
Kazan shrugs, amused, and says none of that matters. He looks straight at me. “A wife's job is only to make sons for her husband.”
It takes my breath away. His delivery is so cool, so deadpan. I don't know if he says this to put the women in their place, or to intimidate me. But there is also something vaguely conspiratorial in his tone. A hint of sarcasm? In any case, it shuts the women up.
“Am I allowed to ask a question?” The women look astonished at my brazenness, then shrug.
I have so many questions, but my mind goes blank. “Where are we going to live?” I ask finally.
It seems like a perfectly reasonable question, but for a brief moment, I see shock in his eyes. He doesn't say anything for several moments, then he says, “I have a flat in Westerpark. I think you'll like it.”
Our eyes connect, and there's a bewildering moment. Behind his sleepy-cow eyes, I see his mind spinning options and scenarios. I almost see an illuminated green flowchart glowing in his irises. If I choose this, that will happen—If I choose that, this will happen. I realize he sees the same thing in my eyes. The surprise in his face must mirror my own.
In the very same instance, we have both guessed the other is somewhat different than first imagined. The game has changed for both of us.
The women are equally bewildered at our silent staring match. Rabia smiles. Perhaps she imagines we are falling in love at first sight.
This is my chance, I think. I still have time to make him repulsed by me. I could slurp my tea, or pick my nose, or belch in his mother's face, or spill hot tea in her lap. Or show a sudden malady. Tourette's perhaps. Maybe I could manage a fart. But I do none of these things. In truth, as much as I had decided to hate this man, I am curious.
Before we leave, Kazan extends his hand, and I place my hand in his. As our fingers touch, an involuntary shiver runs down my spine. I withdraw my hand hastily, embarrassed.
My heart pounds, my face stinging and hot.
He asks my mother if it would be okay for him to call me later to discuss our wedding plans. Before Jana can speak, I blurt out, “Of course. Anytime before eleven.”
I am ashamed to admit it—I am attracted to my future husband, whom I hate because of everything he stands for, but whom I must appear to love and honor. Which makes me feel ridiculous on so many levels.
Kazan calls me that night. He laughs as he tells me that after we left, Aunt Dilara (whom he calls “The Viper”) and his mother argued vehemently as to my suitability. Dilara doesn't trust converts and senses boldness in my nature. Imagine that. Yet, Rabia is convinced it is a good match. “Apparently there is Ottoman royalty in your blood. In any case, she wants me to marry into old Dutch Muslim family. So I guess you're the one.”
That comes as a surprise to me, but then I remember that my father's mother was Turkish. Rafik's family, of course, has lived in Amsterdam for centuries. Perhaps they have forgotten that Rafik is my stepfather. “You might want to listen to your Aunt,” I say. “I'm nothing but trouble.”
I suddenly hate myself—flirting like a coquette! I blush to my roots. I don't understand my reactions. I chalk it up to biology.
He chuckles, a light gravelly sound, a lilt of surprise, slightly scandalized. A warmth reaches out to me. He says that he has turned down other matches his mother has suggested. Women who sat fixed like statues, trying to anticipate his every wish. “You can't imagine how annoying that is.” He says he's looking for a little spunk.
Spunk? I begin to sense that I may have some wiggle room in this marriage.
I end the conversation feeling elated. And very foolish. I cannot afford to like this man.
It suddenly occurs to me that I may be asked to kill him.
Honor Killing
Rafik concentrates on the hot water heater behind the house. Unlike Pieter, he is not particularly good at fixing things. He looks exhausted, but when he sees me, his face lights up with a smile. He motions for me to sit beside him on a stone bench overlooking the courtyard.
I loved my adventurous father. Sometimes I see Pieter's face when I try to fall asleep—lean and slightly goofy, all planes and angles, with pleasant creases around his mouth where he smiled. Like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz. He was always on the go, always doing something, building something, surrounded by over-caffeinated graduate students. Yet, even though he took me sailing and hunting, on a day-to-day basis, he didn't spend much time with me, hugging me exuberantly, then off to play in his band, go motorcycling, or tinker with some new invention. In truth, Rafik has been more of a father to me. He listens to me and helped me with my homework. He taught me to read Arabic, explaining the parts of the Quran that he loves. There is something so gentle in his nature. He tries to make me laugh, as if it gives him great pleasure. He is warm, slow-moving water, carrying me softy downstream. I adore him.
Rafik's smile twitches, then melts into grimness. He extends his hand and pulls me close.
“If you're fixing things, something's wrong.” A thought chills me, as I sink down beside him. “Is Mother alright?”
“Yes, yes. She's fine.” He takes my other hand and looks at me with such sadness. “It shouldn't be like this.”
“Tell me. What happened?”
Rafik drops my hands. “Today we arrested a young man for killing his sister in Dapperbuurt. She was secretly dating a non-Muslim. Her brother and two cousins kidnapped her and took her to a field, where he choked her, cuffed her hands and feet, and then dragged her to a pit.” A sob catches in Rafik's throat. He conti
nues, his voice strained, higher. He has to get it out. “When she started screaming and begging for life, he stabbed her twice and buried her alive. When she was missed, he got scared and wanted to confess. He was afraid to tell his father, so he came to the police station. He told us he was protecting his family's honor. The mutaween want us to release him to their authority to be tried in a sharia court.”
“The sharia court will let him off, won't they,” I say bitterly.
“Under sharia, a father or mother cannot be punished for killing their offspring, or their offspring's offspring."
“Are you going to try to keep him in jail?”
“As long as I can. But if we get a direct order from the Islamic Council, I will have to hand him over. I see it a lot in the young men. They become monsters. Little tyrants. Sadists. I don't know why they become like that.”
It suddenly hits me how hard this must be for Rafik, enforcing laws he despises, trying to mitigate the worst of them, risking his job and his life to defy salafism from within. It is corroding his spirit. “Is there something I can do?”
He smiles so sadly it breaks my heart. He pulls me onto his lap, his bristly mustache kissing my shoulder.
“Tell me, Salima, honestly, are you okay with this marriage? Your mother thinks it is a good thing. Tell me it is all right. Tell me you won't be too unhappy.”
I think a moment before answering. If I tell Rafik I am terrified, that I am sick to my stomach, he will cancel the wedding plans. I know even without asking that he'll do it. Then I understand. Rafik knows me well. He is afraid I'll do something rebellious, put myself at risk, “dishonor” my husband's family. And get myself killed.
This is why he has told me about the honor killing. In his eyes, I see guilt—as if he's leading me to the slaughter. And so much love.
“Happiness is listening to birds,” I say gently. “Feeling fog on my cheek. Watching wild rabbits hop around the city. Happiness is loving you and Mom and Uncle Sander. I will still have these things.”
“You're going to make me cry.”
“You're already crying, Papa.”
Dread
I lie in my bed sleepless.
I had been thinking of the marriage as something I had to do for the Resistance, as just another mission. But slowly it begins to sink in—I am going to have to live with this guy. Have sex with this guy. Play the part of the perfect Muslim wife.
A mission without end.
For thousands of years, women married men not of their choosing. Only in the last hundred have women picked their own husbands. Only in western countries. If those women survived, sold off by their fathers to the highest bidder, so will I.
Surely some of them found love.
I begin to shake all over, sweating as if I have a fever.
I don't think I can do it. It's one thing to slink around the city in disguise, quite another to face someone intimately and pretend I am a dutiful wife. Subordinate in every way to her husband. I can only imagine misery.
Jana says I can back out. Rafik would be relieved. But Gerda thinks it is important, more important than she is letting on. Some instinct inside tells me I can do more good for the Resistance in this marriage, than in a hundred escape assists.
Do I have to? Risk my body and soul?
I try to imagine the sex and all I see is a man with a black oval where his face should be, leaning over me, crushing me, sucking the life out of me like a Dementor.
The reality of it hits me. Hard. I lurch down the hallway and empty my guts into the toilet. My hands grip either side of the toilet bowl, and I hang there swaying as a prickly heat washes over my body. The nausea passes and my knees buckle. I slide to the floor, hugging the toilet for comfort, white porcelain cool against my cheek.
Surely some of them found love.
As a child I didn't spend much time thinking about romance. But I recall novels, TV show, and movies, with their obsession with romantic love. Everyone looking for their soul mate, trying on relationships like shoes, seeing if they fit. And finally, in the last frame, locked together in an embrace, staring into each other's eyes, swearing eternal love, kissing.
When I think of it, I suppose I imagine a husband who is dashing like my father, and also a best friend. Someone I can confide in like my mother. Who will make me light up whenever I see him. Who will do anything for me. Who will make me feel special.
Yes, I have imagined one day being in love, the kind of love that leaves you trembling and weak-kneed. I have tossed through sleepless nights in longing. I have imagined the kiss that shoots through my body like an electrical charge, that releases me into the celestial black unknown.
None of these things seems even remotely possible with my future husband.
I flush the toilet and head back to bed.
Trousseau
“You want me to wear that?” I cry, stupefied.
“It is very nice,” says Dilara, presenting for view to my future in-laws a transparent pink teddy with a pink G-string. I am mortified, wishing, intensely, for the earth to open up and swallow me whole.
We are in a lingerie shop called Pandora, one of several dozen shops selling racy lingerie to Muslim women. The walls are covered with headless female torsos, white plastic, with hooks sticking out of their necks, which seems prescient. The headless manikins wear the most garish lingerie I've ever seen: butt-less body stockings, nightgowns that cover only one breast, G-strings accessorized with feathers, push-up bras that expose the nipple, corsets with garters, crotchless panties, see-through tops decorated with plastic gold coins, fuchsia-and-black leopard print teddies.
Profoundly impractical.
It's all made in China for the Muslim market. Apparently once married, Muslim women throw off their black sacks and are expected to prance around in ghastly-colored lingerie made from recycled plastic, which throws their husbands into sexual paroxysms. Who knew? It is also apparent that buying a lifetime's worth of ghastly lingerie with your future mother-in-law and family is a time-honored tradition. Usually the wedding party includes the groom, but Kazan is away; his brother Faruk has agreed to fill in.
I sit quietly on a metal folding chair in the middle of the store as Rabia, Dilara, Faruk, Pinar, and Melis decide on my trousseau. Apparently the bride does not get any say.
I am so beyond embarrassment and humiliation, that I can only look on at this charade in awe. I study the tags, trying to distract myself from the freezing air-conditioning. Brand names such as Laugh Girl, Hard Candy Lingerie, Hot Love Italy, Sexy Doll.
It could be worse, I suppose. At least I'm not asked to try everything on and put on a runway show.
The owners of the lingerie shop are a tiny self-effacing Chinese couple, who make suggestions to my future in-laws, proffering lacy crotchless panties they think Kazan will enjoy. They insist on speaking mangled Turkish, with some English. “Chinese. Very good quality.” When the choices are made, the bargaining over prices is done in Dutch. Oddly, everyone seems to communicate.
Faruk, bless his heart, steers my in-laws away from the worst of it. “What is your favorite color?” he asks me.
“Black,” I say dourly.
He laughs, and leads the ladies to the back of the store, where the more expensive silk items lie behind glass cases. Pinar, who has largely been sullen during this shopping spree, decides to buy some of the French silks for herself, becoming quite animated. Rabia tells her that the emerald green looks lovely against her skin tone. Melis sends me apologetic glances.
Please, God, get me out of here.
A tall and very fat imam enters the store wearing a blue caftan, a white turban, and a pair of long paisley scarves. He smells strongly of body odor and stale cigarettes, which mixes unpleasantly with the store's sour smell of synthetic fabrics. Two large women in burkas shuffle in behind him. He plants himself beside a manikin in a see-through red-lace nightie, while the women search through the racks, periodically holding up a thong or bra for his approval. He nods, or
flicks his fingers, registering his opinion. The two women eventually buy matching sets of thongs, and skimpy, transparent nightgowns, one in red, the other in black.
No amount of black fabric can hide the fact that these women are very fat. I cannot imagine how in the world they think a thong will make them more appealing. At the cash register, I overhear that one woman is his mother, the other his wife, which makes it all the more bizarre.
The trio leaves the store at the call of the muezzin, the imam scurrying off to mosque for midday prayer. I watch another shopper, a lone man wandering through the aisles, rubbing the various fabrics between his fingers. I imagine he will make up his prayers some other time.
Two hours later, Dilara and Faruk have chosen twenty-five nightgown-and-panty sets, ten pairs of underwear, ten brassieres, and one black-lace butt-less body stocking.
For my wedding night, I presume.
Blood Diamonds
The next morning I wake up famished. I have slept through the call to morning prayer, and decide to skip it. I go downstairs. Rafik is at work, my mother out on errands. A plate of cold poffertjes sit on the kitchen counter. I take a couple of the small pancakes, smother them with yogurt and jam, roll them into cigars, and turn on the TV for the morning news on EyeUniverse.
Our most liberal TV station, EyeUniverse introduced a female newscaster two years ago, an attractive Afghan Muslim by the name of Aryana Qaderi, who sets fashion aflame with her exquisite head scarves. She reports the lead story: Fawad Jneid, Grand Mufti of Holland, has advised the Islamic Council to consider banning TV talent shows, because they “feature unveiled women singing and dancing.” The programs, modeled on favorites from before the war, are wildly popular after the austerity during the early years of the Occupation. The mutaween have always criticized them. During the first season of Eurabia's Got Talent, one woman was forced into hiding when her headscarf slipped as she juggled bowls. Fawad Jneid is willing to make one exception to these reality shows—Quran Quest, where Islamic scholars judge young contestants on their ability to recite Islamic Verses.
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