Behind the Veils of Yemen

by Audra Grace Shelby

  I want to know them, Lord, I prayed as I passed a group of three. Help me get beyond their veils to show them who You are. I thought of Fatima and the many lessons ahead of us. I swallowed. Will I be able to show Fatima, Lord? To tell her about You?

  I threaded my way through streets congested with traffic. Rattling taxis bobbed around dusty SUVs. Military jeeps, jutting with machine guns and soldiers, forced their lead in front of dark sedans. Donkey carts and motorcycles jostled for place between minivans and trucks. It seemed that each driver vied to be first and unhesitatingly created six lanes where two had been marked.

  The first time I had to cross one of those swarming streets I was bewildered. How am I going to cross this intersection, Lord? I stared at the thicket of cars. I made feeble attempts to navigate across, but each time I drew back. Then I watched the locals. They forded a channel boldly through, stretching out their hands in a gesture like holding a pinch of cotton. I did the same and boldly rode the wake behind them.

  As I reached the other side I gasped. “Oh, my!” A wiry old man herding his flock of goats and sheep faced me on the sidewalk. I moved aside to let him pass. Unmindful of my gawking eyes, he paused at an overfilled Dumpster and raked piles of garbage back onto the street. He prodded his animals to forage through the refuse, then herded them on with his stick, leaving behind what the herd left behind.

  “No wonder there is garbage everywhere,” I muttered, side-stepping rotten banana peels.

  I passed a housewares store and stepped carefully between towers of aluminum pans stacked on the sidewalk. Grains bulged in open burlap bags at the shop next door. I fingered roots and sniffed spices and incense pebbles protruding from a drawer.

  “Welcome, welcome!” A man appeared from his stool and waved me to enter.

  I jumped, feeling caught and obligated to make a purchase. I stumbled through Arabic to buy a half-kilo of bulgur I already had at home.

  In a dusty alley I dodged boys racing after tin cans they propelled with sticks. Other boys waited for cars to pass so they could kick a deflated soccer ball to a rock-and-stick goalpost. I approached a doorstep where little girls in embroidered leggings leaned on bigger girls wearing white head scarves. Some of the girls smiled shyly back from their perch on the steps. Others stared as I walked past. A girl about four years old ran up to me to get a better look, standing just inches away.

  Almost to Fatima’s house I was met by two smiling girls who looked about seven or eight. Their dark curls were tied in unmatched ribbons and their blue school uniforms were brushed over with dust, as were their once-white socks.

  “Thank you, thank you,” they greeted me in accented English.

  I was confused. I did not know whether to answer, “You’re welcome,” or to explain what they were saying, or to teach them “Good morning.” I finally gave each girl a piece of wrapped candy and said ma’a salama [good-bye]. After that the little girls met me each morning, and I kept candy in my pockets.

  Fatima greeted me with a kiss on one cheek and then the other as she clasped my hand in traditional greeting. “Asalam alaykum [Peace be upon you],” she said.

  Fatima was fifteen years my junior and did not know it. She related to me as a peer. It was not that I looked young for my age; it was that the Yemeni women my age appeared much older, so Fatima did not see me as 39. Fatima was lovely with wavy black hair, large brown eyes and an Arab nose that began high and curved down over her full lips. She had a manner that was both transparent and secretive, faltering and arrogant, all at the same time.

  Fatima read her Quran and said her five prayers at home each day. She wore her black balto cloak whenever she went out in public and covered her hair without exception around any man that was not her husband, father or brothers. But like other southern Yemeni women, Fatima did not veil her face, a practice for which she was ridiculed by local northern women, who veiled their faces.

  I soon learned that northern women considered southern women to be less pious and devout than they and treated their southern counterparts with disdain and criticism, a residue of civil war propaganda. I had known that Yemen had once been two countries that had combined into one in 1990 and unified after a civil war in 1994. But I had not known that the victorious agricultural north continued to disdain the technological and defeated south, perhaps a reflection of reverse treatment prior to the war.

  Her hair hidden under a thin, orange scarf, Fatima invited me into her upstairs apartment. She pulled me away from the curious eyes of her neighbor, who was also her landlady and appeared in the hall when she heard my footsteps on the stairs. Her neighbor was a northern woman who could be both pleasant and hostile within the same conversation.

  Inside closed doors, Fatima relaxed her head scarf. “Marhaba [Welcome],” she said, waiting as I placed my white athletic shoes, layered brown with Sanaani dust, on the shoe rack next to her painfully high black vinyl heels.

  She led me past her bare kitchen with its lonely fixtures: a small stove and a meager assortment of dishes drying on a steel sink drain board. Her bedroom was across from it, a room dwarfed by a pine bed and matching wardrobe furnished by her husband in their marriage agreement. Her one bathroom was sunny and clean and kept meticulously closed to keep contained the naughty jinns [spirits] that were believed to live inside.

  We sat on the thin, beige-sheeted pad that served as her mufraj. The room’s two windows were curtained with tan, flowered sheets. A ceramic vase of red plastic flowers sat on a corner shelf. We leaned against the yellow painted wall and began studying Arabic words for food and shopping.

  When we finished, Fatima served hot, sweet tea spiced with cardamom, cinnamon and milk, along with a dish of cream-filled cookies. “Eat, Audra. Take your rest,” she urged. This became our ritual.

  Fatima served refreshments every time I entered her house. If she had none to serve, she would send the neighbor’s children to the shop across the alley to purchase some. She modeled the Arab law of hospitality, teaching me that every guest must be served refreshment. I had to learn not to model the American law of personal preference. I despised cream-filled cookies. I flinched every time I saw her tray. But I learned to smile as I ate them.

  Fatima was hungry for companionship. A new bride recently pregnant, she spoke some English and discussed everything with me—except Jesus. She would not let me talk about Him.

  One afternoon we were chatting as we sipped our tea.

  “Audra,” Fatima began cautiously, leaning back against the wall and hugging a pillow to her abdomen. “In America do mothers treat their sons’ wives badly?”

  “Not usually. In some homes maybe,” I answered. “My mother-in-law is like my own mother. She treats me like one of her daughters.”

  “Hmmph.” Fatima snorted. “My mother-in-law has a black heart. She treats me like khidama [a servant]. Before I married her son, she invited me to her home and gave a party for me. She was good to me. But now I am khidama to her. What kind of aunt is this? Why does she do this?”

  I sat forward from my slump against the wall. “Aunt?” I asked, surprised.

  “Yes, of course, my ama, my father’s sister.” She was surprised by my surprise.

  “Your husband is your first cousin?” I asked.

  “Of course.” She frowned. “Why are you asking me this? It is better to marry the son of an aunt or uncle so a bride will know the kind of man her husband is. He will be from her family.”

  “Ah,” I nodded, understanding. Before marriage, a Yemeni bride knew her husband by appearance only. Most contact was forbidden. A bride could not know what her husband was like beyond his appearance. If he was a close relative, the bride had the perceived security of family connections to protect her.

  The midday prayer call wailed out from the mosque down the block. I stood to go as Fatima pulled out her prayer rug and pointed it east toward Mecca. Fatima motioned me to sit back down.

  “Wait, Audra. Glissee [sit]. I will be finished soon.”

&n
bsp; I sat down. I was curious but hesitant to watch her prayers. Fatima put on flip-flops to enter her closed bathroom.

  “Fatima, I can’t stay long.” I looked at my watch. “I need to fix lunch for my family.” Fatima did not answer. I remembered that it was forbidden to talk in the bathroom in the vicinity of lurking jinns.

  Fatima returned from washing her face, arms and feet. With her limbs partially dabbed dry, she stood at the edge of her prayer rug. She smiled briefly and knelt, turning her face to greet the angels she believed were sitting on each of her shoulders. She bowed her face to the floor and began to recite her prayer. She extended her arms with her palms upward. Her lips moved in whispers. She lowered her head occasionally to touch the floor.

  I wanted to leave. I wished I had not stayed. I felt like her prayer was a demonstration not to confirm her piety but to convert me to it. I turned my face and counted the rings on the curtain rod. I wondered what Madison was doing and if the boys had made it into Kevin’s Arabic lesson. A flicker of anger pricked me inside.

  When she finished Fatima stood slowly and rolled up her rug. A calm, pleased look spread over her face. She sat down on the thin foam mufraj and picked up the Quran I was not allowed to touch.

  “Audra, do you pray?” She lifted her chin high and arched her eyebrows at me.

  “Of course I pray,” I answered. I wanted to add, “but not as a show for others.”

  “How many times?” Her tone sounded more accusing than curious.

  “Our Book says that we are to pray all the time, without ceasing,” I answered. “There are certain times I pray—before I eat to thank God for food and at night with my children to thank Him for the day. I pray early in the morning when I am alone with God and study His Book. But I also pray when I am walking in the street or cooking or anytime.”

  She frowned as she digested my words. “But how do you wash before you pray?” she asked. “How can you pray all the time when you must be clean before the God to pray?”

  “Fatima,” I answered. “Being clean before God is more than washing the outside of your body. How can God be satisfied with somebody that is clean on the outside if her heart is unclean on the inside?”

  Fatima did not hesitate. “Our prayers and good deeds make us clean on the inside.”

  “Prayers and good deeds are strong enough to change one’s heart?” I challenged. “How can they be? If you hate someone in your heart but you do good deeds, has the hate in your heart changed?”

  Fatima knew I knew her feelings for her mother-in-law. She shrugged. “It is enough.”

  “How do you know it is enough, Fatima?” I continued. “God does not think as a man thinks. How do you know this makes you clean enough for God?”

  “How can anyone know this, Audra?” Fatima answered. She set aside her Quran and sighed deeply as she collected our teacups on her plastic tray. She leaned back again and sat silent for several minutes.

  “The God is merciful,” she said slowly, shrugging her thin shoulders. “One can only hope for His mercy.” She glanced at her Quran and sighed again.

  “Fatima, God requires perfection. No matter how merciful He is, He requires us to be perfect.”

  Fatima nodded vigorously in agreement, almost upsetting the tea tray. “Yes, yes, of course.” She seemed pleased to find something we both believed.

  “But,” I kept talking. “We cannot be perfect on the outside and imperfect on the inside. That is not perfection. It is an appearance. It only looks like perfection.”

  I moved closer to her on the mufraj. “We can never be as perfect as God requires, Fatima. How could we? It is beyond our ability. That is why God Himself provided the only Way we could be made perfect before Him. He provided the Perfect One, Jesus, the Messiah.”

  The minute I spoke Jesus’ name Fatima’s chin jerked up, and she turned her face away, standing immediately with her tray. “It is late,” she said. “My husband will be home for his lunch.”

  She waited for me to gather my things. I sighed and put my notebook and pen into my bag. I had mentioned Jesus; our conversation was over. I looked at Fatima. She had told me what she believed about Jesus. He was the Isa of the Quran: an important prophet who had never sinned, had healed the sick and had raised people from the dead. But she believed Him to be a lesser prophet than Mohammed. She told me what she believed, but she would not allow me to tell her what I believed. It was almost as if she was afraid.

  I closed my bag and followed her from the living room. I kissed both of her cheeks before slipping into my shoes.

  “Ma’a salama,” I whispered.

  “Ma’a salama. Hata bukrah. [Good-bye. Until tomorrow.]” She hugged me, searching my face to see if she had offended me. She pressed a cream cookie into my hand to eat on the way home. She peered through the crack in her door as it closed between us.

  I walked slowly down the steps and into the dirty alley, kicking a stone along the dry, dusty ground. I had never met anyone so convinced that what I believed was wrong, and who believed so strongly in what I knew to be wrong. The sun burned through my dark jumper and scorched the street under my stinging feet. There was no shade along the sidewalk.

  I wondered why Fatima believed the Bible was corrupt. Because she had been taught that from birth? I kicked away a candy wrapper that had blown against my shin. A new question wormed its way into my thoughts. Would I believe the Quran if I had been taught it instead of the Bible?

  My head was sweating under my scarf. The sun seemed to bore right through it. I loosened it, wishing I had not bought the bulgur. I had one hundred riyalls left in my purse, enough for either cold bottled water or a ride home, and I wanted both. My throat was parched and stinging from blowing grit. I flagged a taxi and murmured directions in Arabic. I would wait to drink the pure water I knew was at home.

  The high altitude sky poured unfiltered sun across the city. It was Thursday, the end of the Yemeni week, like Saturdays in America. Friday is the Islamic day of worship, and that was the day we met with other Christian foreigners for worship in a private apartment compound. But Thursdays were ours as a family.

  We walked hand-in-hand down cracked, sporadic sidewalks, maneuvering Jack in a borrowed umbrella stroller between Madison and Jaden. Kevin returned the greetings of men we passed and stopped to talk with one who stopped to talk with him. The man laughed outright at Kevin’s attempts to speak Arabic. Kevin grinned a lopsided smile and mispronounced the words again.

  “This is good you speak Arabic!” the man said, his cheek bulging like a tennis ball with his wad of qat inside. He slapped Kevin twice on the back and went on his way chuckling.

  We were accustomed to the laughs and bulging cheeks of qat-chewing men. But the mildly narcotic leaf made it difficult to understand their Arabic. Words were slurred, and we were distracted by the green juice trickling through their teeth.

  We passed a fabric shop, and I stopped. “Honey, I need to buy fabric for that wedding I’m supposed to go to with Fatima. She was very particular about what to wear.”

  Kevin grimaced. “Do we have to get it now? You know how I love going into fabric stores.”

  I laughed. “I’ll be quick. Besides, the clerks are all men. You can practice your Arabic. Madison, can you help me find something pretty and shiny?”

  I spotted a bolt of navy blue chiffon. Madison fingered its gold metallic embroidery. “You’ll look like a princess, Mommy.”

  “This good for wedding,” the man assured me as he slit three meters from the bolt.

  I grinned at Kevin. “Now I have to figure out how to make a dera.”

  “Dera?” A woman turned from the bolt of orange silk she was contemplating. She took my chiffon and folded it lengthwise. “Cut a hole here for neck.” She pointed to the center of the fold. “Sew sides but not here. Here holes for arms.”

  I took the chiffon as I searched her veiled face. “Shukran katheer [Thank you very much]!” I exclaimed.

  Her kind brown eyes nodded thro
ugh her veil.

  I followed Kevin out with the children, turning back to look at the woman. She and the shopkeeper had begun negotiating the price of the orange silk.

  We continued our trek, passing other shops staffed by men. Even wooden carts selling women’s undergarments were staffed by qat-chewing male vendors. They hawked lacy, sensual underwear openly and loudly to fully veiled, black-garbed and gloved women. I stopped to watch. These shrouded women kept their eyes downcast and their demeanor quiet to other men. They displayed every appearance of modesty. But they haggled sharply and none too discreetly with male vendors over satin bras and bright bikini panties.

  I listened. A woman began her bargain with bismillah [in God’s name], a word mutually spoken to invoke God’s blessing. Then frilly underwear passed back and forth between gloved fingers and bare male hands as both squabbled over prices. Kevin nudged me to move on, but I could not. I wanted to see if the woman would win her price and leave with the underwear.

  Jaden pulled my arm. “Mommy, come on!”

  I sighed. The bargaining was still in progress, but I let myself be pulled back to resume our pace on the sidewalk. I moved closer to Kevin. “I’d wear a veil, too, if I had to bargain for my underwear from a man on a busy street.”

  Kevin laughed.

  I whispered again, “Did you hear them say ‘bismillah’? They use God’s name in everything.”

  A few weeks later on the day of the wedding I was to attend with Fatima, the telephone interrupted our breakfast. Kevin talked with the voice on the other end and grinned as he hung up the phone. “We’ve been here two months, and our crates have been shipped, just like they said,” he reported. “They left Houston last week. Should be here the first week of September.”