“Then go to the garden and pick some flowers for the vase on the table.”
“Flowers?” I asked.
“You heard me. Go on now,” she said and went back to her handiwork.
I was squatting next to the lilies at the back of the house when Hawa approached from the servants’ quarters.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Mother wants flowers for her table.”
“What for?” she asked.
“She’s suspicious,” I said. “I want to see Sidow. I’ve waited all afternoon, but she is watching me.”
“She’ll know if you leave,” Hawa warned.
“I have to see him. I only need half an hour. She won’t even know I’m gone.” I looked up at her, asking without asking.
“I’ll get the flowers. You go, but be quick about it.”
“Thank you!” I said. As I dashed away, the sun was slipping behind clouds just above the horizon, spreading a dark blanket over the landscape. I ran, only stopping once to catch my breath.
“What is wrong? You seem worried.” Sidow was standing behind the soccer field goalpost.
I glanced at the road behind us. “Mother was watching me. I had to wait.”
Sidow’s lips brushed against my left cheek. “You’d better go back.”
I leaned forward to encourage him to stay close. “Hawa agreed to do my chore. Mother won’t notice.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I said, but I wasn’t. Indeed, I wasn’t.
Sidow smiled. “You look handsome wearing braids.”
“Am I unattractive otherwise?” I teased. “Men are handsome, women are beautiful.”
“I should find a new word for you because neither is fitting.”
I snuggled up to Sidow. My ear rested on his chest, and the rhythmic beating of his heart, responded to mine. Cocooned within the shelter of his strong arms, nothing could touch me. “I love you so much,” I confessed.
He pushed me abruptly away from him and turned me around.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Your mother is coming,” he whispered in my ear.
My back resting on Sidow’s front, I saw Mother through the mesh between the goalposts. I tried to run forward, so I could reach her before she came upon us. If she didn’t see me so close to Sidow, perhaps I would be able to convince her that Sidow and I happened to end up in the same soccer field without planning to. But it was too late.
Mother descended upon us and pulled me away from Sidow. “Your wandering ways led to this!” She dragged me, cursing and crying.
We had no time for good-byes. I was left with only a fleeting glance at Sidow’s sad face.
Mother pulled me all the way home with no regard for who might see or hear us. She took me straight to the sitting room and pushed me down to the floor. “Say something, now!” she ordered.
I curled up on the floor, my knees touching my chin.
Mother grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled me to a sitting position. “Have you lost your voice?”
I placed my hands over my ears to shield them from her shrill voice. Mother yanked them both away. “You listen to what I have to say!”
Father came out of his study. “What is the problem?” he asked.
Mother became hysterical at the sight of his imposing figure. “Ask Idil!” She hit her chest with clenched fists and wept. She continued striking her bosom violently as if to punish herself for my sin. “Ask her!” she repeated.
Father’s gaze shifted to me. “What is the matter?”
I took a deep breath and spoke, forcing the words out. Mother stopped crying and listened. Once I began, the whole story tumbled out. At the end of my tale of falling in love with a Boon, an eerie silence engulfed us. The weak light from the lone lamp on the corner table made Father appear ominous in the gloom.
I averted my gaze, afraid to see his face burning with rage. But after a long silence, I lifted my head to meet Father’s eyes.
He approached and loomed over me. “Did you say his father’s name is Moallim Ali?”
“Yes.”
“You love a Boon man?”
Before I could answer, Father slapped me across the face. My skin burned from the impact and tears ran down my face and wet the front of my dress.
As if trying to avoid any more contact, Father walked away and leaned against the wall. “Is it true?”
“Is what true?” I held my palm to my burning cheek.
Mother’s eyes flashed. “Answer, you ungrateful imbecile.”
Father started speaking with measured tone. “Did you continue to see him after your mother forbade it? Did you?”
“Yes.”
“This is your fault!” Father directed his fury at Mother. “If you weren’t so busy watching where and with whom I went—if you’d paid attention to being a mother—none of this would’ve happened!”
Mother crumbled under the weight of the accusation. “I am so sorry,” she sobbed.
I wanted to tell her it wasn’t her fault. There was nothing she could’ve done to stop me, but it was obviously not wise for me to speak, so I kept quiet.
Mother collapsed onto a chair and placed her face between her hands. “I am so sorry,” she cried afresh.
Father moved closer to her and shook a long finger over her head. “If this doesn’t stop, you’ll pay the price—both of you. Take Idil to her room and lock the door.” Father took two steps toward the study, turned, and faced her again. “Fix this. Now!”
Mother took me to my room, but she didn’t lock the door. Instead, she came inside and sat at the edge of my bed. “I knew you weren’t like other girls. You asked questions that were none of your business and felt sorry for people you shouldn’t have cared about. But I didn’t think it would come to this.”
“I love him.” I attempted to make her understand.
“Love! What a foolish thought. How could you love a Boon man—ignore the ugliness, the backward stupidity, degenerate behavior? How is that possible?” She didn’t wait for an answer. She had it all figured out. I, a proper Bliss girl, couldn’t fall in love with a Boon, unless evil was at work. “I can’t blame you for any of this. How can I?” She was much kinder now, her voice soft with melancholy. “Sidow’s mother must have used something very strong. You would not have fallen in love with a Boon of your own free will.”
Mother was certain that Sidow’s mother must have used sixir and saangudub—witchcraft and sorcery. She traced her index finger around the mark Father had left on my cheek before she got up and left.
She returned a short while later with an idin—clay pot—filled with coal and incense. “This will help dispel the evil curse.” Mother shoved it under my nose and clouds of smoke rose in my face. “This will rid the sixir and you’ll be free. May Allah, the Almighty, protect you from their evil acts,” she shouted loud and clear so Allah might hear her all the better.
“Stop!” I told her between coughing spasms. “I love Sidow. His mother did nothing to me because she doesn’t want us to be together, either.”
“She doesn’t?” Mother asked incredulously. Whether she thought I was lying to her, or she was offended by the audacity of a Boon woman rejecting a Bliss girl, I couldn’t tell. She held the burning incense away from my face for a moment. “She doesn’t want you to marry her son?” she asked again, making sure she heard me right.
I shook my head, hoping she was satisfied and would stop with her mission to get rid of the evil curse that wasn’t upon me. After a few seconds of silence-filled staring, Mother left, locking the door behind her. I thought I’d managed to get through to her, but she returned twice more that night and three times the following day. She tried different concoctions from different healers. “Soon you will be free from the shackles of their evildoing.” After
she’d finished suffocating me with the clouds of smoke, she would state, “You don’t care for him. I know you don’t.”
It was so tempting to succumb to her suggestions, to say what she wanted to hear, but I couldn’t. “I love him! You need to understand that,” I said. Even then I knew this too, would fall on deaf ears just like my suggestion to forget about curbing Father’s affairs had. It was difficult for Mother to admit she couldn’t control her husband or her daughter. It was easier to blame other women for Father’s infidelity and Sidow’s mother for my misplaced love.
“Your love is doomed. The sooner you are rid of him the better.”
To Mother’s disappointment, I remained impervious to her repeated pleas to denounce my love for Sidow.
“The best thing I can do for you as your mother, the one who loves you beyond reason, is to help erase your feelings for the Boon. Nothing good will come of it. Nothing.”
She was not altogether wrong. Even through love-blinded eyes, I could see that. In my society, loving Sidow was a treacherous path to take. Still, my skin hungered for his touch, and my heart throbbed from the pain of his absence. I thought about him constantly and conjured his image in my mind so I could keep the memory alive. Locked in my room, my only connection to Sidow was the tiny notes he gave to Hasan to pass to Elmi to pass to me. I’d read and tear them into small pieces and hide them at the bottom of my wastebasket.
*
After two months of a relentless effort, Mother gave up trying to rid me of my love for Sidow and shifted her attention to something far more practical. She set out to find me a suitable husband. She came to my room to inform me of her new approach. “If you need a husband, I’ll find you a dozen of your own kind to choose from,” Mother told me.
“I don’t want a husband. I love Sidow.”
She started listing the qualities of a fitting match as if I hadn’t spoken. “Good tribal lineage is important. He must have a high rank, nothing below a lieutenant. I don’t want you to start at the bottom like I did.”
“I won’t marry any of them.” I spoke louder.
At the sound of the front door opening, she got up. “That must be your father. I need his help if I am going to find you a match.” She left my room to elicit Father’s help.
I followed her to hear what she would say and how he would react to it.
Father only half listened, like a child receiving a chore from a parent. He walked toward the study as she listed her expectations. “I’ll consider it and let you know,” he said, committing to nothing.
“Do not consider. I am sure there are proper young men in the force. Bring one home and leave the rest to me.”
Father went into the study and closed the door behind him.
Mother saw me standing there and smiled. “He will bring a wonderful one. Your father is a man with a good eye for the best. He’s never made a wrong choice.”
I looked at her and almost asked if we were referring to the same person. Was he not the man who took his soldier’s wife as a mistress and paid the price for it? Was he not the man replacing one mistress with another? There was no point in being impudent. Father had stopped for a while and Mother had chosen to forget about his previous transgressions.
After a whole week of her asking and inquiring after the matter, Father finally came through. “I am bringing a young man to meet Idil,” he announced. “He’s coming home with me tomorrow night.”
Mother buzzed around the house the whole of the following day to prepare for the important guest. She knocked on my door three hours before Father was due home. “A fine young man is coming. You must look your best and welcome him.”
I had confided in Elmi that morning before he left for school. As I handed him my note to Sidow, I told him I wanted no part of Mother’s scheme.
“Go along with the plan,” he advised.
My eyes grew wild when Elmi suggested that. “How can you say that? You know I love Sidow more than my own life!”
“Just for now—to buy time. Do what she says. It’ll be easier for you that way.”
Elmi always approached things calmly, no matter how serious the matter. He was right, of course. “I’ll try,” I promised.
Mother was beside herself by the time Father and the suitor arrived that evening. She sent me to the study with a tray of tea and biscuits instead of asking Hawa to bring the food in. “Take this. Be aloof, and not overly attentive. Look where I ended up, running after your father and making him feel important. Learn from my mistakes.”
I did as I was told without wearing a smile as she suggested.
She was waiting when I returned. “What did you think?”
“He is too old.” I hadn’t looked at him at all and didn’t know his age, but I said the first thing that came to mind.
“What do you mean? Your father said he is twenty-two.”
“I don’t know what Father is thinking, but the man must be nearly forty.”
“I’ll go and check.” She picked up a tray of fried fish and potatoes and went to the study. A few minutes later, she returned miraculously in agreement with me. “Idil, he is not forty, but he is not twenty-two either.”
“See? I told you it wouldn’t work.”
The fact that Father didn’t find a man that met her expectations, didn’t deter Mother. “I’ll discuss the age issue with your father before he brings the next suitor,” she said and continued to coax him to find someone more fitting.
A stream of men followed the first one, but I returned from the study miserable each time. As the sixth matched failed, Mother’s frustration mounted. “You can’t just reject every single match. What is wrong with this one?” she asked impatiently.
“I don’t…” I stammered. There was nothing wrong with the man. Not much older than twenty, he was handsome in his uniform. His smile was inviting and if I hadn’t been so committed to Sidow, I would have seen promise in him. “Mother, I only want Sidow,” I managed to answer.
“I know. You’ve said that how many times now? You love the Boon. I get it. If this was a perfect world, I would say marry him. But it’s not, so I’m asking you to be practical because there’s nothing rational about your love for the Boon.” Mother placed her hand on my shoulder to stop me before I fled to my room. “If you must reject, which I hope you won’t, next time have a better reason.”
I left, and Elmi got up from the kitchen table where he was doing his schoolwork to follow me. “Don’t tell her what she knows, but can’t accept. Say Hawa told you she saw him with another girl. Give her something that makes sense to her.”
This was a clever approach, something only Elmi could think of under the circumstances. Mother hated a man with wandering eyes. She wanted me to get married quickly so I wouldn’t bring shame to the family, but even that wasn’t enough to saddle me with a man who strayed. She knew the humiliation that came with such a union. Just like Elmi suggested, I went along with her plan and spent hours with Mother, preparing for each visitor, even though the effort left me exhausted.
Every time we expected a visitor, she would coach me anew. “Move this way when you greet him.” One time she’d scolded me for not smiling enough when I returned from taking the food to Father and the suitor. Her outrage had been palpable.
“How do you know I didn’t smile?” I’d asked her.
“You returned with the same scowl you left with,” she said. “Next time smile this way.” Mother plastered a fake, bright smile across her face. Effortless.
Tears welled in my eyes and threatened to spill. “I can’t do this.” I darted out of the kitchen toward my bedroom.
“Be careful,” Elmi warned me when he met me by my door where he waited during each of these events. “If you don’t pretend to go along with this, she will marry you off without your consent.”
The tears I’d been holding back while with Mother, gush
ed. “I can’t. I won’t,” I wailed.
“You must try.” Elmi’s tone was kind but firm. “You have no other option.”
I stopped crying and wiped my face. “I don’t know how long I can pretend.”
“As long as it takes.”
“Then what?”
Elmi didn’t have the opportunity to respond because Mother joined us in my room.
“Could you leave us alone?” Mother waited until Elmi closed the door behind him before she looked at me.
I felt exposed and wrapped my arms around my chest. “I don’t like him, or any of them. You know I don’t, so why are you making me do this?”
“Because I’m your mother and I love you.” She wiped my face. “You must try, child. Give them a chance so you find a husband without destroying yourself. All I want is what’s best for you.”
I didn’t think she was looking out for me as much as she was worried about the whispers that would come from her friends. Women from all the way in the village where she and Father were born would send her accusing comments about not being able to control her daughter. Others close by would stare at her when they saw her, confirming that she was less than capable of running her house. But I didn’t say that to her. “How is marrying someone I don’t want the best for me?” I asked instead.
Mother shook her head and left me. A week after the last failed attempt, she came into my room with great news. “I am sure you will fall for this one. I asked your father for him specifically.”
“How do you know him?” I didn’t care, but I asked anyway for something to say.
“I saw him at a gathering last week. Handsome, a lieutenant. This is the one. You must look your best tonight.” Mother walked around the house nearly floating with excitement.
After two hours of preparation, and three changes of clothes, Mother led me to the sitting room. “Sit here and relax,” she pointed to Father’s lazy chair. “Read a book or the paper so it looks as though you just happened to be here.”
I picked a book of poetry, but I was unable to focus on the words. My mind conjured Sidow’s beautiful image and imposed it on the page.
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