*
Father walked in alone, much earlier than Mother had expected. “Where is the young man?” she asked as she took his jacket and hung it on the hallway hanger.
“I had to cancel,” he responded casually.
“Cancel?” I asked, exuding happiness. Elmi’s warning stare kept me from saying more.
“What do you mean? I prepared dinner, made Idil ready. Doesn’t she look ravishing?” Mother asked.
Father looked at me for once and I am not sure if he saw me. “Omar is coming home tonight. I thought you’d prefer to welcome your son instead of doing this.” He pointed at me.
I am not sure what Mother would have opted for, finding me a husband or seeing Omar, but she agreed. “You are right.” She smiled at me. “Go and get changed.”
I removed the jewelry with greater joy than I had experienced for a long time and got changed into a simple short-sleeved dress. I left my room and went to Elmi’s. “I am so happy Omar is coming home,” I told him, as we made our way back into the kitchen in search of food.
Father changed from his military uniform into khaki pants, a long-sleeved dress shirt, and a sports jacket. “I am going to pick up Omar from the mayor’s palace, where he is being brought from the capital,” he said.
Mother, Elmi, and I went into the sitting room after Father left and settled for the long wait that followed. I was grateful that she wasn’t fixated on erasing my love for Sidow, if only for one night. I sat on the chair next to hers and laid my head on her shoulder. She wrapped her arm around my head and kissed me. “I know what you want my love. Something I can’t offer.”
I said nothing in response because I didn’t want to break the spell of happiness that had descended upon us. We waited there, quiet and comfortable, until we heard Father’s voice in the hallway.
“Your brother is here.” Mother moved with quick steps.
Elmi and I got up and followed her to greet Omar.
Chapter Eleven
Mother called us to the table. Despite Omar and Father’s assurances they had eaten, she insisted on serving the food. “After such an absence, you must eat your mother’s cooking.”
Omar smiled, but didn’t serve himself.
I was happy to see Omar. For the first time in two months, attention shifted away from me, and I wanted to keep it that way. “Tell us about Italy,” I suggested with a forced cheeriness.
Omar wasn’t a great storyteller, so his descriptions of the country and its people were clumsy. “The buildings are large, I mean huge. Most are ancient.” He didn’t elaborate, produce postcards, or show pictures like Father had done when he returned from the Soviet Union. “The language is difficult to understand,” he added.
“Did you enjoy your time there?”
He pushed food around the plate without eating. “Once I hired guides and translators, I was able to enjoy it.”
No one said anything for a few seconds. “Did you make any friends?” I asked in a desperate effort to fill in the silence.
He smiled as if he was happy I’d asked. “Yes, I did.” Omar pulled a photo of a woman out of his jacket pocket and held it facing us. “This is Sheila.”
The woman had a full head of blonde curls, ocean-blue eyes, and pale skin, so white that Elmi and I later nicknamed her Paper.
I reached for the photo, but Omar pulled it away. “Who is she?” I asked, eager to keep attention away from me.
Omar regarded Mother’s expression for a long time before he spoke. “She is my wife.” He extended the picture toward Mother.
“Get that away from me!” She pushed Omar’s hand with such force the photo landed on the floor beneath my feet.
I picked it up and looked at it. Sheila was wearing a yellow sunflower dress that hugged her hips and ended at mid-thigh. She had leather sandals with matching flowers on them. She was stunningly beautiful, but by Somali standards, Sheila was stark naked. Why did Omar bring this photo, knowing it would offend? I passed it across to Elmi.
Mother pushed the chair back, and it clattered to the floor. “How dare you bring such an abomination here?” She walked to the large bay window in the sitting room. “We sent you to train, not to find a wife. And this one is gaalo—not even Muslim!”
Father joined her by the window.
Omar yanked the picture out of Elmi’s hand and sat down. “She is my wife.”
Mother bolted toward Omar, but stopped inches away from him. “Don’t call her that! She is not that!”
Father said nothing.
Fascinated, Elmi and I watched the scene unfold.
Omar leaned over, put the photo down in front of him, and rested both elbows on the table. “Don’t call her what?”
Mother walked away from Omar before she responded. “Don’t call her your wife! She is not your wife! She will never be your wife!” Mother was sobbing by now.
Omar traced his forefinger around Sheila’s profile on the picture. “You are right. She is more than a wife.”
“How do you mean?” Mother asked.
Seconds on the clock ticked away, as Omar took his time in responding. “She is my partner, the backbone of the business.”
Mother glared at Omar. “What business is that? What does that have to do with anything?”
Father and Omar acknowledged each other with simultaneous nods as long and uninterrupted silence filled the room.
Mother looked from one to the other. “Someone needs to explain what’s happening.”
“As Omar says, Sheila is very important to a business he is setting up. He didn’t marry her to be his wife, but to establish an ally. For children and family, he’ll marry a Somali wife, a girl of your choosing,” Father said.
“He has to let her go!” Mother was adamant.
Father spoke in a consoling tone. “Never mind her. She’s not important. He’ll find a girl from a good Somali family.” The statement sounded planned, rehearsed.
Omar’s jaw tightened, and angry and hollow eyes gave his face a strange look. He clenched his fists. “I will do no such thing.”
“Stay out of it!” Father ordered. “Could you find him a wife?” he asked Mother.
“Who’ll have their daughter be second to a gaalo woman?” Mother responded to Father’s question with a question. “Would you marry your daughter to such a man?”
Father stepped away from Mother. “Who spoke of a second wife?”
Omar left the photo on the table, got up, and paced the floor. “I am not marrying another wife!” Omar yelled, but no one paid any attention.
Mother glared, stone-faced, at Father. “If a married man takes another wife, she would be the second.”
Father gave an exasperated sigh. “This woman isn’t here, and never will be. So, if you can’t find him a wife, you will have only yourself to blame.”
Mother must’ve realized her influence was waning because her tone changed. “You’ll have to promise me she will be the only wife, not the second wife.”
“Yes, I promise.” Father agreed as quickly as she asked.
A bright smile—one I hadn’t seen since Father’s return from the Soviet Union—spread across Mother’s face and lit up the whole room. “I’ll find the perfect wife, ten times better than this gaalo woman.”
Father winked at Omar, and they went into the study together.
I picked up the picture. At the sound of the door closing, I turned to Mother. “That’s it?” I challenged. “He marries a gaalo woman and is rewarded with a second wife? I am pulled out of school and paraded before countless men I don’t care for, and you promise him the perfect Somali wife? Why can’t I marry Sidow?”
Mother’s eyes darted between the study door and my face. “Omar is a man,” she said, as if that justified everything.
“And?”
“If Sheila and Omar have children,
which they won’t, the children would have light skin and soft features, not ugly, large Boon noses, puffy lips, and kinky hair like the children Sidow and you would have.”
“Sidow is a Muslim and a Somali, and Sheila is not Somali and is gaalo. There is no comparison.”
“Idil, I didn’t make the rules. I am trying to help you accept what you can’t change.”
The more I listened, the angrier I became. “What are you telling me? This is your doing. Father wouldn’t have even found out anything if you’d left me alone.”
Elmi pulled me out of the sitting room and into my bedroom. “Idil, you’ll get nowhere arguing with Mother. She is just as helpless as you are.” He sat on the foot of my bed, but said nothing more.
I finally gained control over my emotions. “Do you know what business Omar is in?” I asked.
“I heard Father tell his friend that he’d partnered with men who import chat. But since government employees are not allowed to own businesses, he’d appointed Omar to be his representative in the business,” Elmi responded.
Chat—a plant from the cannabis family—was banned from Somalia a year after we moved to Bledley. Ever since, many people had been jailed for bringing it into the country through the black market. It surprised me to learn that Father, a top army general, was involved in such an illegal business, and I said as much.
“There is always a huge gap between what people seem to be and what they really are,” Elmi said.
I agreed with him.
“The house is quiet. Do you think Father and Omar have left?”
“I didn’t hear them go, but I think so.” I got up and went to the door.
Elmi followed me out into the main corridor of the sleeping section of our house. “Listen,” he said. The sound of Mother singing one of her songs from happier times reached us.
“I haven’t heard that in ages,” I said.
Elmi put a hand on my shoulder and smiled. “Now she will leave you alone. The focus will be on the search for Omar’s new wife.”
Elmi was right. Mother not only left me alone, she forgot I existed.
*
“When is Omar leaving?” Mother asked Father two days later.
“Next week. He’ll be returning in two months.”
“I must have a wife for him, ready to wed by then,” she said, giving herself a deadline. There was no shortage of girls wanting to marry the “Golden Boy,” but Mother wasn’t easily satisfied. She shared the name and age of each girl she considered with the village healer, but always returned with nothing of value and full of gossip. “That was not the one. She was not as pretty as I would’ve wanted, and the healer said she’ll have no children.”
“No girl will be good enough,” I said to Elmi each time Mother came home.
“The longer she takes, the better it is for you,” he reminded me.
“I know.”
The hunt continued without producing the desired result. “I need to find a girl that steals his heart, so he forgets the gaalo woman.” Mother was determined to have a bride ready when Omar returned.
Omar would take any girl because it didn’t matter to him. But Mother wanted a girl so superior that she’d erase Sheila from Omar’s memory.
Two weeks after Mother had set out to find an unequaled Somali wife for Omar, it became obvious that no one in Bledley would meet her standards. “I’ll go back to Gaalmaran. I’ll find the right one among my own people,” she announced one evening.
Father listened. “What for? There are plenty of girls here.”
Mother scoffed. “You would know.”
Father didn’t take the bait, but remained calm. “Give yourself more time. Look hard here before you go far.”
“My son needs a splendid girl from an exceptional family,” Mother replied and began to set her travel plans. She would leave the next morning. “These two are your responsibility, especially Idil,” she reminded Father before she departed.
I shrank back into the book I was reading to avoid detection.
Father looked puzzled, as if he couldn’t remember the restrictions he’d placed on me. “Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”
Two hours after the car carrying Mother drove away, Father left the house and didn’t return until we were in bed. I stayed home for the first two days to make sure Father wasn’t watching. He wasn’t. From the third day on, I enjoyed unlimited freedom and, uninhibited, wandered the streets of the village. I grew bold and visited Sidow on the fourth day. He ran to me when he spotted me in front of his house. His smile made my heart leap.
“You have come!” Sidow’s excited shout brought his mother and brother outside.
His mother’s face creased. “You shouldn’t have come here. We need no trouble.”
Sidow frowned. “Mother, greet her. She is a guest.”
She ignored him. “I’ve lost three men and I can’t afford to sacrifice another,” she said.
In her position, I’d have felt the same. “I am sorry, I mean no harm,” I told her. “Only I missed him so much.”
Sidow was glaring, somewhere between anger and fear. “Mother!”
Still, her focus was on me. “We’re no match for your father, and we want no trouble with him. Please stay away from us.” She rocked back and forth on her heels.
Sidow grabbed my hand. “Come! We are leaving.”
His mother stepped toward Sidow as if to restrain him. “This is so dangerous. If not for your own safety, consider your brother and me. We’re depending on you.” Her words carried the sorrow in her heart. “Your father was as stubborn as you, and look what happened.”
Sidow forged ahead. He didn’t stop until we reached the waterfall. We climbed the cliff overhanging the whirlpool and sat on the narrow boulder.
Sidow stared far into the horizon. “If I disappear, this is where you’ll find me. I’ll always be here, waiting.”
“Don’t talk like that. You frighten me.”
He leaned over and touched my cheek. “I’m frightened too. My mother is against this as much as your parents are.” Sidow rose to his feet and stripped to his underwear. He dove into the whirlpool and emerged a few seconds later. “Let’s meet here every afternoon until your mother returns,” he shouted.
I listened to the intermittent sound of barking dogs from the surrounding farms, and calls of the grazing cattle in the fields until Sidow had finished swimming and returned to sit next to me.
I touched his slick, wet back. “A relationship can’t survive in hiding.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
I gathered him in my arms and cradled him back and forth. We didn’t speak after that, but we met at the cliff every afternoon for the next two weeks. I often arrived before him, climbed up, and listened to the water falling far below. When Sidow arrived, I pretended I hadn’t heard his determined footsteps coming until he sat next to me and touched my cheek. Only then would I return his greeting with a smile.
*
“Come to the harvest festival with me tomorrow night. Please,” Sidow begged.
“I’d love to.” I was ecstatic he’d asked.
The next day, we met early on the cliff and stayed there until it was dark to avoid others seeing us together. Perched on the rock, we watched the sun paint the sky with golden rays. Then, under the cover of the starless night, we walked to the market that had been converted into a festival plaza for the week. We didn’t go inside for fear of being noticed, but skirted the perimeter, listening to the drumbeats and excited voices of children inside. I took Sidow’s hand. “This is so much fun,” I said.
He pulled me to him. “One day we’ll dance together in there.”
The statement was a promise and it was then I gave Sidow our first real kiss. Caught unaware, he took a couple seconds to respond. With our lips pressed hard together, our body heat rose. Hi
s tongue danced inside my mouth, slowly at first, then faster and faster, until blood rushed to my head and made me dizzy with pleasure. After a few fleeting minutes, we pulled apart, breathing heavily. The fear of clumsy first kisses that had haunted my imagination dissipated. “I have to get home before Father,” I said reluctantly for I didn’t want to break the spell of our first intimacy. “It’s getting late.”
“That was heaven,” Sidow said, his words thick with joy.
We were quiet again for the rest of the way until we reached the fence of the military compound.
“Thank you. You have made me so very happy. See you tomorrow,” Sidow said as he wished me goodnight.
I smiled, waved, and went inside, excited for the next day and more time alone with Sidow.
Chapter Twelve
“I am glad you are here and safe. I was worried,” I heard Father say.
I opened my eyes and the rays of midmorning sun streaked the floor between my bed and dresser. The memory of last night and the anticipation of the afternoon to come made me smile.
I sat up and stretched my limbs, extending the good feelings throughout my body until Mother’s unmistakable voice pulled me to complete wakefulness.
“That driver made so many stops; I thought we’d never get home. We left Gaalmaran yesterday morning and drove the whole night without rest,” she complained.
I lifted my palms skyward in thanks. Mother’s early return had prevented the grave consequences of her discovering that I was visiting Sidow while she was away. I left my room as quickly as I could get dressed and went to Mother in the sitting room. “Mother, you are home.” I feigned excitement and flew into her awaiting arms.
After a prolonged hug, she stepped aside. “This is Rhoda, the daughter of your father’s first cousin, and Omar’s bride-to-be.”
“I am glad to meet you.” I stepped forward and extended my hand to greet the young woman.
Rhoda hesitated for a few seconds before she let her hand meet mine. “You’re Idil?” she asked, instead of greeting me in the usual manner.
Something was amiss with her handshake. “Yes,” I responded.
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