Tale of a Boon's Wife

by Fartumo Kusow

  I hesitated, not seeing the need to do it. Surely telling Fadumo I was pregnant would cause no damage.

  “This will rid you of the curse.” She nodded her head to reinforce her conviction.

  I took the paper and the bowl and went to the bathroom only to satisfy her. I recited the lines and washed with the water quickly.

  “Done so soon?” she asked me when she saw me leaving the bathroom.

  “Yes, I did as you said.” I went to my room.

  *

  The pain, harsh and biting came a week after I’d declared the pregnancy. I thought it was a normal stomachache at first and waited for it to pass, but the contractions radiated from my stomach to the lower back and legs. Half an hour later, I went to bed and asked Sidow to summon my mother-in-law for help.

  She came and stood over me, wiping the sweat from my forehead. After a few minutes of comforting me, she sent Sidow for the midwife. “She’ll be here soon,” she assured me.

  I sighed over the mention of the midwife. I didn’t want to believe the implication, although I knew it to be true.

  The midwife arrived and gave me a mug of thick and bitter bluish concoction. My stomach heaved at the smell, but I forced myself to finish it. We waited, but the contractions only moved closer together and I started bleeding.

  The midwife tried her best to comfort me. “Lie still, don’t move.” She gathered the blanket and pushed it under my legs, lifting my lower body. “Don’t push.” She continued to peek behind the heap of fabric under me. She turned to my mother-in-law. “Too much blood. I have to stop this before she loses more.”

  After a long time of tugging and pulling, the midwife verbalized what I suspected. “The baby is gone,” she said, but continued to work. She cleaned me, placed an herbal remedy inside my womb and gave my mother-in-law some more to add to my tea and soup. “I’ll return in a few hours to check on Idil.” She left.

  Sidow came in as soon as the midwife left and showered me with kisses. “Are you still in pain?” he asked.

  “I caused the miscarriage.” I sobbed.

  “You don’t believe that. My mother relies on old tales she’s heard from her mother and her mother before. No one miscarries because they said they were pregnant.”

  I agreed with him, but it was difficult for me to ignore the closeness of my words to the lost fetus. I thought Sidow’s mother would chastise me, but even she didn’t seem angry. If anything, she felt sorry for me. She kept me clean and gave me traditional herbs and medications to protect me from pain and infection.

  In the days that followed the miscarriage, I took one shower after another. I went to the bathroom with the intention to wash away the smell of blood. I rubbed the skin between my legs, over my belly, and feet, but upon leaving the bathroom, I felt no cleaner. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get rid of the stench of blood. The smell followed me everywhere I went. I inhaled the metallic odor with the food in my mouth and heaved and gagged after each meal. The physical pain lessened with time and finally disappeared. The pain of guilt remained. I replayed my mother-in-law’s statement that I should’ve never told, no matter how many times Sidow said it was stupid to think I had induced the miscarriage.

  He stroked the wrought-iron frame of the bed without making eye contact. “That’s not true. The baby’s time had come. It wasn’t meant to get to full term and be born alive.”

  I was split between knowing he was right, and the feeling that if I hadn’t said anything, it might have been different.

  Sidow sat next to me and hugged me. I rested my head on his shoulder and cried. Still, the road back to Sidow’s arms was long and difficult. “I can’t,” I said every time he made advances. After the miscarriage, I avoided him, I thought the curse was still inside and I shouldn’t get pregnant again and lose another baby.

  “There’s nothing inside you.” Desire boiled within Sidow as he worked hard to brush aside the pain of my rejection.

  He faced the opposite wall, so I wouldn’t see the tears I knew filled his eyes but I heard the disappointment in his voice.

  The arrival of Elmi’s letter dampened my spirits even more. As if he’d timed it, the letter arrived only three weeks after the miscarriage.

  Dear Idil,

  I am sorry it has been over a month since I last wrote to you. I received your response, but waited until now for so much has happened since my last letter. Mother wants me to go to Canada for my schooling, and although I suspect she has other reasons for her crazy decision, I do not hate the idea. How she came up with the idea and the travel document I can’t tell, but I appreciate her wanting me to leave home. I feel more and more isolated from both friends and family. Since leaving Bledley, I seem to have lost the desire to make friends and have kept to my books and art. Omar and Father all but ignore my existence, and that bothers Mother more than it troubles me. Omar’s violent reaction to the news of your elopement might have frightened her for my safety, although she denies that when I ask her. Still, she doesn’t want me to be alone in the house with Omar. Even when I asked her why she was sending me all the way to Canada, she just looked at me as if to say “I am sending you to the continent farthest away from Omar.” I begged Mother to let me come and see you before I left Somalia, but she said no and wouldn’t be persuaded, no matter how many times I tried. She is firm about keeping my journey a secret until I am safely away. ‘No one, but you and I must know,’ she said, and made me put my hand on the Qur’an, even though I’d given her my word I wouldn’t tell. It took me more than a week to obtain her consent to this correspondence. She only agreed to it when I said she could post it herself. I am truly sorry I must go without taking my leave of you in person and I’m counting on your forgiveness. Please give my regard to Sidow and the rest of your family.

  Until next time.

  With all my love,

  Elmi

  P.S. Please do not respond to this letter, for I will leave this very night and will not be here to receive the mail. I promise to write to you when I am able.

  After a whole day of reading and rereading it, I put Elmi’s letter in the shoebox under the bed where I’d kept all his other correspondences since our parting after the great fire.

  *

  It took me more than two months to allow my love for Sidow to override the fear of the curse. Four months after the miscarriage, I was pregnant again. I’d missed two cycles before I even contemplated the possibility, let alone told anyone.

  I threw myself into farm work to avoid thinking of the baby growing inside. In my free time I went to the post office hoping for a letter from Elmi. Finding nothing, I’d walk around the market aimlessly, as if looking for something I couldn’t find. It was during one of those trips that I saw a woman making beaded jewelry. I stood by her stall and watched her work quietly. She placed one bead at a time in a yellow string and hummed a tune to herself. Other shopkeepers huddled together near their stalls when they didn’t have customers, but this woman sat on a stool near her table and continued to create bracelets, earrings, and necklaces. I watched her three days in a row before I approached her. “How much are these?” I pointed at several bags filled with beads in one of her baskets.

  “What do you want it for? Necklaces, bracelets, earrings?”

  “How much are you selling one of those bags for?” I continued to stare at the basket mesmerized by the beauty of the beads.

  “Buy one of the necklaces for only five shillings.”

  “How much is the bag of beads?” I asked again.

  The woman looked disappointed. “It is not easy to make a necklace like this one.” She rolled two necklaces in her hand and held them against the bright afternoon sunlight. “Buy one of these or even both. That’s the cheaper way to go.”

  “Sell me the bag,” I insisted.

  “You farmers are so stingy.” She lifted one of the bags up. “When I
go to the big cities the women come and buy the items I make for twice the money.” She waited for a few seconds to see if I would change my mind.

  I didn’t. “I want the beads because I don’t know what I want to make yet.” It was true, but the woman didn’t believe me.

  She looked at me quizzically. “It is three shillings for the bag and the roll of yarn to make it.” She held out her hand for the money. “Buy the ready-made one. You won’t be able to make one as beautiful as mine.”

  I paid her and left with the beads in my sack. That night, under the dim light of the oil lamp, I started a bracelet for my child. I labored over my gift to the baby every evening after that. I didn’t want anyone to see it, so I only worked on it when I was alone in my room, or after Sidow was asleep.

  Sidow often tried to engage me when he prepared for bed. “You are too quiet. What’s going on?”

  I’d touch the bracelet under my pillow pretending I was getting ready for sleep. “I am just tired,” I’d say, and wait until I’d heard his rhythmic breathing. Then I’d pull the bag and yarn out and get to work. Every bead was different in color from the one before it and the one that followed it. Some nights, I’d work for hours and realize two of the beads were closer in color or were the same shade and unravel the whole thing to start over again. It was an obsession.

  Four months later, I was ready to size the bracelet to fit the wrist of a newborn, while leaving enough room to add more as the child grew. I tried my big toe, the leg of a chair, a branch of the lemon tree in the yard, and the handle of a mallet, but nothing satisfied.

  Sidow came upon me one of those sizing days. He peeked from behind the shed, smiling. “Does that mean…”

  I shushed him. “It means nothing.”

  “Maybe you should leave the necklace untied until the baby is born so we can measure it against its neck,” Sidow said, his eyes dancing with excitement.

  Despite my determination to deny the pregnancy until the baby pushed out of the womb, I said, “It’s not a necklace.” By then the baby was making small moves, the gentlest kicks that came in unpredictable intervals. “Can’t you see? It’s a bracelet.”

  Sidow smiled. “I knew it, I knew it.”

  “Tell no one.”

  Sidow scoffed. “You are showing. My mother must know already.” Arms open wide, he invited me for a hug.

  “No, she doesn’t. She would have said something.” I didn’t move to accept his embrace.

  “You know my mother wouldn’t mention a baby still inside the womb.” He must have read the doubt in my face because he changed course. “Come to me. I promise I won’t tell anyone. I can pretend I don’t know. I’ll be shocked when my mother finally decides to tell.” He laughed.

  *

  The labor pain wasn’t much different from the miscarriage, except for its timing. It came too early in the morning and woke me from a pleasant sleep. I got out of bed, went to the bathroom, and walked about the room. I tried to lie down again, but I couldn’t. Finally I nudged Sidow, and he sat up quickly, as if he’d expected me to give birth just like that.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Go get your mother.”

  “Is the baby coming?”

  I stared at him, unsure whether to laugh or get angry at the stupid question. “Go get your mother,” I repeated, gritting my teeth.

  “Okay, I’m going.” Sidow gathered his shawl about him and ran out of the room.

  A few minutes later, his mother came with towels and a pail of water. “Sidow has gone to fetch the midwife,” she said. She hadn’t mentioned the pregnancy up to now—even after Sidow had asked her to go to the market with him so he could hire a carpenter to make the crib.

  The whole process took less than two hours and it was not the nightmarish, never-ending experience Mother spoke about anytime she was unhappy with one of us. She’d often say how difficult it was to bring us into this world and how we didn’t get any better now that we were outside of her.

  “It is a girl.” The midwife placed the newborn wrapped in a white towel on my chest and began the cleaning process.

  Sidow came in as soon as the midwife left and kissed me all over. “She’s beautiful like her mother.” He traced his finger around the baby’s face. “What should we name her?”

  “Amina,” I said. I had not thought about a name before that moment. I think I had never expected to carry a baby to term. Between the supposed curse of announcing the first baby too soon and my mother’s theory that no daughter who made her mother unhappy would have a fruitful life, I imagined I would lead a sad and barren existence. The name came to me as soon as Sidow asked, and I loved it.

  “Amina,” Sidow repeated the name to himself, as if he were trying to confirm he’d heard it correctly. “Perfect. It is beautiful,” he said.

  “Here, tie it on her wrist.” I reached for the bracelet under the pillow and handed it to Sidow. The wrist was too small, so he put it on her ankle.

  *

  During the first month of my next pregnancy, sixteen months after Amina was born, I started a beaded bracelet for the new baby. I looked for the vendor I’d bought the beads from two years earlier, but when I failed to find her, I sent an order to the capital. The bag I received looked exactly like the one I’d bought before, but it cost twice as much. Still, I was grateful to have found it.

  “What are we going to name him?” Sidow asked only two months after I got pregnant. My mother-in-law didn’t complain about the early announcement this time, maybe because I’d only told Sidow, or perhaps because the ladies in the village weren’t asking about it anymore.

  “Adam,” I responded.

  “What if it is a girl?” he asked.

  “You said ‘him’ and I gave you Adam. You should come up with a girl’s name.”

  “If it is a girl we will name her after my mother or your mother,” Sidow said.

  “Okay.” I didn’t think we should ever name a baby after my mother. She would not appreciate a Boon child sharing her name, but I didn’t say so to Sidow. The fact that he was including my mother in our life after all she had done was adorable.

  Nine months later, when I went to labor, the pain was sharper, and the delivery took much longer than the first one. It started in the middle of the tomato patch. I dropped the basket of tomatoes right away and spent the next ten minutes getting from the vegetable garden to the common room. My mother-in-law saw me and sent for the midwife. The midwife came and examined me three times, each time declaring the need for more time. She ordered me to get out of bed and walk, only I couldn’t move. I took a few steps around the room and went back to bed.

  Sidow massaged my feet and held my hand, even after I squeezed it so hard, I almost crushed his fingers. He stayed with me until the midwife asked him to leave.

  “This one liked it inside. He didn’t want to come out,” the midwife said as she placed the baby boy on my chest. “Here is your son.”

  I was exhausted but the wailing of the baby made me smile.

  Sidow came in, Amina in his arms. “This is your brother, Adam,” he said to her.

  “Here,” I handed Sidow Adam’s bracelet. “Tie it on his foot.”

  Sidow pointed at the colorful bracelet. “Are you going to make him wear this?”

  “I wouldn’t have made it if I didn’t intend to,” I said.

  “I thought it was in case we had another girl.” I gave him a harsh look, so Sidow took the bracelet from me without another word and tied it around Adam’s ankle. Both children wore their bracelets until they were old enough to complain about them. After that, the bracelets became family heirlooms.

  Chapter Seventeen

  We suffered through a year-long drought, two years after Adam was born. Sidow paid close attention to our farm, traveled far and wide to choose the right seed, and attended different meetings to discus
s pricing and seed and crop-sharing. I appreciated the effort at first, and even told Elmi in two of my letters how hard Sidow was working, and how secure I felt. But after a while, his constant absences wore on me. We fought over his devotion to the land so much and so often that once I even threatened to leave him over it.

  “So, you married a farmer and now you’d leave because he is farming?” Sidow asked with an unmistakable sarcasm I had never heard in his voice before.

  “You are not a farmer. You are an obsessed farmer.”

  “Would you have been happier if I was in another woman’s bed, instead of at the Farmers’ Hall?”

  That was a low blow, and he must have seen me recoil at the question. “I’m sorry. That was not a fair thing to say,” he said.

  “You’re right,” I said and left the yard. Sidow’s comment about a husband in another woman’s bed triggered something deeply personal in me. Sidow and I had not only survived, but we were happy. The eight years that followed my parents’ move away from Bledley had led me to a very different place than I was in when I married him. I had two beautiful children, now six and almost four, but Sidow’s statement brought the memory of Father’s infidelity to the forefront. From that day on, I watched my husband, waiting for the signs to show up. Perhaps the nightly meeting at the Farmers’ Hall and the trips to other villages were about more than getting the best seeds. The notion had come to me and wouldn’t leave. There was no rational reason for the feeling that lurked inside my head. I worked very hard to push it out of my mind. I reminded myself that Sidow loved me—he would never cheat on me—but that only lasted for a short time. Every time I thought about what I might do if I found out that Sidow was unfaithful my stomach heaved, and I had to run to the bathroom to empty it.

  “You are not pregnant, are you?” Sidow asked when he saw me on my way back from one of those bathroom trips, tears running down my cheeks from the retching. “I thought we agreed we would stop until we recovered from the last drought.”