Tale of a Boon's Wife

by Fartumo Kusow

  “Don’t worry. We will get the money and pay you back,” my mother-in-law said.

  “Mother,” Sidow began. “It’s my debt. I’ll make the money. Idris, all I need is time to earn back the debt.”

  “How long will it take you? Months? Years? I wish I could wait that long, but I can’t.”

  “I’ll work hard…” Sidow was going to say more, but my mother-in-law’s glare stopped him.

  “Give us a day or two, and we’ll have the money ready,” my mother-in-law said.

  “I knew you would see to it. You are a good woman.” Idris turned around and left.

  *

  Next day Sidow’s mother and I went to the market and sold a pair of earrings that had belonged to her mother, a bracelet—Sidow’s first gift to me—and the necklace Elmi had given me. With all the pieces, we raised six hundred and fifty dollars. It was a fraction of what we could have received had we sold the jewelry to a proper certified jeweler, but it was more than enough to pay our debt.

  “Where did you get the money?” Sidow asked, when my mother-in-law sent Hasan to summon Idris so we could make the payment.

  I hesitated because it pained Sidow to not be able to support his family. “We sold pieces of jewelry,” I said.

  “Idil, you shouldn’t have done that.”

  “We must pay Idris,” my mother-in-law said. “We had no choice.”

  “I never should have left the farm. Death would have been better than having my mother and my wife pay for my debt.” Sidow limped away like a wounded animal as Idris approached.

  “Much sooner than I expected.” Idris counted and recounted the money. “I didn’t think you could get it this fast. I knew you’d do right. I only hope this didn’t cause you undue harm.” Idris smiled, his gaze firm on the money.

  “What do we owe you for the room?” Sidow’s mother was holding something tight in her hand. “For the rent?”

  “Fifty dollars would do for the month,” Idris said without a pause, as if he’d expected the question all along and knew she was holding that exact amount in her hand ready to go to him. “You didn’t have to do this. I gave you the room for free until you could pay,” Idris said, but all the same, he took the money. “I’ll take this for the next month’s rent.”

  “You can come and get another wheelbarrow when you are able to work,” he said to Sidow, but his expression exuded doubt. “Only if you want to,” he added.

  Sidow only rested for three days. On the fourth day, he got up early in the morning and left. That day and for nine days to follow, Sidow returned with the same news. “I spent the day looking for work, going into shops and yards, but no one will offer me a job.”

  Then the offer came.

  “Do you remember the men who saved me?” Sidow asked me the next night upon his return from the job search. “The ones who brought me to the yard, remember?”

  “I didn’t see anybody. Idris’s guards brought you inside.”

  “Well, I saw one of them again, today.”

  “Really. I wish I could meet them and thank them, but we have no place to invite people.”

  “He offered me a job.”

  “A job!” These were even kinder people than I imagined them to be. “To do what?” I asked.

  “He imports goods from overseas to sell: rice, flour, sugar, clothing, and other household items. He needs someone he can trust at the shipyard. All I have to do is keep an inventory of the merchandise and record everything that comes in.” Excitement saturated Sidow’s words. “He even gave me some money in advance, and I bought this.” Sidow opened a bag and revealed a piece of meat, a few vegetables, and a small cake.

  This man had saved Sidow—a total stranger—from the attack, brought him home, and now offered him a fantastic job, even paying him in advance? The suspicion of some ulterior motive came to me almost as quickly as Sidow’s good news had. Did people who trusted others without a second thought still exist in Somalia? I didn’t think so, but I decided to keep this to myself and be happy for Sidow. We shared the good news with his mother and brother and our children as we sat down to share the festive meal and the dream of better times ahead.

  Sidow arose early next morning and came to me near the cooking fire. “I’ll be home before sunset because I am done when the yard closes at four.” He kissed me like he used to in Bledley—openly and passionately. Hasan and the children were still sleep, but my mother-in-law, sitting across from me, didn’t even blink at the sight.

  “Where are those bracelets? Did you see them when you washed my pants? I am sure they were in the pocket of one pair.”

  We called the children’s beaded bracelets, the only items we had from the village, the family’s lucky charms. “I didn’t,” I answered.

  Sidow went back inside and came out clutching both bracelets in his raised hand. “I found them,” he said and he put one in each pocket.

  Sidow ate the canjeero—flatbread—and eggs and drank his tea very quickly. “I have to get going now. Pray for me, Mother.” Sidow kissed his mother on the top of her head.

  “May Allah be with you.” She took his hand and blew on it.

  The day that started with so much hope and promise turned into one filled with fear by sunset. I didn’t worry until I heard the call of the Maghrib prayer coming from the masjid nearby. Sidow should’ve been home by then. He had said he would be done by four when the shipping yard closed, and it was well past six in the evening. I walked to the lane several times to check, but found no sign of Sidow. I put the children to bed, and once again, my mother-in-law, Hasan, and I stayed awake for most of that night. We waited and hoped for Sidow’s return while fearing the worst. Hours passed without bringing the sound of his gentle footsteps. The anticipation of seeing him walk through the door, turned into an endless night of fear. The next morning dawned, still with no sign of Sidow.

  Chapter Twenty

  My mother-in-law and I made several trips to the Mogadishu port looking for Sidow. Without the name of his employer, or the name of the company that hired him, it was hard to make an inquiry. Still, in desperation we asked about him. It was a delicate matter that needed to be done with care because Sidow, a Boon man, was not worth the effort for many people.

  “One look at my face, and they’ll not help.” My mother-in-law reminded me that the physical features of the Boon people marked and condemned them. “It’s better if you go alone.” She stopped at the beginning of the rows and rows of metal containers lined up all the way to the beach. She adjusted her scarf around her face as if hiding from the accusatory stares.

  I left her at the entrance of the shipyard each day for three days and walked through, hoping to find someone who might have seen Sidow.

  I approached a man unloading boxes from one of the containers into a pickup truck. “I am looking for someone. He started working here three days ago, but he didn’t come home.”

  “What tribe is he from?”

  I knew the question had doomed me before I even answered. “Boon,” I replied.

  “Why would a beautiful Bliss woman like you be searching for a Boon man?” he asked.

  “Because he’s my husband,” I said.

  “What? He had the audacity to marry a Bliss woman and then leave her behind?”

  “He didn’t leave me. He went to work and never came home.”

  “Went to work you say.” The man laughed and walked away.

  His smug smile was disgusting, but I could do nothing about it. I stood there for a while staring after him and seething with anger.

  Each day, I went home exhausted and hopeless. But at night, when we were alone in our shack, my mother-in-law, Hasan, and I asked each other what we would say or do if Sidow walked in just then. Would we be angry and yell at him for making us worry so much? Would we cry, or just look at him with joy because he was back among us again? I kn
ew he would not be coming back as much as I was certain he wouldn’t disappear for three days if he could help it. Still, I needed to keep the glimmer of hope that I would behold his beautiful face again.

  *

  The fourth day after his disappearance, we didn’t go looking for Sidow. My mother-in-law and I didn’t discuss it or agree to stop. The morning of the fourth day dawned, and neither of us got dressed. I lit the fire much later than I ever did before and began making tea. She sat on the other side of it and said nothing. I made the canjeero and the bean soup and gave her some. She took it and ate quietly until Hasan and the two children joined us. I was offering a bowl of soup and some flatbread to Hasan for him and children to share when a woman came running toward me from behind the wheelbarrow shed. As she moved closer, I realized it was my mother. I hadn’t seen her for two and half years, but there was no mistaking her. Her mouth opened, and her lips moved, but no words came out until she was standing next to me. “Idil, it’s Sidow’s body near Jalilow’s jewelry store!” She gasped for breath.

  I dropped the bowl of food and ran. My mother-in-law called after me to wait for her, but I kept running. I knew where the body would be, but I was still hoping she was wrong—that when I arrived, Sidow would be standing at the mouth of the alley, holding a big sack of food, and laughing at my foolishness for thinking harm had come to him. But in the middle of the alley, I came face to face with the horror of Sidow’s beaten body. People walked to and fro, paying no attention to my dead husband lying there. Death and decay had become that common in our country.

  Sidow was battered and broken with several long gashes on his cheeks, but he was wearing a clean short-sleeved shirt and khaki pants. Was that the same shirt he was wearing when he left? I wasn’t sure. I took the large shawl I was wearing and draped it over Sidow.

  Mother caught up with me.

  “How did you know where I lived, and that Sidow was here?” I challenged her.

  She lowered her gaze. “Sorry.”

  “For what? Do you know who did this to my husband? Do you know who killed him?” Using the word killed brought the dreadful reality closer.

  “I was told he was here. I just needed to help…” She struggled to complete the sentence.

  “Who told you?” I demanded, but she only responded with silence.

  “I think you should leave now.”

  “I just wanted to help.”

  “You have helped enough.”

  Sidow’s mother had arrived by now, and she raised her hand to stop me. “He is not coming back, Idil. No good will come of attacking your mother.”

  “I’ll come back when you’ve had some time,” Mother said and slipped away.

  Sidow’s mother waited for a long minute before she spoke. “I’ll stay with my son. Go and see if you can find a way to get him home.”

  *

  “Is it Sidow?” Hasan asked when I returned. “Is he gone?”

  When I said nothing, he knew. “I am sorry for the children, for my mother, for you, for me,” he said.

  Amina and Adam came running. “Mother!” Amina, eleven years old and a head taller than her nine-year-old brother, spoke for both. “Daddy is not coming back, is he?”

  Oh, how I wanted to comfort her and tell her everything would be fine, but I couldn’t. “No, he is not.” I felt empty, bitter, and cold, but I did not cry. My children! Boon, poor, and now fatherless, I thought and hugged them both.

  “Could you find out if Idris knows where we can get a truck to pick up Sidow?” I asked Hasan. I couldn’t refer to my husband’s remains as the body. I wasn’t yet ready to let him go.

  Twenty minutes later, Hasan, with the help of Idris and three other men, placed Sidow on the flatbed of the truck and brought him home.

  As he was carried inside, I tried to avoid my mother-in-law’s searing gaze, but still my dry eyes met her wet ones. I touched my eyes and squeezed them shut, but there were no tears, not even a hint of moisture.

  An hour later, my mother returned. “I am so sorry for your loss. Is there anything I can do to help you?”

  To an onlooker, it would have appeared as if Mother and I had a very close relationship. I wanted to push her away but I resisted the urge. She cried on my shoulder and offered me empty, comforting words. I was uncertain whether I was consoling her, or she was consoling me.

  *

  Most of the visitors, including Mother, left by early evening, and our shack became quiet. The only sound that resonated with me that whole sleepless night came from the subdued waves of the ocean, slapping the huge boulders overlooking the beach, less than a mile away. I recalled Sidow’s scent, his gentle hands upon my skin, his illuminating smile, his kind and encouraging words every time I complained that life was unfair. All night, I sat hoping those strong and positive memories would compel me to weep with pain, to appreciate the size of my loss, but they didn’t. Daylight came and I had yet to shed a single tear for my Sidow.

  “I need to see him,” I told Hasan as he came out of the room Idris had given us in which to keep Sidow’s body.

  Hasan dropped his hands to the sides. “Don’t.”

  “I need to see him,” I repeated. “I must.”

  “Please…” Hasan begged, “it’s no good. Don’t.”

  “Now!” The tone of my voice silenced him. “Before you prepare him for burial.”

  Hasan tried to follow. “I want to be alone, please.” I swallowed hard to calm my nerves.

  Sidow’s body lay on a straw mat, still wrapped in my shawl. I moved closer and, without thinking, bent to kiss him. The decay that encroached on Sidow filled the room and pushed me back. I ran to the door, gagging, but stopped before I opened it.

  After a few seconds, I returned, sat on the floor next to the mat, and stroked Sidow’s coarse hair, the only part of his body that was not ice cold and stiff. Ten minutes passed before I summoned enough courage to look upon his damaged face, but once there I couldn’t turn away.

  “You meant everything to me,” I said with no sign of emotion, “so how is it that I am not able to cry?” I knew there would be no answer.

  I emerged from the room without shedding a single tear.

  *

  Hasan approached me after he’d finished getting Sidow ready for burial that afternoon. “I found this in his pants pocket.” Hasan handed me a roll of American bills.

  “Where is it from?”

  “I don’t know. It fell out of his pocket when I was washing him.”

  I counted the money—fifteen hundred dollars. “How could Sidow have this much money?” I asked.

  “Maybe those who killed him left it for us,” Hasan responded.

  “You mean blood money? Why would they do that? It is not like we know who they are.” The suspicion that Mother was somehow involved was building inside.

  Hasan had no explanation for me. “Keep it for the children. We have to feed them somehow.”

  I held the money tight in my hands.

  “Do you want to see him before he is taken?” Hasan changed the topic.

  I hesitated.

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Yes, for a few minutes.”

  The room was different than it had been earlier that morning. The atmosphere was serene. The aroma coming from the incense burning in the four corners replaced the putrid odor of decaying flesh. Cedar incense mixed with sesame seed oil sat in small bowls all around the mat. For an instant, I wanted to lie next to Sidow and wrap my arms around his neck. Sidow’s body was enshrouded in a white sheet, facing Mecca, the same direction he would face in his grave, his bare skin resting on black earth. From dust to dust.

  Part of me wanted to see Sidow’s face, but I fought the urge and sat next to him instead. Struggling to comprehend the finality of the situation, I remained there until I heard Hasan and my mother-in-law arg
uing outside the door.

  I bent and kissed Sidow over the white sheet so as not to spoil his purity. “This is good-bye,” I said and left the room with the weight of my lost love bearing down on me.

  Once outside, I came upon my mother-in-law yelling at Hasan. “What do you mean, women cannot come? We are his wife and his mother. We are not ‘women’.”

  “Mother, that is the rule,” Hasan said.

  “I do not care about your made-up modern rules. This would have never happened in the village. Tell the sheikh that Idil and I are going, or the body stays here.”

  We reached a compromise with the imam. He allowed my mother-in-law to go and asked me to stay. I agreed. The last thing I wanted to do was watch them cover Sidow with dirt. I stood by the door as the men came and picked up the wooden board with the body of my husband on it.

  The four men, led by Hasan, walked away. I collapsed onto a gember near the door. Amina appeared, Adam right behind her.

  “Daddy loved you,” Amina whispered in my ear as if sharing a great secret.

  “He loved all of us,” I responded, and for the first time I cried. Amina and Adam joined me.

  Mother came a few minutes after the funeral procession left. “I am sorry for your loss,” she said again. She had been saying that since she had reported it.

  “You don’t have to be here.” I didn’t want her pity.

  “I want to stay for the mourning period,” Mother said.

  “What has changed, Mother? Why are you so kind to me now when you weren’t before?”

  She flinched. “I sit at night, alone in my bed, and think about what I have done. I turned you out, sent Elmi away, and kept Rhoda as a daughter. She is angry with Omar, with Sheila, but mostly with me. I can’t say I blame her. I condemned her to a life of unhappiness, and the sad part is I knew Omar had no desire for her. Still, I dressed her up and made her marry him.” She took a deep breath to steady her shaky voice. “You asked what has changed, and I’d say nothing, except I am trying to get away from myself, from Rhoda, from Father and most of all, I want to be as far away from Omar as possible now.”