His Other Wife

by Umm Zakiyyah

  She heard Larry suck in his breath. “Wow, that’s some crazy stuff,” he said, and Salima could almost see him shaking his head, a disbelieving smirk on his face. “That sounds like how I was taught to think about Allah. I can’t worship any other god along with Him.”

  Salima coughed laughter, agreeing.

  “Jacob told me about the different sects of Muslims,” Larry said. “But I didn’t know it was like that. Makes me wonder if these people ever really learned about Islam.”

  She shook her head, a reflective smile lingering on her face. “Trust me,” she said. “Many of them have. They just don’t see anything wrong with adding their own spice to it.”

  There was a thoughtful pause. “Is Jamil into that kind of stuff too?”

  Salima drew in a deep breath and exhaled. “No, mashaAllah,” she said. “He’s just really into this sister.”

  “Fatal attraction, huh?” Larry said in dry humor.

  “Allahu’alam,” Salima said, acknowledging that Allah knew best. “I could be wrong about this whole thing.”

  “But what they’re doing sounds really messed up.”

  “I don’t mean about the beliefs,” she said. “I mean about the sister. She says she’s no longer part of that group.”

  Larry was silent momentarily. “And you believe her?”

  “No,” Salima said. “But I don’t have any proof.”

  “What makes you doubt her?”

  “Because that’s still her social circle,” Salima said. “And one thing I know about these sects is, unless they see you as a potential convert, they’re not welcoming to outsiders,” she said. “Any whiff of you having doubt about their sheikh or their group, you’re ostracized and shut out of everything, even dinner invitations.”

  “So you think she’s lying?”

  Salima frowned thoughtfully. “No…” She was unsure how to put her thoughts into words. “I just don’t think she realizes what she’s gotten herself into.”

  Larry was quiet for some time. “That sounds like a cult.” His voice was etched in concern.

  “Sometimes it is,” Salima said.

  “Sometimes?” Larry repeated, humor in his tone.

  “Because every group that has mistakes isn’t a cult.”

  “And you don’t think this one is?”

  Salima was silent momentarily. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “But even if it were, I don’t think the sister will realize it until it’s too late.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Because usually people don’t realize what’s happening until their life is turned upside down and they have no one to turn to,” she said. “Because all their connections are through their group. And if you reach out to someone you think is a friend, they’ll only help you if you fully commit to everything you’re trying to get away from.”

  Larry was silent for some time. “Can I ask you something?”

  By the tone of his voice, Salima knew Larry’s question was completely unrelated to Jamil and his ex-wife. “Sure,” Salima said.

  “And this is just hypothetical,” he said, as if in lighthearted warning.

  Salima immediately grew concerned. “Okay…” she said, caution in her voice.

  “What if one day I did want to marry another wife?” Larry said, and Salima immediately felt weak at his words. “Would you support me?”

  Rage flashed through Salima, and she tried to calm herself. “We didn’t think you were a womanizer…” she recalled saying to Larry. “Just not a one-woman man?” Larry had replied. “Well, I can’t speak about the future,” he’d said, answering his own question, “but so far, that’s all I’ve been. That’s how I was raised, and that’s how I intend to remain in marriage.”

  “Support you?” Salima repeated, hoping the curious tone she was trying to maintain masked the horror she felt right then.

  “Yes.” Larry spoke as if supporting her husband’s efforts to sleep with another woman was the most natural reflection of wifely righteousness.

  “I thought you were a one-woman man,” she said teasingly, hoping she sounded as lighthearted as she intended.

  “I am,” Larry said. “I was just wondering how you’d react if that changed.” He chuckled. “You’re not going to go Deanna on me, I hope.”

  Salima gritted her teeth. “Don’t talk about Deanna like that.”

  Larry laughed. “Okay fine,” he said non-committedly. “But would you fight me about it?”

  “I wouldn’t be happy,” Salima said, deciding that was a safe response.

  “I wouldn’t be either,” Larry said.

  Salima creased her forehead, as if waiting for the punch line. “Why wouldn’t you be happy?” This time, she made no effort to mask her sarcasm.

  Larry chuckled. “You women really think men have no hearts, huh?”

  “The jury is still out,” Salima said, a smirk on her face.

  “Now, that’s cold,” Larry said in lighthearted humor.

  “Well, I’m not the one bringing up polygamy before we’re even married.”

  Larry laughed out loud. “Are you joking?” he said. “You asked me if I’d want to marry another woman if you can’t have children. I wasn’t even thinking about polygamy before you brought it up.”

  Oh. Salima’s face was aflame in embarrassment. “Would you want to marry another wife?” she’d asked him only minutes before. “Well, I didn’t mean it like that,” she muttered defensively.

  “Like what?” Larry said, unmasked amusement in his voice.

  “I was speaking hypothetically.”

  “So was I.”

  “And this is just hypothetical,” Salima recalled Larry’s words just then. Mortified, she didn’t know what to say.

  “You know this is why women get a bad rep, don’t you?” Larry said, humor still in his tone. “You guys start stuff then pin it on us.” He chuckled. “I swear, before I became Muslim, I laughed out loud when I read that verse in the Qur’an about having two women witnesses.”

  And if there are not two men [available], then a man and two women, such as you agree for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her…Salima recalled the part of the ayah in Al-Baqarah that Larry was referring to.

  “I was like, this Book is the real deal,” Larry said. “It talks about things we all know are true but people try to deny in the name of feminism and what not.”

  Salima didn’t know whether to feel proud or offended. “Women have good qualities, too,” she said.

  “Of course,” Larry said. “Being emotional and forgetful aren’t bad qualities. It is what it is.”

  “Men can be emotional and forgetful,” she said defensively.

  Larry chuckled. “Are we really going to do this? This politically correct back-and-forth? You memorized the whole Qur’an, so you know better than I do that men and women are different.”

  And the male is not like the female…

  “Why do you all do that though?” Larry asked, genuine curiosity in his tone. “Try to prove women are equal or better than men? There’s nothing wrong with having human fault. Men have their faults too.”

  Salima grew irritated all of a sudden. “Maybe because we’ve been oppressed too long.”

  “Fair enough,” Larry said. “But then shouldn’t your focus be on fighting oppression instead of denying who you are? How does denying your female traits help you?”

  “We’re not all dimwits,” she said bitterly.

  Larry sighed. “Look, Salima,” he said, his voice soft in empathy and exhaustion. “I don’t mean to offend you. I think we both know I’m not saying women are stupid. It’s just hard to have a serious conversation with women sometimes because you all get offended over stuff that has nothing to do with anything.”

  Salima huffed and rolled her eyes.

  “All I’m asking is the same question you asked me. You asked what I’d do if things didn’t turn out like we expect with you having children, and I’m asking you ho
w you’d feel if things didn’t turn out like we expect with me being married to only you.”

  Salima understood his point, but it was hard to let go of her hurt. “I’m sorry,” she muttered after a few seconds. “It’s just a really difficult subject for me.”

  “I can understand that,” Larry said. “But it really is just a question. I don’t have any plans on marrying another wife.”

  Salima drew in a deep breath and exhaled, her eyes growing distant. “I used to be dead-set against polygamy,” she said. “But now the whole concept just terrifies me.”

  “What do you fear most?”

  “My emaan,” she said. “And my ikhlaas.”

  “Your faith and sincerity?” Larry asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I fear for my faith because I don’t want to question Allah,” she said. “And I fear for my ikhlaas because I’m scared I won’t even care what’s best for me. I just don’t want it in my life.”

  Chapter 32

  We’re SAFE Now

  I hate myself.

  The words wriggled their way through the recesses of her mind, then her heart. They now sat heavy and idle in the pit of her stomach, a nasty internal bruising. It was as if someone had sucker punched her in a fit of rage, leaving a painful loathing that had been there long before the fight.

  Aggravated, Deanna yanked the covers over her head and switched positions, now laying on her other side.

  “I guess this is the table for husband stealers?”

  Jasmine’s question hung in the darkness of the bedroom, haranguing, as if addressing Deanna herself. It incensed the loathsome bruising in her stomach and crawled like stealthy fingers around her neck until her throat closed. Tears stung her eyes, and she gasped for air.

  Nobody wants you. Nobody loves you. Nobody cares.

  Deanna clamped her teeth down and bolted upright, letting the comforter fall to her waist as she silenced the scream before it found her voice. Her lips wrestled to stay closed as a horrible moaning escaped with each breath.

  Deanna hated the night, and slumber itself provided little refuge. If asleep, she was haunted by nightmares of an enigmatic world that she was certain reflected the reality of her depraved life. If awake, she was haunted by the inescapable nightmares of her reality itself. And the day was merely the brief and foggy, though welcomed, reprieve offered the hopeless insomniac.

  I want to be a better person.

  These words settled upon her just as the moaning of her thwarted screams subsided. Though once heartfelt, the declaration was now but a ridiculous mantra that did not belong to people like her.

  You cannot be better because you have no good in you to begin with.

  Deanna grunted in angry annoyance. “So what?” she called out, her voice loud in the stillness in the room. “So what if I’m not a good person! Who is? Aliyah? I don’t think so!”

  But what about Jacob?

  At the reminder of the divorce, a mournful whine escaped her throat as the clutches of loneliness clamped around her. Tears spilled from her eyes before she could stop them, and she covered her face with her hands as her shoulders shook. This time, she made no effort to quiet the wailing screams into the night.

  And this time, she heard no stirrings of her mother or father coming to her aid.

  ***

  “I love you.”

  Jacob uttered these words as he held Aliyah close to him, his voice fading as he drifted to sleep. His snore was a soft wheezing in the darkness of the hotel suite, a rhythmic aphrodisiac that made Aliyah snuggle even closer to him.

  “I love you too,” she whispered even though she had no idea if he was conscious enough to hear her. But a faint smile played at her lips as she lay with her head against his bare chest, the flat of her palm massaging the coiled hair there. She felt herself becoming exhausted, but she wanted to lie awake a moment more, imbibing the electrifying pleasure that still weakened her even an hour later.

  “This was well worth the wait,” Jacob had teased her earlier, and she’d laughed out loud.

  “Muslim women aren’t stiffs, you know,” she’d teased in return. “Just because we cover and lower our gazes doesn’t mean we don’t know how to enjoy ourselves and please a man.”

  Jacob had coughed laughter. “Well, I’m certainly not complaining.”

  The smile on her face spread into a grin before she closed her eyes and drifted to sleep herself.

  ***

  Perspective. The epiphany came to Deanna as her eyes blinked open under the strain of grogginess, the light of day hesitantly filling her room through the closed curtains, an indication that she had drifted to sleep after all. I need perspective.

  The mere thought of reaching out to someone during this difficult time made her stomach knot in anxiety and dread. She hadn’t even been online since her arrest and subsequent release except to email Asher and read his reply. There were literally hundreds of unread messages in her account, but she couldn’t bring herself to open a single one. She’d already deleted the Facebook app from her phone, and if it hadn’t been for her email alerts about bills and her occasional communication with her lawyer, she would have deleted the email app as well. Even without having read a single message or post online, she’d already become angry imagining what others would be saying about her.

  Talk to Asher.

  Deanna hated her brother with paralyzing resentment, but she really had no idea whom she could turn to right then, at least not without being billed by the hour. Her mother and father lived with her under the same roof, and one would think that the parent-child bond would inspire more than begrudging tolerance of her presence. But to them, the provision of a home and food each night was much more than they owed her, no matter what she was going through. They knew nothing of the divorce, at least not officially, and Deanna doubted they cared either way. Asher himself might not even care, but his indifference remained a theory because her brother was not someone she had ever taken time to get to know.

  Asher was Barry and Kerri’s firstborn, the pregnancy that had inspired their marriage. But Deanna often felt that she was the unwanted child, the pregnancy that neither of them expected or wanted, the pregnancy that forced them to spend money they could have used for more important and valuable things. In Deanna’s darkest dreams, she was their firstborn, the child they resented because she forced them to commit to each other in marriage when they had plans for a better life. Their resentment of her was almost palpable while Asher enjoyed a distant respect of which she could only imagine.

  But Asher was her brother, and perhaps there was within him a trace of the familial connection of blood ties that went beyond mere begrudging obligation and tapped into the veins of emotional bonds.

  ***

  Asher’s house reeked of beer and cigarettes, and Deanna breathed through her mouth. She was unable to temper the annoyance she felt at him for not even taking time to clean up though she had called before making the five-hour drive early that afternoon. But now it was evening, and she was tired and hungry, and the sight of books and newspapers sloppily stacked all over the living room floor and unwashed clothes thrown about and piled carelessly on the couch made her want to turn around and head right back home.

  “You want a drink?” Asher said from where he stood opposite his sister in the foyer. He wore a dingy wife beater shirt and faded blue jeans that sagged below the waistline, revealing a hint of blue and red striped boxers. The beginnings of a beard framed his face in unkempt graying coils and offered Deanna only a semblance of the countenance she associated with her older brother. He held her gaze as he walked over to the couch and shoved a pile of clothes to the side then gestured for Deanna to come in and sit down.

  She hesitated only momentarily before entering the living room and walking around to the couch, not bothering to remove her shoes. A musty smell stung her nostrils as she let the sofa receive the weight of her body.

  Deanna did want something drink,
but she felt leery about consuming anything from his house, even water. “Sure,” she heard herself say. Her stomach lurched as he disappeared into the kitchen, and she swallowed hard to keep from throwing up right then.

  There was clanking and banging coming from the kitchen, and Deanna glanced about her in repulsion, her lips pinched closed in distaste. She did a double take as she saw on the small circular table next to her a single framed picture. It was of two men standing outside in front of what looked like Asher’s house, laughing together about something. Deanna immediately recognized Asher as the man clipping the shoulder of the other, as if to keep from laughing more. The other man’s eyes were shut, his mouth wide open and teeth bared mid-laugh. There was something eerily familiar about him that made Deanna’s insides convulse. She quickly turned away, shifting her entire body away from the frame.

  “Here we go,” Asher said, appearing suddenly and slamming a clear glass mug and a can of beer on the circular table next to her. He reached under his arm to retrieve his own can of beer as he settled on the single-cushion loveseat at an angle opposite the couch.

  There was a soft hissing sound as Asher opened his beer before leaning his head back and taking a gulp. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand then leaned forward, can still in hand, and asked, “What did you want to talk about?”

  “I’m divorced,” Deanna said, shifting stiffly on the couch, unable to get comfortable next to the pile of musty clothes. She’d thought she would have a more eloquent introduction to her problems, but she didn’t want to stay longer than she had to.

  Asher chuckled, a half grin forming on his face. “Join the club.”

  Deanna pulled her head back in surprise. “You were married?”

  “Yep,” Asher said, folding in his lips as his eyes lost focus momentarily. “And I despise the institution.”

  “Did you have any children?”