Circle Around the Sun

by M. D. Johnson

  “Emily, your close friends call you Amina, is that correct?”

  “Yes, Ulrike, at least my Muslim friends do. The mother of the prophet Mohammed was named Amina. It means ‘trustworthy’ in Arabic.”

  “May I call you Amina?”

  “Of course you may.”

  “There are people I would like you to meet. A woman from Palestine named Leila, who is part of a group interested in freeing her people from oppression. I have another friend who has written a paper that many young people are reading. His name is Andreas, and he has a, how would you say it, an ideal, or philosophy that people who are oppressed have the divine right to use any means they can to be free. It is rather like a natural law.”

  “Amina,” Meinhof continued in hushed tones, “I would like you to perhaps address other students. Is that possible? There are so many things that have been covered up. We owe it to future generations to uncover the truth. Will you help us?”

  “Let me discuss it with Ghulam,” Emily said looking over at him. Ghulam looked very put out. His usual compassionate brown eyes were now flashing with anger. “You see, Ulrike, we live together but we will be married soon. Our relationship, while somewhat European in ideology is still one where his culture, and perhaps mine too would forbid my participation in anything he is ardently against. I will contact you through Mustafa. Now please help yourself to more food and wine while I see to some of our other guests.”

  Emily headed for the kitchen and as she left the room, Ghulam quickly followed.

  “What do you think you are doing?” he hissed. “I had no idea you felt so strongly. My father is a diplomat for God’s sake. Have you any idea what your comments would do to his career or my future for that matter if anyone quoted you and it reached the newspapers?”

  “I’m sorry, Ghulam, I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. This is my home. I’m free to say what I want.”

  “That woman is a communist. Her ex-husband’s magazine, ‘Konkret’ was funded by the party. Everybody knows that. She is being watched. She and her friend Andreas Baader, not to mention that Stadler fellow. They are all professional students. You know, the kind who stay in college for years just to be part of the in-crowd and they’re all financed by the Communist party as well. Stadler’s wife works for The American Harvester Group. They just bought the German Siegler Corporation last year. They make tractors and things that my country will need in the future. We cannot make waves. The corporation is watching her very closely.”

  “How do you know this Ghulam?”

  “Amina, there are many things you do not know, and it is better at present for you to make no problems. We will discuss this when our guests are gone. Be a good wife and take the kebabs and pakawra to them.” Ghulam handed her the gigantic copper tray laden with spicy herbed lamb cubes resting on a bed of brown rice. “When you are finished with that, take this one out there as well,” he added, showing her the large platter of eggplant and potatoes fried in batter and the dishes of honeyed yogurt and meat sauce. Emily had been formally dismissed, in much the same manner as men have used with women in his culture for thousands of years.

  She left the kitchen and returning to the crowded living room began passing out the food, assisted by Rose Otu.

  “My God, Emily. Do you know what you have just begun? The Palestinian woman she spoke of has to be Leila Khaled. She is the one who took part in the TWA hijacking in Damascus this past August. They let her go as part of an exchange of captured Syrian soldiers. You cannot meet with her. You’ll be expelled. Mike and I must leave. Please have nothing to do with these people.”

  When the last of their guests finally departed, Emily prepared for bed. She showered and smoothed her skin with sweet almond oil, noticing for the first time that her breasts were a little larger than normal and tender to the touch. She had felt bloated for days but chose to ignore what was now becoming obvious. Oh God! she thought, My last period was around the end of October...It’s now December 10th.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  They married at the Heidelberg Standesamt at the beginning of January, 1970. The ceremony was fast and informal. Emily wore a dark green Chanel suit and a heavy beaver lamb fur. The jacket was loosely fitted so that the protrusion of her stomach went for the most part unnoticed. Her teeth chattered and her feet were freezing, despite the leather knee-high boots she wore. Ghulam wore a black Nehru style suit, his face pale in comparison. They were both terrified of the responsibility ahead of them and their fascination with each other had lessened severely. Her parents, though horrified at the news of the pregnancy, nevertheless arrived for the brief formal exchange of vows. They laughed at the phrase, “We now pronounce you married peoples!” as the Registrar Frau Dr. Schwenk practiced her English on the bride. Emily’s mother bought her trousseaux from Ulla’s boutique. It was classic, beautifully tailored and designed to hide her growing pregnancy. Her father Ibrahim gave the couple a check for ten thousand Deutche Marks. While it was his hope that they would be happy, Ibrahim Desai disliked his new son-in-law on sight. His own marriage to his English Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth as he called her, was perfect. They were as much in love as when they first met. He noted in his son in law a perfect face, an absolute beauty, but there was no warmth in his eyes. It seemed to him that the only emotion displayed on the young man’s face was when his short squat friend spoke to him. Were they lovers perhaps, he thought to himself, dismissing it instantly until Elizabeth whispered “What is going on with those two? They’re like twin seeds. My poor Emily! What has she done?”

  “I think my dear, she has married a pufte. You mark my words, Elizabeth; this man is not for our daughter. This is very, very wrong.” Elizabeth, trusting her husband’s intuitiveness nodded her head in agreement.

  It was at Mustafa’s suggestion that Ghulam married Emily. Mustafa had also arranged every aspect of the wedding, including the purchase of the suits they wore to the Registry Office. Their mutual friend Julian from Cameroon hosted the reception at his club, ‘Club Catacoombe’. Providing the food and drink was his gift to the couple. The entertainment was provided by a Nigerian band called “Kadu” who were friends of Julian’s and who regularly stayed at his other apartment in Frankfurt when they toured Germany. He had driven them to Heidelberg for the reception and would limo them back to Frankfurt for their rehearsal and show the following day,

  Emily’s parents were saddened that she had not chosen to marry either in England or the family homes in Morocco or Egypt. Despite Berber traditions and superstition, Emily’s hands and feet were not tattooed with henna in sacred designs, as her English mother had done out of respect for her husband’s culture. Emily had instead taken a ritual milk bath for purification of spirit before being dressed by her friends. Each friend had a different task, preparing Emily’s hair, applying the make up, putting on specially selected jewelry and finally, helping the bride into her dress. And so within a half hour Emily was driven to the center of the old city of Heidelberg and faster than she could blink an eye, she became a married woman in the eyes of the law, her parents, and, as was soon sadly realized, certainly in the eyes of Ghulam Ansari. Upon marriage Emily Byron Desai had become the property of Ghulam Ansari to do with as he saw fit. His parents had witnessed the ceremony and left before the reception, giving nothing except their congratulations.

  The wedding reception was the most talked about social event in Heidelberg that year. Not surprisingly, the leftist elite drank most of the champagne and ate the imported caviar like it was bratwurst. The food was a combination of African and Middle East cuisine. There were spicy rice dishes, skewered lamb, okra and tomatoes, lamb and beef patties mixed with almond and pine nuts. The wives of friends had been paid to prepare mounds of spiced eggplant with tomatoes smothered in pomegranate molasses. Emily herself had pureed pumpkin and spent the night before her wedding making the yogurt sauce she would use the following day. There were mountains of fresh salads and bowls of spicy hummus with warm, freshly baked pita bread. Em
ily found a pastry chef who created both her favorite dessert of Greek baklava and sweetened balls of dough, deep-fried and coated with sugar. But the talk of the evening was Emily’s non-traditional wedding cake! A colossal Bavarian Schwartzewalde torte made with layers of rich dark chocolate cake, cherries soaked in fiery kirsche water and topped with thick fresh cream. It was an eclectic feast worthy of this international gathering of friends and relatives.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Whether it was the wine or the joviality of their guests that led Emily to make a critical error of judgment at her reception was never really certain. All that would be remembered decades later was that she, a married woman, caused considerable offense by dancing provocatively with a single man! Mustafa, her husband’s closest friend had asked her to dance with him. Emily accepted willingly, not because she liked him but simply because of who he was and to be sociable. The song was her favorite, Rufus Thomas’ “Sixty Minute Man” and their dancing, which would come to be known as ‘Dirty Dancing’ by future generations most certainly did have sexual overtones. This was 1970, and the world was younger then. Ghulam initially did not made a scene, fearing loss of face in public. He instead gripped his newlywed bride firmly by the wrist, pulled her towards him and stared coldly into her eyes.

  “Never, ever, make a spectacle of yourself like that again, Amina!” he hissed in a rasping whisper.

  “What? Are you demented?” Emily laughed in reply.

  “You are my wife now and you will show the appropriate respect to me in public. Do not ridicule me by dancing in this disgusting fashion!”

  “You are out of your fucking mind!” she cursed, pulling away from his grasp.

  He then struck her across her face, before their friends and her parents. Ghulam said nothing further as he watched his wife of several hours stumble and hit the ornately carved wall. Mustafa, albeit with a certain smile of satisfaction, picked up a table napkin and stopped the flow of blood oozing savagely from her lips as her husband calmly walked out of the room.

  Ibrahim Desai held his wife back. As a feminist married to a moderate Muslim, Elizabeth shared many differences of opinion with her husband but of one thing she was very certain; Ibrahim, a quiet, gentle man had never in his life raised his hand to his wife, their daughter or even their household pets. As of that moment, she considered her son-in-law intolerable!

  “Ibrahim, I must go to her.”

  “Elizabeth, my dear, do not add to her shame. Give her a few moments and then take her to the powder room. But say nothing to her about the husband. She has made her bed and now she must lie in it.”

  “Ibrahim, our daughter is pregnant. He cannot beat her! What did she do that was wrong? She danced with his friend on her wedding day. This is Europe, not some village in Afghanistan. What sort of person is he? How dare he? Do something for heaven’s sake!”

  Holding his wife’s arm he repeated himself, “Do not add to her shame. Do not make this any worse than it is already. People are already beginning to leave. Follow her to the powder room, my dear. Do it now!”

  When his wife was gone, Ibrahim Desai addressed the remaining guests. “Please excuse my son-in-law’s behavior. Clearly there is no explanation for his breach of good taste. Thank you for coming and have a safe journey home.” He walked towards Julian, the owner of the Catacoombe, took out his check book and paid for the food, drink and the band. Julian in turn, destroyed the check as soon as the old man left.

  “Mr. Desai, may I have a word?” It was Mustafa Jalil. “Do not let this unfortunate incident cloud your judgment. Ghulam takes his role as a husband seriously. He is a devout believer in the Qu’ran. She disrespected him and the Qu’ran is quite specific. You are a Muslim; surely you know verse 35 in the chapter concerning women. The implication is that men have dominance over women by divine ordinance and there is, I believe, a sentence that condones the physical abuse of women if they attempt to retaliate against men.”

  “Young man, you do not need to advise me in the intricacies of Islamic law or any of its interpretations,” Ibrahim Desai answered coldly. “The verse reads, to be accurate, ‘Men are the managers of the affairs of women, God has preferred in bounty, one over the other, and for that they have expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret of God’s guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them!’ My daughter, Mr. Jalil, has grown up in England,” Ibrahim continued with quiet dignity, “not under tribal rule in Afghanistan. She is independent, free spirited, and above all she is my only child. While she may be somewhat forward on occasion, she did not warrant such coarse treatment or public humiliation and neither did my wife nor myself. Tell your friend, and I mean this most sincerely, that if he values his life at all, he will never raise his hand to my daughter again. Furthermore, let him know that I believe the Qu’ran to be a book of both legislation and ethical codes of society. Our laws are there to protect women not persecute them. I do not know from under which little rock your friend has escaped, but if he wishes to continue living his rich, full life he should walk very carefully in the future. I have friends in many countries young man, very little concerning my daughter escapes me. I am sure we understand each other, yes?”

  Mustafa, understanding the veiled threat, nodded and left the club.

  Elizabeth held her daughter as Rose Otu placed an ice cold compress over her lip to stop the bleeding. “Girl, what did he hit you with, his clenched fist?”

  Emily had difficulty in answering. She felt as though a bomb had exploded inside her head. Her jaw throbbed and the inside of her mouth felt as though it had been cut in a thousand pieces.

  There was a loud rapping at the door. “Let me in, Rose, it’s Osita.”

  “Let him in Elizabeth. He’s a doctor and he thinks the world of our little Em.”

  Elizabeth Desai quickly opened the door letting in the tall, handsome, ebony skinned man who rushed to the side of her daughter.

  “My God, what has he done to you?” the young African asked, holding her head closer to the light as he examined her face. “I need to get you to the hospital, not just for this, but to make sure that the baby is alright!”

  Two hours later, Elizabeth and Rose waited in the cold corridor of St. Joseph’s Krankenhaus as Osita, now in his role as Herr Doktor Udokamma gave instructions for an Ob/Gyn workup and queried the attending emergency physician as to the results of the x-rays of her jaw.

  Osita was kind enough to have telephoned Ibrahim, who was waiting at the Hotel Goldene Rose. He had reserved an additional room for his daughter in the event that she did not wish to return home. He hoped that his new son-in-law, whom he had repeatedly tried to telephone, had the decency to check in at the hotel for information.

  Ghulam’s friend Mustafa had suggested the hotel at which they were staying; there was no chance that either of them could claim ignorance as how to get in touch with him.

  No telephone call came. Instead, a little after eight in the evening when Emily was safely tucked into bed in the room next to her parents, Mustafa arrived at the hotel carrying a large bouquet of flowers. After he had spoken to her parents, he entered her room where Rose Otu was seated at her bedside.

  “I would like a few minutes alone with her, if you don’t mind, Dr. Otu.”

  “And where is her husband?”

  “That is why I must talk to her”

  “Dr. Udakamma gave instructions that she was not to be disturbed.”

  “I think Osita’s interest is more than professional, Rose, and I am here at the request of my friend who is her husband.”

  “You people give me the dry heaves. He beats her up at her wedding reception and now he sends his ‘boy’ to apologize.”

  “In our culture my dear Frau Doctor, women are protected by their husbands. They do not prance around suggestively, even with close friends. Even I was surprised at the provocativeness of her movements.”

  “Provocativ
eness? She was dancing with you. You asked her to dance. She was happy! What harm was there in that?”

  “Dr. Otu, I have to tell her to return to her husband’s home immediately or he may decide to relinquish his relationship with her completely. Under the circumstances that would be extremely bad for her and the child. His parents have no idea she is pregnant and are upset enough that he married out of his culture and social standing.”

  “You people are straight out of the dark ages. You’re all sick,” she laughed, “And we’re supposed to be the savages? Man, this is a joke,” her Nigerian accent becoming more predominant as her anger became readily apparent. “Get out of here, now!”

  “Mustafa,” Emily whispered weakly, “What have you come here for?”

  “I came to tell you that Ghulam is angry, embarrassed and feels he has lost face because you did not behave as a married woman is expected to behave in public. When he cautioned you, you insulted him, and in our culture, as you are well aware, he has the right to resort to talaq in accordance with the Holy Qu’ran. He is offering you the chance to return to his home, which is most unusual. Normally in our society you would be divorced for such an action after a three month idda. The Qu’ran is very specific and instructs him to ‘Put away women for their legal period and reckon the period; keep your duty to Allah, your Lord. Expel them not from their houses nor let them go forth unless they commit immorality.’ He can,” Mustafa continued, “in fact reconsider his decision to keep you home during the idda. As you are pregnant, you must stay with him until you bear his child. You do not have legal rights under our law.”

  “Mustafa, tell my husband that I am staying with my family this evening, my wedding night, and that tomorrow I will consult with my father and his clerics regarding my rights under Islamic law. Should you be correct, no doubt his clerics will advise us what to do next. Let my husband know the extent of my injuries and tell him to be grateful I don’t file a police report as is MY RIGHT under German law. Furthermore, it is our home, not his home, and the lease is in my name. I do not expect to see him there when I return tomorrow. In the meantime, LEAVE!” and she collapsed back on the pillow in tears.