Footsteps

by Umm Zakiyyah

  Sarah ran a palm over her hair that was loosening itself from the elastic band that had made its way down her ponytail to the back of her neck. She rested her hands on the table then linked her fingers as she searched for the best way to respond to what her daughter had asked.

  “What do you mean by matter?” Sarah asked. That was the best way to begin. A question would allow her to find the right words, if she would have to convey what she suspected her daughter wanted to know.

  “I mean, was that important to Dad?”

  “Important as in good, or important as in necessary to discuss?”

  “As in good. Like was it a good thing?”

  “Why wouldn’t it have been?”

  Sarah saw Aminah gather her eyebrows, and Sarah knew she had said the wrong thing. This was Aminah, whom she had carried in her womb for nine months. This was not a coworker blaming her for Europe’s colonization of the world. Defensive rhetoric would go nowhere with someone who was a part of herself.

  She exhaled in apology. “What I mean is yes, it was good, and I see that as a blessing from Allah.”

  “But—” Aminah pursed her lips then averted her gaze to the place mat, then to the family room beneath the banister next to her. Finally, she shook her head, apparently deciding against saying what she was thinking right then. But Sarah already knew. It was only logical to assume good as the opposite of bad. After all, White was the opposite of Black.

  “He taught me one of the biggest lessons in the world, habeebati. Love knows no color.”

  This seemed to disturb Aminah more. “But is that really true?”

  “Of course it’s true. Your father and I are living proof.”

  “But if he was attracted to you because you were White, then how is that being color blind?”

  The question stung more than Sarah let on, and she forced herself to remember this was her daughter. “I didn’t say it was because I was White, Aminah. I said he saw it as a good thing. There’s a difference.”

  “If you were Black, would that’ve been good too? ”

  “Of course. That’s exactly my point. Isn’t it all beautiful?”

  Aminah crossed her arms and looked away from her mother momentarily, and Sarah could tell there was something more bothering her daughter, burning her up inside. Sarah knew it was something Zaid had said, but she had to be patient, give Aminah time to open up voluntarily.

  “So what am I supposed to do?” Aminah blurted. She turned to Sarah suddenly, her eyes watering. It pained Sarah to see her daughter like this. “Should I think it’s all beautiful even though I’m not all those colors? Or is it okay to be beautiful because I’m white—one of those colors, even if it means I’m beautiful because I’m not the others?”

  “Aminah, habeebati, what did Zaid say?”

  “He said what your aunt said, Ummi.” Her eyes were full now, and Sarah feared her daughter would break down.

  Sarah’s eyebrows gathered in confusion. “My aunt?”

  “Yes, Mom, your aunt.” Aminah nearly spat out the words. Her pain was so visible right then that it hurt Sarah to look at her.

  “Aminah, sweetie, what on earth are you talking about?”

  The tears spilled from Aminah’s eyes now, and she rubbed them from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “When I was four and they saw us for the first time.”

  Sarah’s heart nearly skipped a beat. O Allah. She had no idea Aminah had heard, let alone remembered the cruelty of the words uttered by her mother’s youngest sister that day. She thought Aminah and Sulayman were merely toddlers then. The comment was apparently meant as a compliment, or if not a compliment, the looking on the brighter side of things. Naturally, it had infuriated Sarah, but she had remained calm. She remembered turning to look at Aminah and Sulayman, fearful that they would be corrupted somehow. But they, along with their cousins, were playing with the toys, and Aminah nearly blended in amid the sea of White. She and Sulayman were giggling about something, and Sarah recalled being grateful that her children had been spared.

  But the comment still echoed in Sarah’s head, flashing in her mind’s eye when she least expected. “Well,” she would hear her aunt say as she studied Aminah amongst the White children playing with the toys, “at least she doesn’t look like a nigger.”

  “O, habeebati.” Sarah immediately went to her daughter and held Aminah’s head against her. Aminah’s shoulders shook as she cried, and Sarah’s eyes welled with tears as she listened to her daughter sob terribly into her shirt. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” The tears slipped down her own cheeks, but Sarah willed herself to remain strong. If only she could somehow take the pain away.

  Wednesday night Alika sat curled up in the couch in front of the television and VCR in the living room of the condominium she owned. She was hugging one of the throw pillows and watching “My Fair Lady,” one of her favorite movies. But she wasn’t paying any attention to it. She was feeling down, and this was a pity party. She had already prayed ‘Ishaa, and she was trying to make sense of her life right then.

  Earlier that day she had called home while she knew her father was at work, prepared to talk to her mother, about everything, including Ismael, or “Brother Ali” as her wali liked to call him. But there was no answer, and the machine picked up.

  Her message started off casual, just letting her parents know she had called to see how everything was going, but by the end she had told them she was Muslim now and had been for four months. She caught herself before she said more, and she hung up saying she loved them and hoped to talk to them soon.

  It felt good, she could not deny, getting it off her chest. She imagined they would call her raving mad as soon as they got the message, but it was already after ten thirty and they hadn’t called. Perhaps they were still out. Or maybe they were still getting over what she had said. Funny thing was, Alika couldn’t care less. A part of her felt guilty for telling them at a time like this, but maybe it was best to tell them when it didn’t matter to her either way what they thought. They were living their lives as they wanted, and she would live hers as she wanted.

  But were they really living as they wanted, or as fate forced them to? That had always been a question in Alika’s mind. Why did they live as they did at all? Why did her mother stay? Why did her father have another family? To Alika’s young mind, it was just life, painful, but life nonetheless. But something about her mother never meeting her brothers and sisters in Nigeria upset her. Strangely, she was more often upset with her mother than her father, and she knew then, as she knew now, that it didn’t make any sense.

  Still, her parents had this bond, this thriving love between them that even her father having another wife couldn’t break. Or maybe it wasn’t love that kept them going but having grown accustomed to things. They were wealthy, no doubt, and that had to play a part in their staying together. When Alika was in high school, her father’s company was grossing at least one million dollars a year. Now he was faring much better, and Alika estimated that the company’s net income was at least three times that.

  Alika used to work for her father’s company, as a recruiter seeking computer professionals to fulfill contracts he had won, or hoped to win. Her father encouraged her to become part owner in the business. But she had turned him down, mainly because her mother had asked her the same thing about the real-estate appraisal company she ran from home. Although they never said she had to choose, she knew she did, and she couldn’t bear the thought of hurting her mother—again. Appraising property was not the least bit as interesting as talking to and meeting different people everyday. And she had a bond with her father that just wasn’t there with her mother, and Alika felt guilty for that.

  It was most likely her father’s confidence in dealing with anything that made Alika latch onto him. He could laugh and joke with Alika, even if he and his wife had just had a fight. It made Alika feel like she mattered, that she was more important than anything that happened between them. Bu
t her mother would close up on everyone, even herself, often sitting in bed or at her home office desk for hours sulking, even though Alika rarely saw her cry. She wouldn’t answer the phone, and if she picked up the phone at all, it would be to cancel an appointment she had to appraise a property.

  It tore Alika apart to see her mother like that. At times Alika cried herself. At others she was angry with her mother, mostly for stealing a piece of happiness from her. Alika was her daughter. She deserved more.

  But part of her understood. And that was when Alika would get angry with her father. But upon visiting Nigeria and spending time with her siblings, she wished her mother could be a part of their happiness too. She loved her Nigerian family, often viewing the trips as a get-away, if not a trip home. After all, they were her flesh and blood. Was she supposed to resent the family she loved just because her mother resented them?

  Alika maintained a cordial yet distant relationship with her father’s second wife, her stepmother of sorts. But Alika liked her more than she let on. Still, she could not let herself develop a relationship. It would be like betraying her mother. So she kept her distance, though it was hard because the woman was so amiable, confident, and at ease. Or maybe that was just the face she wore because, unlike Alika’s mother, she had time to sulk in private and rehearse how she would behave. After all, she sometimes saw her husband as little as once a year for a maximum of six weeks at a time.

  Alika had shared this story with Ismael shortly after they began talking about marriage, and he shared the story of his own mother at war with herself for being married to a Black man and disowned by the family she loved. He also shared his own story of self-torment in being biracial and feeling as if he had to choose between his mother and father. But his mother’s shame and abandonment would leave him no choice.

  Alika shared the story that her mother was the daughter of biracial Louisiana residents, self-proclaimed Creoles who had come up North to pass as White. When Alika’s mother, the youngest of seven, was born, her light skin carried a distinct shade of brown and her curly hair was too kinky to “pass”. But the older siblings looked White, and it took tiresome juggling and endless sibling babysitting shifts to keep Alika’s mother hidden from public view. Alika’s grandparents were infuriated when her mother chose to marry a dark man, half African at that, after all they had gone through to give their children the best of the world. Of course, after that, all ties with her were cut, although some of her mother’s siblings kept in touch and visited every now and then. Alika never met her mother’s parents though she had seen pictures. It amazed Alika how much they actually did look White. She had to stare at the photographs for several minutes before she saw even a hint of Negro blood. It stunned Alika how none of the family portraits included her mother, and she couldn’t imagine what that had done to her.

  Alika told Ismael that she had asked her mother how she felt about that, but her mother said that she didn’t know at the time. She would be left at home, if possible, or if she came along for the sitting, she would stay outside, sent on errands or given money to buy something while they went in. Since formal photographs were not that frequent, at most once in a year, she didn’t have opportunity to suspect much although it was clear there was something wrong with her since she wasn’t allowed to go out with her siblings. Alika’s mother even told her she remembered overhearing her parents talk about giving her away for adoption, but at the time she had understood that perhaps she herself was adopted. Thinking she was adopted helped somewhat, but when the truth became clear, she sustained a wound that would never heal.

  When Alika thought of that, she couldn’t get angry with her mother for sulking. Maybe it wasn’t even struggles with marriage or bigamy that tormented her. How could one ever get over being disowned by the ones who were supposed to love you most? Ismael understood the struggle of Alika’s mother completely. It was his own. The wound he had sustained, he feared too, would never heal.

  Alika told Ismael about her father’s family, something she had never told anyone. It had felt good, refreshing being able to feel safe divulging the truth she had kept pinned inside for so long. Even if she felt she could trust someone not to judge her, there was always the legal fear that her father could be jailed because, technically, it was a criminal offense. Alika had no idea if the country’s laws forbade marrying a woman who lived out of the country, but she wasn’t taking any chances. After meeting Ismael, who had agreed to the interview as long as other people were present when they met, she felt at peace with him and Islam. Sometime later she finally opened up, relieved to have found a way of life that allowed her to openly live hers and worship God at the same time. But as she sat watching Eliza Doolittle mispronounce words on the screen, she wondered if he would be the only Muslim she could tell.

  Ismael’s sister-in-law Kate had surprised Alika with her frankness regarding her desire to marry a married man, and it made Alika uncomfortable, but not for the reason Ismael’s wife suspected. It was actually refreshing to hear someone talk openly about the topic that had been taboo in her life for so long, and it was even more refreshing to hear it from a non-Muslim who admired Islam’s allowance of plural marriage. So much began to make sense right then, and she was thinking it was none other than a sign from Allah, given how everything unfolded. But Sarah’s embarrassment made Alika more uncomfortable than Kate’s topic of conversation. Why was Sarah humiliated by something that was in her holy book, the Word of God? How could a woman who had been Muslim more than twenty years be ashamed of something that her Prophet and his Companions had openly done? Jealousy Alika understood, but this discussion was not even in reference to Sarah herself. Alika had just begun to feel relaxed, on the verge of mentioning her own experience, when she observed how Sarah sought to shield Alika from Kate’s apparently dangerous words.

  It hurt Alika deeply to have witnessed the exchange, and she then wished that Ismael hadn’t invited her. Alika had known about the wedding party since they first began talking, but she never planned to actually go. She felt it would be too awkward to see Ismael’s wife, especially at their son’s marriage party. But Ismael disagreed and felt it was a good opportunity for his family to get a chance to meet Alika herself. Alika had reminded him that Sarah had already met her in the masjid after she became Muslim. But Ismael convinced Alika that it was necessary to actually talk again. Besides, Sarah was a nice person, he said, and since they had already met and intended to get together, his wife would be pleased that someone had invited Alika to come since she herself was too busy to remember everyone.

  Alika’s heart fell when Sarah met her outside the hotel to apologize for Kate’s comments. When she told Alika that polygamy wasn’t normal or expected of her, Alika felt herself tumbling back into the dark caves of childhood. It was then that she knew, with a heavy heart, that even amongst Muslims the topic would be a source of shame. She was thinking less about what that would mean for her own marriage than what it would mean for her as her father’s child and sibling to brothers and sisters in Nigeria. Would she be plagued with the stigma of abnormality in Islam too? Her father was not a heathen for marrying another woman, as American Christians so often made her feel, even without them ever knowing about her father himself. Her father was not selfish, cold-hearted, or cruel to her mother for doing what he did. She knew her father, and if there was one thing he would never do, it was intentionally hurt her mother. Even her mother knew that. Alika’s mother had even replied to Alika once, saying, “Yes, your father loves me, and he loves you. But, understand, he’s a man. One day you’ll know what I mean. But for now, promise me you’ll never blame him for that.”

  Alika had kept her promise, at least as much as she could. But she couldn’t help wondering if she would have to fulfill it as a Muslim the same as she had as a Christian—suffering alone in the knowledge that no one else would do the same.

  Part II

  "O People, lend me an attentive ear,

  For I know not whether after
this year

  I shall ever be amongst you again.

  Therefore listen to what I am saying very carefully

  And take these words to those who could not be present here today.

  O People, it is true that you have certain rights

  with regard to your women

  But they also have rights over you.

  Remember that you have taken them as your wives

  Only under Allah's trust and with His permission.

  If they abide by your right,

  Then to them belongs the right to be fed

  And clothed in kindness.

  Treat your women well and be kind to them

  For they are your partners and committed helpers.

  All mankind is from Adam and Eve.

  An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab

  Nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over an Arab

  And a white has no superiority over a black

  Nor does a black have any superiority over a white

  Except by piety and good action.

  Know that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim

  And that the Muslims are one brotherhood

  Therefore, do not do injustice to yourselves.

  Remember one day you will meet Allah

  And answer for your deeds.

  So beware, do not stray from the path

  Of righteousness after I am gone.

  All those who listen to me

  Shall pass on my words to others

  And those to others again.