“We’ll go to the post office and put in an application today. Passports can take months to process. You’ll need some identification of citizenship. How about your marriage certificate?”
Fatma showed the piece of white typing paper handwritten in Arabic and signed at the shiek’s home where she and Nick had been married, and that had lived in her purse forever, and had followed her in and out of jail.
“There’s got to be something from the state, something with a seal. The imam must have registered your marriage. City Hall will have a record.”
“We never go to City Hall.”
“You never applied for a marriage license? Never took a blood test?” “No.”
“Is that why you still use Kornmeyer for your name?” “With Nick I used Benson. Then I go back to Kornmeyer.” “Just like that. Why?” “Maybe inside I always know I’m not Nick’s wife.”
Sarah took in a deep breath. “How about your marriage certificate to Daniel?”
“Don’t know.”
“Think hard, Fatma. You must have kept your papers somewhere.” There was a limit even to Sarah’s patience. Fatma felt like a child who couldn’t recall where she had put her mother’s best piece of jewelry she had secretly played with. Then she remembered. The passport had been somewhere in the dresser drawer in her apartment on Main Street.
“It’s gone,” she told Sarah. “What is?”
“Everything. Mrs. Lucchese, my landlady, burned it.”
Sarah made a call to Pia, who said that although nothing had been burned, her mother had thrown everything out.
“You’d better locate Daniel and your marriage certificate, because right now, sugar, you’re a woman without an identity.”
Just as Fatma was feeling she had become too American for her own good, America was telling her she wasn’t American enough. She wasn’t Kenyan or Somali either. She was nothing.
“We got married in Mombasa.”
“It will show that you were legally married to an American and that your name is Kornmeyer. Maybe that will be enough. You have to call Daniel.”
“I have been in American jail. They know who I am.”
Sarah tried to regain her composure. It was as though all her years of dealing with drug addicts, thieves, and filthy-mouthed liars had reached its culmination, and this little matter of lost identification was the last straw. These irresponsible people couldn’t keep their lives straight from second to second. She spoke slowly and with determination.
“Listen carefully. There are rules in America, very strict ones about proving who you are. A passport can prove citizenship and identity, because you’ve already submitted proof to get it. Without it, you need certain documents. And you, sugar, have none of them!”
*
Daniel answered the phone with his friendly “Hi.” He always sounded as if he anticipated that caller, whoever it was, would be someone he knew intimately. It threw people off sometimes, particularly strangers, and made them remind themselves that yes, they had called Daniel and not simply bumped into him across the wires.
“It’s me. Fatma. How are you?”
“Fatma?” He was surprised, but his voice was upbeat. “Where are you?”
“Haven House in Willowsville.” She might as well make it known right off. “You know it?”
“I do.” Of course he did. He was a social worker.
There was an awkward silence. She knew he was taking her feelings into consideration and needed time to figure out his response. He wouldn’t want to appear stunned.
“How long have you been there, Fatma? The last I heard from that lawyer of yours was that you and your husband were living somewhere in Hamilton.”
“A lot happened.” It would have taken another ten years to tell him where she’d been. “Daniel, you have our marriage license from Mombasa?”
“Our marriage license! I have no idea what happened to that. Did we ever take it with us to Katundu?”
“I don’t know. I think so. I think it get thrown out with my passport.” “Why would you want that?”
“I’m taking trip – to Mombasa. I need my passport.” “What’s wrong with your marriage license?”
“I’m not married any more.”
“I’m sorry. Look, why don’t we get together?” His voice assumed a tone of concern.
“I don’t think it’s good idea.”
“Just for a cup of coffee. I can meet you anywhere on a Saturday or Sunday, and any other day after five.”
Her legs weakened; she sat down at the kitchen table. “Look, if you’d rather not, that’s fine. I only thought – ” “You can come to Willowsville?”
“Sure. I’ll come to Haven House.” “No.”
“Okay. Where then?”
“Red River Café. You know it?” “I’ll find it. Six o’clock okay?” “Yes.”
The moment she hung up, she knew she had made a mistake. How could she bring herself to tell him about the life she’d lived after she asked him to leave? The last thing she wanted was his pity or his advice, and yet she was excited to see him again. She thought about the first time they had seen one another face to face at their wedding; the first time they held hands; the first time she let him touch her in Katundu.
*
“Who is he?” Miss Wilma asked as she drove Fatma into town. “Why you think I’m meeting man? Maybe I’m meeting nobody.”
“Who are you kidding, going out all dolled up like that?” She worried about her women getting involved with pushers and other addicts.
“It’s Daniel, my old husband – about marriage certificate,” Fatma lied.
“I thought he didn’t have your marriage certificate,” Miss
Wilma said, casting a doubtful eye.
Fatma arrived before Daniel. It was the first really hot night of the season, and she wore a black spandex tank top that sat off the shoulders and a short print skirt. Her hair was still long and partially pulled back at the crown with a barrette, and large gold hoops dangled from her earlobes. Jewelry, she hoped, would distract his eyes from her face.
There is a certain handsomeness about men after forty that comes from being settled, from having direction. Fatma had always found it very attractive. Her father had it; so did Nick when she first met him. And now Daniel wore it. A little thicker around the waist, fuller in the face. Some gray in his sideburns, ponytail gone. Short hair combed straight back from his face. A few lines around the pale blue eyes. That gentle smile.
She remained seated with her hands around a glass of iced tea when Daniel walked in. He bent down and kissed her on the forehead, which surprised her. The earrings were of little use. He steadfastly averted his eyes from her to avoid seeing the unevenness of her cheekbones, the scars above and below her lips, the missing tooth, and the discoloration that had never gone away.
“You look good,” she said. “And you.”
Daniel was always a gentleman.
“What are you doing now?” she asked.
She had asked that before she even inquired about his parents, whom she later learned were both still living in Carlington. His mother had Alzheimer’s and breast cancer. Fatma felt sorry for her, the way you do when you hear that type of news about someone you’ve never met, a friend of a friend. Someone you see on the cover of a women’s magazine.
“I’m still a social worker. I left the Department of Human
Services a while back for a college counseling center.” “So you know Haven House?”
“It’s a program for women in recovery.” Then he smiled the way Daniel smiled when he wanted to tell you that he knew whatever it was you were trying to hide.
“You married?” she asked. “Seven years.”
“Children?” she forced out. “Two girls. Four and six.”
“That’s nice.” She was relieved that there was no boy.
“I never have more children.” She needed to tell him that. “I’m sorry.” He apologized for the second time since she’d
phoned him, looking down at the table as though he were looking for some script that would tell him what to say next. “I didn’t handle that right.”
“Maybe we both didn’t.”
“We were young. At least you were. And me, I was so taken up with doing the right thing in your culture, so trying to please your family – everybody, including myself. I thought I could be Muslim and Christian and agnostic all at once. A cockeyed optimist, an idiot. I shouldn’t have brought you to America.” Here it came: he was feeling guilty now, responsible for her state. “We should have stayed in Kenya.”
“You stay in Africa?” “I could have tried.” “What I do – did – is my fault. What happened in my life after you is my fault. I learned that from some smart people. There’s bad people everywhere, just waiting. Waiting to take advantage, to hurt other people, so they can be king lion, you know? But Hussein – he was our fault,” she said, unable to conceal her bitterness.
“How are your auntie and uncle?”
“Auntie is not well. Walisema alliugua kiharusi.
“I can’t really speak Swahili anymore.” “They say she had a stroke.”
“So you’re going to see her.” He stared into his cup as though in it he could see the past.
“And Hussein.”
He looked up at the mention of Hussein. “Can I help?”
“I don’t need money. The house on Poplar Street was good investment. I sold it not long ago.”
“You were right about that one.” “Why didn’t you buy it?”
“My wife changed her mind at the last minute. I don’t think she liked its history.”
“What’s her name?” “Alison.”
“She pretty?” Fatma asked, and then regretted it because she felt a little mixed up about Daniel at the moment.
“Yes,” he said and changed the subject. “Your English has really improved.”
“It didn’t for long time. But I study hard here in Willowsville. Tutors come to Haven House. Sometimes college students, sometimes old people. It seems easier for me than before, but I still make lots of mistakes, too many mistakes.”
“Maybe you’ve finally given yourself permission to speak it.” They talked a little more about small things – things that had nothing to do with them. Then he said he hadn’t eaten and suggested they go across the street to a pizza place. She told him she wasn’t hungry and that she had to get back. Neither was true, but she was growing anxious, and anxiety always led her in the wrong direction. She took the last sip of tea, which was really a mouthful of sugar that had settled on the bottom. Daniel paid the check and offered to drive her back. She wasn’t ashamed; it seemed fitting. Before she got out of the car, he put his hand on her shoulder.
“Fatma, please know that despite the way we got married—
nilikupenda.”
She had never doubted that he had loved her. It just hadn’t mattered.
“I thought you forget Swahili,” she said. “Seeing you has brought a little back.”
“A lot,” she said, smiling, and walked away and up the steps to the screen door, where Miss Wilma was waiting for her on the other side.
“Fatma,” he called, “if you find Hussein, will you let me know?”
“Maybe,” she said, with a sense of satisfaction.
The demons lay still that night, and she slept well.
*
“The picture is ugly,” Fatma told Pia, as they sat having cappuccino at Café Venezia. She was referring to the two-by-two photo inside her crisp navy blue American passport. KORNMEYER, FATMA it read alongside it. It was Justine who had come to her rescue and spoken to her father the congressman. He contacted Citizenship and Immigration Services and had new certified copies of Fatma’s papers issued. Miss Wilma believed that, because she was the only black woman who sat on nearly every nonprofit board in town, the congressman had helped out, because no politician wanted to jeopardize his tenure by crossing her. Fatma liked to think that it was on account of her friendship with Justine. Sarah had asked Fatma what name she wanted to go by. She said she had two choices. Benson was out of the question.
“It’s not ugly, but you do look angry,” Pia said.
Fatma had refused to smile for the same reason she always did – the tooth Nick had knocked out.
She had called Pia because it was time to get her ring back. She wanted to arrive in Mombasa like an elegant, well-heeled American lady, worthy of the lineage she hoped to reclaim. It was strange sitting in the café again, almost as if she had never been there before. She saw it all with new clarity: the refrigerated cases filled with colorful pastries and cookies, the shiny elegant espresso maker, the polished pink granite table and countertops, the reflections in the clear mirrors that she had once thought were smoky. At the same time an old feeling crept up from the terra-cotta floor and threatened to envelop her like a blanket in a snowstorm. I’ll protect you, it said. I’ll make you forget. I’ll make it all easy. I’ll smother you.
She struggled to stay clearheaded and to resist the hazy comfort of the familiar. They talked about her upcoming trip, and about Haven House. Pia was pleased that Fatma was getting her life together.
“You don’t know, do you?” Pia said. “Know what?”
“Nick. He’s dead.”
It was as if she had said that everything Fatma ever thought was real had just been a dream. “He died last week.”
“How?” She envisioned him lying on the floor beside their old bed in Hamilton, white like paste, lifeless from an overdose or bleeding from the stab wounds of an abused lover.
“Cancer,” Pia said.
“That’s impossible. He’s never sick a day in his life.”
“It might have been an aggressive cancer. One that gets bad really fast.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“It was in the paper.” “I want to see.” “Fatma.”
“I need to see.”
“Fine. Suit yourself.”
They walked over to the library on State Street. Pia picked up a pile of Boston Globe newspapers from the shelf. “It was in last week,” she said. She carried the papers to one of the long wooden tables with a green shaded lamp in the center. “Here,” she said, opening to the obituary page and placing the paper before Fatma.
BENSON – of Enfield, CT. May 21. Nicholas A., age 59. Father of Carl Benson of Cambridge, Nicholas Benson, Jr., and Amanda O’Brien, and grandfather of Jessica O’Brien, all of Enfield. Companion of Carol Mason of Rockfield. Funeral services will be held Thursday at 9 a.m. from the D’Andrea & Sons Funeral Home, 100 Madison St., Cambridge, followed by a Mass of Christian Burial at Saint Bartholomew Basilica. Burial will follow at Mount Auburn Cemetery. Calling hours are Wednesday 5-9 p.m. Relatives and friends invited. Those desiring may make donations to the Visiting Nurse Hospice of Greater Boston.
Fatma had to read it several times to understand it. A Mass? She had never seen Nick set foot in a church. And why Boston, and not Enfield, where he was from, or Rockfield, where his “companion” was from and where they most likely spent their time? He had had a son living in Boston – in Cambridge, a son from whom he must not have been estranged at all, but with whom he must have maintained a substantial relationship, because this son was clearly handling all funeral arrangements. She realized that Nick and his son had been in touch all along. That was where Nick went while they were vacationing in Boston – not to take care of the business. She had been kept in the dark about this son, and he about Fatma. But Carol Mason had obviously known him. She was credited with being Nick’s “companion,” not Fatma, who was his wife no matter what legal documents were missing. Nick was dead. The pounding in her head intensified. Nick was dead. “Relatives and friends welcome.” Had he mended fences with them all in the end? Had they flocked to his bedside? Presented him with a sweet-faced grandchild? Or had they sheepishly and guiltily only shown their faces at his wake or burial? “Relatives and friends welcome.” Not his wife.
“I can�
��t believe it.” She choked on the words.
“Let’s get out of here.” Pia took her by the arm and led her to the stone steps of the library, where they sat like schoolgirls.
“It’s the best thing that could have happened to you, Fatma. If you couldn’t free yourself from him, then maybe God did it for you. Don’t you think? Keeping him in your life would only jeopardize the progress you’ve made.” “I’m mad! I want to tell him things, things like: Look, I made it without you. Six years with him and he’s never sick. And now he’s dead. I’m mad. It didn’t even mention me.”
“Why are you really so angry?” Pia searched for a tissue in the woven sac she carried over her shoulder and handed it to Fatma.
“I guess I was always thinking we would get back together one day. One day he was going to get straight and there was going to be hope. He was going to find me again. I can’t believe he’s dead.”
“How could someone who hurt you like that ever love you?” “I can’t explain. I just always hoped that one day he would
change and we be happy. It’s just like that. The hardest thing to accept for me is that I can only change me.”
Pia sighed.
“His companion! I’m his wife. He always called me his wife in front of everyone.”
“Because he never wanted any other man to come near you. He possessed you.”
“I never wanted other men. He was only one I ever loved. He took my heart and he played with it. Because of him, I can never trust another man. Now he can rot in hell.”
“Maybe you don’t want to see that ring now. If you won’t sell it, at least wear it on your right hand. And think of your trip now. Your future.”
“I have my son. They’re going to bring him to me in Mombasa. There’s going to be a lot of questions. I hope he understands. But I won’t be able to take him back with me. He’s too young to leave on his own. I can’t take him out of countr y until he’s twenty-one. And I want to come back to this countr y. I love this countr y.” She was rambling now, still tr ying to process the news that Nick was dead. Pia glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to get back to the hospital.” “Thank you for coming,” Fatma said when they approached
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