by Igiaba Scego
They considered the only flaw, more like a misdeed, to be his rushed marriage to Bushra. Your aunts (and others) were very upset by Majid’s choice.
“Why does it have to be her?” Aunt Ruqia asked.
“Why the witch?” others echoed.
If Majid had married a jinn they wouldn’t have been so bothered. Somalia was full of men who married jinn. But men who married villainous witches, well, this was open to debate.
The old wives’ tales about Majid’s marriage didn’t end with domestic uproar. The neighbors, acquaintances, pets, strangers, and everyone else wanted their say. Cheerful gossips were unleashed, as were blossoming maidens, back alley bachelors, sly shoe shiners, retailers, qat pushers, charming soothsayers, conformists, contrarians. They slandered and badmouthed those two as though it were the only subject worthy of conversation on the planet.
The question that played over and over on everyone’s lips was why her exactly, with all the women there were in the glorious land of Punt?
Yes, she’s pretty, but what else? Okay, she’s also intelligent, but then, tell me, what more? Certainly she knows how to run a house like no other, but then, come on, then what? In bed they say that…but then, excuse me, what else?
It was as though Bushra had to show that she was faultless, immaculate. Hers was a strange fate, having to prove that she was herself.
The women openly envied her. They considered her an oaf, a social climber, something of a slut. The men derided her in public so as to dream of her more lucidly at night. Her gazelle eyes stood out in people’s minds. They say her fame reached distant moorlands, where only the name of Bilqis, the queen of Saba, was eminent. In those lands she was compared to the queen for her beauty.
In their first month together, the couple gained no respite—words, words, words.
“She twists you down there,” asserted Omar, vendor of zaytun and other assorted fruits. “She twists you so much that you don’t know what’s going on and can’t use it well with women anymore. You get so twisted that it almost doesn’t go through their sewn slits. It’s as if you turn into a woman.”
“Majid strikes me as womanly, don’t you think, friends?” quipped the jackass Muqtar.
“Be quiet, friend,” Yousuf chastised. “Don’t let those words touch your lips. You’re a believer, and it’s not right to offend your neighbor. Even though I think you’re right, it’s because Famey died that he wavers so uncertainly.”
“Quiet, snakes. Majid is a good man, God-fearing and blessed with a beautiful son. He wavers because he is hurting. According to his poor, late wife, no one should doubt his virility. The women chatter among themselves and Famey once told my woman that he never let her rest, ever. The man has appetites to satisfy, if you get my meaning.”
“So now he’ll find a worthy opponent, the good Majid! They say that woman, that witch Bushra, is very greedy,” Ahmed squawked.
“Yes, that’s exactly what they say,” everyone said in chorus.
“Yeah,” added Hamid, Mrs. Ferrarotti’s valet, “I heard she stupefies men with potions that…”
“That what?!” Mahmoud shouted, torn between libidinous curiosity and measured disgust.
Precisely “what” was never answered. The climax came only with the final revelation:
“I heard from my second wife,” Libaan said, “that the witch has meat swinging between her legs. She’s not sewn like our women.”
“What are you saying?” the chorus asked, aghast.
“I’m saying,” Libaan repeated, “what I just said, that she has meat hanging between her legs. She still has that thing which must be cut. Oh, don’t make me say the damned word.”
“The word?” Othman said. “Don’t tell me that…”
“That’s right…” was Libaan’s reply.
“Poor Majid. They say the meat hanging from women’s parts can kill our virility. How does that happen?” Othman asked, dismayed.
“I don’t know,” Libaan said. He sounded defensive. “I do know that the Arabs and Italians who live on our land say they’re not afraid of the hanging meat, that it’s actually better. But how? If it kills our virility, how can it be better?”
“Ask me, friends, ask me. Over here.” It was a stranger who no one had ever seen in the neighborhood.
“Who might you be?” asked the chorus, vexed by the intrusion.
“I am me, and that’s enough. I’ve traveled. I’ve been with women who have the hanging meat. There is an island, countless kilometers away from here, where the women wear colored gowns and massage your feet. Women who smell of cocoa and incense. Women who are like the evening sun. After offering you seafood and sweat and tears, they offer themselves. They lay down nude and you spread yourself on top of them. They all still have their kintirka, and so they’re happy.”
The intrigued men wanted to ask more but were too scared.
The stranger continued his story. “They sigh beneath the weight of a man, they stir and enjoy themselves like us. Sometimes even more.”
“A woman, enjoying it?” the chorus asked. “Isn’t it against nature?”
The stranger shook his head. “Your friend Majid is lucky. He’ll savor a meal that you can’t even imagine, fools that you are. Cutting that splendid addition to the woman is an incredible disservice to ourselves, as well as to them. Oh, the thought of not seeing my beautiful mistresses anymore, setting suns! Here in this arid land, your fear makes the women arid too. It’s an unrightable wrong!” The stranger hit himself on the head a thousand times in a show of pain.
“Ah, you’re a foreigner,” one of the chorus said, a man who worked for customs in Mogadishu. “What do you know about our women? Bushra is a witch. Her hunger befits a witch and her hanging meat is a witch’s. She could very well be the daughter of Iblis’s daughter.”
Bushra had fun. In the first month of marriage, she entertained herself by going around listening to hearsay. There was always someone who didn’t know her and went to her to report the latest on Bushra the witch and that dunce Majid. If she had known the alphabet and the magic of writing, beautiful Bushra would’ve kept a journal. She didn’t know how to write, so when she got an idea in her head, she would transfer it to fabric. The truth of that first month was written in those weavings. People lined up to acquire a bulgi dress or a ceremonial dirah made by the sorceress designer Bushra. Aware of her success, she raised the prices a little. She ran a good business, despite having to take care of the little one.
Those canvases told stories of desire and perdition. In the fabrics there was only a frustrated love and a love repaid. The marriage was a contract, nothing more. Majid, adhering to Muslim tradition, bore the burden of his new wife—her sustenance and her good conduct. She, on the other hand, as written in the prenuptial, occupied herself entirely with the little one. She gave him her milk and her love.
The wedding was a formality. They didn’t throw a party, they didn’t call friends, they didn’t eat delicacies. After the wedding, Majid went to work. She simply began sewing. From that moment on, Bushra had an adjunct. A tender dumpling of a child.
Elias had the discerning gaze of one born ready for the troubles of our ephemeral existence. He moved his hands and tiny feet round and round, as though he were rushing to stand, walk, and gallivant through the streets of the world. He cried as needed but knew how to respect his new mama’s time. She cradled him in her arms, intoning the traditional poems of her grandmother Medina. They were praise songs to the rain, to nature, to the simple purity of nomadic life. In Bushra’s voice, one discovered the granularity of sand, the sweetness of noble camels, the unequalled ferociousness of raiding hyenas, the infinite tumult of an eternal love. Her poems were lovingly perceptive, their hearts bathed in blood and adoration.
The first night, Majid came home tired. She gave him a massage. He fell asleep hoping to maintain a certain distance from his wife’s body.
He wants to save himself for when he has more strength, the naïve woman th
ought.
The second night, Majid came back even more tired. The bags under his eyes had excavated his face to the bone. He was like a ghost, something to fear. But Bushra desired him. She massaged him vigorously. “I have to give strength to these drained muscles.” She ran oil over every patch of skin. Feet, calves, thighs. She noted proudly that her spouse, still unfamiliar to her, had a beautiful back and promising buttocks, which she heartily rubbed down. The bed (the same one Majid had shared with Famey, may Allah have mercy on her bedeviled soul) wobbled like a blind crane beneath the enamored woman’s passion. Bushra was truly in love. She had always respected Majid. She’d been his sister-in-law, and only because of that had she rid herself of iniquitous thoughts. And anyways she’d been married to a man who’d made her into a full-fledged woman, despite the dreadful pain that came with being a virgin. After Majid’s diffident marriage proposal, her respect for the first husband gave way to gratitude for the second.
“He isn’t afraid of me,” Bushra said to the other Bushra, the insecure, small one that lived inside her, which the people call nafs, soul. “He doesn’t think of me as a witch, or the daughter of Iblis’s daughter.”
Gratitude quickly became love, which muddied the waters. Bushra sewed herself a stunning dress for the lonely wedding. She found an orange material that she wrapped herself in like a pearl. He was too tired to recognize her efforts.
The first week passed without any fuss. Bushra was faithful, in love. She massaged her unfamiliar man and, secretly, also massaged herself. She wanted to offer herself with ready, firm thighs. She massaged her breasts, which were like pulp-heavy papayas. And she massaged her sex and the hanging meat that had been her bane. They hadn’t cut her like they did the other sisters.
It had happened by chance. No one realized she wasn’t present at the infibulation with the others. There were many that day, and people were tired. The floods had just come. There were dead to bury, livestock to attend, plans to review. Everything was chaotic and unforeseen. The truth is that they forgot her. And so the meat still dangled from her vagina. She was good at concealing it from her sisters. She never undressed in front of them. She never allowed her vagina to be seen. Bushra had seen the state her sisters came home in. Immense pain, terrible pees, horror. Anima had died from the operation. It seemed absurd to Bushra. “Why do something God does not want?” a young imam asked her one day. The people took and threw stones at him, insulted him. But the young imam said, “You are fools for cutting what Allah has created.” Bushra impressed those words on her heart and permitted no one to touch her anymore. Even her first husband was silenced. He tried rebelling to show her that he was the master. She said, “Try me and see.” He never complained about the swinging meat. In fact…
But that’s a legend and now, my Zuhra, I don’t have time for asides. I want to talk about Bushra, Majid, and their bridal bed.
Twelve days after the wedding, Bushra realized how their marriage would proceed. Majid returned earlier than usual. There was almost nothing on the stove. She was breastfeeding Elias when her husband entered.
“Our Elias is feeding well.” Was it an affirmation or a question? Bushra didn’t know. She was about to lay the child down to make him a cup of tea even though he hadn’t asked anything of her.
“Finish with Elias,” he said, “he has to grow and support his parents. Feed him. I’ll make dinner.”
Her husband was a cook for rich whites. They said he was the best and that there was no one better than him at the burjiko. Meats softened at his touch and the rice was never overcooked. People spoke of marvels. Until then, Bushra hadn’t tried any of her spouse’s cooking, not even boiled water.
She heard him bustling about with provisions. The burjiko resounded rhythmically like a cowbell. The child laughed. She did as well. The smell was good. Everything was ready by the sunset prayer. They prayed together and then ate. The meal was huge, one of their most pleasant. There was a flower in the middle near the rice, a white mountain encircled by mounds of goodness. Green vegetables, white onions, red meat, yellow bananas. Some sultana for flavor. In a glass in the center, a coconut and pepper sauce. The rice wasn’t the kind she used. It was long-grained and smelled delicious. And the meat? It was tender, mixing with her saliva as though it had been destined for it. One piece of bread was enough to hearten them. Sweet cinnamon tea to wash it all down.
Bushra balled up some rice and meat in her right hand. Most people used three fingers to pick up food. She used four. In amazement at all the good food, she was in danger of biting the fourth finger. She took a handful at first. Then she took a liking to it and the small quantity became medium, then large. Majid didn’t touch a thing. Bushra finished the entire plate. All the rice, meat, and greens went to keep her stomach acids company. Everything was inside her. She even finished the pitcher of sweet tea. She was astonished. She’d never eaten so much in her life. Would she die? she wondered. She felt strangely light. She would gladly start eating again, from the crown of her days to the soles.
She belched, then realized that Majid, her spouse—the Majid whose thighs she massaged every night, the Majid she desired more than herself—she realized he was looking at her. Who knows what my husband will think of me now, and she began crying. She’d eaten everything without decorum, discretion, or limit. He would insult and possibly denounce her. Everyone would say, “The witch lost her marriage with a burp and a fistful of rice.” Majid watched her. She read reproval in his face. How could I be such a simpleton? I should’ve said no, I will cook, husband. He tested me and I failed.
“Why are you crying, Bushra?” Majid asked with a look of shock.
“It was so good I finished it all.” She felt stupid for saying the obvious.
“I’m glad.”
“Glad?” she was dumbstruck.
“Yes, you’re nurturing our son.”
Ours. Had he said ours?
“And if you want, I’ll prepare it for you every night. But don’t ask anything else of me, understand?”
Bushra quickly said yes. She massaged him well that evening. She shook him out like dusty fabric. Don’t ask anything else of me, understand? She’d said yes, unfortunately. Majid fell asleep away from his wife’s body. Bushra dreamed of being his. In her dreams she broke her promise, but it was clear that they would never make love.
FIVE
THE NUS-NUS
The bell rang hysterically. One long trill, two short. Recess. Mar noticed how studying classical Arabic made adults into children again. They had waited nearly two hours for the liberating ring. Perhaps the hysteria was due to exhaustion. Studying Arabic required great effort. Dragging oneself out of bed in the morning and then diving into a language that demanded more than most others wasn’t sustainable, at least not for her. They toiled endlessly at every stage. Some were on the alphabet, some on irregular verbs, some on complex medieval treatises. They left the classrooms with sweat-soaked clothes and steam coming out of their ears. You can recognize an Arabic student from the heap of alphabetic scribbles spilling from their ears. The trill made them happy. It brought back the sense of wellness one felt in elementary school. Back then, it was arithmetic or grammar that wore them out. The trill is the only thought, the secret dream: the chocolate candy bar Mommy put in the lunch box. Right then, though, Mar didn’t dream about chocolate, but the two Camel Lights positioned strategically in the right pocket of her Sahara. She was no longer a little girl. Neither were the other students. No more candy bars, only Camels. And maybe a coffee. That school had everyone: twenty-year-old college students, forty-year-old businessmen, fifty-year-old spinsters, sixty-year-old retired professors, and then thirty-year-olds like her. They were there hoping for a job in some company, dreaming of a university teaching post or at least a publication, and many were attending out of senseless passion. She was the only one there by imposition. It was a divine dictate, that in August 2006 she be brought to that patch of North Africa.
The break was twenty-
five minutes. It seems like a long time, but a closer look shows it to be very brief. Five minutes were spent walking down the stairs. It wasn’t a descent, but a procession worthy of Semana Santa in Seville. People were stuck in line, twitching in anticipation of cigarettes and sweets. There were two floors, the classrooms packed, the space restricted, the atrium filled. Everyone made plans in the atrium and no one met up again.
Mar also had plans, but not in the atrium. She and her date had settled on a different spot for Camels and sweets, the entrance to the coffee shop in front of the school. Her date was Elisa Mercadante. She was Italian, like Mar. A journalist. She looked like Björk’s twin sister. They’d met in the school hallway on the second day. Elisa knew Arabic pretty well. She’d also written a book on Arabic journalists on satellite news channels. Elisa Mercadante had contacts everywhere. Sometimes her byline graced the magazine Alias, the Saturday insert of Il Manifesto. If Mar had read her resumé she might have detested her: Bachelor’s and master’s degrees, global experience, publications. She would’ve thought, Here’s someone who’ll kick you to the curb. She would’ve imagined her as the classic career woman. Complete with Gucci, an attaché case, a string of black pearls, a Rolex, and a jet-black cellphone in a designer handbag. If she’d read her resumé, Mar would’ve envisioned a bun on her head with red locks framing an oval face, small eyes, a mouth enlarged by Yves Saint Laurent fire-red lipstick. She would’ve thought of a woman who reads financial magazines, who goes to the gym and does pilates to distract herself. Then she would’ve imagined the chill LPs orderly arranged on the shelf in her studio. Luckily, Mar never read Elisa Mercadante’s resumé. She didn’t have time to form misconceptions. A Camel Light brought them together. Mar had forgotten her pack at the nuns’ place. By recess, she was already in withdrawal. Elisa was in front of her. She reached out to this other person and asked for the most important thing to her next to oxygen.