First Comes Marriage

by Huda Al-Marashi

  In the end, we settled on something with three small diamond chips in the center.

  “Do you like it?” Hadi asked.

  “Yeah,” I said and smiled as if I truly did like it. “It's a nice ring.”

  “You know what makes it so nice?” Hadi whispered. “What it symbolizes. That I get to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  I smiled again, suppressing the urge to groan. After all this time waiting to hear someone say romantic things to me, I hated the way those loving words sounded coming from Hadi's mouth, so cloying, so confident when I was filled with so much doubt. I had just talked myself into buying a ring that I didn't really like for a proposal that wasn't even going to happen this weekend. I had just gotten engaged to a boy who wanted diamonds in the center of his ring as a way to make precious this symbol that he planned on treasuring for the rest of his life, while I was already wondering how soon I could change mine.

  And although I did not know it at the time, I was jealous of Hadi, jealous of his joy and his trust in his choices—me, our engagement, his ring.

  “Let's get it then,” I said, pushing aside my regrets with a series of wishes. I wished that when Hadi did, indeed, get his hands on my ring, he would present it to me in a way so fantastic that it would destroy my every misgiving. I wished for Hadi to make me love what I did not love yet.

  Back at home that night, Hadi asked me if we could go out for a drive together. I brightened at the prospect of sharing a romantic moment to hold onto after he left, but when I asked Mama for permission, she shook her head uneasily. “Ayb,” she said. “You just got engaged yesterday. It would look like you were waiting all this time just so you could run out with a boy.”

  Our engagement announcement was nothing more than a verbal agreement between our two families, and even though this was not explicitly stated in the Quran, Islamic tradition still held that an unmarried man and woman could not spend time alone together. They could not touch each other or even look at one another. Only an aqid, the Arabic word for a contract and also the Iraqi term for the Islamic marriage ceremony, could make our relationship halal or permissible, but when to perform the aqid ceremony was a delicate issue. Some families did the aqid right after the engagement so that the couple had permission to get to know one another before their wedding reception without the fear of sin, but other families believed the aqid granted far too much permission to tangle with before the wedding. As the actual marriage binding a man and woman together, the aqid removed the prohibition against premarital sex. If for some reason, things did not work out, the couple would be divorced and the girl's honor called into question.

  After dinner that evening, Hadi and I lingered at the breakfast nook table that opened up onto the living room. Mama and Mrs. Ridha, along with Mama's cousin Marwa and Marwa's mother, settled into sofas and chairs, teacups in hand. They went back and forth over when to hold our engagement party, and settled on a month from now, at Marwa's house during Christmas break. Next their conversation ventured onto when to perform our aqid.

  “Do it right away,” Marwa's mother said. She sat in front of the fireplace, wrapped in a cotton chador, her hands resting on the curve of her cane. “Don't let them accumulate sins so early in their life.”

  “La.” Mrs. Ridha said no as if the suggestion itself was preposterous. “The beauty of a wedding is in watching a couple get married.”

  “Beauty? What good is beauty when every time the boy wants to look at her or touch her hand, it is a sin?” Marwa's mother said.

  Mrs. Ridha gave the comment no regard. “Really, we live so far apart. When they see each other, we are with them. They aren't going to be alone enough for it to be an issue.”

  I knew Mrs. Ridha's position before she even said it. I'd overheard Mrs. Ridha and Mama having this conversation in the context of other engaged couples, strangers who gave them the freedom to speak their minds. Over the years, I'd gathered that Mrs. Ridha saw the aqid as a green light for a couple to do whatever they wanted before their wedding, and in her mind, there was no point of spending so much money on a party to wrap up a bride and present her to a groom who'd already opened his gift.

  Although Mama shared Mrs. Ridha's reluctance to perform the aqid right after an engagement, it was not for the same reasons. Mama did worry about the sins I'd accumulate from looking at or touching my fiancé and the sins she'd accumulate as my accomplice, but she worried about the aqid's religious significance more. This was the only date of marriage God recognized; if things didn't work out between me and Hadi, she didn't want me to be an eighteen-year-old divorcée.

  But if those issues were on Mama's mind that night, she did not mention them. As the mother of the bride-to-be, Mama had to be careful how she voiced her opinions. Pushing for the aqid could be taken as an eagerness to have me married off. Not pushing for it could as easily be interpreted as a lack of concern for my honor. Instead, she simply nodded in Mrs. Ridha's direction with the words, “You are right. They aren't going to see each other for some time. We can discuss this later.”

  Hadi and I watched the entire back-and-forth as spectators. No one asked for our opinion, nor did we attempt to offer one. My feelings on the aqid issue were just as mixed. I believed wedding ceremonies belonged on the same day as wedding receptions; television and movies were unanimous on this. That was where you got the best moments, the father walking the bride down the aisle, the groom waiting to receive his soon-to-be wife with tears in his eyes. However, without the permission to go out alone that the aqid granted, I didn't know how I'd be allowed the moments I'd been dreaming of, the kind of dates and outings that would make me fall in love.

  Even though I was living in the dorms, my parents expected me to come home every weekend. Since I didn't have my own car, Baba would make the seventy-mile trek to pick me up in his late 1980s Mercedes. If motor vehicles had rights, that poor car would have had Baba reported to Automobile Protective Services. The back seat and trunk were covered with papers and books. The cup holders were filled with coffee thermoses, Ziploc bags of mixed nuts, and gummy candies he called “sours.” Sours, Baba claimed, helped keep him awake on long drives. Since Baba had been known to fall asleep behind the wheel, sours were probably as important to his safety as seat belts.

  Given Baba's record, I never let him drive me home. I'd throw my duffle bag on the paper mountain behind the driver's seat and slide in behind the wheel. I spoke little during our rides together. Baba was a storyteller, and he filled our time together with anecdotes—memories from his childhood in Zanzibar and tales from the life of the Prophet Yusuf. But that changed after my engagement to Hadi.

  “You know, Hudie,” he'd say. “I never got a chance to ask you if you really like this boy.”

  Baba always worded his question the exact same way, his voice never exceeding the volume of a loud whisper. It was almost as if he felt shy to ask, and he may have been. Baba wasn't in the habit of questioning our choices. He usually waited until my siblings and I had made our own decisions, and then he invariably voiced his support. It was a surprisingly effective parenting strategy. Because we knew Baba rarely opposed our choices, we only allowed ourselves things he would have approved of.

  “He's a nice boy,” I'd answer. “I like him.”

  In spite of the qualms niggling me, I knew better than to admit to any of them in front of Baba. I still hoped Hadi would make things right at our engagement party, but Baba had been looking for an excuse to back out of our commitment to the Ridhas ever since Thanksgiving. If he got a hold of any concern or worry on my part, he'd waste no time calling off my engagement.

  When Baba picked me up at the end of the semester, less than a week before my party, he added a more explicit statement to his list of questions: “You know, you don't have to marry this boy.”

  “I know.”

  “We could just tell them we changed our mind.”

  “I don't want to do that.”

  “What about your cousin Fa—”
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  “No, Baba.”

  “Why not? He is a seyyid.”

  Mama loved Hadi too much to bring up that his family did not descend from the Prophet Muhammad. Baba loved being a seyyid too much not to mention it.

  “That's not so important to me, Baba,” I said. “It's more important for me to marry someone I know.”

  “Well, it will be a great honor to the Ridhas if you marry their son,” he said with a pleased smile. “Now their grandchildren will be mirza. This is the name they give people whose mother is an alwiya. You know this is the word they use for the lady who is a seyyid?”

  I nodded.

  “You know our friend Abu Hassan is not seyyid, but he always calls his wife ‘alwiya.’ It is so nice.” Baba dragged the “o” in so, and I perceived a hint there, a tiny suggestion that it would be equally nice if Hadi called me alwiya. It was as if Hadi could make up for not being a seyyid by being overly appreciative that I was.

  I nodded again because that was what my siblings and I did around Baba. We listened and nodded regardless of what we were thinking.

  Now Baba looked out the window and sighed, a small, disappointed cluck escaping his lips. “It's just that I don't like to see you go. I know your mummy was the same age when she got married, but now I am feeling so sorry for what I did to your Jidu.”

  My heart went to shreds. I wondered how a separation so painful—this rite of passage that took children from the homes they knew and loved and placed them in another—had become something so common, such a basic fact of life that the grief it inspired had no place in the midst of all the celebration.

  As soon as I heard the Arabic music blaring from the tape deck inside cousin Marwa's house, I knew its heavy, rhythmic beat was preparing our guests for our grand entrance. I felt a shot of nervous energy, and before I could calm my nerves, Mama opened the double front doors and gave us the signal to enter. Hadi and I walked through the foyer and into the living room with a generous amount of space between us, our hands deliberately unlinked. The women in our families sent their tongues to the roof of their mouths to welcome us with their ululating cry.

  Amid the joyful noise, I took in Hadi in his new double-breasted, pin-striped suit, me in my custom-made prom dress, now making its debut at our engagement party, and my mind bounced with hope and anxiety, with the questions of if, when, and how.

  I was still holding out for a charming pop-the-question story, one that looked as if it could have been scripted in Hollywood. I had been prodding Hadi over the phone with a series of “You know, you haven't really asked me yet,” to which he'd immediately reply, “Will you marry me?” Each time I told him that asking me over the phone did not count, he followed by sending me that four-word question over email, fax, and greeting card. Not wanting Hadi to think these anticlimactic attempts had satisfied me, I picked up the phone after every effort to inform him that, although cute and flattering, these proposals still did not cut it. They were only making the official, with-a-ring moment less special.

  We sat on the loveseat parked in front of the fireplace, underneath a small balloon arch. Our families and guests had crowded in on the sofas and chairs around the living room, and from among them, Hadi's grandmother appeared to shower us in a mix of coins and colorfully wrapped hard candies.

  Dr. Ridha took the microphone plugged into the stereo, welcomed our guests, and announced that we'd be exchanging our rings. The decision to wait on our aqid had held, and this party was about nothing more than this moment, these rings, and—I hoped—a proposal.

  I took a deep breath. It had to be now. Oh my God. Yes. It was now.

  Hadi took the ring box off the gold tray his mother carried over to him, and he turned toward me. Wait a minute. Why wasn't he kneeling?

  Get down on the floor, man. Please.

  Hadi leaned in and whispered something about spending the rest of his life with me. Something I couldn't pay attention to, because I was suddenly so angry. Why was he whispering?

  “Say it loud,” Baba called out from across the room.

  I smiled awkwardly and prayed. Please, God, make him say it out loud.

  “Say it loud,” Baba called out again.

  “Yella,” everybody chimed in.

  I shook with embarrassment. I needed Hadi to profess his undying devotion to me right here in front of our families so that I'd always have this proof that we'd had a love marriage. Then my aunts and uncles would understand why it didn't matter that Hadi wasn't seyyid or fair-skinned: his love for me was so beautiful and pure that it surpassed all other status-bolstering criteria.

  “Will you marry me?” he whispered.

  It was over. The words were spoken, and they could not be taken back. What now? Was I supposed to whisper too?

  “Yes,” I said because there was no other answer to give at that point. I smiled so no one would suspect that I was unhappy, but I felt a burning in my nose that meant I was dangerously vulnerable to tears.

  Stop, I spoke to myself firmly. Your chance for a beautiful proposal may be gone, but your chance to have fun at your only engagement party is not. Smile and be happy now. You can be sad about the proposal later.

  Hadi opened the velvet ring box. My ring. Yes. Everything would be fine as soon as I started wearing my ring.

  I watched Hadi slip the ring on my finger, and then I studied my hand, waiting for it to transform into the adorned hand of an engaged woman. But the ring was awful. I grinned like a beauty queen so no one would see my disappointment, but my mind raced. No, no. The two-trillion-cut diamonds sandwiching the dazzling round center stone had all the shine of dirty glass.

  Stop it, I commanded myself. You have to love it. Okay, I love it. Who am I trying to kid? I hate it! Try a different angle. A side view is better. Just look at it from the side, always the side.

  I pushed Hadi's ring past the joint on his right ring finger, and the ladies in the room gave another ululating cry. Hadi's grandmother returned to shower us with an additional handful of coins and candy.

  Mama ushered us into the family room, bringing along the tape deck. As the music grew louder, the guests migrated about the house. Those who thought it was okay to listen to music and dance in mixed groups of men and women stood up and formed a circle around Hadi and me, clapping as if to cheer us on. Those who had no objection to music but frowned upon dancing in mixed groups stayed in the living room or mingled around the appetizer table set up in the hallway. Those who thought music was haram, or forbidden, stepped outside, far away from the grasp of its sinful notes.

  Since we'd announced our engagement last month, Mama, Lina, and I had danced together on the weekends. There was an aroosa, a bride, in our house now, and so there was a reason to play music and celebrate. Mama would tie a scarf tightly around my hips and coach me.

  Hadi had not received similar instruction. On the phone, Hadi had told me that he did not like dancing nor did he care to learn. I'd insisted it was because he didn't know how. I'd teach him, and he'd like it. Now, for my sake, he stood in front of me. I told him to extend his arms, but instead of picking up on the classic Arab male shoulder shimmy, he moved his arms up and down like a bird trying to take off in flight.

  But at least Hadi was trying, and so I danced on, believing that his dance moves would improve, pushing aside my proposal disappointment with a list of all the wonderful things about the day. I loved being the guest of honor, knowing that family had flown out just for me. I loved anticipating all the parties that were still to come, the bridal showers and the wedding, the joys of being the first to walk through the buffet line, the first to cut the cake, the person for whom the big stack of gifts was intended.

  After the party, Hadi drove Baba, Lina, and me back to our hotel. He dropped them off in front of the lobby so that we could be alone while he escorted me back to my family's room.

  Hadi opened the car door for me, then offered me his coat—a long, forest green leather overcoat that someone led him to believe was acceptable for
a five feet seven inches twenty-one-year-old. I took it even though it made me look like a Christmas tree. We walked in silence until we stepped into the glass elevator on the face of the building. Hadi reached out for my hand, leaned over, and whispered, “I love you so much.” This time his whispering didn't bother me. His voice was too sincere to judge and so heartfelt that I thought I detected the slightest hint of a crack.

  I put my head on his shoulder and said, “I love you, too.”

  I meant it in the only way I was capable of meaning it then. I knew I didn't love him completely or unconditionally. I was too young to love anyone in that way. But I loved him for loving me, for playing the part of the groom while I played the role of the bride.

  “It's about time,” I said to lighten a moment that suddenly felt heavy with emotion.

  “I've always felt it. For as long as I can remember, I've loved you. I was just waiting for us to be official before I said it out loud.”

  The elevator doors opened, and we stepped into the open hall overlooking the parking lot. I paused and took in a breath. I'd been so preoccupied with how Hadi asked me to marry him and what my family thought of him that I'd paid little attention to what Hadi had said when he'd offered me my ring. Only now did it occur to me that I'd underestimated the sentiment behind his words, the time he must have spent considering them.

  “Why did you wait so long to tell me? It's not against the rules to love someone.”

  Our hands still linked, Hadi answered, “Because that's the kind of thing that you should only say to your wife, so I wanted us to be officially together before I said it.”

  I nudged Hadi forward with a slight swing of our hands. “So, if we didn't get engaged, you wouldn't love me.”

  “No. I'd love you. I just wouldn't have ever told you.”

  “I see,” I said, stopping outside the hotel room door.

  “What? You think it's silly?”

  “No, I guess I'm surprised. I didn't know you had such strong feelings about this.”