Chapter 20
Broken Not a halal love story Complete · about 31 min read
ay was here, which meant it was seven months to December. I had
finished my semester exams and was at the ambassador’s residence
to do sallama, to bid them farewell. I was leaving for the airport the next
day to head back to Nigeria. “Fa’ee, you have to tell me the secret. You
look great!” Afreen exclaimed as soon as she saw me. She gave me a long
hug and I held on tightly to her until she finally pulled back to get a better
look at me. “No, seriously. You’re glowing. What’s the secret?”
I blushed. According to science, I could attribute the sudden glow to the
love hormone – oxytocin. “Ke dai Afreen,” I dismissed her barrage of
compliments as I adjusted my veil. I was wearing a beige-colored Abaya
with silver threaded embellishments on the lower half that swirled around
my legs when I climbed the spiral staircase decorated with colorful pots of
Begonia flowers to Aunty Mami’s living room.
“Assalamu alaikum,” I said, announcing my presence to her and her
guest as I walked in. Aunty Mami looked up, and a smile brightened her
face when she saw me. She even did a little clap.
“Wa alaikumus salam,” she opened her hands and I went closer and
leaned in for a hug.
“Good evening.” I knew I had to stop calling her Aunty Mami soon. She
wasn’t just my mom’s friend or my aunt anymore, she was going to become
my mother-in-law.
“How are you, Fa’iza am?” she asked, with her hand still on my back.
She turned to her guest, “This is our bride-to-be.”
I exchanged salams with the pleasant-looking woman with green eyes
sitting across from Aunty Mami. She looked South Asian, with olive skin
and dark hair half-covered with a scarf.
“Masha Allah, Masha Allah,” the woman laughed. “She looks so much
like you. I thought she was your daughter.” Her accent was hard to place.
“Well, she is my daughter,” Aunty Mami laughed with her.
The chatter was cut short when Ahmad came into the living room,
wearing the green linen shirt I had picked out for him. There was something
about the way he looked today. Even better? Maybe it was the bright light
from the chandelier. “Assalamu Alaikum,” the Arabic phrase heightened the
deep baritone of his voice. His eyes lingered on me and a slight flush came
over my face as I met his eyes. I looked away, trying to calm my nerves. He
had completely changed my world, my identity and my values.
“Ahmad, you remember Mrs. Baig, don’t you?” Aunty Mami saw his
confused face. “From Australia.” Ah, yes! It was an Australian accent.
Those were always hard for me to place.
Recognition settled on his face as he looked at the olive-skinned
woman. “Of course. They lived only three houses away.” The women
laughed, pleased that he remembered her.
“I told you he would remember! He was quite old when we left – about
fifteen?” Aunty Mami said to her friend, then looked up at Ahmad, who
nodded in agreement.
“Barely feels like that much time has passed,” Mrs. Baig said with a
laugh. “I hear congratulations are in order.” She looked back at me and I
smiled.
“Yes, Alhamdulillah,” he responded. “Thank you so much.” He sounded
so proper like he hadn’t spent that morning doing unspeakable things to me
with his tongue. I felt the heat spreading on my face again, as he engaged in
small talk with his mother’s guest. I wondered how he could act so normal
when we were around people. He seemed at ease, while I was an emotional
wreck. I tried to forget what happened that morning, but I couldn’t. It was
on a constant loop in my head, playing over and over.
“Have you ever had a dream about me?”
“No, Ahmad, I haven’t.”
“Really? I dream of us all the time. I’m obsessed.”
Ahmad was staying at his parent’s house that night so that Afreen and
he could drop me at the airport like they always did. Later that evening,
after Maghrib, on my way to the living room downstairs, I got a notification
reminder to check into my flight. I had just picked out a window seat when
I closed the door behind me and I saw Ahmad on the sofa; he was showing
Afreen something on his laptop. “Red leather interior,” she was saying,
“ooh, this is nice.”
“What are you guys up to?” I asked as I switched on the TV, sitting on
the couch away from them and crossing my legs. I scrolled through the
channels looking for something that would interest me.
“Your wedding gift!” Afreen said in excitement, grinning.
“Don’t you know how to keep a secret?” Ahmad raised his hands
exasperatedly.
“Oops,” she gestured a zipper over her mouth, then mouthed an apology
to him.
Ahmad shook his head and closed the laptop. He looked towards me,
but I looked at Afreen instead.
“Let me go pray,” she said, picking up her phone and leaving us alone.
“Bae?”
I looked at him and my heartbeat quickened. Images of his hands on my
bare skin flashed crossed my mind, and I uncrossed my legs.
“Na’am? Yes?” I crossed my legs again.
“Are you okay?” He sounded concerned.
No. I’m not. I have rapid heart palpitations and sweaty palms every
time you look my way. “Hmm hmm,” I nodded.
I could tell from the frown lines that formed on his forehead that he
didn’t believe me. He shook his head and leaned in towards me. “You’re not
a good liar,” he paused. “Do you have regrets about –” he searched my face,
“any regrets about this morning?”
I quivered as I remembered how his lips felt as he kissed my stomach
and moved downwards. I looked around us, even though the door was
closed and there was no sound in the hallway. “Ahmad, what if someone
hears us?” I whispered.”We can’t talk about that here.”
He held my gaze for three seconds then stood up, reached for my hand
and pulled me up. We walked out of the living room the same time Afreen
was coming out of her room. I tugged my hand out of Ahmad’s, even
though I doubt she noticed it in the first place.
“Are you going somewhere?” she asked us.
“Fa’iza forgot her passport at the rez,” he said. I looked up at him. I
did? No, I’m pretty sure my passport is in my hand luggage in Afreen’s
room. It was one of the first things I packed. “We’re gonna go get it. Will be
back soon.”
Afreen nodded as she said goodbye and we walked past the main foyer
and out of the house.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Get in,” he said as he opened my door. When I got in, he walked to the
driver’s side, got in, and started driving down the street. I watched his hand
move to the gearbox next to my thigh and remembered how it felt
underneath my white lace panties that morning. I inhaled sharply as the car
came to a halt a street away from the house.
He turned off the ignition and turned to look at me. He opened his
mouth to speak but I interrupted him. “I can’t explain how I feel,” I said. I
had tried to find an explanation to why I felt like that – why I felt jumpy
around him, why I couldn’t keep still. But my mind only kept replaying
memories of us together that morning. I remembered his lips on mine, over
my nipples and the way it felt when he kissed me down there. “Maybe I’m
addicted,” I said, trying be justify why it kept playing over and over in my
head.
“Addicted to –?” His voice was low and sensual. His thumb grazed my
lower lip and his fingers softly stroked my jaw. Those fingers… and the
things he did with his tongue when his head was between my thighs.
“Everything. And it sucks because I feel…” I looked for the word that
weighed heavy on my chest, “I feel like a sinner.”
My mind was replaying moments of him holding my trembling body
tightly in his arms. I could still hear his whispers in my ear: “Yes baby,
that’s it… come for me.”
I shivered again. I needed fresh air.
His knuckles clenched the steering wheel, and his voice was barely
audible. “We didn’t even have sex. Because I knew that if we crossed that
boundary, you would hate yourself,” he paused, “and that would kill me.”
I put my palm to my forehead. I had never imagined that I would be
having a conversation like this. Then again, I had never imagined that I
would ever find myself with such intense sexual feelings until I met him.
Ahmad always asked if I wanted to stop whenever we made out; he always
checked to make sure I was okay with whatever we were doing. I never
thought my answer to his question would one day be a very breathless plea:
“No… please.”
I now understood why people got addicted to other people. This feeling
was like a drug, and I wanted more of it.
“I’m going to miss you,” I sighed.
“I’m counting down days until it’s official,” he reached for my hands. “I
can come to Abuja with you, if you want.”
“No,” I said, a little too quickly. “We need the distance – since you
obviously can’t keep your hands to yourself.”
A smile spread across his face. “It was so hot watching you cum,” he
said quietly, reminding me of my first orgasm, not that I had been able to
forget.
“Oh my God, don’t ever talk about that,” I said, as his lips covered
mine.
* * *
In June, two weeks after my cousin Aisha Batagarawa’s wedding, the fibres
of my reality became entangled with the webs of destiny and my little globe
of a dream woven in happily-ever-after shattered into a tiny million pieces.
“How did the audit go?” I asked in a sing-song manner. This was the
3rd time we were talking today. Our calls were shorter now, but the texts
were still excessive. Ahmad was consulting in the UK for the summer and
we were now in the same time zone, so it was easier to communicate.
“Why would you think I was calling about that?” his voice was sensual
in my ear.
“Maybe because you’ve been stressing about it for a week?”
“Me? Stress?” he laughed. “Nah, cool as ice. Call me the Night King.”
The sound of his laughter was contagious, I joined him. “I still don’t get
why he was marching with his army of the dead –” My phone beeped, and I
glanced at it to see Abba’s call waiting. “Bae, Abba is calling me. Can I call
you back?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” he hung up, and I picked up my father’s call
“Hello, Fa’iza,” my father’s voice came on, soft-spoken as usual.
“Na’am, Abba? How was your flight?”
“Alhamdulillahi. Kina ina? Where are you?” It was hard to hear him
about the noisy background. I moved towards the window and watched as
an old and battered Mercedes 190 pulled into the compound. It looked like
it was white at some point but it was dusty and from a distance, it almost
looked yellow. I did not recognize the car.
“I’m at home” I said, “Umma sent me to Hajiya Uwani’s house; I was
just about to leave.”
“Okay,” he said, followed by a hesitant pause. “We’re on our way back”
“Abba, already? I thought you were staying for three days?” I asked. I
had gone to wish him a safe trip just after the early morning prayer today;
by my calculations, he arrived in Egypt with Ya Amin about two hours ago.
But he was already on his way back home?
“No,” he said, followed by another pause. “I’m expecting some
visitors.”
Visitors? I thought to myself. That was weird. Most people planned
their visits to see Abba days in advance and did so around his schedule.
And he didn’t cut his trips short for just anyone. Who or what was he
canceling this trip for? “Toh, Abba. Okay,” I said. “Allah ya dawo da ku
lafiya. May Allah bring you back safely.”
“Ameen,” he hung up.
I looked at the battered whitish-yellowish Mercedes 19 parked outside
and wondered who could be in it, and what could be so important. My
phone beeped: Can I call you now? It was Ahmad. I called him back:
“Sorry about that, bae.”
“No, no. Don’t apologize. Is everything okay?” he raised his voice
above the flight announcements in the background.
“Where are you?” I asked because he wasn’t supposed to be traveling
back to Canada until mid-August.
“That’s why I called earlier,” he replied. “I’m at the Airport. My dad
said something urgent came up.”
“You’re coming to Abuja?” I asked. Something didn’t feel right.
“One minute. Just checking in,” he said. I heard some chatter in the
background as he got his boarding pass. I had gone to see Aunty Mami two
days ago and everything seemed alright; she said they had a wedding to
attend in Maiduguri. Did they want Ahmad to accompany them to the
wedding? Would they actually send for him all the way from London for
something like that on such short notice? “Yeah, hello?” he was back on the
other end. “It might be related to that Asokoro property I told you about,”
he said.
Okay, that makes sense, I thought, still feeling uneasy. “Toh, have a safe
flight,” I said as I made my way to Umma’s section.
“We’re about to board. I’ll call you once I touchdown,” he paused.
“When can I come and see you?”
“Abba’s on his way back, too. You know I’m not allowed visitors after
Maghrib.”
“C’mon Fa’iza. Really?”
“Really,” I answered. I still found it funny that he was surprised at how
orthodox and traditional my family was; the only way he could come over
was to pretend that he was here to see Ya Amin.
I parted the curtains and found Umma in her living room. She was
pacing up and down while on a call. She wasn’t talking much, just nodding
in agreement and agreeing like one does when listening to something.
I went to Abba’s section to turn on the incense burner for some oud
bakhoor and turn on the AC to cool the living room before he got back. As I
lifted the drapes to brighten up the space, I noticed that two more cars had
come into the compound. I recognized one, a blue Peugeot 406, as my
uncle’s personal car, but the other two – a Prado Jeep and a Toyota
Pathfinder – didn’t look familiar. Are these the people Abba canceled his
trip to see? What could this meeting be about? Could it be about… me?
I had been back to Nigeria for weeks now. A week after I got back, I
started having panic attacks. I would imagine a scenario in my head and get
so fixated with it that it stopped me from sleeping, gradually becoming the
only thing I could think about. Sometimes, it got so bad that just thinking
about it would make me hyperventilate. I would wake up drenched in my
own sweat in the middle of the night. During those odd hours, the only
person I could talk about them with was Ahmad.
“I understand what you mean,” Ahmad said one day when I called him
in the middle of the night, “but can we consider this to be a hypothetical
situation?”
“Yes, but what if during the pre-wedding investigation, they find out
about…” I paused, “about us?”
“How would they find out, Fa’iza?”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. It was barely 3 am, and I was whispering
into the phone. “What if someone that knows us saw how much time I spent
in your apartment?”
“Okay. First of all, bae, you’re overthinking this. Worst-case scenario,
they would do the Nikkah immediately and host a reception in December.”
I was silent.
“There’s no way they know what goes on in my apartment.”
I thought about it some more and realized it was kind of silly, really.
Two weeks later, I had another panic attack. Mufti Menk was apt when he
said, “when you commit sin, peace of mind evades you.” Ahmad had to
excuse himself from a meeting because I was freaking out, and he needed to
calm me down. “The second genotype results came out months ago, Fa’iza.
I am AA.” Okay, maybe I was alarmed for nothing. Maybe he was right.
As I made my way back toward our section, I saw Hajiya Uwani
coming in through the main entrance. She did not have her usual smile
when she saw me, and when I greeted her, she answered with a question:
“Where’s Umma?”
“She’s in her sitting room,” I answered. She hurried to Umma’s section
and I started panicking again. This was about me. I could feel it in my
bones. I went to my room and dialed Ahmad’s number. Please pick up, I
prayed silently.
“Bae.”
“Ahmad, something’s going on. Abba’s coming back from Egypt, my
uncles are here… Ahmad, something is wrong.”
“Hey, hey, hey. Take a breath,” he said. I took a deep breath and
exhaled. “Okay, talk to me.” His voice was calm and measured.
“I think something came up during the investigations.”
“Something like what?” he asked gently.
“Maybe they found out about… about you,” I finally said, knowing he
would understand I was talking about the alcohol, the live-in girlfriend and
other things.
There was some chatter in the background, then his voice came back on.
“Babe, we’re about to take off. There’s no way they found out about that.
Okay? Kina ji na? There’s absolutely no way.” I nodded even though he
couldn’t see me. “I told you the truth about my past because I didn’t want
there to be any secrets between us,” his voice was almost a whisper. “It’s
not exactly common knowledge, okay?”
“Okay,” I sighed. Unlike the last times he talked me out of these
scenarios, I was not really convinced this time around.
“I love you, Insom,” he said.
“We’re back to ‘Insom’?” The sound of his gentle laughter calmed me
down a little. I sighed, “I love you, too.”
* * *
That’s the thing about panic attacks I learnt that summer, there is a stage
worse than hyperventilation and breathlessness– it is when you get to a
stage when you cannot physically move. After Asr, I stayed on my praying
mat until Maghrib, staring at my rosary in front of me and the black glossy
thread that embroidered the designs on my praying mat. Every few minutes,
I would read a prayer, followed by a verse from the Qur’an. I did not have
the confidence that my prayers would be answered, not after all the things I
had done. Yet, I didn’t relent.
Earlier on, when Abba’s convoy came into the compound, I saw the
expression on his face and knew for sure something was wrong. When I did
not hear Ya Amin come into our section to ask after his food like he always
did after a trip, I knew this could not be good. Less than an hour later, I
watched through the window as Ahmad came with his father. He was
picked up straight from the airport, I could tell because he had on the same
clothes when we Facetimed when I woke up this morning. The black shirt I
told him would go better with his tie when he raised it and a brown one. He
didn’t have the tie on anymore, I watched him disappear though the door
into Abba’s section where all of Abba’s guests were waiting.
Shortly after, Umma came to my room. She did not send Atine or
anyone else to ask me to come; she came all the way to my room. She
opened the door and found me sitting down on my praying mat, with the
back of my head leaning on the wall.
“When you’re done, Abba wants to talk to you,” her eyes lingered on
me for a few seconds with an unreadable expression on her face and then
she silently shut the door behind her. Ya Salam. God! I glanced at my
phone. Ahmad’s messages from a few hours ago were still on my screen:
Touchdown and half an hour later: Hey, don’t panic, but I think you might be
right… Since then, his phone hadn’t been reachable.
I folded up the praying mat with shaky hands and with heavy steps,
headed to Abba’s section, still wearing my black hijab. I walked silently
and was surprised that the living room was now empty but for three people
– Umma, Abba, and a woman I had never seen before. She was light-
skinned and her white veil was draped over her head, almost covering her
entire body. She seemed to be in her fifties.
“Assalamu alaikum,” my voice was shaky. Abba looked up at me;
Umma didn’t. I knelt on the Persian carpet by the white leather couch in
front of them.
“Wa alaikumus salam,” my father answered. He exhaled loudly. “Sit
down, Fa’iza.”
I tried to decipher their faces, but I couldn’t. We sat in silence for about
thirty seconds, both my parents looking at the ground. I was filled with
dread like I had never known before; maybe they found out that he used to
drink. Or had they found out details about my relationship with Ahmad –
the sleepovers, the make-out sessions? What else did they know? I had
disappointed my parents. How would I ever face them ever again? Will they
say that he is bad for me? I cannot imagine a life without Ahmad.
“The prophet Mohammed,” my father started. His words were slower
than usual. I looked up at him, and as he spoke, but it wasn’t
disappointment or anger I saw on his face; it was something else. Pity?
“Sallallahu Alayhi Wa Sallam,” we all chorused softly, as we invoked
blessings on the prophet like we always do when his name is mentioned.
My mother was still looking at the ground, and the strange lady wouldn’t
stop looking at my face.
“The prophet Mohammed,” Abba started again slowly, “advised us that
in everything we do, we must have tawakkul,complete faith in Allah, and
follow the words of Allah because He is the best of planners.” I looked up
at him; he seemed sad. I had never seen my father like this. “Fa’iza, this is
about your marriage to Ahamad. As you know, we have been doing the
necessary investigations, and something unfortunate has come up.”
Oh my God. This was about his past. My stress level right now was off
the charts. How do I tell them that I am willing to marry Ahmad and I
didn’t care about anything they found out about him.
“This is Malama Zainab,” he gestured towards the light-skinned
woman. “I don’t think you’ll remember but when we lived in Kano, she
helped with the chores around the house,” he paused and I nodded. “When
you were born, there were some complications with your birth, and Umma
had to be admitted in the hospital for about over a month,” he paused again.
I wondered where this story of my birth was going, but I noticed how
shaken Abba was as he recounted how my mother almost died after having
me. “While she was there, hanging between life and death, I was running all
over the place, trying to find specialists to help with you. Finally, your
aunty, Baba Asabe, – Allah ya jikan ta. May her soul rest in peace – along
with Hajiya Uwani and Malama Zainab found someone to breastfeed you;
we called her ‘yarAgadez’.”
Yar Agadez. A woman from Agadez, a town in the Republic of Niger. I
looked up at Malama Zainab and wondered if she was related to ‘yar
Agadez. She looked like she was from Niger or Chad.
How is this the big problem everyone was summoned for? It’s not a
crime to pay someone else to breastfeed your child –especially around the
time I was born, when baby formula was not as common, I thought. I looked
up at Abba as he continued speaking.
“Malama Zainab came here to testify that this ‘yar Agadez was the
same woman who breastfed Ahamad when Hajiya Mami had an accident.
He was barely a year old then, and –” he was still talking, but I could not
hear the words coming out of his mouth.
‘Yar Agadez, the woman who breastfed me also breastfed Ahmad when
he was barely a year old? The same woman? My mind was busy trying to
recall the Quranic verse about wet nurses and breastfeeding: Prohibited to
you [for marriage] …your sisters through nursing. Suratul Nisa, the chapter
about women in the Quran, yes, it states that children breastfed by the same
woman are…
“Yes,” Malama Zainab said, her voice bringing me back to my father’s
living room.
“Because of this,” Abba sighed, “there cannot be a marriage between
you and Ahamad,” he paused, “you’re like siblings and marriage between
you two is not permissible.”
A ringing started in my ear. I could no longer hear what was being said,
but there was a loud ringing in my ear. The lights in the living room were
suddenly bright, too bright. Ahmad? A milk sibling. My milk sibling. I had
heard that term so many times. I had recited that verse many times while
reading Suratul Nisa and like all the other rules in the Qur’an, I knew they
were set in stone, and we had to abide by them, but I never imagined that
this particular line would one day refer to me, I didn’t even know that wet
nurses were still a thing and could be investigated before marriage.
I looked up at Umma and she was looking at me, “Fa’iza,” her voice
rose above the ringing, “take this as Allah’s will; He has destined it this
way.” My heart was beating painfully in my chest. I thought it would burst
out of my chest, all I could do was nod.
“Allah yai miki albarka Fa’iza. May God bless you,” Abba said.
If only he knew. If only my father knew what kind of trouble I had
gotten into, I thought as I nodded. “Ameen, Abba.” My head was throbbing,
and I could not see clearly. I stood up and walked towards my room, feeling
nauseated and crumbling like a bag filled with worms. Ahmad? Marriage
between us is not permissible? I remembered our whispered words as we
promised each other forever – how we held each other until we fell asleep.
The Ahmad I had done all those things with. Ahmad, who had touched me
in places I could not even say out loud. Where do I start to undo the
mistakes I’ve committed with him? How do I even begin?
When I got to my room, I looked at my phone. Not one notification
from him. I sat on the edge of my bed, thinking. Thinking of everything, my
mind was so far away. Far far away. All I could think of was the marriage
certificate locked away in his Downtown apartment. Our marriage
certificate. The certificate that verified a marriage with the one who was
forbidden for me, and the one for whom I was forbidden. Inna Lillahi wa
inna ilayhi raji’un.
* * *
“Ina Fa’iza? Where’s Fa’iza?” I heard Hajiya Uwani’s voice from the
hallway, her voice above the ringing in my ears. I wanted to call out and let
her know I was in my room, but when I opened my mouth, no sound came
out. I had lost my voice. The door opened and she came in. “Allah sarki,”
her voice was loud. Everything was too thunderous – the cars driving out of
the compound, the wallclock ticking, my heartbeat… the rustle that her veil
made as she sat on the bed next to me, “I wasn’t happy to hear this news,”
she spoke mostly to herself, “take heart. He isn’t the one written in your
destiny, but don’t worry, don’t give up hope. You’ll meet your husband soon
insha Allah.”
This time yesterday, I was so sure of my future. I was sure of spending
the rest of my life with Ahmad. I was happy with how my life was going.
All of that changed in an instant, to this irreversible misery with no end in
sight.
She hissed to herself and clasped her hands on her chest. “We’re lucky
we found out when we did. If we’d found out after –” her voice trailed off.
She could not bring herself to voice out the thought.
My hands got clammy, and my vision started blurring. I didn’t know
what to deal with – the loss of the love of my life, or the unspeakable secret
I was now harboring? I laid back on the bed and remained still. All I could
hear was the loud beats of my heart and Hajiya Uwani’s continuous
monologue on faith and destiny.
After she left, Ya Amin came into the room. Unlike Abubakar, he was
not a man of many words. He sat on the bed next to me quietly as I tried to
block all the thoughts that were threatening to flood my mind. “Allah ya sa
haka shi ne mafi alheri. May this be for the best outcome,” he finally said
as the athan for Isha was called. “Stand up and pray.” He left and closed the
door to my room quietly.
I stood up to go perform ablution, but as soon as I caught my reflection
in the mirror, I crumbled to the cold floor. I could not bear to look at myself
and the tears wouldn’t stop. I closed my eyes and saw Ahmad’s face, heard
his voice, felt his touch. And every time I did, I died a little inside.
My father’s voice kept playing over and over in my head: you’re like
siblings and marriage between you two is not permissible. It went on like a
broken record on a loop. I was suffocating in the knowledge that the bridge
to redemption had been burned. I remained curled up on the cold floor in a
corner. I could not get up; I did not have the willpower to. I was in intense
physical pain. My limbs felt like I had been beaten severely and my chest –
oh my chest – there was an excruciating pain that dug deeper every time I
took a breath. I was short of breath as the sobs raged uncontrollably out of
me. I had a migraine and knew I had to seek forgiveness. I needed to pray
Isha then repent for my sins. But as hard as I tried, I could not physically
get up from the floor. I had no will to live.
The call for subh met me on the floor by the toilet sink, still curled up
with my knees to my chest. I had not even realized that the whole night had
passed. I had not heard from Ahmad since he left our house. His silence
was loud. I went searching for my phone and realized it had run out of
battery and was now dead. It had probably been dead all night. I put my
phone to charge, performed wudhu, and spent more time than I had ever
done crying on my praying mat.
Beep beep. Beep beep. Beep beep. Multiple messages came flooding as
my phone came back on. I hurriedly went to check. It was Ahmad. First,
Pick up your phone then Please say something. We need to talk. There were
also missed calls from him, Afreen, and Aunty Mami before the phone died.
I prayed, and I crawled up to my bed, going under the covers and
hugging myself. I felt too heavy to move or do anything else, and the
weight of the ring on my finger was crushing me. For the first time since he
put it on me, I removed it, placed it on my bedside table, and my hand fell
limply on the bed next to me.
There was a knock on the door and my brother poked his head through,
“Fa’iza?”
“Ya Amin,” I said, mustering the will to get up and look alive. I
wondered if he’d heard me crying all through the night. I hoped not.
“Kin tashi? Are you awake?” he mumbled quietly. Our language and its
rhetorical questions. I nodded and watched him struggle with what to say
next. If Abubakar were here, he would have given me a hug or said
something to make me smile. “Come,” he cleared his throat, “Ahmad is in
the living room.” It felt like something in my chest had cracked. Ahmad?
Here? I wondered if I could face him. “You should come before Abba
comes this way.”
As soon as I stood up, I felt a wave of dizziness over me and it took all
the strength I had to stand straight. I took the black hijab I prayed in, put it
on and followed my brother out of my room.
I walked into the living room, and in the dimly lit room, the first rays of
morning sunlight gently filtered through the curtains, casting a bittersweet
glow upon the scene. Ahmad was pacing back and forth a few feet from the
door; his movements reflected the turmoil within him. His fingers ran
through his disheveled hair as if trying to grasp onto any semblance of
hope. It felt like my heart stopped when he looked my way with his eyes
red-rimmed. He was still wearing what he wore the previous day when I
watched him come with his dad through the window: black trousers and the
black shirt, now rumbled with creases all over.
Ya Amin, on the dining table, was constantly glancing up to look at us
covertly behind an open laptop at the other end of the room. I looked back
at Ahmad. He looked down at his feet and back to my face.
“Why are you here?” I asked quietly. The quiver in my voice betrayed
the sadness that enveloped me.
“I tried calling and texting, but – but you –” he swallowed, “I didn’t
know if you were okay. I had to –” his shoulders were slightly hunched
upwards.
“It’s 6 am…” I whispered softly; my voice sounded distant and tired.
He hesitated, and then, “I prayed subh here,” he confessed. How? Why?
Off the top of my head, I could count about four mosques between our
house and theirs in Maitama. “Are you okay?” he asked slowly while his
eyes searched my face.
Do I look okay to you? I thought to myself, fighting back the feeling to
slump to the floor and wail. I shrugged. There were no words. He must
know exactly how I was feeling; it was a pain that refused to be described.
The fact that we could not be together for something we never saw coming
was unbearable. Just thinking about yesterday evening’s discovery made the
tears start again, and I couldn’t stop them. His hands started reaching for
me, and I took a step back. “Please don’t,” I whispered.
He looked at the ceiling and exhaled. I could see how hard he was
trying to keep it together. He looked behind him, and Ya Amin looked
away, pretending to focus on his laptop. “I can’t bear to see you cry,” he
said quietly as he shook his head slowly. He looked so devastated, and he
kept shifting his weight from one foot to another like he was unsure of what
to do. “I cannot fathom a life without you. The thought of waking up each
morning, knowing that we are separated by… by this, is a torment I never
imagined I would face.”
I fight back my own tears, the pain cutting through me like a thousand
sharp blades. I held onto my composure because it was the only thing I had
left, but even when I spoke, my voice was filled with a mixture of sadness
and determination.
“You know we can’t see each other anymore,” I said, my heart
pounding with each syllable. I was dying inside.
“I’m not giving up on us.” He chokes out, his voice thick with emotion.
“Why?” This was bigger than us; we didn’t stand a chance. We were not
destined for each other and were too blind to see it. I hoped that he could
see what I wasn’t saying in my eyes, the words I didn’t have the strength to
voice out.
“You know why,” he said, his eyes piercing into mine, forcing me to
remember the private vows and whispered promises we made to each other.
I thought about us and the year we spent together; those were the happiest
moments in my life. But he was not the one written in my destiny and we
needed to find a way to undo our error before anyone found out. “I am not
giving up on us. You hear me? You’re mine, Fa’iza,” his eyes pierced mine
with such intensity that I had to look away. “There has to be a mistake
somewhere.” I shook my head, wondering if he had gone mad. How is he
going to fight this? How can he fight scripture? As if he could hear the
thoughts in my head, Ahmad continued: “I’m going to Kano today. Zainab
is going to lead me to the wet nurse,” he paused, trying to read the
impression on my face, while ignoring the phone that had started vibrating
in his pocket. “I have some questions.”
“Malama Zainab?” I asked. I doubted that there was a mistake. I
doubted that anyone would bring false evidence to Abba, especially
regarding something as important as his daughter’s marriage. My father was
known for painstakingly reviewing and scrutinizing witnesses for the cases
he handled.
“Yes. I tracked her down last night, and we are going back to Kano
together.” I nodded, not sure what he hoped to find in Kano. “There’s a lot
we don’t know. We don’t know the number of feeds necessary to establish
the milk-kinship, to begin wi–”
“Once is enough,” I cut him off. Anyone who went to Islammiyah knew
this.
“It’s heavily debated, though. Some say it’s five, or ten –“
“Ahmad…” I was a complete wreck. It broke my heart to see him this,
grasping at straws.
“Will you pick when I call?” his eyes were pleading. “When I call from
Kano to update you?”
“Ahmad, maybe we should just accept this brother -sist –” His sharp
inhale stopped me.
“I would rather die than I call you my sis –” he swallowed the word
back like it was pungent, like it was an insult to him.
With those words, I took a step back, my heart heavy with the weight of
our reality. As the morning light grew stronger, it cast a melancholic glow
upon the living room, and we shared one final, longing gaze. It is a gaze
that speaks volumes, expressing the love and ache that intertwined our
fates.
Tears were streaming down my face now. I turned around and with each
step taking me further from Ahmad, my heart shattered into a thousand
pieces, forever marked by the pain of a love that could never be. As soon as
I got into my room, I fell to the bed, praying to God to take this pain away.
If not for anything, but for our sanity.
II
finished my semester exams and was at the ambassador’s residence
to do sallama, to bid them farewell. I was leaving for the airport the next
day to head back to Nigeria. “Fa’ee, you have to tell me the secret. You
look great!” Afreen exclaimed as soon as she saw me. She gave me a long
hug and I held on tightly to her until she finally pulled back to get a better
look at me. “No, seriously. You’re glowing. What’s the secret?”
I blushed. According to science, I could attribute the sudden glow to the
love hormone – oxytocin. “Ke dai Afreen,” I dismissed her barrage of
compliments as I adjusted my veil. I was wearing a beige-colored Abaya
with silver threaded embellishments on the lower half that swirled around
my legs when I climbed the spiral staircase decorated with colorful pots of
Begonia flowers to Aunty Mami’s living room.
“Assalamu alaikum,” I said, announcing my presence to her and her
guest as I walked in. Aunty Mami looked up, and a smile brightened her
face when she saw me. She even did a little clap.
“Wa alaikumus salam,” she opened her hands and I went closer and
leaned in for a hug.
“Good evening.” I knew I had to stop calling her Aunty Mami soon. She
wasn’t just my mom’s friend or my aunt anymore, she was going to become
my mother-in-law.
“How are you, Fa’iza am?” she asked, with her hand still on my back.
She turned to her guest, “This is our bride-to-be.”
I exchanged salams with the pleasant-looking woman with green eyes
sitting across from Aunty Mami. She looked South Asian, with olive skin
and dark hair half-covered with a scarf.
“Masha Allah, Masha Allah,” the woman laughed. “She looks so much
like you. I thought she was your daughter.” Her accent was hard to place.
“Well, she is my daughter,” Aunty Mami laughed with her.
The chatter was cut short when Ahmad came into the living room,
wearing the green linen shirt I had picked out for him. There was something
about the way he looked today. Even better? Maybe it was the bright light
from the chandelier. “Assalamu Alaikum,” the Arabic phrase heightened the
deep baritone of his voice. His eyes lingered on me and a slight flush came
over my face as I met his eyes. I looked away, trying to calm my nerves. He
had completely changed my world, my identity and my values.
“Ahmad, you remember Mrs. Baig, don’t you?” Aunty Mami saw his
confused face. “From Australia.” Ah, yes! It was an Australian accent.
Those were always hard for me to place.
Recognition settled on his face as he looked at the olive-skinned
woman. “Of course. They lived only three houses away.” The women
laughed, pleased that he remembered her.
“I told you he would remember! He was quite old when we left – about
fifteen?” Aunty Mami said to her friend, then looked up at Ahmad, who
nodded in agreement.
“Barely feels like that much time has passed,” Mrs. Baig said with a
laugh. “I hear congratulations are in order.” She looked back at me and I
smiled.
“Yes, Alhamdulillah,” he responded. “Thank you so much.” He sounded
so proper like he hadn’t spent that morning doing unspeakable things to me
with his tongue. I felt the heat spreading on my face again, as he engaged in
small talk with his mother’s guest. I wondered how he could act so normal
when we were around people. He seemed at ease, while I was an emotional
wreck. I tried to forget what happened that morning, but I couldn’t. It was
on a constant loop in my head, playing over and over.
“Have you ever had a dream about me?”
“No, Ahmad, I haven’t.”
“Really? I dream of us all the time. I’m obsessed.”
Ahmad was staying at his parent’s house that night so that Afreen and
he could drop me at the airport like they always did. Later that evening,
after Maghrib, on my way to the living room downstairs, I got a notification
reminder to check into my flight. I had just picked out a window seat when
I closed the door behind me and I saw Ahmad on the sofa; he was showing
Afreen something on his laptop. “Red leather interior,” she was saying,
“ooh, this is nice.”
“What are you guys up to?” I asked as I switched on the TV, sitting on
the couch away from them and crossing my legs. I scrolled through the
channels looking for something that would interest me.
“Your wedding gift!” Afreen said in excitement, grinning.
“Don’t you know how to keep a secret?” Ahmad raised his hands
exasperatedly.
“Oops,” she gestured a zipper over her mouth, then mouthed an apology
to him.
Ahmad shook his head and closed the laptop. He looked towards me,
but I looked at Afreen instead.
“Let me go pray,” she said, picking up her phone and leaving us alone.
“Bae?”
I looked at him and my heartbeat quickened. Images of his hands on my
bare skin flashed crossed my mind, and I uncrossed my legs.
“Na’am? Yes?” I crossed my legs again.
“Are you okay?” He sounded concerned.
No. I’m not. I have rapid heart palpitations and sweaty palms every
time you look my way. “Hmm hmm,” I nodded.
I could tell from the frown lines that formed on his forehead that he
didn’t believe me. He shook his head and leaned in towards me. “You’re not
a good liar,” he paused. “Do you have regrets about –” he searched my face,
“any regrets about this morning?”
I quivered as I remembered how his lips felt as he kissed my stomach
and moved downwards. I looked around us, even though the door was
closed and there was no sound in the hallway. “Ahmad, what if someone
hears us?” I whispered.”We can’t talk about that here.”
He held my gaze for three seconds then stood up, reached for my hand
and pulled me up. We walked out of the living room the same time Afreen
was coming out of her room. I tugged my hand out of Ahmad’s, even
though I doubt she noticed it in the first place.
“Are you going somewhere?” she asked us.
“Fa’iza forgot her passport at the rez,” he said. I looked up at him. I
did? No, I’m pretty sure my passport is in my hand luggage in Afreen’s
room. It was one of the first things I packed. “We’re gonna go get it. Will be
back soon.”
Afreen nodded as she said goodbye and we walked past the main foyer
and out of the house.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Get in,” he said as he opened my door. When I got in, he walked to the
driver’s side, got in, and started driving down the street. I watched his hand
move to the gearbox next to my thigh and remembered how it felt
underneath my white lace panties that morning. I inhaled sharply as the car
came to a halt a street away from the house.
He turned off the ignition and turned to look at me. He opened his
mouth to speak but I interrupted him. “I can’t explain how I feel,” I said. I
had tried to find an explanation to why I felt like that – why I felt jumpy
around him, why I couldn’t keep still. But my mind only kept replaying
memories of us together that morning. I remembered his lips on mine, over
my nipples and the way it felt when he kissed me down there. “Maybe I’m
addicted,” I said, trying be justify why it kept playing over and over in my
head.
“Addicted to –?” His voice was low and sensual. His thumb grazed my
lower lip and his fingers softly stroked my jaw. Those fingers… and the
things he did with his tongue when his head was between my thighs.
“Everything. And it sucks because I feel…” I looked for the word that
weighed heavy on my chest, “I feel like a sinner.”
My mind was replaying moments of him holding my trembling body
tightly in his arms. I could still hear his whispers in my ear: “Yes baby,
that’s it… come for me.”
I shivered again. I needed fresh air.
His knuckles clenched the steering wheel, and his voice was barely
audible. “We didn’t even have sex. Because I knew that if we crossed that
boundary, you would hate yourself,” he paused, “and that would kill me.”
I put my palm to my forehead. I had never imagined that I would be
having a conversation like this. Then again, I had never imagined that I
would ever find myself with such intense sexual feelings until I met him.
Ahmad always asked if I wanted to stop whenever we made out; he always
checked to make sure I was okay with whatever we were doing. I never
thought my answer to his question would one day be a very breathless plea:
“No… please.”
I now understood why people got addicted to other people. This feeling
was like a drug, and I wanted more of it.
“I’m going to miss you,” I sighed.
“I’m counting down days until it’s official,” he reached for my hands. “I
can come to Abuja with you, if you want.”
“No,” I said, a little too quickly. “We need the distance – since you
obviously can’t keep your hands to yourself.”
A smile spread across his face. “It was so hot watching you cum,” he
said quietly, reminding me of my first orgasm, not that I had been able to
forget.
“Oh my God, don’t ever talk about that,” I said, as his lips covered
mine.
* * *
In June, two weeks after my cousin Aisha Batagarawa’s wedding, the fibres
of my reality became entangled with the webs of destiny and my little globe
of a dream woven in happily-ever-after shattered into a tiny million pieces.
“How did the audit go?” I asked in a sing-song manner. This was the
3rd time we were talking today. Our calls were shorter now, but the texts
were still excessive. Ahmad was consulting in the UK for the summer and
we were now in the same time zone, so it was easier to communicate.
“Why would you think I was calling about that?” his voice was sensual
in my ear.
“Maybe because you’ve been stressing about it for a week?”
“Me? Stress?” he laughed. “Nah, cool as ice. Call me the Night King.”
The sound of his laughter was contagious, I joined him. “I still don’t get
why he was marching with his army of the dead –” My phone beeped, and I
glanced at it to see Abba’s call waiting. “Bae, Abba is calling me. Can I call
you back?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” he hung up, and I picked up my father’s call
“Hello, Fa’iza,” my father’s voice came on, soft-spoken as usual.
“Na’am, Abba? How was your flight?”
“Alhamdulillahi. Kina ina? Where are you?” It was hard to hear him
about the noisy background. I moved towards the window and watched as
an old and battered Mercedes 190 pulled into the compound. It looked like
it was white at some point but it was dusty and from a distance, it almost
looked yellow. I did not recognize the car.
“I’m at home” I said, “Umma sent me to Hajiya Uwani’s house; I was
just about to leave.”
“Okay,” he said, followed by a hesitant pause. “We’re on our way back”
“Abba, already? I thought you were staying for three days?” I asked. I
had gone to wish him a safe trip just after the early morning prayer today;
by my calculations, he arrived in Egypt with Ya Amin about two hours ago.
But he was already on his way back home?
“No,” he said, followed by another pause. “I’m expecting some
visitors.”
Visitors? I thought to myself. That was weird. Most people planned
their visits to see Abba days in advance and did so around his schedule.
And he didn’t cut his trips short for just anyone. Who or what was he
canceling this trip for? “Toh, Abba. Okay,” I said. “Allah ya dawo da ku
lafiya. May Allah bring you back safely.”
“Ameen,” he hung up.
I looked at the battered whitish-yellowish Mercedes 19 parked outside
and wondered who could be in it, and what could be so important. My
phone beeped: Can I call you now? It was Ahmad. I called him back:
“Sorry about that, bae.”
“No, no. Don’t apologize. Is everything okay?” he raised his voice
above the flight announcements in the background.
“Where are you?” I asked because he wasn’t supposed to be traveling
back to Canada until mid-August.
“That’s why I called earlier,” he replied. “I’m at the Airport. My dad
said something urgent came up.”
“You’re coming to Abuja?” I asked. Something didn’t feel right.
“One minute. Just checking in,” he said. I heard some chatter in the
background as he got his boarding pass. I had gone to see Aunty Mami two
days ago and everything seemed alright; she said they had a wedding to
attend in Maiduguri. Did they want Ahmad to accompany them to the
wedding? Would they actually send for him all the way from London for
something like that on such short notice? “Yeah, hello?” he was back on the
other end. “It might be related to that Asokoro property I told you about,”
he said.
Okay, that makes sense, I thought, still feeling uneasy. “Toh, have a safe
flight,” I said as I made my way to Umma’s section.
“We’re about to board. I’ll call you once I touchdown,” he paused.
“When can I come and see you?”
“Abba’s on his way back, too. You know I’m not allowed visitors after
Maghrib.”
“C’mon Fa’iza. Really?”
“Really,” I answered. I still found it funny that he was surprised at how
orthodox and traditional my family was; the only way he could come over
was to pretend that he was here to see Ya Amin.
I parted the curtains and found Umma in her living room. She was
pacing up and down while on a call. She wasn’t talking much, just nodding
in agreement and agreeing like one does when listening to something.
I went to Abba’s section to turn on the incense burner for some oud
bakhoor and turn on the AC to cool the living room before he got back. As I
lifted the drapes to brighten up the space, I noticed that two more cars had
come into the compound. I recognized one, a blue Peugeot 406, as my
uncle’s personal car, but the other two – a Prado Jeep and a Toyota
Pathfinder – didn’t look familiar. Are these the people Abba canceled his
trip to see? What could this meeting be about? Could it be about… me?
I had been back to Nigeria for weeks now. A week after I got back, I
started having panic attacks. I would imagine a scenario in my head and get
so fixated with it that it stopped me from sleeping, gradually becoming the
only thing I could think about. Sometimes, it got so bad that just thinking
about it would make me hyperventilate. I would wake up drenched in my
own sweat in the middle of the night. During those odd hours, the only
person I could talk about them with was Ahmad.
“I understand what you mean,” Ahmad said one day when I called him
in the middle of the night, “but can we consider this to be a hypothetical
situation?”
“Yes, but what if during the pre-wedding investigation, they find out
about…” I paused, “about us?”
“How would they find out, Fa’iza?”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. It was barely 3 am, and I was whispering
into the phone. “What if someone that knows us saw how much time I spent
in your apartment?”
“Okay. First of all, bae, you’re overthinking this. Worst-case scenario,
they would do the Nikkah immediately and host a reception in December.”
I was silent.
“There’s no way they know what goes on in my apartment.”
I thought about it some more and realized it was kind of silly, really.
Two weeks later, I had another panic attack. Mufti Menk was apt when he
said, “when you commit sin, peace of mind evades you.” Ahmad had to
excuse himself from a meeting because I was freaking out, and he needed to
calm me down. “The second genotype results came out months ago, Fa’iza.
I am AA.” Okay, maybe I was alarmed for nothing. Maybe he was right.
As I made my way back toward our section, I saw Hajiya Uwani
coming in through the main entrance. She did not have her usual smile
when she saw me, and when I greeted her, she answered with a question:
“Where’s Umma?”
“She’s in her sitting room,” I answered. She hurried to Umma’s section
and I started panicking again. This was about me. I could feel it in my
bones. I went to my room and dialed Ahmad’s number. Please pick up, I
prayed silently.
“Bae.”
“Ahmad, something’s going on. Abba’s coming back from Egypt, my
uncles are here… Ahmad, something is wrong.”
“Hey, hey, hey. Take a breath,” he said. I took a deep breath and
exhaled. “Okay, talk to me.” His voice was calm and measured.
“I think something came up during the investigations.”
“Something like what?” he asked gently.
“Maybe they found out about… about you,” I finally said, knowing he
would understand I was talking about the alcohol, the live-in girlfriend and
other things.
There was some chatter in the background, then his voice came back on.
“Babe, we’re about to take off. There’s no way they found out about that.
Okay? Kina ji na? There’s absolutely no way.” I nodded even though he
couldn’t see me. “I told you the truth about my past because I didn’t want
there to be any secrets between us,” his voice was almost a whisper. “It’s
not exactly common knowledge, okay?”
“Okay,” I sighed. Unlike the last times he talked me out of these
scenarios, I was not really convinced this time around.
“I love you, Insom,” he said.
“We’re back to ‘Insom’?” The sound of his gentle laughter calmed me
down a little. I sighed, “I love you, too.”
* * *
That’s the thing about panic attacks I learnt that summer, there is a stage
worse than hyperventilation and breathlessness– it is when you get to a
stage when you cannot physically move. After Asr, I stayed on my praying
mat until Maghrib, staring at my rosary in front of me and the black glossy
thread that embroidered the designs on my praying mat. Every few minutes,
I would read a prayer, followed by a verse from the Qur’an. I did not have
the confidence that my prayers would be answered, not after all the things I
had done. Yet, I didn’t relent.
Earlier on, when Abba’s convoy came into the compound, I saw the
expression on his face and knew for sure something was wrong. When I did
not hear Ya Amin come into our section to ask after his food like he always
did after a trip, I knew this could not be good. Less than an hour later, I
watched through the window as Ahmad came with his father. He was
picked up straight from the airport, I could tell because he had on the same
clothes when we Facetimed when I woke up this morning. The black shirt I
told him would go better with his tie when he raised it and a brown one. He
didn’t have the tie on anymore, I watched him disappear though the door
into Abba’s section where all of Abba’s guests were waiting.
Shortly after, Umma came to my room. She did not send Atine or
anyone else to ask me to come; she came all the way to my room. She
opened the door and found me sitting down on my praying mat, with the
back of my head leaning on the wall.
“When you’re done, Abba wants to talk to you,” her eyes lingered on
me for a few seconds with an unreadable expression on her face and then
she silently shut the door behind her. Ya Salam. God! I glanced at my
phone. Ahmad’s messages from a few hours ago were still on my screen:
Touchdown and half an hour later: Hey, don’t panic, but I think you might be
right… Since then, his phone hadn’t been reachable.
I folded up the praying mat with shaky hands and with heavy steps,
headed to Abba’s section, still wearing my black hijab. I walked silently
and was surprised that the living room was now empty but for three people
– Umma, Abba, and a woman I had never seen before. She was light-
skinned and her white veil was draped over her head, almost covering her
entire body. She seemed to be in her fifties.
“Assalamu alaikum,” my voice was shaky. Abba looked up at me;
Umma didn’t. I knelt on the Persian carpet by the white leather couch in
front of them.
“Wa alaikumus salam,” my father answered. He exhaled loudly. “Sit
down, Fa’iza.”
I tried to decipher their faces, but I couldn’t. We sat in silence for about
thirty seconds, both my parents looking at the ground. I was filled with
dread like I had never known before; maybe they found out that he used to
drink. Or had they found out details about my relationship with Ahmad –
the sleepovers, the make-out sessions? What else did they know? I had
disappointed my parents. How would I ever face them ever again? Will they
say that he is bad for me? I cannot imagine a life without Ahmad.
“The prophet Mohammed,” my father started. His words were slower
than usual. I looked up at him, and as he spoke, but it wasn’t
disappointment or anger I saw on his face; it was something else. Pity?
“Sallallahu Alayhi Wa Sallam,” we all chorused softly, as we invoked
blessings on the prophet like we always do when his name is mentioned.
My mother was still looking at the ground, and the strange lady wouldn’t
stop looking at my face.
“The prophet Mohammed,” Abba started again slowly, “advised us that
in everything we do, we must have tawakkul,complete faith in Allah, and
follow the words of Allah because He is the best of planners.” I looked up
at him; he seemed sad. I had never seen my father like this. “Fa’iza, this is
about your marriage to Ahamad. As you know, we have been doing the
necessary investigations, and something unfortunate has come up.”
Oh my God. This was about his past. My stress level right now was off
the charts. How do I tell them that I am willing to marry Ahmad and I
didn’t care about anything they found out about him.
“This is Malama Zainab,” he gestured towards the light-skinned
woman. “I don’t think you’ll remember but when we lived in Kano, she
helped with the chores around the house,” he paused and I nodded. “When
you were born, there were some complications with your birth, and Umma
had to be admitted in the hospital for about over a month,” he paused again.
I wondered where this story of my birth was going, but I noticed how
shaken Abba was as he recounted how my mother almost died after having
me. “While she was there, hanging between life and death, I was running all
over the place, trying to find specialists to help with you. Finally, your
aunty, Baba Asabe, – Allah ya jikan ta. May her soul rest in peace – along
with Hajiya Uwani and Malama Zainab found someone to breastfeed you;
we called her ‘yarAgadez’.”
Yar Agadez. A woman from Agadez, a town in the Republic of Niger. I
looked up at Malama Zainab and wondered if she was related to ‘yar
Agadez. She looked like she was from Niger or Chad.
How is this the big problem everyone was summoned for? It’s not a
crime to pay someone else to breastfeed your child –especially around the
time I was born, when baby formula was not as common, I thought. I looked
up at Abba as he continued speaking.
“Malama Zainab came here to testify that this ‘yar Agadez was the
same woman who breastfed Ahamad when Hajiya Mami had an accident.
He was barely a year old then, and –” he was still talking, but I could not
hear the words coming out of his mouth.
‘Yar Agadez, the woman who breastfed me also breastfed Ahmad when
he was barely a year old? The same woman? My mind was busy trying to
recall the Quranic verse about wet nurses and breastfeeding: Prohibited to
you [for marriage] …your sisters through nursing. Suratul Nisa, the chapter
about women in the Quran, yes, it states that children breastfed by the same
woman are…
“Yes,” Malama Zainab said, her voice bringing me back to my father’s
living room.
“Because of this,” Abba sighed, “there cannot be a marriage between
you and Ahamad,” he paused, “you’re like siblings and marriage between
you two is not permissible.”
A ringing started in my ear. I could no longer hear what was being said,
but there was a loud ringing in my ear. The lights in the living room were
suddenly bright, too bright. Ahmad? A milk sibling. My milk sibling. I had
heard that term so many times. I had recited that verse many times while
reading Suratul Nisa and like all the other rules in the Qur’an, I knew they
were set in stone, and we had to abide by them, but I never imagined that
this particular line would one day refer to me, I didn’t even know that wet
nurses were still a thing and could be investigated before marriage.
I looked up at Umma and she was looking at me, “Fa’iza,” her voice
rose above the ringing, “take this as Allah’s will; He has destined it this
way.” My heart was beating painfully in my chest. I thought it would burst
out of my chest, all I could do was nod.
“Allah yai miki albarka Fa’iza. May God bless you,” Abba said.
If only he knew. If only my father knew what kind of trouble I had
gotten into, I thought as I nodded. “Ameen, Abba.” My head was throbbing,
and I could not see clearly. I stood up and walked towards my room, feeling
nauseated and crumbling like a bag filled with worms. Ahmad? Marriage
between us is not permissible? I remembered our whispered words as we
promised each other forever – how we held each other until we fell asleep.
The Ahmad I had done all those things with. Ahmad, who had touched me
in places I could not even say out loud. Where do I start to undo the
mistakes I’ve committed with him? How do I even begin?
When I got to my room, I looked at my phone. Not one notification
from him. I sat on the edge of my bed, thinking. Thinking of everything, my
mind was so far away. Far far away. All I could think of was the marriage
certificate locked away in his Downtown apartment. Our marriage
certificate. The certificate that verified a marriage with the one who was
forbidden for me, and the one for whom I was forbidden. Inna Lillahi wa
inna ilayhi raji’un.
* * *
“Ina Fa’iza? Where’s Fa’iza?” I heard Hajiya Uwani’s voice from the
hallway, her voice above the ringing in my ears. I wanted to call out and let
her know I was in my room, but when I opened my mouth, no sound came
out. I had lost my voice. The door opened and she came in. “Allah sarki,”
her voice was loud. Everything was too thunderous – the cars driving out of
the compound, the wallclock ticking, my heartbeat… the rustle that her veil
made as she sat on the bed next to me, “I wasn’t happy to hear this news,”
she spoke mostly to herself, “take heart. He isn’t the one written in your
destiny, but don’t worry, don’t give up hope. You’ll meet your husband soon
insha Allah.”
This time yesterday, I was so sure of my future. I was sure of spending
the rest of my life with Ahmad. I was happy with how my life was going.
All of that changed in an instant, to this irreversible misery with no end in
sight.
She hissed to herself and clasped her hands on her chest. “We’re lucky
we found out when we did. If we’d found out after –” her voice trailed off.
She could not bring herself to voice out the thought.
My hands got clammy, and my vision started blurring. I didn’t know
what to deal with – the loss of the love of my life, or the unspeakable secret
I was now harboring? I laid back on the bed and remained still. All I could
hear was the loud beats of my heart and Hajiya Uwani’s continuous
monologue on faith and destiny.
After she left, Ya Amin came into the room. Unlike Abubakar, he was
not a man of many words. He sat on the bed next to me quietly as I tried to
block all the thoughts that were threatening to flood my mind. “Allah ya sa
haka shi ne mafi alheri. May this be for the best outcome,” he finally said
as the athan for Isha was called. “Stand up and pray.” He left and closed the
door to my room quietly.
I stood up to go perform ablution, but as soon as I caught my reflection
in the mirror, I crumbled to the cold floor. I could not bear to look at myself
and the tears wouldn’t stop. I closed my eyes and saw Ahmad’s face, heard
his voice, felt his touch. And every time I did, I died a little inside.
My father’s voice kept playing over and over in my head: you’re like
siblings and marriage between you two is not permissible. It went on like a
broken record on a loop. I was suffocating in the knowledge that the bridge
to redemption had been burned. I remained curled up on the cold floor in a
corner. I could not get up; I did not have the willpower to. I was in intense
physical pain. My limbs felt like I had been beaten severely and my chest –
oh my chest – there was an excruciating pain that dug deeper every time I
took a breath. I was short of breath as the sobs raged uncontrollably out of
me. I had a migraine and knew I had to seek forgiveness. I needed to pray
Isha then repent for my sins. But as hard as I tried, I could not physically
get up from the floor. I had no will to live.
The call for subh met me on the floor by the toilet sink, still curled up
with my knees to my chest. I had not even realized that the whole night had
passed. I had not heard from Ahmad since he left our house. His silence
was loud. I went searching for my phone and realized it had run out of
battery and was now dead. It had probably been dead all night. I put my
phone to charge, performed wudhu, and spent more time than I had ever
done crying on my praying mat.
Beep beep. Beep beep. Beep beep. Multiple messages came flooding as
my phone came back on. I hurriedly went to check. It was Ahmad. First,
Pick up your phone then Please say something. We need to talk. There were
also missed calls from him, Afreen, and Aunty Mami before the phone died.
I prayed, and I crawled up to my bed, going under the covers and
hugging myself. I felt too heavy to move or do anything else, and the
weight of the ring on my finger was crushing me. For the first time since he
put it on me, I removed it, placed it on my bedside table, and my hand fell
limply on the bed next to me.
There was a knock on the door and my brother poked his head through,
“Fa’iza?”
“Ya Amin,” I said, mustering the will to get up and look alive. I
wondered if he’d heard me crying all through the night. I hoped not.
“Kin tashi? Are you awake?” he mumbled quietly. Our language and its
rhetorical questions. I nodded and watched him struggle with what to say
next. If Abubakar were here, he would have given me a hug or said
something to make me smile. “Come,” he cleared his throat, “Ahmad is in
the living room.” It felt like something in my chest had cracked. Ahmad?
Here? I wondered if I could face him. “You should come before Abba
comes this way.”
As soon as I stood up, I felt a wave of dizziness over me and it took all
the strength I had to stand straight. I took the black hijab I prayed in, put it
on and followed my brother out of my room.
I walked into the living room, and in the dimly lit room, the first rays of
morning sunlight gently filtered through the curtains, casting a bittersweet
glow upon the scene. Ahmad was pacing back and forth a few feet from the
door; his movements reflected the turmoil within him. His fingers ran
through his disheveled hair as if trying to grasp onto any semblance of
hope. It felt like my heart stopped when he looked my way with his eyes
red-rimmed. He was still wearing what he wore the previous day when I
watched him come with his dad through the window: black trousers and the
black shirt, now rumbled with creases all over.
Ya Amin, on the dining table, was constantly glancing up to look at us
covertly behind an open laptop at the other end of the room. I looked back
at Ahmad. He looked down at his feet and back to my face.
“Why are you here?” I asked quietly. The quiver in my voice betrayed
the sadness that enveloped me.
“I tried calling and texting, but – but you –” he swallowed, “I didn’t
know if you were okay. I had to –” his shoulders were slightly hunched
upwards.
“It’s 6 am…” I whispered softly; my voice sounded distant and tired.
He hesitated, and then, “I prayed subh here,” he confessed. How? Why?
Off the top of my head, I could count about four mosques between our
house and theirs in Maitama. “Are you okay?” he asked slowly while his
eyes searched my face.
Do I look okay to you? I thought to myself, fighting back the feeling to
slump to the floor and wail. I shrugged. There were no words. He must
know exactly how I was feeling; it was a pain that refused to be described.
The fact that we could not be together for something we never saw coming
was unbearable. Just thinking about yesterday evening’s discovery made the
tears start again, and I couldn’t stop them. His hands started reaching for
me, and I took a step back. “Please don’t,” I whispered.
He looked at the ceiling and exhaled. I could see how hard he was
trying to keep it together. He looked behind him, and Ya Amin looked
away, pretending to focus on his laptop. “I can’t bear to see you cry,” he
said quietly as he shook his head slowly. He looked so devastated, and he
kept shifting his weight from one foot to another like he was unsure of what
to do. “I cannot fathom a life without you. The thought of waking up each
morning, knowing that we are separated by… by this, is a torment I never
imagined I would face.”
I fight back my own tears, the pain cutting through me like a thousand
sharp blades. I held onto my composure because it was the only thing I had
left, but even when I spoke, my voice was filled with a mixture of sadness
and determination.
“You know we can’t see each other anymore,” I said, my heart
pounding with each syllable. I was dying inside.
“I’m not giving up on us.” He chokes out, his voice thick with emotion.
“Why?” This was bigger than us; we didn’t stand a chance. We were not
destined for each other and were too blind to see it. I hoped that he could
see what I wasn’t saying in my eyes, the words I didn’t have the strength to
voice out.
“You know why,” he said, his eyes piercing into mine, forcing me to
remember the private vows and whispered promises we made to each other.
I thought about us and the year we spent together; those were the happiest
moments in my life. But he was not the one written in my destiny and we
needed to find a way to undo our error before anyone found out. “I am not
giving up on us. You hear me? You’re mine, Fa’iza,” his eyes pierced mine
with such intensity that I had to look away. “There has to be a mistake
somewhere.” I shook my head, wondering if he had gone mad. How is he
going to fight this? How can he fight scripture? As if he could hear the
thoughts in my head, Ahmad continued: “I’m going to Kano today. Zainab
is going to lead me to the wet nurse,” he paused, trying to read the
impression on my face, while ignoring the phone that had started vibrating
in his pocket. “I have some questions.”
“Malama Zainab?” I asked. I doubted that there was a mistake. I
doubted that anyone would bring false evidence to Abba, especially
regarding something as important as his daughter’s marriage. My father was
known for painstakingly reviewing and scrutinizing witnesses for the cases
he handled.
“Yes. I tracked her down last night, and we are going back to Kano
together.” I nodded, not sure what he hoped to find in Kano. “There’s a lot
we don’t know. We don’t know the number of feeds necessary to establish
the milk-kinship, to begin wi–”
“Once is enough,” I cut him off. Anyone who went to Islammiyah knew
this.
“It’s heavily debated, though. Some say it’s five, or ten –“
“Ahmad…” I was a complete wreck. It broke my heart to see him this,
grasping at straws.
“Will you pick when I call?” his eyes were pleading. “When I call from
Kano to update you?”
“Ahmad, maybe we should just accept this brother -sist –” His sharp
inhale stopped me.
“I would rather die than I call you my sis –” he swallowed the word
back like it was pungent, like it was an insult to him.
With those words, I took a step back, my heart heavy with the weight of
our reality. As the morning light grew stronger, it cast a melancholic glow
upon the living room, and we shared one final, longing gaze. It is a gaze
that speaks volumes, expressing the love and ache that intertwined our
fates.
Tears were streaming down my face now. I turned around and with each
step taking me further from Ahmad, my heart shattered into a thousand
pieces, forever marked by the pain of a love that could never be. As soon as
I got into my room, I fell to the bed, praying to God to take this pain away.
If not for anything, but for our sanity.
II