Chapter 23
Broken Not a halal love story Complete · about 10 min read
hmad had always been an analytical thinker. Logic and reason guided
his actions; he questioned everything. Whenever the answers were
vague or rooted in some timeworn tradition, he simply refused to ascribe by
it. These traits influenced every aspect of his life, down to his career choice.
Ahmad did not let the shackle of being seen as a disappointment to his
father hold him back from pursuing what he really wanted to study, UX
design. Mid-semester in his second year in Law school, he informed his
parents of his decision to drop out and move to the UK to start a new
program. Years after his graduation – now a successful entrepreneur – he
anonymously donated to numerous charities. When he found gaps in service
delivery and healthcare teleconferencing, he built apps to solve those
problems and to make lives easier for people. Islam, in his understanding,
was also about charity and kindness, making life easy for people, and
helping the needy.
He’d thought he was making his and Fa’iza’s lives easier when he
suggested that they got married late spring in Toronto. The marriage was a
safety net, as he didn’t want Fa’iza to be guilt-ridden every time they
crossed one of her boundaries. He knew that the regret that came after the
shame would drive her away from him forever, the shame that women had
been conditioned by society into facing whenever they gave in to their
desires outside marriage. Their marriage was officiated in the presence of
an Imam at Eman Mosque with two Muslim witnesses and dowry – all the
components needed for an Islamic marriage to be valid.
“Wifey,” he’d said later that evening, raising his glass to Fa’iza during
the small dinner they hosted in his apartment.
“Is that supposed to be a toast? I read that making a toast with water is
bad luck,” she’d joked, and he’d laughed. Together they looked picture-
perfect. Both were blessed with great looks and a quiet kind of self-
assurance that came with multi-generational privilege. She had a way of
putting a smile across his face so effortlessly.
But for a while now, since he received news about the wet nurse, he had
not been able to smile. When he returned from Agadez, Ahmad was faced
with an unbearable truth, that he might lose Fa’iza. Several weeks in the
Sahara with no progress had diminished his optimism of fixing the
situation; yet, he held on, never giving up because there was so much at
stake.
Logic just required him to start from the baseline, to make sure that all
contingencies were accounted for. The first question was simple: Were they
sure that it was the same woman?
He placed the enlarged black-and-white photograph on the table in front
of his mother as she ate dinner. She sighed and adjusted her glasses as she
studied the picture before meeting her son’s gaze. “Ita ce. It’s her.”
“Can you please ask Fa’i’ –” he paused. That was the first time he tried
saying her name to someone else in weeks, “can you please ask Umma if
this is the same person who worked for them?” He brought out another
black-and-white picture of a random Fulani woman he had gotten from a
Google search and placed it next to ‘yar Agadez’s picture. “Actually, could
you please ask her to pick which of these women worked for her?”
“Why do you think this matter hasn’t been properly looked into?”
“Mum,” his voice was strained. “Please do this for me.”
Two weeks after their discreet wedding, Fa’iza and Ahmad were laying on
his bed in Toronto. She laid on his chest, reviewing past exam question
papers, while he read the final chapter of a book she’d recommended to
him, The Handmaid’s Tale with his head buried in the pillows. His fingers
tugged her soft hair absentmindedly when she suddenly looked up at him
and smiled.
“Meye ne? What is it?” he smiled down at her.
“I love you.”
“I love you forever,” he said, kissing her forehead.
On the last day of her exams, they got back to the residence late; they
had gone to watch a late-night movie and then stopped for a midnight snack
at one of the restaurants downtown that serve all-day breakfast.
“What time should I come pick you up tomorrow?” he asked. He was
dropping her at his parent’s house the following day, so she could spend the
night before leaving for Nigeria. “Or… do you want to spend the night
downtown?”
They started binge-watching a show when they got back to his place. It
was dark but for the brightness of the television. As they shared a tub of ice
cream – her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat – the silent
realization that they wouldn’t see each other for a few months made them
sleepless. They started kissing gently at first, and it got heated and
passionate within minutes. He had never wanted someone as much as he did
in that moment, and he wondered if he could physically stop himself this
time as he had done over the months because the pressure of his hard-on
was unbearable. His hand went over hers and slowly placed it on him. Her
eyes widened as she looked down between them, but she did not take her
hand off.
“Look at me,” he said as his hand lifted her chin and his other hand
went over hers, slowly guiding her as she stroked his length. He groaned as
he pulled her into him and parted her lips with his. In one swift move, his
hands went around her possessively and carried her into the bedroom.
They found themselves in a frenzy of intense need, with a forwardness
heightened by legally being man and wife. His mouth went over her body,
memorizing the taste of her skin and the softness of her curves. He pushed
her to the brink and pulled back every time she got to the edge, and the
sounds she made drove him wild.
“Do you want me to stop?” he looked down at her half-lidded eyes, her
mouth slightly open, and her hair fanned out over his white sheets. All she
had on was her white underwear and him, his black boxers. They had never
made it this far.
“No… please…” her voice was laced with desire.
He took his time, stretching the night into what felt like forever as he
learnt what made her moan. He pleasured her in ways she didn’t know, and
when her back arched and soft whimpers escaped her lips, he caught her
trembling body in his arms, and his fingers continued from where his mouth
stopped, moving with the urgency he knew she needed. “Yes, baby… that’s
it. Come for me,” he said into her ear. And she came undone.
He held her through it all; he felt a fierce need to protect her. He knew
he was the only one in the whole world to ever see her this vulnerable and
so beautiful. He kissed her neck and her bare shoulders slowly. She moved
and buried her face in his neck as she caught her breath, her fingers digging
weakly into his skin. In that moment, Ahmad knew that he could never feel
this way for anyone else but his wife.
“Are you okay, babe?”
“I don’t think I’m ready to go all the way. I want to, but –” She looked
up at him with her eyes slightly moist, the only light coming into the dark
room was from a crack in the drapes allowing the moonlight in.
“That’s okay, babe,” he said as he pulled the duvet over their bodies,
their arms still wrapped around each other. He kissed the tips of her fingers
as she reached up to stroke his face gently. “This was perfect.” It was –
breathtakingly so.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you forever, Fa’iza,” he kissed her forehead gently.
* * *
As the distance between them closed in the busy lobby of the residence, it
took a lot of willpower for him not to grab her, hold her tightly, and never
let her go. She had lost some weight since he last saw her in Abuja; it had
been three months. Her neck seemed longer, her cheekbones were more
prominent, and her figure was much thinner in the puffy black jacket she
wore over baggy black jeans.
“Hey,” he said. A moment of silence passed between them as they
looked at each other. “You’ve been hard to reach.” When her phone number
rang endlessly and when it went to voicemail, he told himself she was still
processing her thoughts and maybe she needed time. When her number
became invalid, he concentrated on combing through Audu’s daily reports
from Agadez and finding possible solutions for them. But something
happened the previous evening. When he got back from the office, there
was a package waiting for him and he recognized her writing on the address
label.
“Hi,” she said. She wouldn’t meet his eyes; she looked everywhere but
at him.
“Do you mind if we sit for a minute?” his voice carefully measured as
he pointed to the chairs by the fireplace in the lobby.
“I need to g–”
“Just one minute,” he interrupted. He had expected her to come up with
an excuse.
She sighed and walked slowly to the chair and sat down. She was
fidgeting – pulling the sleeves of her jacket to cover her wrists, adjusting
the ends of her scarf.
“How have you been?” He was worried about her.
She shrugged. “Why are you here?” Her eyes unable to meet Ahmad’s
gaze. The air crackled with unresolved tension from the raw emotion that
made him want to close the distance between them. As if searching for an
escape route from the overwhelming emotions that threatened to consume
him, he exhaled as he answered with a question.
“What’s this?” He raised the small box that came in the mail the
previous evening and pushed it toward her.
“You know what it is.”
“Why would you return it?” his voice was gentle, “it belongs to you.”
“Ahmad, I can’t wear your ring anymore.”
“Give it to charity, then. Or throw it in the garbage,” he said, glancing at
the box and then looking back at her. The ring he had proposed with was in
the small Tiffany box, and the bracelet he had bought her in Italy was in a
velvet Chanel pouch. “Damn it,” he shook his head slowly, “I can’t believe
you would give up on us so easily.”
“Staying away is the right thing to do.”
“We’ve been here before,” his voice was rising, and he had to mentally
recalibrate to bring it down. “These feelings won’t disappear because we’re
staying away from each other.” She looked down at her fingers, saying
nothing. “C’mon. Tell me you don’t think about us.” He was talking about
the last few weeks they had spent together; he could not get her out of his
mind. He knew that it had to be the same for her.
“Let’s just pretend that – that it never happened.” She looked
uncomfortable at the subtle mention of their intimacy.
A muscle in his jaw clenched, and he chuckled bitterly, “but it
happened. You can’t undo that.”
A veil of silence descended upon them, the weight of unspoken words
hanging heavily in the air. Their eyes locked for a fleeting moment, an
ocean of shared memories and unfulfilled desires passing through them.
Pain clouded her eyes, and he watched as tears formed.
“Bye, Ahmad,” her voice was strained and fragile as she stood up and
tightened her scarf over her head just as the first tear fell.
“Fa’iza – listen.” He said, his tone a mixture of resignation and longing.
His words had hurt her, and he felt like complete and utter shit.
She started walking away, and before he could stop himself, he stood up
and grabbed her left hand. She turned around and looked at him. “Ahmad,
get your –”
He didn’t allow her to finish her sentence. He leaned down and covered
her lips with his. Heavens be damned, you are mine. That was the only
thought in his head as he pulled her closer. All logic and sense of reason
deserted him.
D
his actions; he questioned everything. Whenever the answers were
vague or rooted in some timeworn tradition, he simply refused to ascribe by
it. These traits influenced every aspect of his life, down to his career choice.
Ahmad did not let the shackle of being seen as a disappointment to his
father hold him back from pursuing what he really wanted to study, UX
design. Mid-semester in his second year in Law school, he informed his
parents of his decision to drop out and move to the UK to start a new
program. Years after his graduation – now a successful entrepreneur – he
anonymously donated to numerous charities. When he found gaps in service
delivery and healthcare teleconferencing, he built apps to solve those
problems and to make lives easier for people. Islam, in his understanding,
was also about charity and kindness, making life easy for people, and
helping the needy.
He’d thought he was making his and Fa’iza’s lives easier when he
suggested that they got married late spring in Toronto. The marriage was a
safety net, as he didn’t want Fa’iza to be guilt-ridden every time they
crossed one of her boundaries. He knew that the regret that came after the
shame would drive her away from him forever, the shame that women had
been conditioned by society into facing whenever they gave in to their
desires outside marriage. Their marriage was officiated in the presence of
an Imam at Eman Mosque with two Muslim witnesses and dowry – all the
components needed for an Islamic marriage to be valid.
“Wifey,” he’d said later that evening, raising his glass to Fa’iza during
the small dinner they hosted in his apartment.
“Is that supposed to be a toast? I read that making a toast with water is
bad luck,” she’d joked, and he’d laughed. Together they looked picture-
perfect. Both were blessed with great looks and a quiet kind of self-
assurance that came with multi-generational privilege. She had a way of
putting a smile across his face so effortlessly.
But for a while now, since he received news about the wet nurse, he had
not been able to smile. When he returned from Agadez, Ahmad was faced
with an unbearable truth, that he might lose Fa’iza. Several weeks in the
Sahara with no progress had diminished his optimism of fixing the
situation; yet, he held on, never giving up because there was so much at
stake.
Logic just required him to start from the baseline, to make sure that all
contingencies were accounted for. The first question was simple: Were they
sure that it was the same woman?
He placed the enlarged black-and-white photograph on the table in front
of his mother as she ate dinner. She sighed and adjusted her glasses as she
studied the picture before meeting her son’s gaze. “Ita ce. It’s her.”
“Can you please ask Fa’i’ –” he paused. That was the first time he tried
saying her name to someone else in weeks, “can you please ask Umma if
this is the same person who worked for them?” He brought out another
black-and-white picture of a random Fulani woman he had gotten from a
Google search and placed it next to ‘yar Agadez’s picture. “Actually, could
you please ask her to pick which of these women worked for her?”
“Why do you think this matter hasn’t been properly looked into?”
“Mum,” his voice was strained. “Please do this for me.”
Two weeks after their discreet wedding, Fa’iza and Ahmad were laying on
his bed in Toronto. She laid on his chest, reviewing past exam question
papers, while he read the final chapter of a book she’d recommended to
him, The Handmaid’s Tale with his head buried in the pillows. His fingers
tugged her soft hair absentmindedly when she suddenly looked up at him
and smiled.
“Meye ne? What is it?” he smiled down at her.
“I love you.”
“I love you forever,” he said, kissing her forehead.
On the last day of her exams, they got back to the residence late; they
had gone to watch a late-night movie and then stopped for a midnight snack
at one of the restaurants downtown that serve all-day breakfast.
“What time should I come pick you up tomorrow?” he asked. He was
dropping her at his parent’s house the following day, so she could spend the
night before leaving for Nigeria. “Or… do you want to spend the night
downtown?”
They started binge-watching a show when they got back to his place. It
was dark but for the brightness of the television. As they shared a tub of ice
cream – her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat – the silent
realization that they wouldn’t see each other for a few months made them
sleepless. They started kissing gently at first, and it got heated and
passionate within minutes. He had never wanted someone as much as he did
in that moment, and he wondered if he could physically stop himself this
time as he had done over the months because the pressure of his hard-on
was unbearable. His hand went over hers and slowly placed it on him. Her
eyes widened as she looked down between them, but she did not take her
hand off.
“Look at me,” he said as his hand lifted her chin and his other hand
went over hers, slowly guiding her as she stroked his length. He groaned as
he pulled her into him and parted her lips with his. In one swift move, his
hands went around her possessively and carried her into the bedroom.
They found themselves in a frenzy of intense need, with a forwardness
heightened by legally being man and wife. His mouth went over her body,
memorizing the taste of her skin and the softness of her curves. He pushed
her to the brink and pulled back every time she got to the edge, and the
sounds she made drove him wild.
“Do you want me to stop?” he looked down at her half-lidded eyes, her
mouth slightly open, and her hair fanned out over his white sheets. All she
had on was her white underwear and him, his black boxers. They had never
made it this far.
“No… please…” her voice was laced with desire.
He took his time, stretching the night into what felt like forever as he
learnt what made her moan. He pleasured her in ways she didn’t know, and
when her back arched and soft whimpers escaped her lips, he caught her
trembling body in his arms, and his fingers continued from where his mouth
stopped, moving with the urgency he knew she needed. “Yes, baby… that’s
it. Come for me,” he said into her ear. And she came undone.
He held her through it all; he felt a fierce need to protect her. He knew
he was the only one in the whole world to ever see her this vulnerable and
so beautiful. He kissed her neck and her bare shoulders slowly. She moved
and buried her face in his neck as she caught her breath, her fingers digging
weakly into his skin. In that moment, Ahmad knew that he could never feel
this way for anyone else but his wife.
“Are you okay, babe?”
“I don’t think I’m ready to go all the way. I want to, but –” She looked
up at him with her eyes slightly moist, the only light coming into the dark
room was from a crack in the drapes allowing the moonlight in.
“That’s okay, babe,” he said as he pulled the duvet over their bodies,
their arms still wrapped around each other. He kissed the tips of her fingers
as she reached up to stroke his face gently. “This was perfect.” It was –
breathtakingly so.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you forever, Fa’iza,” he kissed her forehead gently.
* * *
As the distance between them closed in the busy lobby of the residence, it
took a lot of willpower for him not to grab her, hold her tightly, and never
let her go. She had lost some weight since he last saw her in Abuja; it had
been three months. Her neck seemed longer, her cheekbones were more
prominent, and her figure was much thinner in the puffy black jacket she
wore over baggy black jeans.
“Hey,” he said. A moment of silence passed between them as they
looked at each other. “You’ve been hard to reach.” When her phone number
rang endlessly and when it went to voicemail, he told himself she was still
processing her thoughts and maybe she needed time. When her number
became invalid, he concentrated on combing through Audu’s daily reports
from Agadez and finding possible solutions for them. But something
happened the previous evening. When he got back from the office, there
was a package waiting for him and he recognized her writing on the address
label.
“Hi,” she said. She wouldn’t meet his eyes; she looked everywhere but
at him.
“Do you mind if we sit for a minute?” his voice carefully measured as
he pointed to the chairs by the fireplace in the lobby.
“I need to g–”
“Just one minute,” he interrupted. He had expected her to come up with
an excuse.
She sighed and walked slowly to the chair and sat down. She was
fidgeting – pulling the sleeves of her jacket to cover her wrists, adjusting
the ends of her scarf.
“How have you been?” He was worried about her.
She shrugged. “Why are you here?” Her eyes unable to meet Ahmad’s
gaze. The air crackled with unresolved tension from the raw emotion that
made him want to close the distance between them. As if searching for an
escape route from the overwhelming emotions that threatened to consume
him, he exhaled as he answered with a question.
“What’s this?” He raised the small box that came in the mail the
previous evening and pushed it toward her.
“You know what it is.”
“Why would you return it?” his voice was gentle, “it belongs to you.”
“Ahmad, I can’t wear your ring anymore.”
“Give it to charity, then. Or throw it in the garbage,” he said, glancing at
the box and then looking back at her. The ring he had proposed with was in
the small Tiffany box, and the bracelet he had bought her in Italy was in a
velvet Chanel pouch. “Damn it,” he shook his head slowly, “I can’t believe
you would give up on us so easily.”
“Staying away is the right thing to do.”
“We’ve been here before,” his voice was rising, and he had to mentally
recalibrate to bring it down. “These feelings won’t disappear because we’re
staying away from each other.” She looked down at her fingers, saying
nothing. “C’mon. Tell me you don’t think about us.” He was talking about
the last few weeks they had spent together; he could not get her out of his
mind. He knew that it had to be the same for her.
“Let’s just pretend that – that it never happened.” She looked
uncomfortable at the subtle mention of their intimacy.
A muscle in his jaw clenched, and he chuckled bitterly, “but it
happened. You can’t undo that.”
A veil of silence descended upon them, the weight of unspoken words
hanging heavily in the air. Their eyes locked for a fleeting moment, an
ocean of shared memories and unfulfilled desires passing through them.
Pain clouded her eyes, and he watched as tears formed.
“Bye, Ahmad,” her voice was strained and fragile as she stood up and
tightened her scarf over her head just as the first tear fell.
“Fa’iza – listen.” He said, his tone a mixture of resignation and longing.
His words had hurt her, and he felt like complete and utter shit.
She started walking away, and before he could stop himself, he stood up
and grabbed her left hand. She turned around and looked at him. “Ahmad,
get your –”
He didn’t allow her to finish her sentence. He leaned down and covered
her lips with his. Heavens be damned, you are mine. That was the only
thought in his head as he pulled her closer. All logic and sense of reason
deserted him.
D