Chapter 2
Broken Not a halal love story Complete · about 11 min read
Abuja, September 2010
looked around my room one last time – at my queen-sized bed and pink
pillows, my half-empty closet, and my bookshelf as my fingers absent-
mindedly scrolled over rows of novels and textbooks. I turned around, and
my eyes fell on the family portrait that sat above the bed’s headboard,
which I got from Umma’s room when she redecorated a few years ago and
had kept in my room ever since then. It was a portrait of our family – my
father, whom we all call Abba, my mother, Umma, my brothers (Ya Amin
and Abubakar) and me, the youngest – taken on my parents’ 15th wedding
anniversary. The picture was taken almost a decade ago when I was just
eight years old. Looking at it, my legs felt heavy, and my heart was filled
with immense sadness.
“Fa’iza, have you prayed?” Abubakar’s voice interrupted my thoughts. I
turned around to respond but only caught a glimpse of the back of his black
shirt as he rushed into his room without waiting for my answer. In our
household, questions like this were rhetorical; they served as reminders.
I nodded to myself. After praying Isha, the last prayer of the day, I had
spent about 30 minutes on my praying mat after reading my Qur’an and
alternating from praying for a safe flight and strength to not break down and
cry as this was the first time I would be away from my parents.
With a sigh, I closed my door for what would be the last time in a while
and walked to the other side of the house towards my parents’ living room.
As I moved down the hallway that connected my father’s section to the
children’s section, I was met with the scent of turaren wuta, local incense. I
followed the scent into my father’s living room and found Abba, a grey-
haired man in his fifties, with a lean stature and a greying moustache sitting
in his usual deep brown leather armchair facing the television that was on a
news channel, but he had a newspaper open. His bespectacled face frowned
at the news as he listened to the newscaster relay news regarding a political
party, PCP. Politics was of no interest to me, even though my family had a
significant stake in it. “Assalamu alaikum,” I said, announcing my presence
as I walked into the living room.
“Wa alaikumus salam,” he responded, dragging his words slowly the
way he always did. He folded the newspaper and put it away as he removed
his glasses and looked up at me with a smile. “Kin shirya? Are you ready?”
“Yes, Abba,” I sat on the Persian carpet next to him, ready for the
nasiha, advice that I knew was the reason he sent for me.
“Fa’iza, you have always made me proud,” he started. “Your first year
in university is as important as any; the path you take right now can be the
difference between a first class and a second class, so make sure you take
your studies very seriously,” he paused. “Kina ji ko? Are you listening?”
I nodded silently with tears coming down my eyes. Even with my
determination not to cry, I couldn’t help the tears as he spoke, as I imagined
being so far from him for so long, as I imagined starting a new life in
Canada.
“Ba kuka zaki yi ba. There’s no reason to cry,” my mother said as she
walked into the room. She was wearing a white lace boubou, her long dark
hair in a single plait reaching the middle of her back, half-covered with a
long white veil. She inherited her looks from her half-Lebanese mother –
her long hair, light brown skin, almond-shaped eyes and a dainty pointed
nose. “Pay attention to your studies and surround yourself with the right
people. Most importantly, kar ki ba mu kunya. Do not embarrass us.”
Umma liked to say she brought us up with iron fists, but I think she
reserved that for just me. With me, she was quite the disciplinarian; my
brothers, however, got away with almost anything, things that I never dared
to do, like staying out late or having people my parents didn’t know over.
“Okay, Umma. Insha Allah,” I heard myself answer as I thought about
the phrase, “do not embarrass us.” Growing up, phrases like that and “what
will people think?” governed our every single decision and action as a
family and how I lived my life.
“You’re not forgetting anything, are you?” she asked.
I shook my head to say no.
“If you have any issues at all, reach out to Mami and make sure that you
visit her on the weekends when you can,” Umma said. Aunty Mami was my
mother’s oldest friend; they had grown up together in Kano. Her husband,
the current Nigerian Ambassador to Canada, also had a good relationship
with my father; they went to university together and had remained
inseparable ever since. The fact that they lived in the same city my
University was situated was what finally convinced my father to agree to
send me all the way to Canada.
“Okay, Umma.”
“Make sure you call me on your layover in Paris,” Abba handed me an
envelope. He always made sure I had spare change in different currencies
whenever I was traveling. For the sake of emergency, he would always say.
“Insha Allah,” I stood up to hug him, from the corner of my eye, I saw
Abubakar coming into the living room and I knew it was time to leave.
“Allah ya kai ku lafiya. Have a safe flight,” my father said to us both.
To this day, Abubakar teases me about how much I cried when I was
leaving home for university. I do not remember much after saying goodbye
to my parents, but I remember the ride to Abuja airport feeling unusually
long. So long, in fact, that I almost told the driver to make a U-turn and
head back home. Maybe Baze University wasn’t such a bad idea. At least I
wouldn’t have to leave home. Abuja has always been home for me – all
through my primary and secondary school years, the comfort of having
family and friends a few minutes away and attending family fairs and
weddings with my cousins. Looking back now, I’m happy I left because if I
hadn’t left, I would never have met him – the one who turned my whole
world upside down – Ahmad Babangida.
* * *
Hours later, the pilot’s announcement woke me up. I had forgotten to
remove my headphones from my hand luggage, and now that it was in the
overhead bin, I didn’t want to discomfort the people around me, so I
decided not to play an in-flight movie, and I slept all the way from Abuja to
Paris.
We arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport in the morning, and as
Abubakar and I made our way out of the plane, he turned to me, “there’s a
prayer room in the transit area. Let’s pray first, then head to the business
lounge to rest before our next flight.” He was used to this route, as he
always transited in Paris on the way to and from his university in the United
States.
I nodded and we walked silently to the escalators and then to the
restrooms by the prayer room to perform our ablutions. I made a right to the
ladies’, and he turned left and disappeared down the corridor. Once inside, I
opened my hand luggage and grabbed my travel-sized toiletries, brushed
my teeth, washed my face, and performed wudhu, ablution. After that, I
looked at my reflection in the mirror and readjusted my scarf to cover my
hair before going out of the restroom. Abubakar was waiting for me
outside. “I’m hungry,” he said absentmindedly as he scrolled through his
phone. “The meat in the lounge is hardly ever halal in this airport, so let’s
stick to the vegetarian options.”
After praying, we walked towards the lounge, and I saw a bookstore and
headed towards it. “I’m going to go and check if they have the second book
of the Brandon Sanderson series,” I told my brother, who looked around,
pointed to the Starbucks coffee shop opposite and replied, “Okay, I’ll wait
there. Want anything to drink?”
“Grande caramel macchiato.”
“Alright,” he said as he walked away.
I went into the bookstore and browsed their recent releases. I didn’t find
what I was looking for, but I picked up 50 Shades of Grey, curious to see
what all the fuss has been about. After I paid at the counter, I turned around,
and a guy bumped into me, his bottle of water spilling all over my sweater.
He looked about six feet tall, with light brown skin and a muscular frame.
“Watch where you’re going, miss,” he said with a British accent as he
pulled his phone from his ear.
“Excuse you?” I replied, getting angry.
“You bumped into me,” he said like he was expecting an apology.
“No,” I said, gesturing to his phone. “You weren’t watching where you
were going!”
He scoffed, shook his head and walked away.
I disliked that haughty attitude in men; it irked me. I hissed and walked
out of the store towards Starbucks.
“Who pissed you off?” Abubakar asked as I walked towards him with a
scowl on my face.
“Nobody,” I answered, not wanting to linger on the topic. “We need to
call Abba and Umma.”
“Dama, ke nike jira. I was waiting for you.”
* * *
“You have until 12 midnight to submit your assignment, if you have any
questions, shoot me an email,” the professor said as he turned off the
projector in the lecture hall at Ryerson University.
I hurriedly scribbled 12 midnight in my notebook and underlined it, so I
wouldn’t forget, then closed my MacBook and put it in my backpack with
my notebook and pens. It had only been a few months in Canada, and
although my classes were going well, I was already sick of the snow. It was
always so cold, and everyone kept saying it would get colder. Abubakar had
left for the United States a few days after getting me settled into the
University Residence for his Masters’ degree in Economics. He was
studying at Columbia University in New York, the same university our
eldest brother, Ya Amin, graduated from earlier that year.
“So, what plans do you have for the weekend?” My friend, Sara, asked.
Sara is Pakistani, and being the only two Hijabis in our class, our friendship
was almost automatic. From the first lecture we had together at the
beginning of the semester, we sat next to each other and exchanged stories
about finding halal stores and mistakenly ordering items that had bacon in
the cafeteria.
“I’m going to my Aunt’s house. My cousin’s coming to pick me up later
this evening,” I said as we walked out of class. “What about you?”
“I am going to Montreal. Have you been?” she was applying lip gloss to
her already-painted lips.
I shook my head no.
“You should come with us! I’ll be filming content for my channel, and
we can go sight-seeing.” Sara had about 20 thousand subscribers on her
YouTube Lifestyle channel. A weekend out of Toronto sounded fun, but I
couldn’t just go off to Montreal without informing Aunty Mami, who was
my guardian here in Toronto.
“Sounds great, but I can’t. Maybe in the summer, when I can actually
enjoy going out?” I laughed.
“Girrllllll, it’s not even that cold,” as we walked out of campus, her
phone rang, and she let it ring out without answering. Her ringtone was a
song from an Indian film I’d watched back home in Nigeria. She gave me a
quick hug as we said our goodbyes, and I started walking briskly towards
the residence, a 20-storey building that housed hundreds of mostly-
international students. It had a gym on the 2nd floor, a movie theatre and a
cafeteria on the ground floor. Local students lived in apartments in the city,
but the residence was the closest place to Campus, so it was an easy and
safe choice. It was my parents’ choice.
I was freezing as I walked, despite the layers of clothing I had on. I
tucked my hands further into the pockets of my jacket and cursed myself
silently for forgetting my gloves. I had rushed out of my room that morning
because I didn’t want to be late for my lectures.
When I walked into the lobby of the residence, I was relieved to find it
warm. My phone buzzed as I got out of the elevator and onto my floor. It
was a text message from Afreen. I called Afreen my cousin because for as
long as I could remember, I have called her mother my aunt even though in
reality, we were not related. Afreen’s text read: On my way.
Oh, damn it! I thought she said she would come in the evening. I texted
back: OK. See you soon.
I hurried to my room, used my card to let myself in and put my phone to
charge. I already had my weekend bag packed; I just had to pack everything
I needed to complete the assignment due at midnight. I walked past the
kitchenette I shared with my roommate to our shared bathroom and grabbed
my toiletries. I was trying to recall if there was anything else I needed when
my roommate Claire walked into the kitchenette in her pyjamas.
“Fa’iza, I used some of your cheese. I didn’t realize that I had none
left,” she said, as she rubbed her eyes like she had just woken up.
“That’s okay,” I said absent-mindedly.
“I’ll replace it when I get my groceries,” she said as she opened the
fridge, about to make a snack.
“That’s okay. It’s just cheese,” I said again. My phone buzzed, and I
went to check. It was Afreen again: I’m downstairs.
I stuffed my bag of toiletries into my backpack and carried my hand
luggage. I was walking out of the room when I texted back: Coming down.
“Claire, I’ll see you on Sunday,” I said.
“Have a good weekend!” I heard her say as I closed the door and
walked down the hallway toward the elevator
I
looked around my room one last time – at my queen-sized bed and pink
pillows, my half-empty closet, and my bookshelf as my fingers absent-
mindedly scrolled over rows of novels and textbooks. I turned around, and
my eyes fell on the family portrait that sat above the bed’s headboard,
which I got from Umma’s room when she redecorated a few years ago and
had kept in my room ever since then. It was a portrait of our family – my
father, whom we all call Abba, my mother, Umma, my brothers (Ya Amin
and Abubakar) and me, the youngest – taken on my parents’ 15th wedding
anniversary. The picture was taken almost a decade ago when I was just
eight years old. Looking at it, my legs felt heavy, and my heart was filled
with immense sadness.
“Fa’iza, have you prayed?” Abubakar’s voice interrupted my thoughts. I
turned around to respond but only caught a glimpse of the back of his black
shirt as he rushed into his room without waiting for my answer. In our
household, questions like this were rhetorical; they served as reminders.
I nodded to myself. After praying Isha, the last prayer of the day, I had
spent about 30 minutes on my praying mat after reading my Qur’an and
alternating from praying for a safe flight and strength to not break down and
cry as this was the first time I would be away from my parents.
With a sigh, I closed my door for what would be the last time in a while
and walked to the other side of the house towards my parents’ living room.
As I moved down the hallway that connected my father’s section to the
children’s section, I was met with the scent of turaren wuta, local incense. I
followed the scent into my father’s living room and found Abba, a grey-
haired man in his fifties, with a lean stature and a greying moustache sitting
in his usual deep brown leather armchair facing the television that was on a
news channel, but he had a newspaper open. His bespectacled face frowned
at the news as he listened to the newscaster relay news regarding a political
party, PCP. Politics was of no interest to me, even though my family had a
significant stake in it. “Assalamu alaikum,” I said, announcing my presence
as I walked into the living room.
“Wa alaikumus salam,” he responded, dragging his words slowly the
way he always did. He folded the newspaper and put it away as he removed
his glasses and looked up at me with a smile. “Kin shirya? Are you ready?”
“Yes, Abba,” I sat on the Persian carpet next to him, ready for the
nasiha, advice that I knew was the reason he sent for me.
“Fa’iza, you have always made me proud,” he started. “Your first year
in university is as important as any; the path you take right now can be the
difference between a first class and a second class, so make sure you take
your studies very seriously,” he paused. “Kina ji ko? Are you listening?”
I nodded silently with tears coming down my eyes. Even with my
determination not to cry, I couldn’t help the tears as he spoke, as I imagined
being so far from him for so long, as I imagined starting a new life in
Canada.
“Ba kuka zaki yi ba. There’s no reason to cry,” my mother said as she
walked into the room. She was wearing a white lace boubou, her long dark
hair in a single plait reaching the middle of her back, half-covered with a
long white veil. She inherited her looks from her half-Lebanese mother –
her long hair, light brown skin, almond-shaped eyes and a dainty pointed
nose. “Pay attention to your studies and surround yourself with the right
people. Most importantly, kar ki ba mu kunya. Do not embarrass us.”
Umma liked to say she brought us up with iron fists, but I think she
reserved that for just me. With me, she was quite the disciplinarian; my
brothers, however, got away with almost anything, things that I never dared
to do, like staying out late or having people my parents didn’t know over.
“Okay, Umma. Insha Allah,” I heard myself answer as I thought about
the phrase, “do not embarrass us.” Growing up, phrases like that and “what
will people think?” governed our every single decision and action as a
family and how I lived my life.
“You’re not forgetting anything, are you?” she asked.
I shook my head to say no.
“If you have any issues at all, reach out to Mami and make sure that you
visit her on the weekends when you can,” Umma said. Aunty Mami was my
mother’s oldest friend; they had grown up together in Kano. Her husband,
the current Nigerian Ambassador to Canada, also had a good relationship
with my father; they went to university together and had remained
inseparable ever since. The fact that they lived in the same city my
University was situated was what finally convinced my father to agree to
send me all the way to Canada.
“Okay, Umma.”
“Make sure you call me on your layover in Paris,” Abba handed me an
envelope. He always made sure I had spare change in different currencies
whenever I was traveling. For the sake of emergency, he would always say.
“Insha Allah,” I stood up to hug him, from the corner of my eye, I saw
Abubakar coming into the living room and I knew it was time to leave.
“Allah ya kai ku lafiya. Have a safe flight,” my father said to us both.
To this day, Abubakar teases me about how much I cried when I was
leaving home for university. I do not remember much after saying goodbye
to my parents, but I remember the ride to Abuja airport feeling unusually
long. So long, in fact, that I almost told the driver to make a U-turn and
head back home. Maybe Baze University wasn’t such a bad idea. At least I
wouldn’t have to leave home. Abuja has always been home for me – all
through my primary and secondary school years, the comfort of having
family and friends a few minutes away and attending family fairs and
weddings with my cousins. Looking back now, I’m happy I left because if I
hadn’t left, I would never have met him – the one who turned my whole
world upside down – Ahmad Babangida.
* * *
Hours later, the pilot’s announcement woke me up. I had forgotten to
remove my headphones from my hand luggage, and now that it was in the
overhead bin, I didn’t want to discomfort the people around me, so I
decided not to play an in-flight movie, and I slept all the way from Abuja to
Paris.
We arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport in the morning, and as
Abubakar and I made our way out of the plane, he turned to me, “there’s a
prayer room in the transit area. Let’s pray first, then head to the business
lounge to rest before our next flight.” He was used to this route, as he
always transited in Paris on the way to and from his university in the United
States.
I nodded and we walked silently to the escalators and then to the
restrooms by the prayer room to perform our ablutions. I made a right to the
ladies’, and he turned left and disappeared down the corridor. Once inside, I
opened my hand luggage and grabbed my travel-sized toiletries, brushed
my teeth, washed my face, and performed wudhu, ablution. After that, I
looked at my reflection in the mirror and readjusted my scarf to cover my
hair before going out of the restroom. Abubakar was waiting for me
outside. “I’m hungry,” he said absentmindedly as he scrolled through his
phone. “The meat in the lounge is hardly ever halal in this airport, so let’s
stick to the vegetarian options.”
After praying, we walked towards the lounge, and I saw a bookstore and
headed towards it. “I’m going to go and check if they have the second book
of the Brandon Sanderson series,” I told my brother, who looked around,
pointed to the Starbucks coffee shop opposite and replied, “Okay, I’ll wait
there. Want anything to drink?”
“Grande caramel macchiato.”
“Alright,” he said as he walked away.
I went into the bookstore and browsed their recent releases. I didn’t find
what I was looking for, but I picked up 50 Shades of Grey, curious to see
what all the fuss has been about. After I paid at the counter, I turned around,
and a guy bumped into me, his bottle of water spilling all over my sweater.
He looked about six feet tall, with light brown skin and a muscular frame.
“Watch where you’re going, miss,” he said with a British accent as he
pulled his phone from his ear.
“Excuse you?” I replied, getting angry.
“You bumped into me,” he said like he was expecting an apology.
“No,” I said, gesturing to his phone. “You weren’t watching where you
were going!”
He scoffed, shook his head and walked away.
I disliked that haughty attitude in men; it irked me. I hissed and walked
out of the store towards Starbucks.
“Who pissed you off?” Abubakar asked as I walked towards him with a
scowl on my face.
“Nobody,” I answered, not wanting to linger on the topic. “We need to
call Abba and Umma.”
“Dama, ke nike jira. I was waiting for you.”
* * *
“You have until 12 midnight to submit your assignment, if you have any
questions, shoot me an email,” the professor said as he turned off the
projector in the lecture hall at Ryerson University.
I hurriedly scribbled 12 midnight in my notebook and underlined it, so I
wouldn’t forget, then closed my MacBook and put it in my backpack with
my notebook and pens. It had only been a few months in Canada, and
although my classes were going well, I was already sick of the snow. It was
always so cold, and everyone kept saying it would get colder. Abubakar had
left for the United States a few days after getting me settled into the
University Residence for his Masters’ degree in Economics. He was
studying at Columbia University in New York, the same university our
eldest brother, Ya Amin, graduated from earlier that year.
“So, what plans do you have for the weekend?” My friend, Sara, asked.
Sara is Pakistani, and being the only two Hijabis in our class, our friendship
was almost automatic. From the first lecture we had together at the
beginning of the semester, we sat next to each other and exchanged stories
about finding halal stores and mistakenly ordering items that had bacon in
the cafeteria.
“I’m going to my Aunt’s house. My cousin’s coming to pick me up later
this evening,” I said as we walked out of class. “What about you?”
“I am going to Montreal. Have you been?” she was applying lip gloss to
her already-painted lips.
I shook my head no.
“You should come with us! I’ll be filming content for my channel, and
we can go sight-seeing.” Sara had about 20 thousand subscribers on her
YouTube Lifestyle channel. A weekend out of Toronto sounded fun, but I
couldn’t just go off to Montreal without informing Aunty Mami, who was
my guardian here in Toronto.
“Sounds great, but I can’t. Maybe in the summer, when I can actually
enjoy going out?” I laughed.
“Girrllllll, it’s not even that cold,” as we walked out of campus, her
phone rang, and she let it ring out without answering. Her ringtone was a
song from an Indian film I’d watched back home in Nigeria. She gave me a
quick hug as we said our goodbyes, and I started walking briskly towards
the residence, a 20-storey building that housed hundreds of mostly-
international students. It had a gym on the 2nd floor, a movie theatre and a
cafeteria on the ground floor. Local students lived in apartments in the city,
but the residence was the closest place to Campus, so it was an easy and
safe choice. It was my parents’ choice.
I was freezing as I walked, despite the layers of clothing I had on. I
tucked my hands further into the pockets of my jacket and cursed myself
silently for forgetting my gloves. I had rushed out of my room that morning
because I didn’t want to be late for my lectures.
When I walked into the lobby of the residence, I was relieved to find it
warm. My phone buzzed as I got out of the elevator and onto my floor. It
was a text message from Afreen. I called Afreen my cousin because for as
long as I could remember, I have called her mother my aunt even though in
reality, we were not related. Afreen’s text read: On my way.
Oh, damn it! I thought she said she would come in the evening. I texted
back: OK. See you soon.
I hurried to my room, used my card to let myself in and put my phone to
charge. I already had my weekend bag packed; I just had to pack everything
I needed to complete the assignment due at midnight. I walked past the
kitchenette I shared with my roommate to our shared bathroom and grabbed
my toiletries. I was trying to recall if there was anything else I needed when
my roommate Claire walked into the kitchenette in her pyjamas.
“Fa’iza, I used some of your cheese. I didn’t realize that I had none
left,” she said, as she rubbed her eyes like she had just woken up.
“That’s okay,” I said absent-mindedly.
“I’ll replace it when I get my groceries,” she said as she opened the
fridge, about to make a snack.
“That’s okay. It’s just cheese,” I said again. My phone buzzed, and I
went to check. It was Afreen again: I’m downstairs.
I stuffed my bag of toiletries into my backpack and carried my hand
luggage. I was walking out of the room when I texted back: Coming down.
“Claire, I’ll see you on Sunday,” I said.
“Have a good weekend!” I heard her say as I closed the door and
walked down the hallway toward the elevator
I