Tale of a Boon's Wife Read online

  TALE OF A

  BOON’S

  WIFE

  Fartumo Kusow

  Second Story Press

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Kusow, Fartumo, author

  Tale of a boon’s wife / by Fartumo Kusow.

  ISBN 978-1-77260-047-6 (softcover)

  978-1-77260-048-3 (epub)

  I. Title.

  PS8621.U86T35 2017 C813'.6 C2017-902647-X

  Copyright © 2017 by Fartumo Kusow

  Cover by Natalie Olsen

  Cover images: GeorgePeters / istockphoto.com

  hornsy / photocase.com

  Editor: Kathryn Cole

  Design: Melissa Kaita

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Second Story Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the

  Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for our

  publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the

  Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

  Published by

  Second Story Press

  20 Maud Street, Suite 401

  Toronto, ON M5V 2M5

  Second Story Press

  To my dad, Mohamed Kusow, and my mom, Timiro Mohamed, who always gave my sister and me the opportunity to do what we chose, not what we must.

  Thank you.

  Chapter One

  I glided across the kitchen floor of our new house in awe. “This is so beautiful,” I whispered and screwed up my eyes against the blinding brightness of the black-and-white tiles.

  Mother put the bread in the built-in tinaar—clay oven—and closed the lid. She beckoned me to her and handed me a single sheet of paper. “Idil, read it for me.”

  I held it aloft. “It’s a telegram!” I tilted my head and squinted at it as the afternoon sunlight splashed across my face. “Father has completed his training in the Soviet Union.” The joy of telling her pushed the words out in one long string of syllables. “He is coming next Saturday!”

  Mother took the paper out of my hand and pressed it against her chest. “What exciting news. Idil, I pray you marry a husband as grand as your father.”

  The thought of such a privilege awakened my senses and made me laugh.

  “Take the bread out when it’s done,” Mother instructed Hawa, our kitchen girl, to finish the baking and led me into her bedroom. “Idil, come. We have work to do.”

  I sat on the bed and smoothed my hand over the covers, enjoying the luxurious feel of the Egyptian cotton sheets.

  Mother dug into her wardrobe. “Idil, we must wear our best when Father comes.” She pulled out a red and orange kaftan inlaid with yellow lilies and gilded with red thread around the flowers. A yellow silk underskirt and a black brassiere completed her outfit.

  She opened a locked drawer in her dresser, unearthed a small wooden chest, and placed it next to me. Mother caressed the sides of the box. “The only jewelry that survived my stepmother is in this tiny thing.” She took out pieces of gold jewelry and turned two bangles around her wrist, admiring them. “My father had to bury this box under his bed to protect it from her reptile hands.” She’d told me the horror that was her childhood so often I could recite it verbatim. “It is better to lose a father and become an orphan, then live as a rajo.” The stories of her upbringing as a motherless child followed us around the house like another being.

  “Your father would likely never take another wife, but just in case, if I die before you are in your own home, run to the closest mountain and jump off. Death is more merciful than a stepmother’s home.”

  The prospect scared me. “I don’t want you to die. Promise you’ll be with me forever and ever, and I with you,” I wailed.

  “I said if.” She walked over and kissed me on the forehead. “Idil, don’t you worry. I won’t allow bad things to happen to you.”

  Mother’s commitment to my well-being awed me, and I wrapped my arms around her neck. “I love you, Mother.”

  “I love you more,” she said as she put a small necklace around my neck. “I have to find a nice dress for you,” she said and returned to the dresser.

  I cringed. Even at thirteen, Mother’s attempts to dress me up always led us to a week-long battle. I glared at the blue contraption she’d pulled out. “Do I have to wear that?”

  Mother put it back in its place and sat next to me. “It’s easy to dress your brothers. Give each a pair of pants and a shirt and Omar and Elmi are set. With you, it’s a task.” She smoothed my unraveling braids. “Even your hair refuses to be tamed.”

  *

  From the first light of that summer morning when Father was due home, Elmi and I roamed the yard. We pushed each other off the little hill between the soldiers’ tents and the brick homes for the senior officers. Elmi landed on the red clay mud left behind by the heavy rain we’d had the day before. From the boulder above him, I extended my hand. He pretended to reach for help, but yanked me down. I lay beside him and laughed until my sides hurt. “That was cheating.” The fresh scent of the damp earth made my nostrils tingle.

  Mother forced Elmi and me to shower and change our clothes before lunch. “I should tie you to a chair to keep you clean. You should take notice of your older brother.” She pointed at Omar standing stiff in his outfit with the dignity of a real man. “This is your last warning.” Her stern tone told us we’d better not mess up.

  Mother had organized a big celebration for Father. Her friends arrived well before dawn and occupied the gembers—four-legged stools—scuffing the scrubbed floor. The women drank tea, ate, and gossiped. They had spent hours making odkac, meat cut in the shape of black beans, cooked and soaked in melted butter.

  Mother’s friend, Safiya, led the meal preparation. “What a success. Hussein Nuur is an army general now.” She smiled at Mother in a congratulatory way.

  Mother glowed.

  *

  Red-golden beams of sunlight shone on the prayer mats in the main part of the yard and danced upon the intricate designs.

  At the sound of the approaching car, Safiya and several other ladies left the kitchen and stood by the driveway. They erupted into a loud and celebratory ululation at the sight of the car that brought Father from the airport in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

  My long braids, tied at the ends with two pink ribbons, bounced as I ran to him. “My father is here!” I announced as though others couldn’t see him getting out of the car in his full glory.

  The neighborhood children and their mothers darted from their homes and watched the marvel that was Father. I flew into his embrace and wrapped my arms around his neck as he exited the vehicle. “You are home!”

  “And you are my girl.” He lifted me to his level.

  I buried my face in the curve of his shoulder and inhaled the strong smell of his cologne. “I missed you so.”

  Father stroked my hair and put me down. “I missed you, too.”

  I giggled with pride as I walked next to him toward the house.

  Soldiers from the base lined up along the gravel driveway to greet him. Father smiled, but didn’t join them for the evening prayer.

  I followed his example, even after Mother reminded me to come and pray. “I want to do it with Father.”

  He led me away from the crowd and into the house. “Hold this and wait for me here.” He handed me his belt, the gun and crest still attached to it. I traced my finger around the leopards on each side of the flag in the crest. My thumb rested on the crossed lances over the palm fronds.

  Father
returned, wearing a T-shirt and a macawis—sarong—wrapped around his waist. “Give me this.” He collected his belt and extended his hand.

  Hand in hand, Father and I left the house together. With every step we took toward the yard, now teaming with guests, I grew an inch taller.

  Applause greeted us when we appeared. Father stopped to speak with two men who inquired about his experiences in the Soviet Union. After a while, their discussion bored me, and I drifted into the kitchen. Large pots sat atop the blazing burjiko—wood-burning clay oven. The aroma of the cumin, garlic, cardamom, cinnamon, and cilantro pouring from the soup and rice filled the air and drew me even closer. Mother served plates overflowing with meat, rice, and vegetables to the waiting guests.

  Father hugged an elderly man. “Children, come meet my uncle. He’s seventy and has never left his village, not before today. He raised me after my parents died.” Father kissed him on each cheek.

  A woman next to the man raised her open palms skyward. “May Allah keep you safe, my son.” She recited prayers of thanksgiving at the sight of the food and hot tea. “May your enemies be struck blind.”

  *

  Tall and handsome in his seat, Father spent every night in the weeks that followed telling us stories of his travels to the Soviet Union. “You should’ve seen it, children.” He showed us a postcard of an adult polar bear and two cubs looking at the camera, their dark eyes standing out against the snow-covered landscape.

  Omar, Elmi, Mother, and I listened intently. “People live there?” I reached for his hand to urge him on.

  His bright smile flashed. “You get used to the cold after a while.” Father’s handsome face was alight with pleasure. He recounted the last three years he’d spent in the Soviet Union military academy. “We did our training in the winter.” He rested his hand on my shoulder as I moved my stool next to his armchair. “You’re so beautiful, Idil, like your mother,” he commented.

  Even at a young age, I knew Father was wrong. Mother, a full head shorter than Father, with a slim build, long jet-black, wavy hair, and dark, subdued eyes, was like Elmi and Omar. With my broad shoulders and strong muscles—built more for roughhousing than feminine softness—I was Father’s carbon copy. Mother worried from the time I was eight that I was growing too tall, too thick, and too rugged. She feared I wouldn’t find a husband.

  “Look at this.” The muscles around Father’s upper arms rippled as he lifted a Polaroid photo, and my eyes followed it in awe. In the picture, Father had a wool scarf wrapped around his face and neck. Two flaps attached to the hat dangled to protect his ears. Bundled in a heavy jacket and something dark and puffy over his pants, Father seemed large, like the balloons we bought when we visited Mogadishu. “You dress to survive,” he said.

  I noticed a small, white woman next to him in the photograph. “Who is that?” I pointed at the smiling figure.

  Father directed his answer to Mother. “That is Nadia, one of my teachers.”

  Nadia was much closer to him than a teacher should have been. They huddled together against the mountains of snow that threatened to swallow them whole.

  Mother smiled, shedding the unease such a picture brought.

  Father continued with his stories. “This is the Kremlin. It is the center of the country and its government.” He passed a postcard around and launched into a narrative about the building and its role within the Soviet society. The light reflection of the water adjacent to the building gave it an ethereal glow. “You could look at it for hours.”

  The attention, the status, and the stories made me happy. “I love it,” I said.

  My mother and brothers nodded in agreement.

  *

  Mother invited her friends for tea in the afternoons to retell Father’s stories. On one of those days I came upon them and hid behind the pillar that divided the sitting room from the bedrooms. Each guest listened, entranced.

  “He met the president,” Mother told her lady friends. “He can go back to the country anytime without a visa.” Mother’s glowing review of Father’s work eventually led to talk of another woman’s misfortunes. “Did you hear Muna’s husband left her for Xabiba?”

  “Did you see her children, so poorly dressed and unfed? No one can blame a man for leaving filth.” The women shared a unanimous sigh in Muna’s condemnation. “I walk the other way when I see her at the market.”

  After Mother’s friends left, I came out from my hiding spot. “Would Father ever take another wife?”

  “Any women who loses her husband has only herself to blame,” Mother said. “What’s a wife for, if not to comfort her husband, and care for the children?”

  “Are you sure Father won’t leave?” I shared my concern with Mother.

  “A husband strays if the wife can’t keep her home and children properly.”

  Mother, a model housekeeper, a great parent, and a proper wife made the risk of something similar happening to us seem non-existent. Relieved, I went to my room and started my homework.

  *

  With Father home after his three-year absence, my excitement on the eve of Eidul-Fitr—the holiday marking the end of Ramadan—increased throughout the entire day. “Are you taking us to the light show?” I asked before I even changed from my school uniform.

  Father pushed me aside. “I am meeting a friend this evening.”

  I stood in front of him and pouted, but my sad face did nothing to change his mind. “Your mother will take you tonight, and I will go with you to the prayer service tomorrow morning.” He went into his room and a few minutes later, dressed in his best, he left.

  Father didn’t attend the Eid prayer service the next morning, blaming a severe headache. “I can’t move,” he said facing the back wall, away from us. “It’s killing me.” But when we returned, four hours later, Father was not home. He was still out when I went to bed.

  The following evening Father dressed to leave again. I sat in the tiny hallway between his bedroom and the sitting room. As he stepped out, his strong cologne wafted in my direction. “Are you coming to tell us a story?” I attempted to guilt him into staying.

  Father stopped for a moment, and a forced smile crept around his mouth. “Go play with you brothers.”

  I watched him with undisguised disappointment as he left.

  From that night on, a great silence surrounded our dinner table. When Mother told us to give our thanks for the meal, I closed my eyes and prayed. “Yaa Rabi,” I whispered, “stop Father from going out every night.” It was to no avail.

  We didn’t gather in the sitting room anymore. We finished our schoolwork, and both Omar and Mother drifted into their rooms. I stayed behind for a while with Elmi, trying to fill the void. Later, I would follow Elmi to his room, but we’d say nothing to each other until fatigue from the day’s activity dragged me off to bed.

  Chapter Two

  I opened the main door to the house. “Be quiet,” I said cupping my hand around my mouth as a warning to Elmi. I didn’t want to attract Mother’s attention.

  Elmi looked down at his clothing. “We are a total mess.” A giggle escaped his lips.

  Mother must have heard us for she called from her room. “Idil, Elmi? Is that you?”

  I wanted to lunge at Elmi. Look what you have done, I mouthed in his direction.

  Elmi knew we needed to avoid Mother. Thursday, the last day of the school week, Elmi and I played a game of Hide or Shove with our friends. The bell that ended the day marked the start of the hunt for opponents. In the game, if you were discovered, you were thrown into the dirt. It lasted for over an hour. We played it to celebrate the coming Friday, a day of rest for Muslims.

  Mother made me wash and clean the whole of Friday if she caught me too dirty on Thursday. “A girl has no business walking around covered in filth,” she always said.

  Mother’s comments reminded me of the gossip
I’d heard—that Muna’s husband had left her because of dirty children. The thought made me feel guilty. “Father might take another wife if we don’t keep clean,” I told Elmi.

  He didn’t believe me. “Men don’t leave their wives because of dirty children. They do it because they want to; because they can.”

  I was shocked by Elmi’s naiveté. “Muna lost her husband because of that. It’s true. Mother told me.”

  Elmi laughed. “Women say that to convince themselves it won’t happen to them.” He scanned the area before he spoke again. “They take comfort that it’s happening to someone else.”

  As if she had forgotten we were there, Mother didn’t call again. I moved closer to her door and, pressing my ear against it to listen, heard Safiya and Mother discussing something in a serious tone.

  “I told you Ayan was a thief. I knew it from the first day I saw her in your sitting room,” Safiya said. Safiya was an imposing, stout woman. What she’d lost in looks she made up for in size. She was a woman of few words and a sharp eye for thieves—those who preyed upon other women’s husbands. “This has been done right under your own roof. He moved her into a house with servants.”

  “Why would he do that to me? I do everything right, exactly the way he wants it.” Mother’s words shook with emotion.

  “Your husband didn’t leave you. He was taken from you. There’s a difference. Women like her are as sly as snakes. Thieves like Ayan slither in and take without warning.”

  Mother had not suspected Ayan, an eighteen-year-old wife who came to the military base with her husband four months before Father’s return. Ayan’s husband was a member of Father’s battalion. She was tall and slim, and her skin glistened. She had perfectly aligned white teeth and a curved dimple on each side of her face when she smiled.

  Mother invited her to our house when she learned that Ayan, a motherless young woman, had a baby. Since she’d lost her own mother when she was young, Mother always had a soft spot for people like Ayan. “I wanted to help her care for the child,” she said.