Tale of a Boon's Wife Read online

  “Two straight weeks and he hasn’t left this one,” Safiya continued. “If she wasn’t married, your husband would’ve had a second wife by now.” Safiya’s deep sigh reached me outside the room.

  “Hussein told me he’d never take another wife. He promised me I was the only one for him—he would never look at another woman,” Mother sobbed.

  “It’s not his fault because he didn’t choose this. Ayan tricked him. She did things to his mind to make him blind. We’ll get back at her, we will.” Safiya had dispensed with many of her husband’s mistresses.

  Mother’s crying intensified. “I shouldn’t have brought her into my house.”

  Safiya’s voice was gentle. “Yes, true, but you should have gone to Moallim Hirsi when I first told you about Ayan and your husband. You should have believed me.” Moallim Hirsi was a well-known witch doctor. My friends and I called him Hyena Man.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Mother wailed.

  “Moallim Hirsi will take care of it. He wants you to send two of your husband’s undershirts—one red and one white. I told him the problem already.”

  “I am exhausted,” Mother said, as if she were speaking to herself.

  “Don’t be afraid. He brought my husband back from a thief. Her family disowned her. She got what she deserved for stealing my husband with her witchcraft and making him fall in love with her.” Safiya sounded almost jovial.

  Mother continued to cry softly.

  “Moallim Hirsi can do it,” Safiya comforted. “I know he can. People from as far away as Mogadishu come for his services.”

  After a long minute of silence, punctuated by the ticking of the clock, Mother called me again. “Idil, I need you in here.”

  I entered her room, holding my books in front of my chest. Mother didn’t notice the streaks of red dirt on the front of my blouse. Layers of mud coated my khaki pants from belt to ankle. She said nothing when I sat on the bed.

  “I need you to take something for me.” Mother searched inside Father’s undergarment drawer with purpose. She put two undershirts in a cloth bag and pushed it into my lap as if the contents were on fire and she needed to be rid of it. “Here, take this to Moallim Hirsi.”

  I hid my hands behind my back, dropping the binder next to Mother’s bed. “What does he want with Daddy’s underwear?” I shivered. “Ask Omar to take it. Please.” Omar was home. I saw him through the half-opened kitchen doorway. He was sitting at the table, eating.

  “Omar?” Her eyes, tear-filled and thoughtful, rested upon my face. “No. This is ours to look after.” She lifted my chin and held my gaze within hers. “You want to get Father back, do you not?”

  “I want Father back, I do, but…”

  Mother cut me off. “When you get there, wait until Moallim Hirsi is done and bring these back.”

  “What if Hyena Man kills Father?” I’d heard horror stories of what the man was capable of.

  Mother took a deep breath. “He would do nothing of the sort.”

  I picked up the bag and my binder and left Mother’s room.

  *

  Near a large and decaying tree trunk by the main gate, I scanned Hyena Man’s yard. The L-shaped property appeared empty, except for the smoke that came from the kitchen. On either side of the narrow walkway, old scattered farm tools lay in the yard. I approached and came upon Hyena Man hunched over his workbench. He was hammering away at something I couldn’t see. His lanky body was bent like a soft twig, and his fingers, long and thin, held the hammer tight. Every time he lifted his arm, my eyes followed, expecting him to drop the hammer, but it reached its target with practiced precision. I extended the bag I was holding. “My mother told me to bring this.”

  Hyena Man looked at me once and turned back to his work. He didn’t speak until his daughter, Aisha, came out of the kitchen, carrying a teakettle. Aisha wore a tattered dress and had no shoes on her feet. She had been in my class until two years ago but quit after her mother’s death to help her father run his healing business.

  Aisha poured tea in a mug and handed it to him. “It’s time for your rest,” she said.

  Hyena Man straightened up and took the mug.

  Aisha moved closer to me “Are you here for my father?”

  I extended my hand, Mother’s bag still in my grasp. “Yes, to give him this.”

  “What is your father’s name?” Hyena Man’s brows arched, and the skin around his mouth creased deeply.

  “Hussein Nuur.”

  He nodded and turned to his daughter. “Her mother is the woman Safiya was speaking of.”

  Aisha gave him a knowing smile. She took the bag from me. “Wait here.” She opened it, took the shirts out, and placed them on the table next to her father’s workbench.

  They both clapped their hands twice.

  Hyena Man spoke in a whisper, a hum, like the flow of a lazy river. The sound gained strength and definition by degrees until it reached a high pitch, an angry cry. “End of the adulterer with the adulteress!” His raspy voice echoed in my chest. “Death to the sin, save the sinner!” He swayed back and forth with its rhythm.

  Hyena Man and his daughter walked over to the burjiko and held my father’s undershirts over it. Smoke billowed and escaped as they moved the garments back and forth.

  “We seek refuge from the evil of darkness, the evil of malignant witchcraft,” he chanted along with his daughter. Their voices—loud, strong, and crisp rose beyond the walls of the house. “Seal Hussein Nuur’s ears to her whisper, his eyes to her sight, and his limbs to her touch!” Hyena Man yelled. His head and mouth no longer belonged to him. Under the control of something far greater, he continued to shout.

  As fast as it gained volume, the sound subsided and gave way to silence. His breathing was heavy and labored, the muscles around his neck tense. Large beads of sweat stood on his forehead as if he had been visited by a violent nightmare. Hyena Man walked back and sat on a tall stool near his workbench.

  Aisha took a notebook and pen from a nearby wooden desk and motioned to her father that she was ready.

  Hyena Man gave her instructions for Mother to follow. “Hussein should wear each shirt for two days without washing them.” He wiped his brow with his hand. “He should wear the red shirt for the first two days.”

  Aisha wrote.

  Hyena Man took a folded paper out of his shirt pocket. “This paper should be placed under his pillow for two weeks.” He handed the paper to Aisha.

  She put the red shirt in the bag, and placed the paper she’d been writing on along with the one her father gave her on top of it. She covered it with the white shirt and then handed me the bag. “Here. Take this to your mother.”

  I forced myself a look at the shirts. I expected the fabric to transform into a creature with fangs that would devour Father’s flesh upon contact, but the articles seemed unchanged.

  Chapter Three

  “Allah, please bring Father back to us from Ayan,” I prayed. “I’ll be good and obey my parents. I promise I’ll pray when Mother tells me to and I’ll stop lying. I will never tell another lie ever again.” I repeated different versions of this each day that week. Nothing! The two weeks Hyena Man prescribed ended, and Father’s behavior only gained momentum. He stopped joining us for supper and soon was coming home only to sleep. The memory of his stories and happier times filled me with misery and made me wretched.

  Mother’s sadness also grew as time crept on. “He assigns Ayan’s husband to patrol in nearby villages, so he can spend more time with her. I have lost him and I don’t know why.” She wiped her face with the end of her scarf. She wasn’t like other women, and this wasn’t supposed to happen to her. Father’s actions made no sense. Nothing fit. She wasn’t the filthy mother, the in-law hating witch, the unfitting barren wife, or the man-hungry whore. Husbands were supposed stay with women like her.

 
Mother decided to see Ayan, but she needed a cover to go to her house in case Father was there. “Idil, come with me. No need to change from your uniform.” Mother took me the next day when I returned from school.

  She didn’t want Father to think she’d been spying on him. “If Daddy is there, pretend you have mistaken her door with that of a classmate.” She held my hand so tight my fingers were tingling by the time we reached Ayan’s house. She sent me to knock. “Wave once if your father is there and twice if he isn’t.”

  Ayan opened the door. Her two long braids rested on her back, but she didn’t have a shawl covering her shoulders like married women often did. She approached the door with a light step and retreated when she saw me, as if she were expecting someone else. “What do you want?” She asked in a harsh tone.

  I ignored her question and peeked behind her to spot Father’s boots or his uniform. I saw nothing, so I gave Mother the signal.

  She came out of her hiding spot and joined us.

  “What do you want?” Ayan threw the question at us.

  Mother didn’t bother with polite greetings. “I welcomed you into my house; treated you like my own.”

  Ayan stared at the ground beneath her feet.

  “You are a married woman! You have a husband and yet you are after mine.” Mother spoke as if Ayan’s vows were far more binding than Father’s.

  “He is married, too,” Ayan responded.

  “He is a man. It is to be expected. With you it’s different.”

  “It is not my fault if you can’t keep your husband.” She slammed the door.

  We went to Ayan’s house twice more that week. Both times, Mother hid behind the concrete pillar next to the gate and sent me to check.

  The first time, a servant opened. He yelled at me and closed the door.

  The second time Ayan came, the same servant right behind her. “If you don’t stop, I will tell your father.” Ayan waited by the door until I reached Mother, hiding behind the pillar.

  Mother’s anger shot out of her. “Does she think I am going to let her keep him? She didn’t consider me when she opened her house, her bed, and her legs to him!” By the time she finished speaking, she was yelling, but she never went to Ayan again. “I’ll tell her husband. Shire must know what his wife is doing. I am certain I won’t be telling him anything new. All I am doing is asking him to control his wife. If he is ignorant to the matter, he has the right to know, to hear about the goings-on in his bed when he is away.”

  At home, Mother summoned our guard, Diriye. “Go tell Shire I need to see him Friday morning. Don’t let anyone see you.” Diriye set the meeting with Ayan’s husband.

  *

  Mother was ready for Shire’s arrival. Early that morning, she stood in front of her mirror, talking as though the man was already before her. She’d raise a question and give her own answer, imagining what he might say.

  Later, I opened the door for Shire and led him into the house.

  Mother must have realized there was no reason to drag out the whole miserable tale. I could see that the man knew. It was written on his face, the way he stood, shifting his weight from one leg to the other, his eyes looking everywhere but at Mother’s face.

  She got right to the point. “Talk to your wife. She must understand she is in the wrong here.”

  He swallowed hard. “I’ve tried for weeks. I asked, I ordered, I begged.” Shire, in his early twenties, was older than Ayan by four or five years. He looked weary.

  Mother sat on Father’s chair and pointed to the opposite one for Shire to take. “She is a wife, a mother. She should know better.”

  Shire didn’t take the offer to sit. “General Hussein is there instead of me. He has my wife to himself.” He inhaled a long, shuddering breath.

  “She is allowing it. If she didn’t continue, it would stop.”

  Shire’s hands shook. He slipped them into his pockets. “She is not the only one in the wrong. He is my commander, my comrade.”

  “She must understand she is making a dreadful mistake.”

  “She won’t, and neither will he.”

  “What are you going to do? Do you have a plan to remedy this?” Her tone was different, harsher than it was when she’d rehearsed in front of her mirror.

  Shire looked at her. “I don’t know. I have to go.” He sighed and took his leave.

  Mother followed him to the door. “Is there a plan to take care of this?” She asked him again two more times what he’d intended to do. He gave no answer.

  *

  The news of the attack on Father and Ayan reached us four hours after Shire left our house.

  “He went straight from here to his home,” said Diriye, his ample body filling the chair across from Mother. “Ayan and General Hussein Nuur were in the bedroom.”

  Diriye saw me standing by the window, listening. He turned to Mother as if to see if she’d noticed me there. She hadn’t.

  “They hadn’t expected Shire to arrive,” Diriye continued. “He came upon them like a tiger. By the time her guard, and a nearby soldier responded to their cries for help, they’d each received a few blows.”

  Mother listened without interrupting.

  Diriye closed his eyes tight. “Ayan was wearing a man’s red undershirt and nothing else.”

  Mother sat up in her chair. “A man’s red undershirt?” she repeated.

  Diriye shrank back into his chair. “I am telling you the truth. I heard it from her servant—the man who was there. He told me right after he told the investigators.” Diriye got up and walked toward the window. “It took the three of them to stop Shire: the soldier, the guard, and the general. Shire had death in his bones. That is what they told me.”

  “What happened to Shire?” Mother asked.

  “You don’t have to worry about him doing any more harm. The military will take care of him. They hauled him to the car in handcuffs and shackles.” Diriye wiped his face with the back of his hand. “General Nuur is lucky to be alive.”

  What had become of Father? The thought flashed into my mind, but Mother didn’t inquire after him.

  “You can go back to work now,” she said, dismissing Diriye.

  *

  “I shouldn’t have told the husband.” Mother’s regret was not for Ayan or Shire, but for Father.

  Safiya kept a vigil by her side. “You did what you had to do. Maybe your husband will stop after such an attack. The military will make him.”

  Mother pulled her knees to her chest. “If he ever finds out I met with Shire, he will be furious.”

  “You just spoke about Ayan not him. We all know it’s her fault.” Safiya sat across from Mother for a long time.

  The night seemed to go on forever with no end in sight. We waited. For what, I did not know.

  “I have to go home, but I’ll return after supper,” Safiya finally said and gathered her shawl about her.

  Mother remained seated. “Don’t come back tonight. I’ll send Idil if I need you.” After Safiya left, she resumed her statue posture. “I’ll be the subject of their gossip tonight. Safiya will not go home, but to their gathering places, retelling the story of my fall.” She said it more to herself for she knew how a story grew, spinning into a new web of suppositions and additions. She often joined the circle as they spun the web of other women’s troubles. The plate of dinner Hawa had placed on the corner table, next to Mother’s chair, remained untouched.

  When she spoke next her voice was weak, void of expression. “Time to go to bed,” she told Elmi and me much earlier than usual.

  Omar sat imperiously in Father’s chair, his big shoulders squared. Heir to the throne in Father’s absence, Mother avoided him.

  “I didn’t finish my work,” I complained, because I didn’t want to miss Father’s homecoming that night.

  Mother massaged her templ
es. “There will be plenty of time. Later. You get going now, to your bed.”

  She went to her room the same time Elmi and I did. Once inside, she cried with abandon. The house seemed to shiver with the depth of her sadness.

  I wanted to go and sit with her as we often did in happier times with her telling me the stories of courting and marriage. “I married your father to escape my stepmother’s grip,” she always said. “Anything was better than serving that evil witch.”

  “You didn’t love Father?” I once asked, my head resting on her lap.

  “That came afterwards. After we were married and living together.”

  “I’ll not marry a man I don’t love,” I’d said in earnest.

  “You’ll learn to love him. That’s the best love there is.” At the time, she laughed at my foolishness and kissed me on the head.

  Tonight was different. I didn’t go in to console her, knowing the remedy for her sorrow was beyond anything I could’ve done or said.

  *

  I awoke to a loud sound of heavy boots pounding the tiled floor, as the first sign of dawn penetrated the curtain panels. I listened to the tremors reverberating throughout the house and coming closer. “Who is there?” I shouted, but didn’t get a response. I sat up on the bed and reached for my light and in the panic, knocked the lamp over. The crash on to the wooden floor added to my fear. I jumped out of bed and opened my bedroom door.

  Elmi’s silhouette filled the doorway. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Is it Father?” Together, Elmi and I went to the sitting room. More than a dozen uniform-clad soldiers were taking furniture and other items out of the house.

  Father, in full ceremonial military uniform, sat in his chair.

  Mother stood next to him, whispering consoling phrases. “Don’t you worry. It’ll be fine.” She massaged the back of his neck.

  Omar was sitting on the floor cradling Father’s hand. “It will get better,” he comforted.

  Father didn’t respond to Mother’s or Omar’s kindness. The soldiers gave him quick salutes every time they passed, but he didn’t acknowledge them either.