Tale of a Boon's Wife Page 4

  “My name is Sidow,” my hero introduced himself at the start of the lunch recess. “Where did you come from?”

  “We moved from Gaalmaran.”

  His eyes settled on my face. “That’s far away from here. Why did you move?”

  I averted my gaze, fearing he could read my thoughts. “The military transferred my father here.” I had no intention of telling him the real reason.

  He seemed satisfied with my answer. “Do you want to play?” Sidow’s smooth skin glowed.

  “Yes, I’d like that.”

  *

  A month after we came to the school, I invited Sidow over. “You should come to my house next Thursday.”

  “I’ll have to ask my father,” he said, but he declined the invitation the next time I asked. “My father doesn’t like the military. He says they bring nothing but horror.”

  I continued to ask Sidow until he finally agreed to come. The day he decided to walk home with us the gate opened, and the metal rings clanked, announcing our arrival. I turned around to welcome Sidow, but he was retreating from me.

  “You live in there?” He pointed an accusatory finger at the huge house. “You never said your father was the commander.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes, it does.”

  It took more than five minutes to convince Sidow to come inside. “My father is not home,” I said to encourage him.

  “Will your mother mind that I am here?”

  “No, she won’t. She’ll thank you for helping us at school. I told her how you let us join your game.”

  “If you’re sure.” Hesitant, Sidow entered the house. He examined his surroundings with careful attention. “Your father is the general?” He spoke as if it were a crime to hold such office. “I shouldn’t be here.”

  “My parents are normal people, like any other parents. Don’t worry.” I walked between Elmi and Sidow. They had bonded over their shared love for art from the first day we played the Draw Your Answer game. In that game, one team member would make a statement and the others were expected to draw their answers in the dirt. The person with the best drawing won, and Sidow held a long-running winning streak.

  Elmi leapt toward his room, and Sidow and I followed. “I’ll show you what I am working on now. Tell me what you think, honestly.” Elmi lifted the pad next to the box of his art supplies as soon as we made it into his room. “Well?”

  Sidow took the sheet from Elmi. “It’s a fantastic start. I love the color choice.”

  “Could you help me improve it?” Elmi appreciated the compliment.

  “Of course. I’m not an expert, but I will teach you what I know.”

  I touched Sidow’s elbow. “I want you to see Father’s study.”

  Sidow was drawn to the artifacts as soon as we entered the office. “I didn’t expect these here.” His hand caressed the wooden frame around the photo on the wall. “I thought your father would use pieces from his own region, not from here.”

  I followed Sidow’s gaze. “These were here when we arrived.”

  Sidow stood in front of the drawing on the wall over Father’s chair and explained the images on the man’s hair. “That is the name of the girl he likes, and next is the symbol of his tribe and her tribe merged together to show how much he loves her.” Sidow went to the window on the opposite wall. He gasped at the sight of the wooden milk pitcher. “That dhiil is at least three hundred years old!”

  I went over where Sidow stood and ran my hand along the seams. “It looks new.”

  Elmi did the same as I did.

  Sidow inhaled. “I know, but it’s very old.” Sidow stopped me from lifting it up. “A long time ago, each tribe had one of these filled with milk. As a gesture of thanksgiving to the spirits, the villagers left it outside.”

  His knowledge of the culture intrigued me. “What happened to the milk?”

  “The following morning, the tribal elders woke up and found the dhiil empty, clean, and newer than it had been the night before. It never aged,” Sidow explained the legend. “We lost the tradition when the colonial governments seized them as art pieces.” He paused. “They were never meant to be artifacts.”

  Tiny soft butterflies filled my stomach. “You know so much.”

  We spent the hours that followed in the study, flipping through pages of books and newspaper articles. Mesmerized by Sidow’s narrative, I didn’t hear Mother come into the room. She hadn’t been in the house when we got home.

  She stood next to the door, resting her right hand on the doorknob, her shoulders squared against the frame. “What are you doing in here?” Mother’s expression teetered between bewilderment and contempt.

  Mother stared at the three of us around Father’s desk, Sidow, reading from a book of poetry, and Elmi and me listening, entranced.

  “Go play outside and don’t be found in here again!” Mother shouted and startled me. “Ever.”

  We left quickly, Mother’s words chasing after us.

  “Maybe I should go home.” Sidow seemed nervous.

  I picked up a stick to mark a game of hopscotch on the soft earth near the vegetable garden, between the main house and the service quarters. “No, please don’t,” I pleaded.

  “Your mother is upset with me.”

  I’d never seen such hot anger on Mother’s face before. Even Father’s affairs didn’t make her face contort like that, but I wasn’t willing to admit it to Sidow. “No, she isn’t. She just doesn’t want Father to find us there.”

  We played for another hour, but there was no joy in the game.

  Sidow stopped in the middle of the last square. “I should go now.”

  Elmi and I followed him to the main gate. “See you at school on Saturday,” we said in unison and watched him until he disappeared out of sight.

  Mother waved for me to come to her when I returned. “The nose on that boy, and those lips!” She spoke as if she were reminding herself of what Sidow looked like. “How could you?”

  “How could I what? What are you talking about?”

  She smiled. “His nose is so big you could build a village in there.” She removed the bread from the tinaar. “How could you befriend the likes of him?”

  “He is very kind to both Elmi and me. I told you how he helped us the first day.” Of course, I wouldn’t admit to the feeling of excitement that filled me each morning when I laid my eyes upon him. “Do you remember what I told you? How he’d let us join his team in the yard?” I threw questions at her instead of telling her about the deep well that opened inside my belly at the sight of his beautiful smile.

  “I would never have imagined this was the boy you gave such a glorious description of,” she said, and dismissed me without forbidding me to have Sidow visit again. I took liberty with that loophole.

  Chapter Five

  One morning, six months after I started the new school, Sidow let me in on a secret. “We are going to the waterfall for a tournament this afternoon,” he whispered in my ear as we lined up to submit our homework. “We leave at the lunch bell. No teachers; just a few of us.”

  The implication scared me. “You skip school?”

  “Yes.” Sidow dropped his math workbook in the basket. “We do it every month.” He winked at me. “The half-hour break gives us enough time to get to the waterfall and avoid suspicion.”

  I nodded, but the uncertainty stayed with me all morning. Even when I told Elmi at morning recess, I doubted we’d go through with it, but we did. At the sound of the bell, eighteen students, including Elmi and me, left the yard but not as a group. We left through different points of exit and met up near the snack carts that lined up outside to sell to the students at recess and lunchtime.

  The path to the waterfall snaked through two walls of thick evergreens bordering the farms on either side of the walkway. The narrow alley was wi
de enough for two people to walk side by side at first, but it gradually grew narrower. The borders of the farms seemed to be moving closer, forcing us to walk in a single file. We shouted words at each other, passing messages up and down the row. Halfway there, I noticed blooms of dust rising from under my feet and settling on my sneakers. The brown earth made the white fabric look like an overused dishrag. “Oh, my shoes! Mother will be so angry.”

  “She will be,” Elmi agreed. “But don’t think about her now. She might not be home when we get there. Just have fun.”

  Elmi was right, but Mother’s reaction the last time I showed up covered in mud flashed through my mind. I’d played tug of war after school that day, after a light rain had coated the earth with a thin crust of mud. It covered my clothes.

  One look at me and she burst into tears. “I am staying in a miserable marriage so you aren’t raised by a stepmother, and you do this!” She wept as I changed. She snatched my pants and blouse off the floor before I could collect them and went to the laundry tub.

  Her reaction wasn’t normal. I had done similar or worse things before. She often chastised me and even punished me, but had never dissolved in a pool of tears like she did that day. “Sorry, Mother. I didn’t mean it. Mother, let me do it. Let me wash them.”

  She moved away and dropped my clothes in the hot, soapy water and scrubbed. “It’s only for you I stay.” She spoke with a mournful tone. “The boys will survive. They have their father. A girl in her stepmother’s home might as well die. It is no life. I should know.”

  “I promise never to get dirty again. I’ll always listen to you and do what you say. Please stop. Please.” I wrapped my arms around her.

  “You’ve no idea what’s waiting for you out there,” she continued. “There’s no love between your father and me. He has moved from one mistress’s bed to another, without the decency to marry a second wife and stay put.”

  It was bad enough Mother suffered, but it hurt to hear that it was for me alone. She tolerated every insult, poured Father his drinks, even though she hated to, and endured him constantly sleeping with other women. I was awed by her commitment. I remember thinking there would be no love—not for a child or a husband—strong enough to keep me in such a relationship. That made adding to her pain an even a greater crime. From that day on I paid attention to where I sat, hesitated to play any game that required contact, and kept clean.

  Sidow pointed at his rubber sandals made of the thin inner-layer of old tires. “This is what you should wear.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  To avoid further destruction to my shoes, I stepped around the exposed section of the walkway onto the grass-covered parts. That slowed me down, and others, except Elmi, moved ahead.

  Elmi took my hand. “Come. We have to catch up.” He led me toward the waterfall where the children were gathering.

  *

  The sound of the water rushing over the rocks and the excited voices of children from other schools reached us before we saw either of them. The sound came from behind a curtain of booc-booc bushes and a thick growth of ghalab trees.

  On each side of the waterfall rows of mango and banana trees were protected by a wall of large evergreens.

  Sidow approached the others. “It is your turn to get the fruit.”

  Three boys stepped forward. “We are ready,” they said in unison.

  “Get mangoes this time. We had bananas last month,” Sidow instructed. “Only take what’s fallen to the ground.”

  “We will.” And with that, they disappeared.

  Sidow took a seat on a rock cliff at the edge of a whirlpool under the waterfall. Elmi and I sat beneath Sidow’s perch. Less than five minutes later, the three boys returned with armfuls of rich, ripe mangoes. They passed them around. The juice from the mango dripped down my hand and reached my elbow in sugary, golden-streaks. The sweet smell of the fruit remained in the air long after we’d washed our hands.

  Children dared each other to dive underwater, deeper and longer every time. I turned to Sidow, who was keeping score of the competition. “This is so much fun. Thank you for inviting us.” One of the swimmers stayed under water too long and others began to shout. “Maybe he’s drowned!” I said, and got up and moved closer to the edge of the water.

  Sidow came down from his seat and took my hand. “He’ll be fine.”

  I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until the swimmer surfaced. “He is alive!” I joined the excitement and victory dances that erupted with each child who emerged from the water.

  Within seconds of one game ending, another began. A bout of wrestling led to a boxing match and then a skipping-rope contest. Each winner received an award—a rock, a piece of wood, a flower petal, or a military-style salute from the rest of us.

  Sidow took center stage again. “This concludes another tournament. See you next month.”

  Children scattered as quickly as they had come together.

  “I loved the victory dances. Did you see them jiggle their scrawny behinds?” I said, as we walked away. I laughed hard at the memory of their underwear, stuck to them like a second layer of skin.

  Sidow joined me.

  *

  Elmi and I walked home from school, desperate for a plan to avoid Mother’s wrath, but were unable to reach a solution. I opened the main door, and she wasn’t there waiting for us. This was a perfect opportunity to go to my room and change into sandals, but her voice coming from the sitting room grounded me.

  “I thought he’d learned,” Mother said.

  A figure wrapped in a white robe sat across from her. “This is bad, very bad. She controls him. You must act quickly—right now.”

  The implications were so obvious that my stomach lurched. If we should move again, I’ll die, I thought. I forgot my shoes and stood next to the wall listening, with Elmi right behind me. Could things get any worse than they had been with Ayan? I prayed that was impossible.

  The enshrouded being described Father’s new love. “She is tall, has long dark hair and a slim build, somewhere between eighteen and twenty-five years old.” She could have been one of many women.

  “Add this to his soup, and throw away what’s left over so no one else eats it. You will see a change right away.”

  “Where does he find them?” Mother asked.

  “He’s not to blame. The women do it. They throw themselves at the men. You’d have no trouble if they kept away.” The being sighed as if exhausted by the explanation. “If they didn’t seek him, he wouldn’t look. It is time for me to go. May Allah be with you.”

  Mother saw us as she ushered the woman outside. “This is Halima, the village healer.”

  I nodded and they walked past us toward the main door.

  When Mother returned, she told me why the healer had come. I pretended I hadn’t been listening, and Mother showed me two different bottles. “She knew everything,” Mother said. “She described the woman perfectly.”

  “What happens when the next one comes along?”

  “There’ll be no next one. This healer sealed his ears to their advances.”

  “Why is it always the woman’s fault?”

  “Because it is. Everyone knows. To think your husband is after other women is to accept that you couldn’t keep him content. Surely you, at fourteen years of age, can see that’s not true. I can keep a husband better than any other woman, so how do you explain what’s happening? What is the reason for Father’s desire to be in any bed but mine? If he could think for himself, he’d see that all his needs are met.” She stopped, realizing she’d said more than was necessary. “Never mind. This healer will take care of it. You’ll see.”

  I listened to Mother’s reasoning, but I knew this, like the others, was an effort in futility. A few days later Father had a new mistress. He’d moved her into the apartment next to his office, and just like alwa
ys, Mother returned to her search in the village for help and visited one healer after another. Often she sat in her room for hours sorting potions into groups, dumping the ones that had failed, while looking at new ones with overwhelming hope.

  In the days that followed, Mother became oblivious to everything except finding a cure for Father’s infidelity. Elmi and I were free to do as we wished. “Come over,” I invited Sidow every Friday with confidence.

  “Are you sure your mother won’t mind?” he’d ask.

  “Yes. I am.” I was certain she wouldn’t even notice he was there.

  *

  In Father’s study Elmi, Sidow, and I read books, articles from The October Star—the national daily newspaper—and even government documents and memos. The technical pieces were difficult to understand, others were boring, but from time to time we stumbled upon something interesting and spent hours looking and reading.

  Sidow was very good at picking great poems. “Read this one,” he said handing me a thin volume. It was a poem about a battle between two tribes written by a man named Abdulle Hasan. It was long, violent, and glorious.

  Sidow’s excitement bubbled up before I could finish the first stanza. “A great poem!” He stopped me several times. “Read it again,” he said.

  I read the last twenty lines that described the final battle. The sounds and images of the fast-moving swords and daggers seemed to fill the room. “How many people died, do you think?” I directed the question to Sidow without taking my eyes off the page.

  He didn’t respond. I looked up. Sidow was no longer across from Elmi and me on the floor. Instead, he was sitting in Father’s chair, something he’d never done before. He had a piece of paper before him and as I approached the desk I followed his eyes to his cupped hand, drawing vigorously on the page. His brows scrunched together in a single line. Sidow drew the battle as though he were there, watching everything from above the clearing.