by Samra Zafar
Everyone chuckled politely.
“And it’s good she’s so fair. Of course, we have been meeting other girls, but we are looking for a fair and tall daughter-in-law.”
In the weeks leading up to Eid, the local markets were always filled with live sheep and goats. My family and other faithful would purchase an animal, bring it home to fatten it up for a while, and then slaughter it on Eid to honour Allah and prepare a feast. I had never thought much about the activity in the market, the way that people inspected a goat’s teeth or ran their hands through the thick fleece on a sheep. But now I thought I had a sense of what those poor animals must feel like—being poked and prodded and judged. Fatima’s parents didn’t appear to be the least bit interested in getting to know me. What they seemed to be looking for was an attractive, well-mannered broodmare.
Fatima’s mother still had her hand in my hair and was murmuring about its softness when her husband cleared his throat and said, “Time for the adults to talk now.”
I stood up with relief, said my goodbyes and escaped to my bedroom. I tried to calm myself as I sat at my desk, my homework spread in front of me. But the math questions seemed to be floating above the page—impossible to read. I could hear the muted sound of quiet talk in the living room.
I realized, as I strained to make out the words, that although I had hated every second of the inspection, I wanted Fatima’s parents to like me. And while part of me was hoping they would reject me so that I could return to my old life, part of me, perhaps the bigger part, yearned for their approval. I had not willingly entered this contest, but now that I was in it I wanted to win.
I couldn’t tell what was being said, but not long after I’d gone to my room, Fatima was in the doorway, telling me to come say goodbye to her parents.
I returned to the living room, where Fatima’s father patted my head with fatherly approval. “Okay, beta,” he said, “goodbye. Take care.”
Once Fatima and her parents were out the door, my mother let out a big sigh.
“I don’t care what they think,” my father said. “Our daughter is one in a million. What’s the rush? She’ll get plenty of proposals.”
“None like this,” my mother replied testily.
“That is not the purpose of her life!” my father snapped. But my mother wasn’t listening. She had disappeared into the kitchen with the tea tray.
* * *
A few hours later, the phone rang. My mother picked it up in her room. I could hear her voice clearly through the open door.
“That’s wonderful,” she said. Her tone was exuberant. I knew she was talking with Fatima. I felt a little flutter of excitement and then my chest grew tight.
When my mother got off the phone, she came into my room, where I was sitting frozen in anticipation. “Congratulations! They like you! They want to set a date for the engagement.”
Fatima’s parents liked me. I had won the prize. A husband and a Canadian education. But the frisson of delight I felt when I first heard my mother on the phone had disappeared in a crest of panic and dread. I didn’t really want this. But how could I say no now?
We went into the living room to tell my father. He was not as quiet as I was at the news. “No,” he said to my mother. “This is not the right time. Samra is too young. She needs to go to university first.”
“Zafar,” my mother shot back, “Samra has agreed to this already.”
“Really?” he asked, turning to me. “Samra, are you really sure?”
“Yes, she’s sure,” my mother insisted. “We’ve talked about this. She knows this is the best thing for her.”
As my parents continued—my father’s voice increasingly loud and laden with swear words, my mother’s quiet but nasty—I retreated to my room. Suddenly, I was exhausted. I crawled under the covers of my bed, falling asleep to the familiar sound of my parents’ fighting.
I woke up the next morning to my mother’s voice. She was on the phone again. She sounded apologetic. “I’m sorry, but she’s really too young. And she needs to go to university.” She was parroting my father’s arguments.
I threw the covers off and scrambled out of bed. I was at once flooded with relief and overcome with concern that I might be missing out on a great opportunity.
When I got to my mother, she was just hanging up the phone. “I’ve turned down the offer for now,” she said to me. Her face was shadowed with conflicting concerns. I could sense that she felt guilty about the pressure she had exerted on me, worried about sending me so far away, but fearful too that we might be throwing away a golden opportunity.
“Fatima’s parents want to come to the house again tonight to talk with us some more,” she said. “Perhaps your father is right, but if you think you want to go through with the engagement, you need to talk to him.”
The truth was I didn’t know what I wanted. But I also knew that I no longer trusted my father wholeheartedly, the way I once had. My teen years had created some distance between us. I didn’t like the way he treated my mother, and I knew his decisions were often flawed. I wasn’t prepared to let him make this one for me.
When my father came home from work, I cornered him.
“Papa,” I said pleadingly, “I want to meet Fatima’s parents again. I’m afraid that I might be throwing away my best chance to go to school abroad. What if I never get another offer this good?”
That evening, my aunt also called to talk with my father. By the time the sun set, it had been agreed that we would once again host Fatima’s parents and listen to what they had to say about my possible future.
* * *
The tenor of this evening was entirely different from the first. That earlier meeting had been about Fatima’s parents choosing a future bahu, a daughter-in-law. (It seemed clear, in retrospect, that it was more important they liked me than that their son did.) But now they needed to show that they would be a good family for me.
I was in the living room with everyone right from the start, as were my sisters. This time no one examined me or asked me about cooking or other domestic accomplishments. Fatima’s mother looked at me instead with great warmth and affection. And she was eager to talk about school—in particular, my university education.
“Of course she will go to school in Canada. If it’s important to her, it’s important to us,” Fatima’s mother insisted, while Fatima’s father nodded in agreement.
“We have always been strong proponents of education for women.” She went on to talk about several of the women in their extended family and the education they had completed. “And Ahmed is very progressive on this issue,” she added.
It was what I needed to hear. Even my father looked a little more comfortable.
Fatima’s mother continued to charm us all. “Don’t worry,” she said to my parents. “You know, she would be our daughter. We would love her even more than you do, because she is the one who will continue our family. She will be so important to us.”
Fatima appealed directly to me. “Samra, you know I already consider you a sister. But am I not also your good friend? I only want what is best for you. This match will be such a good thing for you—marriage and a wonderful education! Two birds with one stone!”
My mother looked over at me as if to say, “Isn’t this great?”
By the time the evening was drawing to a close, Fatima and her parents had made a powerful case for the bright life I might lead if I joined their son in Canada. And my mother and I were swept away by their kind words and warm reassurances. My mother told Fatima and her parents that we would be happy to set an engagement date.
The following evening, Fatima’s parents came back for a third visit. This time, Fatima’s beaming mother asked me to sit beside her once again. When I was settled, she took my head in her hands and pulled me towards her. She kissed me gently on the forehead.
“You are my daughter now,” she said, with great emotion in her voice. Then she took my hand and slipped a huge gold and zirconium ring on my ring
finger. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked.
In truth, I had never seen such an ugly ring. But I nodded politely.
The conversation soon turned to the wedding itself. As we nibbled on mithai and sipped tea, Fatima and her mother talked enthusiastically about the plans. I was startled to hear that the nikah would happen in July, just six months away. That ceremony, to be held in Karachi where both sides had extended family, involved the signing of wedding contracts and would be preceded by the two mehndi parties. But the rukhsati—the part of the wedding in which the bride leaves her family to join her husband—would not be held on the same day, as it traditionally was. Instead, I would stay behind to finish my final year of high school, living with my family, and Ahmed would return to Canada while my immigration paperwork was approved. Once that was done, we’d set a date for the rukhsati, likely a year after the nikah. Hearing that I would have all that time at home, I felt my pulse slow slightly.
Then the conversation shifted to the details of the nikah. All of our family celebrations, even the weddings, tended to be relatively modest and low-key. But despite the fact that my parents would be paying the bills, the nikah plans Fatima and her mother were proposing were splashy and extravagant. My mother’s smiles became more anxious as the evening wore on. My father looked increasingly sober. My sisters were simply restless, wanting to get away from the adult conversation and back to their play.
I sat stiffly, unable to tear my eyes away from the ring on my finger. What had I done?
* * *
I walked to school slowly the next day, embarrassment and uncertainty weighting my steps. I wished I had left the ring at home, but Fatima had told me I must never take it off—that would be bad luck. I was hoping that somehow the teachers and students wouldn’t notice the large, sparkly bauble on my finger. But of course that was impossible. As soon as I stepped into the schoolyard, a friend approached, took one look at my hand and burst out with, “You’re so lucky!” And then I was surrounded by a cluster of girls, all twittering with excitement.
There was no hope that I might keep my new status from the school population at large. Fatima’s daughter spotted me during the lunch break that first day and ran up to me, shouting, “Samra-mumani!” She was identifying me in that one honorific as her uncle’s new wife. Before the week was out the whole school knew that I was soon to be someone’s bride.
And then my world began to shift.
A few days after my engagement I walked outside into the schoolyard at recess, looking for my friends. Standing in a huddle at the side of the yard, they started to giggle as soon as they noticed my approach.
“What’s up?” I asked them.
“Samra, you know you really shouldn’t be hanging out with us anymore,” said one of them. “You’re going to be married.”
“What’s that got to do with it? I’m still me,” I said.
“Not really,” piped in another friend. “You belong to someone else now.”
I was both stunned and angry at her words. But my old friends seemed to feel solidarity on this subject, and I began to stay in at recess to avoid their laughter and whispers.
Even in class, I could feel the difference. Boys who had spoken with me calmly and casually in the hallways or the student lounge now avoided me. My old study partner, a Bangladeshi girl who could always match me in the intensity of her work, told me she thought we should part ways. She couldn’t be convinced that I was still committed to my studies.
“Why do you care about school, now that you’re going to be married?”
The news quickly reached all of the teachers, too. My principal, an Arabic man, congratulated me, but he was the only one. The rest of the largely British and European faculty were clearly shocked. Ms. Harr’s dismay was tempered with kindness. It was her room in which I sought refuge during the lonely recesses and lunches. Other teachers, who knew my parents socially, telephoned the house to talk with them. I could hear my mother defending the decision and explaining the significant educational advantages I would have in Canada.
By the time the school year finished in May, I had become a little island, my friends and former social life now far offshore. My only visitor was Fatima, who took to her role of future sister-in-law with relish. During her regular visits to our house, she talked to me about the wedding plans—about the colour of dress she thought I would look good in or the way I might do my hair.
She also began to give me instructions on how to behave as an engaged woman. I needed to leave my childish fashions behind—jeans and T-shirts were no longer appropriate. When I wasn’t in my school uniform, I should always wear a shalwar kameez. I would have to stop playing tennis, squash and cricket. A married woman should have no interest in sports.
And the boys at school were right—they were strictly off limits. Even the most casual encounters, like studying together in the library, would raise eyebrows now, Fatima advised.
I bristled at all these instructions, but I followed them. For months, I had been basking in the attention Fatima lavished on me. I didn’t want to disappoint her. What’s more, while I didn’t care about the bridal dress or the wedding buffet, I did care about my future. I filled my now-empty hours imagining myself walking through a cool, green campus, my arms loaded with books, my mind thrumming with new ideas. Sometimes I placed myself at the front of a classroom, lecturing to a room of medical students. This was what lay at the end of the wedding plans. This was where marriage would lead me. Yet Fatima hinted repeatedly that this opportunity was mine to lose.
“There were so many candidates for Ahmed. You have no idea how many girls we had to disappoint when we chose you. He is such a good catch. You are so fortunate.”
Even now that we had set a wedding date, failure was apparently still quite possible.
* * *
Fatima’s attention became more disconcerting in another way as well.
She had invited me over to her house for a sleepover. It was late; Fatima’s own children were in bed, fast asleep. Fatima had hauled two mattresses onto the living room floor so we could chat together before shutting our eyes. We were curled up under the covers, talking about my future move to Canada. I was, of course, talking about university.
“Yes, I’m sure it will happen,” Fatima said quietly, “but on the off chance that it doesn’t, what then?” There was a hint of impatience in her voice.
“What do you mean?” I said. “That’s what everyone has promised.”
“You just have to realize that the real importance of a woman’s life is the care of the home and to be a wife,” Fatima said. “You should be excited you are getting there sooner than some. That’s what you should be happy about.”
As I lay in the unfamiliar bed that night, doubt kept me from drifting off. By the time I rose in the morning, I was exhausted and nervous.
To Fatima, the wedding was all-important. One day, as I was cycling past her house, my front wheel caught a jagged piece of asphalt, wrenching the bike from underneath me. As I picked myself off the road, I felt a stab of pain in my shoulder and saw blood seeping through my blouse. I pushed my bike over to Fatima’s front door.
When Fatima saw me, she let out a little shriek. “What has happened to your face?” she said with alarm.
“It’s my shoulder,” I said. “I think I really hurt it.”
“You’ve got a big scrape on your cheek!” she continued. “What if it leaves a scar? How are we going to cover that up for the wedding?”
She agreed to drive me to a clinic so a doctor could look at my shoulder, but she couldn’t stop fussing about my face. For days after the accident, she came by the house to consult with my mother about the various creams and ointments I should be using to make sure the scrape healed as quickly as possible.
* * *
I was becoming more anxious day by day. And it wasn’t only the fear that my educational dreams might not come true.
My social isolation was making me realize that I would be givin
g up other hopes and expectations. I had had brief crushes on boys and had always assumed that I would meet someone special in one of my university classes. I had, like any teenager, imagined what it would be like to feel my heart beat faster, to give myself over to romance, to fall in love. I imagined myself choosing my future love, and him choosing me. Now this would never happen. I began to see loss after loss in my future. Why had I allowed myself to be so easily convinced that this marriage was my best chance for happiness? Was it just because I wanted to succeed so badly?
I started sleeping poorly, lying in bed awake for hours and hours, only to succumb to nightmares once I drifted off. One night I had an especially vivid dream. I was standing in front of an imposing old building surrounded by a tall wrought-iron fence. I knew it was a university building. I put my hand on the gate and tugged, but it held fast. As I pulled at the locked, unbudging metal, I noticed that I was wearing red-and-gold wedding clothes. I pulled harder and harder as I began to sob.
My tears woke me up and I called out to my mother. When she came into the room, I was still crying. “I’m so scared,” I told her. “I don’t know Ahmed at all. What if he isn’t who he says he is? What if he’s mean?”
My mother tried to calm me, but I could not be consoled. Finally she said, “Why don’t you talk to him and ask him yourself ?”
My mother left my room and came back with the phone. She dialled Ahmed’s number in Canada and asked if I could speak with him for a few minutes.
When she handed me the phone, I didn’t wait to hear anything from Ahmed. Instead I blurted out my questions. “You won’t stop me, will you? You’ll let me go to school when I get to Canada?”
Ahmed responded immediately. “Of course I will, Samra. You have every right to make your own decisions.”
It was the first time I had heard Ahmed’s voice. It was soft and gentle. Reassuring. “Whichever university you want to go to, we’ll go. I can get a job anywhere. If we have to move, we’ll move.”
