A Good Wife

by Samra Zafar

  One evening, near the end of July, I took the phone when Ahmed called. “If you want to stay together,” I told him, “then you must move back here. Get a job in Ruwais or Abu Dhabi, and we can get a place of our own.”

  Ahmed didn’t say anything in response, but I could tell he was thinking.

  It was only a few days after this conversation that I opened my email to see another message from Ahmed, this one with a file attached. The document was a lease on an apartment in Mississauga. Ahmed’s signature was clearly visible at the bottom of the page. I called my father to take a look. We sat side by side, staring at the computer screen, reading every line of the document.

  Ahmed had rented a two-bedroom unit not far from his parents’ house.

  The arrival of the lease seemed to shift the mood in the house. One afternoon, Ahmed phoned to talk with my father. Papa was on the call a long time. After he hung up, he came into my bedroom.

  “I need to talk with you,” he said as he sat on the edge of my bed, a look of concern clouding his face. “Ahmed is clearly suffering. He misses you and Aisha,” Papa said. Evidently some of my husband’s pleas had found their mark. After all, my father knew what it was like to be separated from one’s wife and children. He had missed us all desperately when we lived in Pakistan and he stayed in Ruwais.

  Then Papa continued, “He says that you like to talk with men when you are out. At the mall. He says you let your hair out of your hijab. He says this is why he becomes angry.”

  I rolled my eyes at my father. He had always encouraged his girls to think of themselves as equals and not to hide from talking with anyone. And his wife and daughters had never worn a hijab. But I could see that Papa understood jealousy and could empathize with Ahmed.

  “He says he knows it wasn’t right to yell at you or hurt you, and he will not do it again.”

  I took a deep breath. It seemed as my father’s resolve to keep me in Ruwais had vanished. Ahmed had managed to convince him that this separation was an awakening for him, that he really was a changed man.

  And now my mother as well seemed conflicted about my staying in Ruwais. She was concerned that a separation between Ahmed and me might make my sisters’ chances at marriage more difficult. And like my father, she thought the new living arrangements could solve our problems. I should give the marriage another chance. My parents had, after all, stuck it out after my mother’s one attempt to leave. They had had two more daughters and had given their four children a relatively happy childhood despite the periods of turmoil. And they had done all that within an arranged marriage that never blossomed into love, the way mine had.

  As the date on my return ticket approached, I was a mess of conflicting emotions.

  There was guilt. We had our own place to live now. If I didn’t return, could I really say I had tried everything to make my marriage a success, to provide a two-parent home for Aisha, to create a happy family?

  There was defeat. Without my being fully aware of it, Ahmed’s accusations and judgments, his claims that I was worthless and undeserving of respect, had become the rhythm of my life. Sometimes the drumbeat was there for everyone else to hear; sometimes those staccato judgments were silently thumping in my own mind—even in Ruwais. Part of me no longer expected the happy home I thought I had when I first moved to Canada. If it didn’t happen, then I didn’t deserve it. If only he had really hit me, I found myself thinking. Then I might have more justification to leave.

  There was fear. If I was perfectly honest with myself, I didn’t want to be known as the woman who had left her husband. I remembered what my mother had said about her own mother. Everyone thought she was a failure. Before marriage, I had never failed at a single thing in my whole life. I was the one who got the top marks, won the awards, garnered the praise. A single mom? How could I be proud of that?

  And finally, most important, there was hope—I could still imagine a bright future with Ahmed. Those first eight months we had had together were potent. And the three months of harmony we’d had when Amma was in California were reassuring. I still loved him, and I could see myself falling in love again. After all, since his anger was not moored to anything real, as far as I could understand, it seemed quite possible it could float away for good if the circumstances were right. Despite everything that had happened, I had a picture in my head—the three of us together, happy in a home of our own. Ahmed and I cooking together, playing with Aisha, curled up on the sofa in front of the TV. Now that he knew I could leave him, things would be different.

  On August 4th, after four wonderful months with my family, Aisha and I stepped onto a plane back to Canada. I felt well rested and well fed and more in control of my life than I had before I left—if nothing else, the trip had been restorative. I was not as terrified as I had been at my nikah, and not as nervous as I had been leaving Pakistan five years ago. I was, instead, resigned.

  I held Aisha’s hand tightly as we walked down the aisle of the aircraft.

  Well, I thought. I have survived the rapids. From here the waters can only get calmer.

  * * *

  Ahmed managed to get an apartment for us so quickly because he had agreed to pay market-value rent in a geared-to-income building. The place therefore had none of the simple luxury of the condo nor the ample comfort of the house. Its cut-rate finishes were bruised and battered, its windows small and gritty. The basement laundry room was damp, the tiny lobby was always filled with smokers, and the halls echoed with the sounds of squabbling children and blaring TVs. Since it was an older building, however, its rooms were relatively large, which was a bonus even though we only had a few bits and pieces of furniture that Amma and Abba had let us take from the house. But all that mattered to me was that for the first time, Ahmed, Aisha and I had our own home.

  Ahmed had met me at the airport alone. He wrapped his arms around Aisha immediately and then stood to face me. “Hi, how are you?” he asked stiffly.

  During the drive home we chatted about my time away and about his work, but the awkwardness of our reunion had me doubting my decision to return.

  At the apartment, Ahmed and I moved into the master bedroom—the first time we had shared a bed since his parents moved to Canada. But the close quarters did not seem to close the distance between us. Those first few days in the apartment were uneasy for both of us. I was plagued with doubt. I called my parents whenever I could. I confessed to them that I was feeling crippled with homesickness, that I wanted to go back.

  “You’ve got to give it a chance, Samra,” my father said.

  My mother suggested this might be the time to have a second baby, now that we were away from Ahmed’s parents. Aisha was four and a half, she reminded me. It would be good for her to finally have a sibling. She too felt I needed to commit myself to this second opportunity.

  I also let Ahmed know I was unsure that coming back had been the right move. He was, of course, frustrated and angry.

  “Why did I get this apartment then?” he fumed.

  But he did seem to be trying to make the transition easy for me. For the first few weeks, he took Aisha over to his parents to visit, but I wasn’t required to accompany them. Eventually, however, I had to make an appearance.

  I was not expecting a warm reception. Ahmed’s parents knew that while I was home I had talked about their treatment of me and their effect on my marriage. My parents and I had made a short trip to Karachi to see relatives. I’d met Fatima there and told her how unhappy I had been living with her parents. I wanted her, as well as Amma and Abba, to know I thought they were at least in part at fault. Of course, at the time, I hadn’t imagined that I’d be back, sitting at the dining-room table with them.

  Amma spent the visit tightly focused on Aisha, addressing me only when it was necessary in order to get food on the table or clean up afterwards. Abba said not a word to me. Neither of them looked me in the eye all evening.

  Driving back to our apartment, Ahmed was even quieter than usual.

  �
��Well, that was awkward,” I said, to break the silence.

  Ahmed frowned. “Well, what did you expect?” he replied. “You took their son away from them.”

  Yes, I had proved Amma wrong. Ahmed had left her. I knew I would not be easily forgiven for that.

  * * *

  By the time summer was drawing to a close, my homesickness had fallen away and Ahmed’s easy warmth of old had returned. I was beginning to truly enjoy my new life in the apartment. I loved the fact that I could go out on my own to get groceries or take Aisha to the park when Ahmed was at work. The freedom to cook what I wanted, without criticism or direction, made the kitchen a cheerful place for me again. Ahmed was under considerable stress—both from his parents and from the financial strain of paying their mortgage and our rent—yet his spirits always seemed to lift once he’d spent time with us in the evenings or on the weekend. Our little family had many happy hours together.

  What’s more, I found myself in the centre of a bustling community. Because many units in the building were subsidized for low-income families, the hallways and elevators held a constant parade of parents and small children.

  Once the school year started, these parents and kids would meet every morning in the lobby to wait for the school buses. Some of the other mothers were quiet, like me, but I soon noticed one woman who always seemed to be chatting and laughing. Pretty soon, she noticed me too.

  Renu was about ten years older than I was, with two girls in elementary school. We hit it off right away. Ahmed wasn’t pleased that while she was Pakistani, she was also Christian. “They have different values than us,” he warned me. But he didn’t say I couldn’t spend time with her.

  Renu and I began to get together during the day, after our children had left for school. When she confessed that she didn’t like to cook the way I did, I began to bring her leftovers and portions of our evening meals. Delighted, she asked me for recipes, and sometimes to cook for her when she was having guests. When she discovered that my other passion was school, she wanted to know if I was interested in tutoring her two daughters. She would be happy to pay me. And she knew other parents in the building who might be interested in my services.

  Before I knew it, I had a little after-school business happening at my kitchen table. The money wasn’t much, but I was excited to think I might be able to help with our household expenses.

  And then in early October, another development—I discovered I was pregnant.

  * * *

  My mother wasn’t the only one who thought a second child would be a good idea. Ahmed had brought up the idea during the occasional peaceful periods when we lived with his parents. Like my mother, he thought Aisha should have a sibling. The prevailing wisdom of our family and friends was that a baby always strengthened a marriage. It hadn’t quite worked out that way with Aisha, but now we were on our own perhaps a new baby would work its magic. And, I reasoned, with two children it would be much harder for Amma to argue that we should move back in with her.

  When I suspected that I might be pregnant, I went to the doctor to have a blood test. Ahmed was home when the doctor’s office called with the positive result.

  This time, I felt none of the shock or fear I had with my first pregnancy. I was looking forward to having a baby in my arms again, to sharing this special time with Ahmed and Aisha. I was excited.

  When I hung up the phone, I looked over to Ahmed. His face barely registered the good news.

  “Aren’t you happy?” I asked him.

  “Yes, I’m happy,” he said, without a smile. “What should I do? Dance?”

  * * *

  In the days that followed, I could feel tension building in the apartment. Ahmed’s smile became rarer and rarer and his words increasingly few. He often seemed anxious and frustrated but never more so than when he returned from a visit with his parents. One night he came back looking especially angry. I asked him what was the matter.

  “Leave me alone,” he snapped. “What do you want me to do? Do you want me to give up my parents? Or should I give up you?”

  I felt sick. Amma and Abba must have been putting pressure on him to move back in. Perhaps they were using the new baby as an excuse.

  The next time Ahmed and Aisha came back from visiting his parents he was even more upset. “Samra, you don’t know what I have to deal with. If we don’t move back, I might as well die. Is that what you want?”

  He put his thumb in his mouth and bit down on it. I rushed over and pulled his thumb from his mouth, the deep red indentations giving me a stab of guilt. Because of me, Ahmed was in pain. He didn’t look at me.

  “I just don’t know what to do,” he said. “I’m so frustrated.”

  Ahmed’s eyes met mine, and I could see his unfocused anger finding its target. Aisha was hovering between us, looking upset. “Why can’t you be a normal woman and just live with your in-laws?” he shouted.

  His hands shot out and slammed against my chest. I stumbled and fell back onto the couch. Then he turned on his heel and disappeared out the apartment door.

  I lay motionless on the couch for several minutes, Aisha crying and clinging to my side.

  It’s still hard for me to believe how shocked and surprised I felt every time Ahmed’s anger reappeared. Even if I could tell he was agitated, could see the tightness in his face and feel it in his words, when his fury erupted I felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked from my lungs. In the aftermath, with my chest stinging and the blood thumping in my ears, I would resolve never to let my guard down again, never to let hope worm its way back into my heart. But then, while Ahmed was playing with Aisha or telling me how good my cooking was, that amnesic traitor slipped back in. And the next time Ahmed exploded I would be knocked over once again.

  Perhaps the shock was especially potent this time because we had shared a little over two months of peace together. And all those weeks of love-filled phone calls in Ruwais. I was not at all prepared for this anger. But as I thought of what had just been erased by Ahmed’s outburst, another sad idea formed. Despite his promises, despite having our own space, our marriage had returned to its darkest form in just two short months. It had taken no time at all for Amma and Abba’s shadow to overtake us.

  I had thought our life together would get better with the advent of another baby, but now I knew I had fooled myself. I wept quietly in my bed that night, but when I rose in the morning, I resolved to do something.

  Once Ahmed was off at work and Aisha was at school, I called the Assaulted Women’s Helpline and all the other counselling centres I could find online. I was looking for a Muslim woman. I didn’t think a white woman would understand my situation or be able to offer a solution that I could actually use.

  Eventually, I connected with a Muslim counsellor. I told her my entire story. At the end of it I said, “I want to go home to my parents. But I don’t have any money.”

  “Why don’t you explore ways to make money from home?” she suggested.

  “I’m already tutoring a number of children, but it doesn’t bring in enough.”

  “No,” said the counsellor gently, “it wouldn’t. But what about child care? If you could look after a couple of children full time, that would be considerably more money.”

  I got off the phone quickly. If there was one thing my new neighbourhood had, it was children. That morning, I drew up a flyer and printed copies off at the nearby FedEx office. After I was done, I walked the nearby blocks, sticking my ad to lampposts and grocery store bulletin boards and the laundry rooms of our building and the one next door. I knew that Ahmed wouldn’t object if I was able to make more money without working outside the home.

  I started to get calls right away. The mother of an eighteen-month-old girl was looking for full-time care. The mother of a two-year-old boy was hoping to find someone for a few days a week. I felt a little guilty, offering to take their children when I was planning to work just long enough to save for plane tickets, but I hoped the parents would understand wh
en the time came.

  My days became much busier, with two small children to attend to as well as Aisha at the end of the school day. But both my new charges were adorable, cheerful toddlers, and I could still get out with a stroller on the days when I had only one of them. I was also relieved to find that this second pregnancy was not making me feel ill or exhausted the way the first one had. In fact, I was surprised at how well I felt, how much energy I had now that I had a plan.

  With the tutoring and the babysitting, I was now making between eight and nine hundred dollars a week. I paid a few bills with the money, but I tried to save as much as I could. Then I got a call from Ruwais that made building that nest egg even more urgent.

  Warda was getting married, and the wedding had been set for early February 2006. I would have wanted to go even if things had been working out with Ahmed, but it was the perfect excuse to return home. I knew, however, that my parents would be strapped for cash. I told them I would find a way to pay for a flight for Aisha and me.

  For the next month or so, I siphoned away as much of the babysitting and tutoring money as I possibly could. At the end of November, I called a travel agent and booked two seats back to Abu Dhabi for the end of December.

  I had told Ahmed about my sister’s wedding as soon as I heard, saying that I would pay for the tickets myself, but I waited until he was in a good mood to let him know that I had actually booked my trip. My return to Canada, I explained to him, would be in late March. But his recent behaviour convinced me I would not be on that flight.

  That first physical encounter in October seemed to remove any control Ahmed had been maintaining over his temper. His rages became increasingly frequent, and he now pushed and grabbed me with almost every outburst. Sometimes, he would shove me onto the couch and pin me down, pinching my arms while he yelled at me. By the time I called the travel agent, my upper arms were covered with bruises, the newer ones throbbing each time I moved.