by Samra Zafar
I hung up. My phone buzzed again. It was the same caller. I blocked the number and then tried to go about my day. But I was deeply unnerved. What if he showed up at my door? You’re not that hard to find.
More than one encounter in stores and restaurants in the coming months reminded me that I was now considered fair game by many men in my old community.
After I’d moved into my own place, I started shopping at a nearby family-run Pakistani grocer for all of my meat and spices. Over time I became quite friendly with the woman who ran the shop and often ordered meat by phoning in advance.
“Why does your husband never come with you?” she asked me one day. I explained that I was separated and in the process of getting a divorce. She seemed surprised but didn’t say anything.
After that conversation, I noticed that the man who ran the meat counter seemed especially attentive. Whenever I asked him the price of anything, he would smile and say, “Why are you asking me the price? If it was up to me, I’d be giving this to you for free!” At other times, he would wink and say, “Save a little of your stew for me!”
One day, I ran into the store to pick up my meat order. I was going out to the movies later, so I was more dressed up than usual and had paid special attention to my hair and makeup. I could tell immediately that the butcher noticed. He handed me the brown-paper package of beef and gave me a leering smile. As I was getting into my car, a text popped up on my phone.
You look very, very pretty right now. I wish I could hug you.
There was only one person it could have been from. I had not given him my phone number. I never returned to the store.
I was so rattled by the incident, the earlier phone call and other responses I’d been getting that I eventually went to the campus police to ask them to do more patrols around my apartment. And I put their number on my fridge and in my cellphone. But I wasn’t ready to give up my cultural community. I wanted desperately to find a way to stay connected and be accepted. In the early months of my separation, I sought some spiritual guidance from various imams and started taking Koran classes at the Al Huda Institute, a non-profit Islamic education organization. There I met a young Pakistani woman, Maya, who invited me to her family home for dinner one evening in August. Maya’s family had come to Canada from Saudi Arabia a few years before. Her parents were extremely traditional, but they welcomed me with warmth and kindness, even though they knew that I had broken all the rules they believed in. I was grateful to them for their tolerance.
I ended up at their dinner table on many weekends when Sonia and Aisha were with Amma and Ahmed. They plied me with delicious Pakistani food and tried to give helpful advice about my future. The only real way forward, as far as they were concerned, was to find me another man. And they set out to do just that.
One afternoon when I arrived at their house, Maya’s mother approached me with a wide smile. “Good news, Samra,” she crowed. “We have a marriage proposal for you! He’s very rich, in his sixties, and his children are all grown.”
I couldn’t quite make sense of it. “Aunty,” I protested, “I’m only twenty-nine!”
“So what?” Maya’s mother said. “You’re divorced now. You should consider yourself lucky. Do you think it will be easy to find a man your age? Even men in their sixties can get eighteen-year-old virgins!”
I stood my ground, but I understood the truth of what Maya’s mother was telling me. And so I agreed to go on a date with a couple of other, younger finds. But as much as I wanted to prove to them, to myself and to the world at large that I could still attract a man, in particular a man close to my own age, none of these matches worked out.
Maya’s mother grew increasingly concerned about my man-less state. One evening in December, she reminded me that time was not on my side.
“You mustn’t wait much longer, Samra,” she warned. “Once you are over thirty it will be so hard for you to meet anyone.” I thought back to my aunt Nasreen in Pakistan. She would certainly have agreed with this assessment. But then Maya’s mother served me a far more devastating blow.
“And you must remember, no man will ever accept Aisha and Sonia except their father.”
I returned home that night feeling sad and desperate. She was right—I was damaged goods. And despite what my university friends might tell me, in the world I was most familiar with, the world I called home, women just weren’t complete without a man. What had I been thinking? Why was I going out on dates and meeting new men when there was one who already said he loved me? Why would I bring a strange man into my life when my daughters’ father was within reach?
* * *
Restraining orders were of course in place, keeping Ahmed and me away from each other. Amma and Abba picked the girls up for visits with him and dropped them off after. And yet I hadn’t given up contact with Ahmed altogether.
In the spring, when we were newly separated, I’d got a number of calls from his friends, urging me to return. Missing my husband and desperate to hear news of him, I took the calls. I resisted the temptation to tell them I would go back, but I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to see him. I missed him, yes, but I was also tortured by the question of whether or not he felt remorse. Finally I called him from a friend’s cellphone and suggested that we meet clandestinely.
The first time we got together was in the summer, in a deserted parking lot late at night. Ahmed was unrepentant—the name-calling, the pushing and pinching, the spitting, none of it really hurt me. He was, he weepily insisted, the one in pain. He was the one who had been left, who had been forcibly separated from his children. We met a couple more times in the fall, but with each encounter Ahmed made it clear that if there was any fault to be assigned in the failure of our marriage, it was mine.
But now, with the dark winter months before me and Maya’s mother’s words ringing in my ears, I felt every bit of resolve and every ounce of confidence melt away. Without marriage, without Ahmed, my future would be a disaster. And worse still, my children would be condemned to the same miserable and bleak existence I had fashioned for myself.
I called Ahmed and asked him to meet me once again. We agreed to connect in the parking lot of a nearby strip mall.
* * *
As soon as I slid into the front seat of his car, I started to beg. “Please, Ahmed, I made a big mistake. You were right. I can’t do this anymore. I want to get back together.”
“What’s happened, then?” Ahmed’s voice was cool. “You’ve been so high and mighty these last few months. I don’t even know if I want you back. Look at everything you’ve done to me—you sent me to jail.”
I had my hand on Ahmed’s leg and was leaning towards him. “I know, I disrespected you. I disrespected your parents. Let’s just forget everything that’s happened. I’m still your wife. I will do anything you say. I just want to be with you.”
I leaned closer and put my arms around him, but when his hands began to move across my body, I flinched.
Ahmed pulled away. “You don’t care that I have needs. You’re probably getting your needs fulfilled elsewhere.” And then, “You’re still my wife, right?” His look was easy to read. I leaned into him and let his hands go where they pleased.
At the end of the strip mall was a sad-and-neglected-looking Motel 6. Ahmed let go of me, turned on the ignition and drove over to the front door.
I got out without saying a word.
* * *
An hour later, Ahmed drove me back to my car. I felt utterly hollow, as if every drop of blood had been drained from my body. I wasn’t sure how I found the strength to open the car door and stand up. But I looked over at him before I walked away.
“Are we back together now?”
“I don’t know,” Ahmed said. “I’ll think about it.”
As his car sped off across the empty parking lot, I put the minivan into drive, my hand trembling as I did so. What had I done? I had given Ahmed just what he wanted. I had humiliated myself in front of him, reduced myself to so
mething worse than nothingness. I had just thrown away everything I’d fought for, had shredded every scrap of self-respect I’d claimed in the last years and months. The hollowness I had felt was now filled by fiery self-loathing. I would never recover from this.
I was barely conscious of where I was going as I drove towards campus, but as the asphalt spooled underneath me, the guardrail caught my eye. I was driving along a raised road bordered by low strips of corrugated steel. On the other side of the rail, the pavement fell away abruptly.
It could be over so soon. All I had to do was sit still, and I would never have to feel this way again.
My front wheels were on the shoulder, the guardrail speeding closer and closer until the grey steel was just inches from the right side of the car. And then it was as if I could feel the first shards of impact and hear the sound of crushing metal and splintering glass. I gasped, jerking the steering wheel to the left just in time to avoid impact. As I pulled the car back into the lane, my fingers tightened around the hard plastic. I needed every ounce of strength and concentration I could summon to keep the car on the road. My whole body was shaking. I couldn’t believe what I’d almost done—to Aisha, to Sonia, to my family, to myself.
* * *
When I finally walked through the door of my apartment, Cherri was sitting in the living room, reading a book. She looked up at me and then immediately sprang to her feet.
“What’s wrong, Samra?”
I saw Cherri moving towards me, alarm sketched on her face. Then the floor began to tilt up, and I ghosted away.
After Cherri brought me around, I tried to explain what had happened. “I don’t want to live,” I whimpered.
Cherri left my side and returned with a framed photograph of Aisha and Sonia. “Look at these two. What will happen to them if you’re not here? Do you want them to be pressured into marriage too? Do you want them to be abused like you were?”
Worried about my mental state, Cherri insisted on taking me to the hospital. I stayed for the day, talking to counsellors and gazing at the picture of Aisha and Sonia, which I had brought with me. I couldn’t help feeling that I had failed them—in my marriage and in my recent actions—and that someone else might do a far better job of raising them.
And yet Cherri’s words had hit a chord, summoning a disturbing scene. It happened after Ahmed had given me the three talaqs but before I finally resolved to leave him. In a fit of anger, he had thrown me down on the bed. Sonia was in the room with us, and when Ahmed got on top of me and began to slap me, my frightened four-year-old pleaded with her father. “Stop it, Daddy, please stop it.” Ahmed’s only response was to yell at her to get out. Instead she scrambled, crying, into the bedroom closet.
The image of Sonia hunkered down in the closet, praying for her mother’s safety, just as I had done as a girl, was shattering. Cherri was right. The only way I could prevent the girls from travelling the same road I had was to stay in their lives.
If I wanted them to have a different future, I needed to show them the way.
* * *
By the time I got back home from hospital, I had come to a conclusion. The temptation of the guardrail and the deadly plunge was like a piercing shot of clarity. The truth, my truth, was that there were only two real choices—lightness or darkness, energy or defeat, happiness or despair. I was choosing happiness.
I had lived for over ten years in the murky half-light of “what if” and “if only” and “maybe in the future.” But there was only “right now.” What I did and how I lived in the present.
I decided to make some changes.
During that first summer on my own, I had started doing some volunteer work while the girls were visiting Ahmed and their grandparents. At the UTM Accessibility Services office, I was paired with a sixty-five-year-old woman who was blind, almost deaf and confined to a wheelchair. She was completing her degree with distinction. As I typed up her assignments and wheeled her from class to class, I realized that what she was teaching me about resilience and determination was far more valuable than the help I was giving her. I also started tutoring at the Afghan Women’s Organization. Focusing on others kept me from lying in bed ruminating about my life and feeling worse about everything. I was still volunteering as the winter began, but now I committed myself wholeheartedly to purposeful distraction. The second my thoughts drifted to Ahmed, the second I felt my spirits slip, I was on the move—on a walk, to the library, or running errands. My schedule had been busy—but now it was non-stop.
I also decided that Maya’s family, as lovely as they were, fed my greatest insecurities. In the coming months, I would visit them less and less often, eventually dropping them from my life altogether. I felt bad turning my back on people who only wanted to help, but I couldn’t risk succumbing to feelings of unworthiness and hopelessness again. And with that came the end of dating for a while. I simply didn’t want to think about men or marriage. I needed to build myself up first.
In place of fretting about my relationship status, I began to focus even more seriously on my studies. School had always been my safe place. In my childhood it had provided a steady peace when home life was unpredictable. Then, and in adulthood, it was a source of enjoyment and self-confidence, a place where I found both success and a sense of belonging. So while I’d always worked hard at my studies, now I intended to take it up a notch.
My legal aid lawyer also had to go. He had not yet served Ahmed with the separation papers—the fellow wasn’t even returning my phone calls. The few conversations we had always ended with the same words, “Be patient, Samra. These things take time.” I didn’t have any more time. I fired him early in the new year and found a young female lawyer who kick-started the work on my legal separation.
* * *
The coming months were tough ones—Ahmed seemed intent on drawing the process out, making endless adjustments and amendments to the agreement, costing me money, time and mental anguish with each change. After every meeting and every call from the lawyer, I reminded myself that this trouble was only temporary. I had to spend my energy on things that would last: my girls and my education.
My new commitment to moving forward and staying positive could only take me so far, however. By late May 2012, I was exhausted by the seemingly endless negotiations—by Ahmed’s refusal to agree to the provincially suggested support levels and by his demand for joint custody. It was time to cut my losses. I agreed to joint custody, putting in a clause stating that the children’s primary residence would be with me. That, and the fact that Ahmed had never been the one to make daily parenting decisions, reassured me the informal arrangement we had been following would remain unchanged.
I also told him that I would accept any amount of spousal support he thought was fair.
Around that time I got a call from Ahmed’s parole officer to tell me two of the assault charges had been dropped but that Ahmed had pled guilty to the remaining two. He had been given a year of parole and then would be pardoned after three years. I wasn’t surprised a deal had been struck. Earlier in the year, I had written to the Crown Attorney to say that while everything in my initial statement to the police was true, I wasn’t willing to testify. I told them that he was the father of my children and I didn’t want him to go to jail. But it was more than that. I had talked with my lawyer about the case. The Crown wanted to go to trial. But my lawyer pointed out that a successful prosecution might mean Ahmed would be sent to jail. If that happened, I’d get no child support, never mind any spousal payments. I knew I couldn’t put Aisha and Sonia’s futures at risk.
So, on June 12th, I walked out of my lawyer’s office with the signed, executed court order for our separation. I was jubilant. It had been just over a year since I ended the marriage, but it felt like a lifetime.
* * *
The separation agreement and the financial security it brought allowed me to make some significant changes the following year. I stopped running my little catering service, and I quit the info
-desk job. It was a relief to know that during the upcoming year I would have time for more than four hours’ sleep each night. My promotion to head undergraduate TA also meant a little extra cash to make up for the jobs I was relinquishing, and I’d been awarded a number of bursaries and scholarships that eased my financial burden as well.
I also switched from the Business Administration program to Financial Economics. That not only meant lower tuition but was also the right undergrad program to prepare me for the master’s degree I had decided to apply for. I took summer school and enrolled in an extra course in the fall term and two extra in the winter term in order to graduate with my cohort in June.
My final undergraduate year, my second year living outside of marriage, was one of slow, steady progress. Standing in front of a class of first-year students, teaching and sharing everything I’d learned, I couldn’t help thinking of how far I’d come since creeping into that first lecture theatre four years ago. Here I was, wearing Western clothes, all eyes on me, and the earth wasn’t opening up to swallow me whole. Nor was I nervous as I left the classroom, wondering if my boldness would be found out and punished. What’s more, the students were responsive and engaged—each day of teaching boosted my confidence a little further. That change was underscored by the fact that the professor whose teaching assistant I was, Gordon Anderson, had been one of my first instructors. Then, I had been so dazzled by his reputation that I hadn’t been able to approach the lectern to ask a question without trembling from head to foot. Now I walked into his office on a regular basis, confidently requesting words of guidance.
My social circle continued to widen, and with it, the sources of support and encouragement—as well as the good times. I spoke more and more frequently with my professors and academic advisors, continuing to be awestruck by this network of brilliant people who were dedicated to helping others succeed. And the many brave people I met through my volunteer work continued to inspire me.
