The Zanzibar Wife

by Deborah Rodriguez

  “I am still here. I’ve stayed to help Miza,” Ariana answered for herself, emboldened by the astonishing turns the morning had taken.

  Hani’s father bit his lip and tried not to smile as the color rose in his wife’s cheeks.

  “Then make yourself useful, and go into the kitchen and ask my daughter to make some tea,” she answered in English, unable to look Ariana in the eye. “And you,” she said to Miza, “lie back and let us see if your pains go away.”

  By the time Ariana had returned with the tea, a decision had been made. “My wife does not think she is in true labor, does not think the baby is coming now. So we will go to Nizwa, to the hospital. Miza will see her husband, and we will ask the doctors there to look at her. Just to be safe.”

  Ariana had no other choice than to agree. Adil had still not shown up, and by now she doubted he ever would. And the sooner Miza got to the hospital, and to Tariq, the better.

  With Miza stretched out on the back seat of a sparkling new Toyota, Ariana took her place in front by Hani’s father’s side. As he cautiously inched the car onto the crowded highway, she heard him sigh. “Too bad there is no magic for this, am I right?”

  Ariana laughed nervously. Although she had to admit that she was impressed by the man’s gentle way with Miza, and by the favorable effect he seemed to have had on Rachel, she was still not entirely comfortable in his presence.

  “I am sorry about my wife,” he said. “She is not a bad woman.”

  “It’s okay. I understand.”

  “I do not blame her for the way she is. Hani is very special to her, as you can see. Her baby boy. Finally, after five daughters, a son.”

  “I get it.”

  “But to me? It is a struggle. I beg for her to let him go, to let him be the man he is, to make choices on his own.”

  Ariana nodded. They drove in silence for a while, comforted by the sound of Miza’s rhythmic breathing as she dozed behind them.

  Hani’s father was the first to break the silence. “You know, there is nothing to be frightened of by me, by my son.”

  Ariana shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Oh, I’m not—”

  “It is okay. There are many like you, who misunderstand what we do.”

  “Well, you know what we’ve all been taught. That we should trust in God, and only God.”

  “And you do not think that I do? You do not think I am a pious man?”

  Ariana didn’t know how to answer.

  “Me, I am just part of a power bigger than myself, here on earth to give people some comfort from what ails them and some direction. It is with God’s power that I can do what I do. Did you not hear the Koran coming from my lips last night?”

  “I did,” Ariana said quietly.

  “And to be clear, I do not ask for anything in return for those I help. I help because it is something I can do, something I must do.”

  Ariana watched as the man pushed back his long, dark curls with one hand, seeing something of Hani in the softness of his eyes. “You know, it’s kind of funny,” she said. “Everyone swears that the best way to avoid the magic, the jinn, is to stay away from it and everything related to it, to just trust in God to protect us. But why would so many of us who have done just that have stories to tell if that were the case?”

  Hani’s father laughed a little. “And you?” he asked. “What is your story?”

  “Honestly? My entire family seems to have been touched in one way or another.”

  Hani’s father nodded, his eyes turning to her for a quick moment, one eyebrow arched in question. “And you?” he repeated.

  Ariana hesitated before answering. “Okay,” she finally said, before taking a deep breath. “So, once? Once I was told that I have a jinn. One who is in love with me.”

  “Ah.” Hani’s father smiled a little. “And have you done anything about this?”

  “Of course not!” Ariana cringed as she suddenly remembered who she was talking to. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that it’s so ingrained in us to stay away from those things. I should have never even put myself in the situation I did in the first place, when I was told about this jinn, about how it’s supposedly keeping me from the love of others.”

  Hani’s father drove in silence, his eyes firmly on the road ahead.

  “So do you think it’s true?” she asked shyly.

  “Your jinn?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  Hani’s father shook his head.

  “You don’t?” Ariana turned in her seat to face him.

  “No, I do not.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It is easy. You heard my son’s words to his mother, just as I did. Those are the words of a man who has found his voice from the love of a woman. There was no jinn standing in his way.”

  Ariana felt a warmth rising from her heart to her head.

  “I see the way he listens to you, as if every word from your lips is the start of a sweet song. Only a man in love would have ears like that.”

  “Oh,” Ariana said, her voice a whisper.

  “And I have seen the way my son looks at you. It is in those eyes that I can see the true magic, the magic that is the most real. And the magic that makes me the happiest.”

  Ariana melted back into the upholstery, her mind heavy with the weight of his words, her heart light with the hope they carried.

  Now the two of them sat together, sipping tea in the hospital’s cafeteria while waiting for visiting hours to begin. Miza had been wheeled off to an examination room but was desperate for a glimpse of her husband. Ariana had promised to check on Tariq for her, only to be turned back by a pair of officious nurses and told to return in an hour.

  At 2 pm on the dot they both rose from their chairs and headed to the elevator, crowding in with the others anxious for a visit with family or friends. When the doors slid open on the fifth floor, Ariana felt herself nearly knocked over from behind. “Excuse me,” she said pointedly to the woman in a hurry, who instead of responding simply bulldozed her way in front of them, using her handbag as a battering ram. They stood and watched from behind as she marched down the long hallway, her high heels pecking at the shiny floor like woodpeckers on a tree. “They did say Tariq was in room 506, didn’t they? The second from the end?” Ariana asked Hani’s father as they saw the woman turn and enter through the door.

  “I will go check with the nurses.” But as soon as the words left his mouth, the other elevator door opened and out came Miza, being pushed in a wheelchair with a blanket across her lap.

  “Have you seen him? Have you seen Tariq?” she asked. “Please,” she implored the aide behind her, “please go faster.”

  Ariana and Hani’s father followed closely behind as Miza was wheeled into the room.

  A shrieking voice came blasting through the doorway. “Her! Take her away! Get that woman out of here now!”

  “Who the hell is that?” Ariana said out loud upon spying the pushy woman from the elevator hovering over the motionless figure in the bed, as if waiting to pounce over it toward Miza like a tiger.

  “I am his wife!” the woman screeched, spit spraying from her lipsticked mouth. “And I demand that this whore be taken from his room immediately. You, go get security!” she demanded, pointing with a shaking finger at the bewildered aide. “Go get somebody!”

  Ariana rushed around the bed to confront the woman face to face, the blood boiling in her veins. “How dare you talk about my friend that way! Who the hell do you think you are? She is his wife,” Ariana insisted, pointing to Miza, who sat gripping the arms of the wheelchair. “And that is his child she is carrying. What is wrong with you? Are you crazy?”

  “How dare you!” the woman seethed. “I was married to this man long before this witch from Zanzibar got her clutches on him. And I am still his wife.”

  Ariana was speechless.

  “Yes.” Hani’s father was suddenly standing between the two women. “It is true that Miza and this
woman are both his wives. But only one of them treats him with the love and respect a good husband deserves.”

  “And who are you?” The furious woman whipped her head around to confront Hani’s father.

  “I am a doctor.”

  Maryam’s eyes traveled from his head to his toes, noting the absence of the white jacket and tie and stethoscope hanging around his neck. There was no identification badge hanging on a cord, as every person who worked in the hospital wore. Just a big dark man towering over her in his dishdasha and kuma.

  “You are no more a doctor than I am Cleopatra.”

  Hani’s father shrugged his shoulders. “I am enough of a doctor to see the sickness inside of you.”

  “I am perfectly fine! At least, I will be once this one is out of my sight.” Maryam jerked her head toward Miza.

  Ariana returned to Miza’s side and took her trembling hand in her own.

  “But you won’t be fine,” Hani’s father continued calmly to the raging woman. “Even if she disappeared into thin air, that would still not be enough to soothe the demons that have taken over your soul.”

  “You have no idea what you are talking about,” Maryam protested.

  “Ah,” he responded with a nod. “But I do. I see the greed that is gnawing at you like a pack of rats. It is not good for your mind.” Hani’s father tapped his head with two fingers.

  “Oh, I see. So you are a psychiatrist,” Maryam sneered.

  “I am not that kind of a doctor,” he answered.

  “Well, if you can be of no help to my husband, then I insist you leave this room as well.”

  “But you are not the one who has concern for her husband. Clearly, if it were not for this,” he said, pointing at Miza’s round belly, “you would be just as happy if he never woke up.”

  “What has that witch told you?” she snapped. “She has been filling your head with lies.”

  Miza’s hand tightened around Ariana’s fingers like a vise.

  “She has filled my head with nothing. It is through my own powers that I see all of this.” He circled his palm in the air, as if conjuring a vision. “I see the treachery in your heart. This treachery is a poison that will harm only you. To wish ill upon an innocent unborn child, that is a crime that can never be forgiven. And no one, or nothing, can protect you from the horrors that will be unleashed upon you should anything happen to him. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Maryam blanched as the meaning behind his words began to dawn on her. “Then you are a witch, just like her.” Her voice began to crumble. “And I never—”

  Hani’s father held up a thick finger. “Do not try to tell me what you did or did not do. If you continue to wish harm on this mother and child, you will be punished in this life, up until its very end. Only Allah knows if you will be punished in the next. And there will come a day when you wish you were Cleopatra. Even her end was dull compared to what will happen to you if any harm comes of your evil actions.”

  He began to chant in Arabic, the singsong words evoking a dirge in an ominous minor key. Then he reached his fingers deep into the pocket of his dishdasha and suddenly flung something toward Maryam, a cloud of what, to Ariana, looked simply like a mix of sand and lint, straight into her startled face.

  The woman let out a gasp and clutched her handbag close to her body, her chest heaving like that of a person who’d run a hundred miles. The looming man stood his ground, until she finally began to slowly back around him. As she disappeared through the door, Hani’s father turned and winked at Ariana, the corners of his mouth curling up into a little smile.

  33

  The fishing boats appeared like a scattering of bobbing fireflies as the plane made its descent over the moonlit sea. The flight had seemed interminable. Rachel was accustomed to using her time in the air to brief herself on an upcoming assignment, research her subjects, make her plans. But here she was flying into a situation totally unprepared, her only leads being the three mysterious photos, the paper from Miza holding the directions to her uncle’s village, and the matching half of the orange and blue kanga that Miza had urged her to take along. There would be no one on the ground to guide her, to pave the way for her mission. Even Ariana would have been a welcome sight, as lame of a fixer as she was. But somehow Rachel knew she’d figure this out. It felt as though some unseen hand was guiding her. Or, she thought, it was simply the unfamiliar feeling of her old confidence making a comeback.

  With her backpack slung over her arm, Rachel followed the other passengers down the stairs from the plane and into a line trailing halfway back to the runway. Even long after midnight the tiny airport was in total chaos. Amid the murmurs of confusion a sharp voice shouted, “Yellow fever! Yellow fever!” She instinctively began to wave her arms at invisible mosquitos, and then remembered the vaccination certificate that had been required for her entry into South Africa back when she was covering a violent miners’ strike a few years earlier. Shit. Was it still in her pouch, perhaps stuffed behind her passport? She doubted it. The line inched forward as people without the proper papers were told to step aside. Rachel continued to fumble through her backpack, acting as though she was certain it had to be in there somewhere. She grabbed the first piece of paper to touch her hand and waved it at the man. Her ruse worked, and she was pointed through the door and into the building.

  The visa process was a true test of patience. So many questions, on top of a photo, fingerprints, and $100, thank you very much. Finally she pushed her way through the glass exit doors, the smell of the country hitting her like a pie in the face. It was salty, fishy, spicy, all at the same time. The warm, soft breeze seemed to envelop her in its sweetness.

  “Jambo! Jambo!” The dark sidewalk leading to the taxi stand was lined with men young and old shoving past each other to get to the tourists exiting the building.

  “Karibu. Welcome to Zanzibar.” A man, or really a child, reached out his hand to remove the strap from her shoulder.

  Rachel backed away. “I’ve got it,” she insisted, hoisting the backpack up closer to her neck. “I’m good!” she repeated louder, hastening her steps as the kid closed in on her. “Seriously?” she demanded, stopping dead in her tracks and spinning around to look him in the eye.

  “Kuacha!” came a sharp voice from behind her. The kid backed off as Rachel turned to find herself face to face with a gorgeous young man, looking just as if he’d walked out of a magazine, his muscled shoulders bursting from his sleeveless T-shirt, the smile in his eyes as bright as the one on his lips. “Do you need a taxi?” he asked, his voice now smooth as silk.

  “I do,” she answered, looking around for his car.

  “Are you staying at the beach?”

  Rachel didn’t answer.

  “Hakuna matata. No worries. I know a hotel that is close. It is fine.”

  “And I’m fine. Thanks for your help, but no thanks.”

  He continued to walk with her toward the waiting taxis. “Okay,” he said as he opened the back door of the first car in line for her. “Get in.” Then he rattled off something to the driver before settling into the seat next to her. “My name is Kanu,” he said, his teeth sparkling in the darkness of the night. “In Swahili, it means wildcat,” he said with a wink.

  Ariana couldn’t help but laugh. “Okay, Kanu, but really, I can take it from here.”

  “It is okay. I live near the hotel. I will make sure you get there safe. It is late, not safe for a woman like you, alone.”

  Rachel rolled her eyes in the cover of darkness. She had heard from colleagues who had traveled here for a little R & R about the papasi, the beach boys of Zanzibar, hustlers who hang around the tourist hotels offering help with luggage and drivers and sightseeing, encouraging visits to souvenir shops owned by their “cousins”. Often they were rented by female tourists to act as escorts during their stay, the young men’s services extending far beyond that of a mere tour guide.

  On the outskirts of the city center the car came to a
stop. “We must walk from here. No cars allowed.” Rachel paid the driver and watched from under a streetlamp as he drove away into the darkness. The streets around her were silent, snaking off in opposite directions like the tentacles of an octopus.

  “Come on,” Kanu urged. “It is this way.”

  She hesitated a moment before hitching the pack higher onto her shoulder, then began to follow as Kanu led her through a maze of abandoned alleyways, the sounds of their footsteps echoing off the ancient buildings that were barely visible in the darkness.

  “This is the old part of the city,” he explained. “Very nice, but not very exciting at this time of night, right?”

  Rachel wondered if she wasn’t being stupid. Alone in a strange city, lost, in the middle of the night, with a complete stranger? A recipe for disaster, her mother would have said. But then again, she reminded herself, she’d done much, much stupider in her life. And she was pretty certain this guy was just a gigolo, and not an axe murderer.

  “So do you work here in Stone Town?” she asked a little nervously.

  “I have a little shop,” he said. “Right in the center. But I can have someone work for me tomorrow, if you would like to see the sights.”

  “Uh-huh,” Rachel murmured, now sure of her instincts.

  “It is too bad it’s so late. It would be nice to get a drink, don’t you think?” he asked.

  Rachel ignored the question. “So where are you from?” she asked him as they turned onto a narrow street that looked exactly the same as the one they had just been on.

  “The mainland. Tanzania. I left with my brother, to get money to send to our family. My brother works now with the tourists in Kilimanjaro.”

  “And where did you learn English?” Indeed, his English was impressive.

  Kanu shrugged his shoulders. “The tourists. It was easy. No problem.”

  They continued down the deserted streets. “How do you like it here in Zanzibar?” she asked, warming a little to this savvy young man, who to her seemed way too smart for the path he was on.

  Kanu shrugged his shoulders. “It is nice here. I can make money. But it is also difficult, in a way.”