by fallensea
The kalym had been paid. I was bought. I had agreed to the marriage out of pressure from my family, but it was a contract I did not sign willingly. My childhood was vanishing. All that remained was the novelties of my bedroom—my yellow bedspread and my posters and my stickers—novelties I would have to leave behind. It was not fair.
My mom came into my room, clenching a small box. She handed it to me as if it were a dead rat, a thing of disgust. In it was a pair of golden earrings shaped like crescent moons. Earrings were given as a declaration of engagement, commemorating the agreement. I would be expected to wear them, but instead I threw the box against the wall. There was so little I could pack as it was. I did not have room for impious gifts.
***
The next morning was my wedding day. I woke for the last time in the apartment, ate the last breakfast prepared by my mom. I did not feel like eating, but my mom insisted I get something down, so I stood by the counter and attempted to swallow a bowl of yogurt and a piece of bread as I stared at the wheat my mom had been preparing for Nooruz. It was dried and stale, abandoned.
While I was distracted by my breakfast, my father soberly put my belongings into a car he had borrowed from a cousin. Then he brought down a trunk full of cushions and blankets, my dowry. When the car was packed, he called for me, and we were on our way.
A bride was expected to cry when she left her family home. It was easy for me to do. Trapped between my suitcases in the backseat, I let the tears fall—tears of remorse and fatigue. Tears of shame.
Suiun did not greet me when we arrived at the farmhouse. He was busy slaughtering a sheep for the feast. I was thankful. I had nothing to say to my soon-to-be husband. I had no respect for him. I did not want to be kind.
The yurt was raised, but it appeared to be empty. I saw no one pass in or out. My dress was in there. I did not know what it looked like. The dogs who had tried to force the bridal scarf on my head had prepared it. They stared at me now, black with knowing, victorious.
“You made us waste good dough,” one admonished as she passed me. “You should not have resisted.”
Needing a moment to compose myself, to prepare for the blessings and rituals that were to come, I broke away from the gathering of wedding guests and found a quiet spot behind the barn. From my hideaway, I could see a clear stretch of mountains that surrounded the farmhouse and its rusted pastures. Snow lingered on the mountains, threatening a late winter. It was beautiful and it was cruel. This was my tower. This was my dungeon.
“You should leave,” Kenesh said, finding me. “Run away. I’ll help you.”
“Why?” I asked, suspicious. Kenesh would sooner toss me on the side of the road than see me to anywhere that was safe.
He spoke with disdain, but he was frank. “It may not look like it, and my father would never admit it, but we are impoverished. We used to be kings around here, but now we beg to sell our crops. Our horses are the only wealth we have left. Suiun is the last to marry. He must marry someone of wealth. A wealthy bride will bring more than cushions and blankets as her dowry. She will bring enough money to save the farm. I will help you escape.”
It would be a lie to say I was not tempted. Kenesh was no hero, but I did not need a hero. I needed my freedom. But I had made my decision, and I stuck by it. I did not want my mom to be penniless, and I did not want to be disowned.
“No,” I refused. “I must stay.”
It angered Kenesh to hear it. “You are making a big mistake,” he warned. “Leave, or you won’t survive the night.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Stolen Pastures
I stood alone in the yurt. Tapestries in every shade of red were hung around the walls, and a feasting table with cushions lay close to the floor. Draped upon the table was my wedding dress—a traditional Kyrgyz costume of white with long loose sleeves and an embroidered vest attached to the floor-length skirt. Next to it was a triangular headdress with a veil, like a river cascading down a mountain. I did not want to put the costume on. Once I did, I was a bride, and then a wife.
My mom entered the yurt. I was glad it was only her. The dogs wanted to come in and sing songs to me as I dressed. I would not allow it, feigning modesty. The only person I wanted was my mom so that we could say our goodbyes. She did not sing, but she hummed a lullaby she used to charm me to sleep with when I was little. Sadness weighed upon her, but she smiled at me, full of wounds and full of pride. My kidnapping hurt her as much as it hurt me.
When I was dressed, we were joined by my father, my father’s cousins, Suiun, and his parents and elders. Hundreds of people gathered on the farm outside to celebrate our marriage, but only a few within the tent would witness the ceremony. My father looked as dejected as my mom. He did not want this for me either, but he was doing what he believed best for me. He did not want me to live in shame.
Suiun stood next to me wearing a white suit. He was handsome and joyful. I was fortunate. Though his kidnapping of me was unforgivable, I trusted that he would not be cruel to me. He would not beat me or neglect me. At least I had that. Many girls did not.
His grandmother, one of the dogs, said a blessing over our heads and stroked our faces with her palms. I did not like the scaly feel of her hands. It was like a fish slithering across my face. I did not want her to touch me. I did not want anyone to touch me. “We wish you good health and many kids. May children be in front of you and animals behind you,” she croaked.
When she finished, the imam arrived. He was stern, dispensing the commandments of our faith like the sky did the thunder. He took his place in front of Suiun and I, and he performed the nikkah, the ritual that bound me to Suiun.
“Allah is making two strangers come together,” the imam declared. “This is a holy contract full of responsibility and boundaries. It is an act of worship. Has the bride come to this house freely and of her own will?”
He looked at me, and he waited for a response. This was my opportunity to escape. I could tell the imam the truth: That I had been shoved kicking and screaming into a car by strange men, scared and alone. That I had been forced into the marriage by pressure from my father’s cousins, despite my age and lack of consent. That the fear of being disowned by my father had driven me to come back, and that my mom’s wellbeing was all that kept me here. I could tell the imam every detail, making my engagement invalid, but then everything I feared would come to pass. My mom and I would be destitute.
“Yes,” I lied. “I come to this house freely and of my own will.”
Satisfied, the imam recited his blessings, and I was wed.
***
The feast began after the ceremony. Those who could fit crowded together in the yurt. All others remained outside, burning away the winter chill with shots of vodka while rice cooked on a giant pot that sat over an open flame. Upon the table in the yurt were dumplings of meat and onion, chunks of boiled mutton from the sheep Suiun had slaughtered, and fermented milk. I was served by my new relatives. I did not have an appetite, but I smiled politely as they served me. Tomorrow, it would be I who served them, to prove myself to my groom’s family, as all brides must do.
As people streamed in and out of the yurt, I caught glimpses of the weather outside. There was a light snowfall. Winter refused to submit to the spring. Suiun, who sat next to me, also noticed the snow.
“Snow so close to Nooruz is lucky,” he said, putting his hand over mine. “The snow is beautiful, like you. I am lucky to have you as my wife.”
His hand was uncomfortable, like hot coal. In need of the cold within the snow, I excused myself from the table and went outside. Strangers danced around me. If not for my dress, I doubted any of them would know me to be the bride. They were not there to celebrate me. If they knew me, they would know my wedding was no celebration. They were there to dance, to drink, and to plunder the food.
Jamilya found me, her misery matching my own. “I do not agree with this,” she said. “I was you. I wanted to go to university, but I never got the
chance. I was kidnapped before I could go. Nearly all the wives within this village have been kidnapped. It is sinful. I did not want my sons to carry on such a brutal tradition. I taught them to be better men. Unfortunately, they are their father’s sons.”
She sighed. “It was not always like this. My grandparents exchanged love letters before my grandfather kidnapped my grandmother. The kidnapping was symbolic. She knew when it would happen, and she agreed. This new way is violent. It makes me wonder if we were better off under Russian law. Perhaps our independence has corrupted us.”
“No,” I established. “Russian law would not suit us. It is always better to be free. We are Kyrgyz, for better and worse.”
“I will fight for you, Busana. You are my daughter now. I will make sure my son allows you to finish your degree.”
It crushed me to hear it because I did not believe she had such influence over Suiun. It was hope given in charity, but it went through me like a spear. My life was no longer my own. I was not free. I needed Suiun’s permission to go anywhere, to do anything. I was bound to him and by him, and I was bound by the traditions of my people, of what a wife was meant to be to her husband and his family. I had not married for love. I had not been given the opportunity to find a man with ideals similar to my own. I did not know Suiun, but I was certain our ideals conflicted. I was modern, but I had been cast back in time, given to a husband much more traditional than me. I would not finish my degree. This I knew.
Maybe it was true when they said no Kyrgyz girl married for love. That the man who kidnapped her was her true love.
With a sweat upon me despite the snow, I left Jamilya and went to my hideaway behind the barn. I did not cower in the shadows. I leaned forward against the wooden fence that bordered the pasture where the horses roamed, and I looked up into the mountains once more. I thought of the legend of Lake Issyk-Kul, of the village girl who threw herself from the tower after she was captured by the Khan. A mountain was like a tower. It would be easy to escape, to throw myself from the peak. I could kill myself. My mom would still have my father’s favor, and I would be free.
But I would not do such a thing. There was beauty in life, no matter its despair.
Footsteps crunched in the snow behind me. I turned to see Kenesh. He held a rifle, like the ones used to defend a herd against a wolf, except that now, a wolf held it. He was distraught and conflicted as he pointed the rifle at me. “I told you to leave. I warned you. You are a mistake. I do this for my family. Please forgive me.”
I heard a gunshot, and I fell, my body staining the snow with the red of my blood.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ghost-Angels
Ronnie
The timid redhead was timid no more. As Busana finished her story, she was angry, provoked by the injustice of what had happened to her. I was angry for her, but I was also troubled, for my own selfish reasons. Her story inspired a memory of a rainy, lawless day. Silently, I relived it, remembering the bayou and the freight yard. Remembering Dermott’s proposal.
***
Two Years Prior
The rain was relentless. It sieged the bayou, owned it. From the kitchen window of Emer’s riverside bungalow, I watched the rain drench the land, allowing the waters of the marsh to rise up, as if there was some conspiracy between the earthbound and the heavenbound.
Emer had left for Ireland for the week. This morning, she’d given Dermott her keys to take care of her dogs—a Rottweiler and a German Shepard who were asleep in her room, their heads tucked tightly under her pillows, afraid of the drum of the rain against the thin rooftop. Emer’s bungalow was petite, like her, but it was newly decorated with a country elegance that incorporated a lot of stone and lumber. Somehow, she managed to keep it clean from the muck the dogs carried in, but she couldn’t keep it clean from me. I had already left handprints of soot across her fireplace in an attempt to light the wood. When the wood refused to burn, I’d given up and joined Dermott in the kitchen, feeling restless.
I looked out the window now, to the rain. Beside me on the countertop was a plate of mozzarella sticks. I ate one mindlessly, and then another, and another, until the oil turned my stomach raw. “The struggle is real,” I mumbled, holding my stomach.
“I don’t think my sister meant for you to eat them all at once,” Dermott said, his voice muffled within the cabinet of the sink, where he was fixing a leaky pipe. Poking out of the cabinet were his grey socks, his jeans, and the bottom of a black T-shirt that pulled up as he worked.
“How else are you supposed to eat mozzarella sticks?” I argued.
“Got me there, Cuddles.”
“Hey, do you remember that woman we met doing community service? The heavy one with the sparrow tattooed on the side of her face?”
“Barely. That was ages ago.”
“She sent me an email with a photo attached. She really did get a dead butterfly tattoo, like the one we found in the water bottle. She also asked if I wanted to join her secret gang.”
“Did you?”
“It’s a secret.”
Dermott laughed. “What was it you said to her again? Don’t eat beef without butter?”
“Funny. I said wings don’t have to be angelic. They don’t have to be pretty. Like the tattered wings of the grey and yellow butterfly we found, like the brown feathers of her sparrow tattoo, the wings we wear have to be our own, no matter what they look like to others.”
“You ever say that to anyone else?”
“All the time, to the women at the shelter.”
“Is that what you said to Aileen before she went back to Ireland?”
“No,” I recalled. “That was way before our community service. I don’t remember what I said to Aileen.”
“Your community service,” he ragged. “I was there as a volunteer.”
“You made me drive the bike!” I threw a mozzarella stick at his grey socks, pretending it was a torpedo.
Afflicted by my restlessness, while Dermott fixed the sink, I went to browse the books in the living room. Emer had dedicated an entire wall to her books, which ranged from classic literature to modern biographies. I picked out a biography on Benazir Bhutto, the first woman Prime Minister of Pakistan, and I sat in a plush lounger, reading as the rain fell.
Well into the afternoon, and well into the book, I grew frustrated and threw it against the wall. Soon after, Dermott stomped in carrying a wrench. “What the hell was that?” he asked, looking around as if a tree had broken through the window.
“There are all these books and all these movies on female saviors, but what are we doing except idolizing how bad-ass they are? Why aren’t we emulating them?”
Dermott set his wrench on a shelf, picked up the book, and examined the cover. “I’m not sure you can call Benazir Bhutto bad-ass.”
“Can’t I?”
Reading my mood, he returned the book to its place. “Your work at the shelter is pretty bad-ass.”
“I want to do more. I can’t tolerate that, right now, there are places in this world where a ten-year-old girl is forced into prostitution, where a woman risks being stoned to death if she speaks her mind. They need to be saved, but only a small group of people are doing anything about it. Women are my people, no matter where they live. If I don’t fight for my people, who will?”
Dermott heard what I was trying to say. “There’s no balance.”
“Exactly! There’s no balance. We need the sun to nourish the earth, but too much sun and the earth turns to dust. We need the night to rest and see the beauty of the universe, but too much night and we fade within the darkness. Millions of women around the world have lost or are at risk of losing their freedom. If their liberties can be taken away, I’d be foolish to believe that mine can’t also be taken away, someday, if the wrong people come into power. We need to help women who are oppressed regain their education, their status, and their voice, for the sake of all humanity.”
“So what’s the plan, Cuddles? How do you fight
for your people?”
That was the hardest question of all. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Signing petitions isn’t enough. Those who murder women don’t care about signatures. And forming an all-female army to be contracted out isn’t feasible.” I paused, considering it. “Or is it?”
“No, it isn’t,” Dermott said decisively.
I wasn’t so sure. “I could go join the army of Kurdish women who are protecting themselves. I’m sure they’d lend me one of their automatic rifles.”
“If they have their hands on automatic rifles, they’re doing fine on their own.”
“Someone gave them those rifles. More importantly, someone gave them the power to hold those rifles. We have to find those people, and we have to help them.”
My resolve worried Dermott. “All these years you said you wanted to travel, you didn’t mean building orphanages in Nepal, did you?”
“No. I meant places where I can volunteer to help women, like what I’m doing here, but there.”
“Places where women need protection.” He meant me. In these places, I would need protection.
“Maybe.”
“Ronnie, I support you traveling to find whatever fulfillment you can’t find here, but I don’t support you being stupid.”
“Stupid?” I felt my restlessness shift to him. “You think I’m stupid?”
“I think traveling to a place where women gotta constantly watch their backs is, yes. I won’t allow it.”
Wishing I had another book to slam against the wall, I pushed past Dermott and returned to the kitchen, but he followed me in. “Ronnie, this is serious.”
“It is serious. For years I’ve said I wanted to travel, but I haven’t done anything about it. I’ve allowed myself to be trapped here. I can’t do it any longer.”
