A Father's Betrayal

by Gabriella Gillespie

  Ilham looked like a little china doll, her face was covered in white powder makeup, the rest of her makeup layered on thick as a clown! The women made those whistles again all through the afternoon. They danced and were all happy and having fun, while Ilham looked lost and terrified as she sat on her throne with Al Mouzayna sat in front of her by her feet.

  Al Mouzayna was a middle-aged lady with a stern face that scared you with just one look! Farouse told us that she would travel tomorrow with Ilham to her husband’s house to tell her what to do when the time came for her to be with her husband, to lose her virginity! Ilham would arrive tomorrow morning and have to go straight to her husband’s room where he would have to prove to his family and friends that she is a virgin. She would already have a throne-like seat waiting for her in her husband’s bedroom; it would be covered in a brand new pure white cloth. She would need to sit on this throne and her husband would take her virginity, while she prayed that she bleeds like all virgins should! She won’t be permitted to lie down for her first time because they believe that if you lie down there is a chance you may not bleed.

  When he is finished with her, the white, bloodied cloth would be carefully folded then taken by the husband and handed to his father or mother. They would then show it to all the elders and other family members to prove that the bride was pure. Then the celebrations would really begin at the groom’s house, and the bride would once again be paraded in her white gown for all the females of her husband’s family, and friends. However, if the bride for any reason did not bleed she would be returned to her father’s house in shame! Then her father, or brother if she did not have a father, would take her life in an honor killing by murdering her for shaming the family!

  We listened to Farouse when she told us these stories but we didn’t really believe her. We had played lots of tricks on her since arriving in the village and just thought she was trying to get her own back on us!

  The next morning while I did my chores, I heard the fireworks and guns go off in the village as the convoy of cars arrived to escort Ilham to her husband’s house and I couldn’t help but feel sad for her. She was so young and she looked so scared yesterday sat on that throne in her wedding dress. She must have felt terrified of what was about to happen to her.

  As I carried on sweeping the stables I could hear the cars beeping their horns as they left the village, and I knew it was only a matter of time until that same fate happened to me and my sisters.

  Dad had become someone I hardly recognised, his mood swings and behaviour were unpredictable. I knew by now that he didn’t bring us here for a holiday, he had other reasons for bringing us here; marriage was one of them. It had nearly happened to Yas once before, and I knew it would happen to us soon, but now I was wondering which one of us would be first?

  Chapter Five

  Goodbye Sweet Sister

  We had been in Yemen for less than two months when Dad came to us to tell us of his plans for Issy. He was calm and cold; it was as though he was coming to tell us of a chore that needed to be done. He called us all into the middle room one day after dinner; our grandparents were already waiting for us. Farouse was told to stay in the kitchen.

  “Ismahan, I have found you a husband, he is a good man and he can look after you well, you are not young anymore and you must marry. The wedding will take place in 7 days.” Dad was calm as he looked at Issy.

  Issy’s response was weak; she struggled to get her words out.

  “Wwwhat? Wwwhat do you mean?” I could see the colour slowly draining from her face; at the same time I could feel my own heart beating a million times a minute, but I couldn’t think of a single word to say. I glanced at Yas; I could see the anger building up in her face.

  “Oh! So it’s her turn now, is it? You had to pay back the money for me so now you need to sell another one of us?” Standing up, she stood in the middle of the room pointing her finger around at them all one by one. “I hate you! I hate you all!” she screamed.

  Granddad stood up and started yelling at Dad to control his daughter as Yas continued to scream abuse at them all. Then Gran stood up and started yelling at Yas to shut up; all of a sudden Issy screamed louder than everyone!

  “I won’t marry, I promise you Dad if you make me do this, I will kill myself! I swear it now!” I could hear the desperation in Issy’s voice, hoping that Dad would reconsider, but Dad just stared at her, then he stood up.

  “Well then go ahead and kill yourself, because the wedding happens in seven days,” he sighed as he left the room, promptly followed by our grandparents as they both carried on cursing us for our disobedience, and Dad for not disciplining his daughters.

  Farouse came running into the room wanting to know what the news was; she didn’t realise what had happened until she saw the look on our faces.

  “What’s happened?” she asked, concerned.

  “Dad thinks I’m going to marry some stinking pervert! Someone I’ve never even met. I don’t think so!” Issy broke down as she spoke, sobbing, shaking with fear.

  We tried our best to reassure her that this wasn’t going to happen, but deep in our hearts we knew it would. We had fought with Dad and his family over many things since coming from England, however by now we knew if we were told to do something, no matter how much we argued, in the end we had no choice but to do it.

  For the next couple of days we argued with Dad and his family, we refused to eat and do chores, but Dad just screamed and yelled at us all and refused to back down. Our grandparents told him to stand his ground with us, not to believe Issy when she said she would kill herself; he in turn listened to them.

  Then one afternoon Farouse came to us with more disturbing news! “I’ve heard a rumour that the man you’re going to marry is 60 and already married with children.” Issy demanded to know who told her but Farouse refused to say. “All I can tell you is she doesn’t lie,” Farouse replied.

  Issy stormed out of the room and upstairs to where dad was sat eating ghat with Uncle Mohammed; we were quickly behind her. She barged into the room, stood right in front of Dad and looked him square in the eyes.

  “You seriously think you’re going to give me to some old man who has kids and a wife!” she screamed, her voice full of hatred.

  Both Dad and Uncle Mohammed looked shocked that Issy had the nerve to approach him about this issue once again.

  “He’s a good man and he can provide for you!” Dad yelled back at her.

  “I don’t care who or what he is! I didn’t choose this man and I’m not going to marry him!” The tears were streaming down Issy’s face but Dad didn’t seem to care how much he was hurting her.

  “Yes you are, he’s coming here tomorrow to meet you and you will see for yourself that he is a good man, now, I’m not discussing this with you any more!” he said as he carried on chewing his ghat.

  Issy straightened her body and raised her chin up high; wiping the tears from her face, she firmly looked at Dad.

  “If you force me to go ahead with this I promise you I will kill myself, and then I will come back and haunt you!” With that, she turned and left the room.

  The next day the man my sister was to marry arrived in the village. He brought with him three big trunk suitcases full of dresses, trousers, shoes, scarves, makeup, toiletries, perfumes and underwear, jewellery and anything else a woman would need to start a new life. This is because the bride is not permitted to take anything with her from her old home to her new home.

  His name was Atiq, and as I snuck a quick look out the window to see what he looked like, I was horrified! He was old, fat, short and bald. Issy was tall, young and beautiful and just starting her life. I couldn’t understand why our father would do this to her?

  Dad came into the room where we were sat. “You two need to leave the room, her husband is now coming in to speak to her,” he ordered us, waving his hand at us to get up and leave.

  “He’s not my husband,” Issy told him quietly; it was as though she could
n’t be bothered to speak any more.

  “Yes he is because we have finalised the deal, now you two move! I’m not going to tell you again, I’m losing my patience with you girls!” Dad snapped at us with a real sternness in his voice.

  We looked at our sister, not wanting to leave her alone, “It’s OK, I’m fine, let him do what he wants,” she said in a defeated tone, not wanting us to get into trouble. Yas and I left the room not wanting to leave our sister to the horrible fate that awaited her, yet knowing that whatever we said or did would make no difference; we knew we would only be dragged out if we refused to leave.

  We saw Atiq waiting in the hallway as we left, a smile on his face with the knowledge that he had something special waiting for him inside. I looked at him, wondering if he knew what damage he was doing to my sister, or more to the point, if he cared.

  Issy didn’t talk much after her meeting with Atiq; she had become withdrawn even from us. Something had also been worrying me; I couldn’t stop thinking about what Farouse had told us about the girls here being killed if they were found not to be virgins. I’d spoken to Yas about it the day before because although we didn’t think she had had any boyfriends back home, we knew Issy had been using tampons for years, and we were worried that meant she wouldn’t bleed like a virgin. Yas told me not to worry, she said Issy would never allow Atiq to lay a finger on her even if the marriage did go ahead, but I couldn’t help but worry.

  I decided to tell Farouse about my fears for my sister and to my surprise she wasn’t shocked when I told her I didn’t think Issy would bleed. She told me many girls worried about the same thing on their wedding night and took precautions with them just in case things didn’t go as planned. She told me that many girls took a tiny vial and filled it with animal blood the day of the wedding; there was no shortage of animal blood during the celebrations, as many animals are slaughtered. They hid it in their wedding dress and took it in the room with them; if they didn’t bleed they could discreetly spill it on to the sheet without their husbands seeing. Farouse told me she would get me the blood; now all we had to do was convince Issy to take it with her, just in case.

  The day of the wedding arrived and our grandparents agreed against calling in Al Mouzayna. They said she was old enough to guide herself, and knew Issy would refuse any art work done on her so it would be a waste of money.

  Issy had refused to go to the gathering the day before and although Gran shouted and tried to intimidate her, she refused to back down, so we all stayed upstairs together. She was given the small room on the top floor to use during the wedding celebration to get ready in.

  The next day the guests arrived for dinner, but Issy had been refusing to eat properly since she was told of the wedding and she was looking pale and ill. Yas and I tried everything to get her to have a proper meal but it was as if she had already given up on life.

  Issy’s wedding was different from the other weddings we had attended; she wasn’t going to be paraded in front of everyone in her wedding dress, maybe because they knew she would refuse. That afternoon, after Dad had eaten with the guests, he came to the room. “Issy, please do this for me. I cannot change anything now because a deal has been made but if you give me time, after the wedding, if you are still not happy with your husband I will come and bring you back with me and you won’t have to go back to him again,” he promised. But Issy didn’t even look at him when she answered.

  “I don’t want to marry him now, so if you really loved me you wouldn’t do this to me. I don’t trust you any more Dad, so no, I will not be doing you any favours, just like you have never done me any favours!”

  Dad’s tone changed from pleading to threatening. “That’s enough! I’m not going to keep explaining myself to you, and just so you know you are leaving for your husband’s house today!”

  Yas and I gasped as reality hit us, Issy was going today!

  “Oh no! No! She’s not going today,” Yas cried. “Why today? She’s not supposed to go until tomorrow.”

  I looked at Issy and saw how helpless and defeated she looked; she had lost all hope of ever getting out of this situation. She didn’t even argue with what Dad had just told her, she had lost her fighting spirit.

  “Your sisters are allowed to go with you, they can stay for the three days of celebrations then they can come back with me, you have around 20 minutes to get ready before the car gets here, so hurry up and get ready,” Dad told us as he left the room.

  We quickly gathered our belongings, thinking that any moment Dad would come back and tell us we wouldn’t be allowed to go with her. Issy wasn’t allowed to take any of her old things but Yas quickly hid her favourite little round mirror in her suitcase for her; it was something she had kept of hers when we all had our belongings taken away from us after coming from England. At least that way she would have something of her old life with her.

  We were all made to put our sharsharfs on because we were going to the city, by that time we were expected to cover and behave like proper Muslim girls. As we walked with our sister down those stairs I felt a mixed feeling of guilt and relief. The guilt that we could not save our sister from these monsters that were doing this to her, then the relief that we had been given permission to go with her to her husband’s house for three more days to help her through this dreadful time. Usually only the father and Al Mouzayna travelled with the bride to her husband’s house.

  Gran was at the door; she tried to give Issy advice then a kiss, but Issy pushed her away telling her she didn’t want her kisses or advice. Farouse grabbed her as she sobbed, telling her she loved her, then Farouse came to me and slipped me the tiny vial of blood into my hand as she hugged me goodbye.

  There were two jeeps that took us to Sanaa; we were allowed to travel in one alone with our sister while Dad and Granddad travelled in the other. On the way I showed them the blood that Farouse had given me; although Issy said she appreciated what we were doing, she told us that she meant every word of what she had said to Dad, she would kill herself before the marriage was final, and Atiq would never lay a finger on her.

  That was the first time Yas and I really believed our sister was serious about committing suicide.

  It was a long drive to Sanaa and there were many tears cried along the way as we pleaded with our sister to wait and see what the outcome would be. We told her we needed her with us and that we couldn’t live without her, but Issy had given up on life and saw no other way out.

  When we came close to Atiq’s house we were joined by ten more jeeps from his wedding convoy that led us and started shooting guns and letting off fireworks.

  We pulled up outside a block of flats six storeys high. All of these belonged to Atiq, and one of them was to be Issy’s new home. Once we were outside about 20 women came out to greet us, all making the high whistle wedding noises as they ushered us inside and upstairs to a first floor flat.

  Once inside Issy was escorted by one of the females to a room which she was told was her bedroom, while some of the other women carried in the suitcases that Atiq had brought for his bride and left them on the floor inside the bedroom. As I looked around, I let out a silent sigh of relief to see there was no ‘throne’ set up for my sister. The bedroom had a real bed and carpet; it had a cupboard, a chair and resembled an English bedroom more than we had seen since arriving in Yemen. Issy sat on the chair, Yas and I sat on the edge of the bed.

  “What are we supposed to do now?” I asked as we looked around the room.

  “Does anyone know if I have a brush or comb in those cases?” Issy asked, ripping off her sharsharf.

  Yas said she would check the suitcases. As she got up and opened one of the cases she found the mirror she had hidden for Issy before we left, and was gutted to see it had been broken from the journey.

  “Oh crap! It’s broken!” Yas sulked.

  Issy looked over to see her favourite mirror in Yas’s hand. “Oh well, there you go, seven more years of bad luck,” she said in a quiet, sad voice.<
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  “Don’t say that!” I pleaded with her.

  “Why not? It’s true! Our bad luck started seven years ago and it’s going to continue,” Issy told me as she got up and started to go through the suitcases looking for a comb to comb her hair.

  “Can you two give me an hour or so? I really want to get some sleep because I’m tired, please,” she asked.

  We reluctantly gave her a hug and left her alone; we didn’t want to leave her because we were worried about what she would do. She was really down and she had talked about suicide, but we thought as long as we kept an eye on her, then she would be OK.

  Once we left her we went and looked around the flat. It was a big flat which had most things English flats would, it even had a real toilet and shower. If only Issy’s husband was someone kind whom she loved, then she could have had a chance of being happy; why was life so cruel?

  The women were celebrating in the big room; it was evening by then and most of them were going home at this time. We didn’t know what the celebrations were like in Sanaa or if they were expecting Issy to come and join them, but they could wait all they wanted because she wasn’t coming! We didn’t even know if Atiq’s first wife and children lived in this same block of flats or if she was even at the wedding! There was a lot we didn’t know.

  We sat with the women for a bit then decided to check on our sister. We quietly snuck into her room and opened the door, only to see her curled up on the floor clenching her stomach. We ran to her and picked her up, trying to find out what was wrong with her. Issy was heaving and trying to be sick and Yas knew she had done something awful, because it was something she had tried herself when she was sold to Nejmie!

  “Pleeeease, please tell me what you’ve done? What have you taken, how many have you taken?” Yas kept asking over and over again. I wasn’t sure what Yas was talking about because although I could see my sister in pain, I’d thought maybe she was having bad period cramps because she always suffered from them.