A Father's Betrayal

by Gabriella Gillespie

  “And I will rip your skinny little tongue out so you will never be able to speak again, do you know who my father is? He taught me everything he knows so go ahead!” With that Laila ran off and Farouse came back with her shoe and my letter! I really loved Farouse more for what she did for me that day.

  I knew I had to be more careful, so the next letter I threw for him I made different plans; he could hide the letters behind a huge rock that was behind our house and that he passed daily. I would hide mine beside the house next to a different stone that he also walked by daily, only I would no longer drop them in a matchbox, but in a chewing gum wrapping paper! The plan worked well and we carried on with that for about a week but then we decided we were going to try and meet up.

  Dad and Granddad had gone into town for the afternoon and were not due back until late that night. Earlier on that morning Dad had started up our water well in his field and we had filled up lots of barrels of water so that we could take all our clothes to the fields to wash that afternoon. Mana and I had arranged to meet at the fields that afternoon. He would keep a look out for us; once we had gone to the fields he would wait a few hours then follow. We could usually be at the fields all afternoon doing our washing and the well was about two miles away so nobody would see us.

  At first we were worried about telling Farouse, we trusted her to a certain extent but sometimes when she got scared she would blurt out things without thinking! The only problem we had with not telling her was that we wouldn’t have been able to go without her; we all had to go and wash the clothes that day, which was how it was always done.

  We decided to tell her and she swore on her brothers’ lives she wouldn’t tell no matter what, and that was enough for us to trust her. Farouse would never swear on her brothers’ lives then go back on her word! We gathered all our washing, put them in our washing tins and mounted them on our heads. They were heavy, but we were used to them by now so off we went. I made sure I paraded myself in front of the stable door so Mana could see we were off and then we began our journey to the fields.

  We were excited but nervous at the same time because we knew if we were seen talking to the teachers we would be in big trouble. We got to the fields and began washing the clothes; I was washing my clothes as quickly as possible whilst checking the path from the village to see if I could see anyone coming. I was anxious; I was finally going to talk to Mana!

  We were all chatting to each other about what I was going to say to him. How did I think I would feel? Would he be as nice as I imagined close up and face to face? I looked up to check the path leading from the village and could see two figures walking towards us in the distance.

  “Oh my good God, it’s them!” I screamed as the others both jumped up to check, then I started to panic! “How do I look? Do I look OK? Oh my God, I’m soaking wet from washing these flipping clothes! Look at the state of me, please somebody find me a dry dress in these clothes!” I begged as we all started to frantically search through the washing to find a dress that we hadn’t washed. But everything was filthy and stunk. I was left with what I had on.

  “What is he going to think of me? What if he doesn’t like me?” I was panicking so much I was in a state and close to tears! Yas stood in front of me and grabbed my hand.

  “Oh for crying out loud, Moo, pull yourself together, it’s only a bit of water! Of course he’s going to like you, why wouldn’t he? Look at you, you’re beautiful!” she said, giving me a hug to calm me down.

  “I’m really nervous! I don’t have a clue what to talk about. Please, Farouse, don’t say anything stupid because you always say stupid stuff!” I begged, giving her a shifty look.

  “No I don’t! I don’t Yas, do I?” she asked Yas, sulking.

  “Yes you do, Farouse; you always say the stupidest things so you just stay quiet!” Yas told her.

  Farouse started to sulk even more but we took no notice of her, we were too excited! The teachers were getting closer so we looked around to make sure no one else was in the fields before they got to us.

  There were a few huts around so Yas ran over and looked inside; they were Dad’s huts he used when he slept in the fields, but we wanted to make sure they were all empty and they were. So many things could go wrong with this plan.

  Even though the fields we were in were miles away from the village and at that time of day more or less deserted, someone could easily walk by. The village was visible to us in the distance and so was the path, apart from a few bends here and there, but all around our fields were other people’s fields with their crops in them and surrounding those fields were rocky hills and pathways leading to other villages. Anyone could appear from behind these hills or crops and see us talking. There wasn’t much we could do to stop that other than be extra cautious.

  When the teachers walked up to the well, my heart was beating a hundred times a minute and my legs and hands were shaking. Mana was looking straight at me; I glanced quickly at Mohammed and saw him smiling at my sister.

  “Hello, how are you?” Mana put his hand out to shake my hand and Mohammed did the same for Yas.

  “This is my cousin Farouse,” I said as I turned around to introduce her, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  “Farouse what you doing, where are you?” Yas shouted out.

  “I am over here!” came a voice from behind one of the huts, which was a few feet away from us. Yas went over to the hut leaving me with the teachers and as we waited for her to come back Mana and I just kept looking at each other from the corner of our eyes, each time catching each other doing it then smiling while looking away. Yas came back.

  “She won’t come out, she reckons she’s shy but she’s not, is she Moo?” I shook my head but said nothing; my heart was beating so fast I thought it was going to jump out of my chest. “She said she will keep a look out for us to make sure no one comes, if she sees anyone she will shout for us. Shall we go sit over there?” Yas said, pointing at a huge rock the size of a small car. We walked over and sat down next to it.

  Yas and I sat next to each other and then Mana sat next to me while Mohammed sat next to Yas, on either side of us. We were covered by the rock a bit more because we were facing away from the village, but Farouse could see us. It was a bit awkward to begin with getting the conversation started but once we did it was great.

  They told us they had heard about the pretty English girls that lived in the village even before they arrived! Mana said he was surprised that I liked him because his family were not a wealthy family; although not poor, he said they didn’t have a lot of money. Both Yas and I told the teachers that we didn’t care about money and didn’t look at people for what they have; we just wanted to be happy.

  We told them that we were not supposed to be in the Yemen and one day we would find a way home. Mana told me he wished me all the happiness and if that meant going back to England and never seeing him again then that would be God’s wish, however, his heart would be breaking because he would miss me and my smile.

  Yas and Mohammed were laughing and joking and time was going by fast. They told us how they sat in that window all their spare time hoping to get a glimpse of us, they said it wasn’t the best room in that house but it had the best view and that’s why they chose it! They said many times they walked back and forth at night hoping that we would open a window to see them so we could talk or just see each other. That day we made a code, if I put a washing tin on my head and walked back and forth three times from the stables to our front door that meant we were coming to the fields and we would meet up again!

  We could see Farouse trying to finish the washing alone whilst at the same time keeping a look out and we knew it was selfish leaving her to do all the work herself, but we didn’t want the meeting to end; however, we had to go. We still had clothes to wash and the sun would be down soon and Gran would be fuming if we didn’t get home to start cooking tea. We said our goodbyes with another handshake and lots of silly giggles, and off they went.

&nbs
p; I had my eyes firmly on him until he vanished out of my sight. We told Farouse everything that was said and we giggled and chatted while we finished washing the clothes. We were washing and putting them out over the rocks and the tree branches to allow them to dry in the heat before we had to carry them home, the dryer they became the lighter they would be to carry. By the time we gathered up all the clothes and folded them in the washing tins, the sun was going down and we were much later than usual. We helped each other lift the tins onto our heads and walked towards the village as quickly as possible. We would just tell Gran that it took longer than usual to wash the clothes, this time we wouldn’t give her an excuse, that way Farouse wouldn’t get her story wrong like she usually did!

  As we got closer to the village we could see Gran on the roof of our house looking out for us, we knew she was going to be angry! We made sure Farouse knew what to say and reminded her she had sworn on her brothers’ lives. Gran was angry as usual and gave us a stern telling off for being late and again for the clothes still being damp. Farouse decided to throw a tantrum and storm off upstairs leaving Yas and I to deal with Gran. Gran called after her, but Farouse just shouted down how she was always getting shouted at and hadn’t done anything wrong then carried on ignoring her.

  Yas and I took the clothes upstairs while Gran brought the animals in from the outside stable. When we got to the roof we could see the teachers sat at their window so we continued to scatter the washing around the roof top for them to dry whilst glancing over at them. Farouse came rushing on to the roof. “Did you see what I did there with Gran? That stopped her from a million questions didn’t it? I’m getting really good at hiding secrets now aren’t I?” she boasted. We smiled and told her how well she had done. We finished up on the roof, had one more glance and went downstairs to cook tea; it had been a good day.

  We met a few more times after that over the fields; it wasn’t that often because Dad was at the fields most of the time. I was falling for Mana more and more. Yas and Mohammed didn’t have the relationship that we did, they were just friends and had a laugh when we met up but were only tagging along for our sakes.

  Although Farouse kept a lookout for us, she was getting more and more concerned that we were taking too many risks and that if we ever got caught there would be dire consequences. Yas and I didn’t really understand why Farouse was always so scared. We knew that we would get into trouble, but we weren’t sure what would really happen to us. We had been brought up in a country were girls and boys were allowed to see each other and speak to each other. The punishment for disobeying your parents on this matter may be a slap or being grounded, but nothing to stop you from ever talking to boys again! Farouse tried her best to explain to us what happened to girls in the Yemen that disobeyed their fathers, especially when it came to boys. She told us if you were even caught talking alone with a boy you could be put to death!

  Farouse was loyal and nice to us because she felt sorry for us for what we had been through; we knew she would do anything for us but we could see she was getting more and more scared of the risks we were taking. We didn’t really understand the risks, so we decided we would try and keep Farouse out of what we were doing with the teachers as much as possible, but I for one was not going to stop seeing Mana!

  By this time, our grandparents had been talking about Dad taking us and moving into an empty house next door to theirs. If it was up to them we would have been married by now, but Dad was still refusing so the next best thing for them was us to move out. It was a stone’s throw away and I could see the teacher’s house from it so I wasn’t bothered.

  There was also talk about Dad remarrying, and the girl they had in mind for him was only in her 20s; she was from a village close by. Dad didn’t really put up a fight; he knew Granddad wanted this wedding to go ahead so that Dad could take us girls out of his house and off his hands.

  The preparations for the wedding began. Us girls spent days cleaning out the house next door. It was a big house with a huge wooden door that was opened by a huge metal key bigger than my hand, just like all the other houses. When you entered the house there was a landing of around four foot long. As you came through the front door to your right there was a really long hallway, which was long and dark with a really high ceiling. Then again as you come through the front door to the right and to the back of the stairs were the three underground stables. Every house had these; it’s where people kept their animals at night. They were also dark, creepy and full of cobwebs; I hated cobwebs!

  The stairs went around a bend and up to the first floor, about ten steps, and on the first landing were three rooms. The middle size room straight ahead became Dad’s room, the smaller size to the left was ours and the longer bigger room to the right was the guest room or lounge. Then, as you continued past the big room to the right, the stairs went up to a small square landing and then bent around into the kitchen. The kitchen was like all the other kitchens, around 20 feet by 20 feet. It had a floor sink which was a cemented floor with a hole in it that let the water run out onto the street below. It also had a large built-in clay oven in the corner that was used to cook all the food, and that was it! Then about five more stairs continued up to the roof, again a flat top roof with high edges that came to about waist high. This house only had one small room on the top floor.

  Dad’s wife arrived from her village and was welcomed with a cheer of celebration whistles. She was petite and slim and quite pretty and her name was Amina. She already had a daughter called Samira who was 11 but who was not allowed to be with her anymore because she had remarried our Dad. We thought that was really sad but that was just how it was in Yemen and there was nothing she could do about it. In Amina’s case she had been married to an old man at a very young age and her first husband had died; her daughter was now living with her mother as the father’s family didn’t want her!

  We got on OK with Amina, we didn’t like or dislike her at first, she seemed nice but was always sad at first because she missed her daughter. Dad promised her he would find a way to get her to come and stay with us and that made her feel better. Although Dad had been a bit less bad tempered since Issy’s death, we were never sure what to expect from him; one minute he would be all smiles and loving then the next minute we were not allowed to speak in case we said the wrong thing. For example if he was in a good mood and I slipped up and called him ‘Dad’ in English, he would not notice and be fine. However if he was in a bad mood and I did it he would snap at me and sometimes slap me and say, “Stop speaking English, call me Abba!” (Dad). We were hoping getting married would keep him off our backs and calm his temper.

  It was only a few weeks after the wedding that Dad started sleeping by the fields again. It wasn’t by choice; the ghat was growing and if nobody looked after the crops at night thieves could steal it and Dad would lose a fortune. He would go out in the fields late afternoon and come back early morning and sleep all day, only to repeat it again the next day. Sometimes he would wake around lunch time to eat dinner with us but other times we would wrap his dinner and he would take it to the fields with him.

  Amina would be in bed by 7 pm, leaving Yas and me alone all night to do as we pleased. We didn’t have much to do, all we had was a little cassette player, torches, hand held lamps and candles for lights, but by that time we had devised a plan with the teachers! If we went up to the roof and flicked a lighter three times that meant they could come and talk to us from under our bedroom window. We did that for a few nights then one night we felt brave! Amina was such a heavy sleeper so we decided to sneak the teachers inside the house!

  We tiptoed downstairs and quietly unlocked the door to let them in; with only our torch and a hand lamp it was dark downstairs, so we went over by the stables to find somewhere to sit. It was disgusting with cobwebs everywhere and I was terrified of spiders! We sat and chatted for about an hour then decided they had to leave just in case Amina woke up, so we arranged to meet the next night in the same way.

&nbs
p; The next night we went through the same routine, but when they came in we told them we were going upstairs to our room because we didn’t want to sit in the stables with all the cobwebs! They were terrified about this because Amina was upstairs, but we assured them she was snoring away and no worry to us.

  We snuck upstairs and into our bedroom. It was scary but funny; Yas and I couldn’t stop giggling because we could see the fear of being caught on their faces. We chatted for a while in low whispering voices but then Yas and I got bored and decided we wanted to listen to music.

  We put the tape recorder on, not too loud to wake Amina but we always listened to music at night so that wouldn’t bring her into our room anyway, and once the teachers had relaxed we decided we wanted them to do a little dance for us to keep us amused! First of all they said they couldn’t dance to our English music, but we sulked and finally got our own way! They got up and stated to dance Arabic style to the music. We were sat in front of them telling them to move their hips and wave their hands a bit more! Yas and I were in stitches laughing at them while they tried to impress us with their dance moves!

  After their dance Mana came and sat next to me and put his arms around me. I cuddled up to him and that was the first time I’d felt the comfort of his arms, it was nice! The four of us got on well and chatted till early hours of the morning, then when we snuck downstairs to let them out Mana turned around and very gently kissed me on the cheek! That night I had my first cuddle and first kiss from Mana, it had been the best night I’d had since arriving in Yemen. We continued our meetings a few more times until one night he asked me a question.

  “Are you promised to anyone in marriage?”

  “No, why, do you want to marry me?” I asked, hoping he would say yes.

  “I’ve loved you from the moment I set eyes on you and would do anything to marry you,” he replied.

  I knew I was only 13 years old and marriage was a stupid thing to be talking about at my age, but I also knew I wouldn’t have a choice soon who I married so if I could choose, Mana would be the one.