One time she asked Tarek to take the donkey from her house down to her sister’s house, which was around a mile through the village. She told Tarek to make sure the donkey didn’t run off, it was a wild donkey and the slightest thing scared it. Tarek set off, wrapping the donkey’s strap and tying it to his wrist.
Halfway into his journey something spooked the donkey and it took off, dragging Tarek behind it through the gravel and dirt roads, but Tarek held on, not wanting to untie his strap in fear of losing the donkey! The donkey had taken the route many times before and knew where it was going, so when it got to Noriya’s house it stopped. However Tarek had been dragged behind it for a while and his face and body was scraped and bloodied with wounds full of gravel and dirt from the roads.
Noriya cleaned him and patched him up the best she could before mounting him back on the same donkey and bringing him back to Umie Ayesha. Tarek wasn’t upset that he was hurt, he was just so proud of himself. “I didn’t let the donkey go!” he told her with a big smile.
Chapter Eighteen
Forbidden Love
Yas moved to Rada’a with Abdul while I was in that house. Abdul had become high in the ranks of government now and was in charge of the City of Rada’a. He commanded a large number of soldiers and had an army that escorted him everywhere, a driver that took Yas everywhere, and he was well known for his kindness and generosity, yet Yas was still in a loveless marriage. She was loyal to Abdul and stood by him in everything he did, she tried her best to love him, but couldn’t.
Yas’s chores became more gruelling every time Abdul got promoted. Every day she would have to wake up and cook for all of Abdul’s solders. That would range from cooking for a few dozen to a few hundred; sometimes she would only be given a few hours’ notice that more guests were coming. Yas was also pregnant; Abdul had refused to give her any birth control and this wasn’t going down well with her. She had lost so many children over the years and didn’t want to go through with any more pregnancies, she was grateful for the living children she had. She also said that he never spent time at home with the children; he was always working, so why did she need to have more? Yas was tired and I could see it on her face.
It was a blessing for us both with her being closer; she would visit me sometimes when she wasn’t so busy with her chores. Sometimes she would send us their driver and we would go and visit them, our children loved playing together.
Ziad didn’t mind because every time we came back from my sister’s house we came back with a car full of food, boxes of tinned food and sacks full of flour, sugar, and rice. I didn’t tell Yas but Ziad started stealing our food and selling it down at the village to feed his addiction. At first he started off only taking one or two boxes or sacks, leaving us a bit of food to get us through, not because he felt sorry for his children but to feed himself. We would argue over him taking them and I would always end up getting hurt, punched, slapped, kicked or shoved to the side.
One time he had taken everything, leaving us with absolutely nothing. I would usually make the cement from the flour Yas would give us and any soup from milk or meat that Ziad would bring home, if he ever did! Some days I would make rice then other days we would just eat bread and foul. I would always try and do something, even if it was just bread and tea.
One day we had nothing. I didn’t have flour, rice or foul because he had sold everything and I was at a loss with what to do. Thahaba knew what Ziad was doing with our food, the whole village knew because he was selling it to them, so she took the children and told me to have it out with him. I hadn’t told her how bad Ziad’s violence could get, she had heard rumours but I’d told her he had stopped since we got back from Africa.
I’d put up with so much from Ziad and kept quiet, not wanting to antagonise him out of fear that he would become violent, but he was now starving us for his own selfish reasons and I’d had enough!
That day he came back from the village at lunchtime with nothing but a frozen chicken. The chicken was wrapped in a clear plastic bag that was sealed, and the wrapper had a little extra bit of thick plastic on the end that could be used as a handle. He walked into the kitchen and placed the chicken on the cold clay oven.
“Where are the children?” he asked, half-heartedly. I told him they were having dinner with Thahaba and he made a joke about, “more food for him,” as he walked into his room whistling.
I looked at the chicken and could hear Ziad playing his music, chuffed with the fact that he had sold all our food, but was kind enough to have brought us a chicken; he could see no wrong with what he had done!
I knew I was going to get a beating, but I was stubborn and wanted to have my say. I also knew that my children were safe, so I took a deep breath and I picked up the frozen chicken, which was still in its plastic bag. I could feel the anger boiling up inside me and I hated myself for feeling this way because I knew what was coming! I was going to say something he didn’t like and I was going to get hurt, but I couldn’t stop myself. I placed it on a metal plate and walked into the room where Ziad was.
When I walked in he was stood with his back to me looking for something on the window sill; he didn’t think to turn to look until I placed the plate near where he usually sat. He turned around thinking that I’d somehow, within minutes, cooked up a meal from nothing, and he was genuinely taken by surprise to see a frozen chicken on the plate!
He stood there rubbing his mouth as he laughed. “Oh, you didn’t just do that?” he said under his breath, shaking his head from side to side. It was the look on his face that sent shivers down my spine! “What’s this?” he asked, in a tone that dared me to speak.
Though I was terrified I was also fed up, and I had a big mouth! “That’s all you brought home, isn’t it? I didn’t see you come home with anything else in your hand, so that’s your dinner!” I stood there in front of him, my head stuck up as high as I could to defy him. I could feel my legs starting to tremble because I knew he was going to hit me. I was expecting it, but I didn’t want to cower away from him, not this time.
Suddenly he bent down and picked up the chicken by the handle of the wrapper, and I thought he was just going to hand it to me as he straightened up, but instead he swung it and hit me across the side of my head with such force, the frozen chicken flung out of his hand, and I went crashing to the floor! The force of the blow affected my hearing because he had caught me on my ear and all I could hear was whooshing noises.
As I lay on the floor, dazed, flashing lights darted across my eyes and I struggled to pull myself together. Ziad reacted as if he hadn’t done anything wrong. He sat down and started shouting at me, instructing me to pick up the chicken and go and cook it if I wanted to avoid further punishment. He was yelling that I needed to be quick about it because he had ghat to eat! I struggled to leave the room, my eyes were blurry, my head was spinning, but I picked up the chicken and stumbled out of the room, trying my best to hold my head high, refusing to cry in front of him.
I’d stopped crying many years ago from any physical abuse Ziad or anyone else felt they had the right to inflict upon me, but in private things were different. As soon as I got to the kitchen my tears started to flow, and as much as I tried to hold them back I couldn’t! It wasn’t the pain, but frustration that made me cry. I knew Ziad would never change; in fact he would only get worse! I was in tremendous pain but I still felt defiant and in that mood I decided I would cook the chicken, but it wasn’t going to be for him! I was taking it to the children!
I took the chicken and gently tiptoed down the stairs and out the door, and then I ran as fast as I could through the village to Thahaba’s house! My head was still throbbing with pain when I arrived, but the sight of my children made the pain disappear.
They were playing outside when I got to the door and when they saw me approach they ran up to me calling out, happy to see me. I didn’t have any visible injuries so they were clueless to what had happened, but I was worried their father would come looking for me
so I took them inside and told them they needed to play inside for the rest of the day.
I told Thahaba what had happened and she insisted I stay the night at her house; she said if Ziad came for me that I was to stay inside, and she would deal with him. I hardly slept, quietly sat on her roof most of the night, waiting for Ziad to get drunk and come and cause a problem at her house, but he didn’t come.
The next day Thahaba insisted we stay again, but late afternoon her half-brother Anwar arrived from Sanaa to stay with her, and although they both insisted we stay it was the first time I’d ever met Anwar and even though he seemed nice, Thahaba’s house only had two small rooms. Against both their wishes, I returned home early evening.
Ziad wasn’t home when we got back but he returned late that night; we were in our room when he got back and he didn’t say a word to us as he walked past our room and went straight to his room.
In the early hours of the morning, when he was drunk, he came into our room and yanked me out of bed from my sleep; he dragged me into his room where he viciously beat and raped me. I stayed silent throughout the whole ordeal knowing my children were asleep just feet away.
The next day I stayed inside, too embarrassed to leave the house because of my injuries, and when Thahaba came to visit me early evening she was horrified. She refused to allow us to stay in the house with Ziad and took us back to hers; Ziad was out at the time.
Thahaba was such a good friend to me and that didn’t stop when her brother arrived, when I arrived at their house they were both so angry that Ziad could do something so horrible. I’d never told Thahaba of all the things Ziad had done to us in Africa or since we had been back. I hadn’t told anyone, I never would.
Thahaba was outspoken and not scared of Ziad, and I knew she would give him a piece of her mind when she saw him, but up until then I’d tried to stop that from happening by not telling her or allowing her to see the real Ziad out of fear of repercussions. Now I’d given up, Ziad would abuse me whatever I said or did and I needed help. Thahaba was the only person in the village who was not scared of Ziad or his father, and who was willing to help us.
That night at Thahaba’s house after I’d put my children to bed I myself couldn’t sleep, I was worried that Ziad would come to the house once he was drunk and cause her problems. I knew he wouldn’t dare touch her, but he could be loud and embarrassing when drunk and I didn’t want to put her through that. I quietly snuck up to the roof. Thahaba and Anwar were asleep in one room and my children and I in another. I’d sat for a while next to the window in the room where we were sleeping, but I couldn’t see much from any of those windows, whereas from the roof I could see the path from all around, so if Ziad was to approach the house I would see him coming.
It was a full moon and it was so quiet outside you could hear a pin drop, so I sat in a corner and rested up against the wall, and then if I heard a noise I would discreetly peer over the edge to check it wasn’t Ziad.
Suddenly Anwar appeared from the roof door, he had to duck down to get through the door because he was so tall. “I thought I heard someone up here. Why are you up here?” he whispered, sitting down right next to me.
I told him why I was up there; in return he told me he couldn’t sleep either so he would sit with me for a while. I didn’t feel uncomfortable sitting with Anwar even though he was somewhat a stranger, even though he was sat extremely close to me! Earlier that evening we had all sat together in the room downstairs for hours chatting, he’d even played with my children.
He told us he had come to stay in the village to work in the school as head teacher, which meant he was going to be Tarek’s head teacher. Tarek had taken an instant liking to him and they hadn’t stopped chatting all night. As we sat there on the roof he laughed at me a lot; although I was fluent in Arabic I would still make mistakes, because in some words there is a different way to speak to men and women!
We joked around and because he was learning English he thought English was a difficult language to learn.
We sat and debated on whether Arabic was harder to learn than English, I thought Arabic was, whereas he thought English was! As we joked around he would nudge my shoulder in a friendly way, and to me it seemed like the most natural gesture, however it wasn’t, not in this country!
Every now and then someone would walk by and we would just look at each other and fall silent, quickly checking over the edge to see it wasn’t Ziad; with the full moon we could see everything so clearly.
Once the person had passed by we would sit back down and go straight back to our conversation, as time passed we were sat so close to each other I could feel the side of his body next to mine. We didn’t talk about anything upsetting; all we talked about were languages, books, drawings and silly things. He didn’t ask me anything about Ziad and it felt as though I’d known him for ages. There was one thing that felt new to me, and that was the attraction I felt for him.
As he spoke I felt myself admiring him, he was tall, around 6’4” and muscular with big shoulders.
He had black afro hair and although his parents were from Sudan he had olive skin with green eyes. He had high cheekbones and his nose was long and thin with slightly big nostrils, and he had a small mouth with a thin top lip and a fuller bottom lip. His face was strong but kind and when he smiled his eyes lit up and when he laughed he made a chuckle sound that made me smile.
I knew I had feelings for him from that very first night, and by the end of the night I felt he had some sort of feelings towards me.
He was sat extra close to me, not something men and women did in Yemen, but it felt natural, and there was something in the way he playfully nudged me with his shoulder while he laughed. I could see it in the way he looked at me when we spoke, and it gave me butterflies in my stomach.
Before we knew it the sun was coming up and we decided to go back in, and as we got to the bottom of the stairs we mimed goodnight to each other as we disappeared into our separate rooms to catch a few hours’ sleep. I for one couldn’t sleep; he was on my mind.
The next morning we all woke up around the same time and gathered in the kitchen to make breakfast. Anwar and I had not long gone to bed! Thahaba wasn’t like the other women in the village, she didn’t wake up in the morning and make her own bread in the clay oven, and although she had a clay oven she very rarely used it. She had a little one ring gas cooker that she cooked on. While we sat and cooked the foul Anwar went off into the village to buy bread from a shop that sold ready-made bread.
We all sat around and ate together as Anwar and I tried to avoid eye contact; neither of us mentioned the night before, and once breakfast was over Anwar took Tarek with him to the school, whilst Thahaba and I stayed in and cleaned up. School was over by lunchtime and as we all sat around and ate dinner I found myself glancing over at Anwar, and I would catch him looking at me. We would both quickly look away only to catch each other doing it again a while later.
Thahaba was one of a few women I’d ever known to chew ghat and that afternoon she and Anwar chewed ghat while I sat and played with my children in the same room, we all laughed and joked and my children looked relaxed and happy but I knew it couldn’t always be this way. I would have to go home to their father and it would have to be soon. As much as I liked the way I was feeling towards Anwar, I knew nothing good could ever come of it.
That night after I’d put the children to sleep I told them both I was leaving in the morning. Thahaba tried her best to convince me to stay while Anwar stayed silent. He bowed his head and looked at the floor but would glance up at me every now and then. I could see in his eyes that he wanted to say something but he knew he shouldn’t intervene. Thahaba was Ziad’s family so she could have her say, but he wasn’t our family; it would have been disrespectful for him to speak.
Later that night after everyone was asleep I went back up onto the roof, and although I told myself I was there because I was worried Ziad would turn up, I also knew I wanted to spend time alone with Anw
ar. I knew it was wrong and that nothing could come of us but I just wanted to have one last night with him, just a nice happy night like the night we had before. I sat on the roof, jumping at every sound I heard, hoping that the next sound would be Anwar coming in from the roof door. Finally he appeared, crouching over as he made his way to where I was sat.
“What you doing up here?” I asked as he sat next to me. My heart was racing and I had the weirdest feeling in my stomach and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling, however, I tried to act calm.
“You are a guest in our home, we can’t have you sitting up here all alone!” he joked. “What if you need something? Anyway, I’m here to rescue you just in case someone climbs onto the roof and runs away with you!”
As he smiled I nudged him with my shoulder and he started to chuckle; that made me smile even more, his chuckle was cheeky and silly at the same time. Then suddenly his mood changed, and his voice saddened.
“It’s nice when you smile, sometimes I see sadness in your eyes and it hurts me.”
He was looking at the floor as he spoke. I looked at him but didn’t speak; the full moon provided light and I could see how sad he looked even though he wasn’t looking at me. As I looked away I saw him look up at me.
“Look at what he’s done to you! Nobody should do that to someone they love!”
Once again I didn’t answer, and we both fell silent for a while, then the silence was broken by a sound from the street and we both peered over to check who it was. After the passer-by was out of sight we sat back down and the conversation changed to a different subject, and once again we laughed and joked until the sun came up.
It was going to be harder than ever for me to leave and go home, and although I knew I had to go, I was fighting against the urge to want to see this man more, he made me feel happy, even if it was wrong! Once again we parted in the hallway with a quiet goodnight to catch a few hours’ sleep, and the next day, after Anwar took Tarek to school, I made my way back home.
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