From Somalia with Love

by Na'ima B. Robert

  Once inside, I was able to try breathing normally. Under ordinary circumstances, this would have been quite funny but now, my only question was whether Uncle Yusuf had seen us or not. If he hadn’t, alhamdulillah, I had managed to avoid any consequences for my moment of madness.

  But then, as I began to calm down, I became more aware of the fact that I was now alone in a car, in a remote part of a car park with a guy that I hardly knew, a guy who kept looking me up and down, a slow burn in his eyes.

  “So,” he said softly, flipping a switch on the car radio, “how do you feel now? A bit more relaxed?”

  “Hmm,” I said, chewing my lip, “I suppose so…”

  “Good,” he said, and he shifted in his seat to sit closer to me.

  And then I realised what he had in mind and a chill ran through my veins.

  Oh, Allah, please don’t let this be happening to me. Not to me.

  Hadn’t I made it clear that I wasn’t up for that? That I wasn’t like that? I pushed him away but he held my wrists, so hard I felt like they would snap between his fingers.

  “Don’t pretend, girl,” he crooned. “You know this is what you wanted.”

  “No, please,” I begged, “it was a mistake! Just a mistake! I’m sorry!”

  “Well, I don’t like girls who try to play me,” he snarled. “You’re just like your cousin – only difference is that you pretend and she doesn’t.”

  “No, seriously,” I cried, panic rising inside me. “You’ve got me all wrong!”

  “Yeah, whatever…”

  Before I knew it, he was on top of me. I struggled against him, panic growing inside me.

  What was he trying to do?

  But I didn’t have time to think about it. I had to save myself, had to get out of there. I took a deep breath and screamed, screamed for someone, anyone to hear me and get me out of the nightmare.

  And my heart cried out: Please, Allah, help me, save me!

  Fuad clamped his hand over my mouth but I bit down, hard. He swore at me and raised his hand. It all happened in slow motion: I saw the sweep of his hand as it rose in the air, then it swung down towards me, crashing into the side of my face. My head snapped to the side against the window and I felt heat, then pain spread through my cheek. Then, all of a sudden, the door was open and the air hit my face with a rush. I opened my eyes and tried to focus and, there by the car door, his hands rolled into fists, murder in his eyes, was Abo.

  Chapter 8

  Abo let out a huge roar and lunged at Fuad.

  “Kalab!” he shouted as he dragged him out of the car. “You dog, what are you doing to my daughter?”

  Fuad stammered, trying to defend himself as Abo held him by the neck but he was silenced by a blow to the shoulder. Fuad’s face contorted with pain as he hunched over and slid down against the car. Abo was shouting at him in Somali, cursing him.

  “If you ever come near my daughter again, I will kill you, do you understand? You will be dead! Dead!”

  I was curled up on the car seat, shaking, shocked. I heard the sickening thuds as Abo kicked Fuad. I was terrified of what Abo would do once he had finished with Fuad. I mean, how it must have looked: his daughter in a car with a boy in a car with steamy windows. Would he beat me? Throw me out? Kill me?

  But I was innocent! This wasn’t what I wanted, wasn’t what I planned. I had just made a terrible, awful mistake. And I started to cry.

  Abo finished with Fuad and turned to me. He saw that I was fully-clothed and winced when he saw my swollen cheek. He spat on the ground near Fuad’s head then turned to go.

  “Kaale!” he said sternly and I followed him to where Uncle Yusuf’s car was parked.

  He was sitting in the driver’s seat and didn’t look at me once.

  I got into the back seat and sat there, crying silently, until we reached our block of flats.

  Abo thanked Uncle Yusuf and then he left, looking at me one last time. I couldn’t read his expression. Pity? Disgust? I wasn’t sure.

  Abo opened the door to the building and I held my breath as the stench of the chute hit me full in the face. The smell was always worse after a hot afternoon.

  I looked at my reflection in the mirrored walls of the lift. In between all the graffiti and crude messages, I saw a scared-looking brown-skinned girl with a swollen cheek, red, puffy eyes and a trembly chin. She stood next to a tall, stern-faced man with grey speckles in his beard. She looked better than how I felt.

  I was still shaken by all that happened and all I wanted was to get up to my room, make wudhu and pray.

  “Allah is Ar-Rahman, the Most Merciful,” Hoyo had told me once, “and He loves to forgive. He created us and He knows that we are weak so no matter what you have done, be sure that Allah will forgive you...”

  I knew that the prayer wiped away sins, washed them away like water, and I desperately needed to wash now, to cleanse myself of everything that had happened. Yes, the prayer was what I needed most right then.

  But some would wonder why. All I had done was go to the movies with a guy and, as for what had almost happened after, that wasn’t my fault. But I knew that it wasn’t that simple. I knew that a Muslim girl was meant to keep herself in line and that a Muslim boy was meant to do that too. I knew that dating wasn’t part of Islam or the daqaan, that it was single or married, no in-between. And I had never had a problem with that. And then all that changed. Because of a lopsided grin and a tired line like ‘You’re cute’, I had compromised my principles. I thought of Firdous and Amr and felt sick. What was she doing? What was she looking for?

  I needed to pray and I decided then and there that, when I prayed, I would pray for Firdous too. I had never thought of her as lost before but the thought occurred to me then.

  To pray, to cleanse, that was what I needed.

  Abo didn’t say a single word to me until we got into the house. He murmured a greeting to Hoyo and told her briefly what had happened: that Uncle Yusuf had seen a boy following me and called him. He told her what had been happening when he found us. Hoyo’s eyes were wide with shock and concern as she looked past Abo at me standing in the corridor.

  “Go and see your Hoyo,” said Abo shortly as he slipped off his shoes and went upstairs to their room.

  Hoyo pulled me into the kitchen. “What happened, Safia?” she said, looking at my bruised face. “What happened?”

  I started to cry then, huge sobs that made it impossible to talk.

  Hoyo kept asking questions: “Where were you?” “What happened to your face?” “Where have you been?” “Why weren’t you at the youth club?”

  I couldn’t answer. I just kept crying. I wanted to speak, to tell her that I was sorry, that it wasn’t what it looked like, that nothing happened, but I couldn’t find the words. And I thought about Firdous: the escape she had offered, how she had seemed to have everything, how I had yearned for just a taste of what she had – and how bitter it had turned out to be.

  You’ve let yourself down. You’ve let everyone down.

  I thought about Hoyo, Abo, Abdullahi, Ahmed, my reputation, all my fine principles and all I could say was, “I’m sorry, Hoyo, I’m sorry.”

  Then I felt the pain of the past month rush through my body like a tidal wave, and all my deepest feelings of sadness, anger, jealousy, guilt, shame and remorse roared in my ears. I needed to let it out, I needed desperately to speak, to let out all that was clogging up my insides. But I didn’t know how. I heard the voices of aunties and elders: honour your hoyo – obey your hoyo – don’t disgrace your hoyo – paradise lies at the feet of your hoyo – and I was afraid of Hoyo’s reaction so I just kept sobbing.

  Hoyo stepped back, alarmed at my violent tears. She had never ever seen me this upset.

  “Safia?” she said, fearfully, reaching out to touch my shoulder. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “There was a boy, Hoyo. He tried…”

  “Tried what, Safia?” Her voice was sharp.

  “It was a mistake,
Hoyo,” I said through my tears. “It wasn’t my fault… he tried to force me…”

  “Force you?” Hoyo was shocked. “Are you OK? Did he make you do anything?”

  “No, Hoyo, Abo found me just in time…”

  “Alhamdulillah,” she breathed. Then, she put her arms around me and held me close. She hadn’t done that in such a long time, it made me cry even more. I clung to her and she rocked me gently, murmuring, her lips against my head.

  Slowly, the tears slowed down and I was able to look up at Hoyo.

  “Safia,” she said again, “what’s been happening to you? Where did my little girl go? You’ve changed – I feel like I don’t know you any more…”

  Hoyo’s voice was sad as she stroked my cheek. Maybe, just maybe, I would be able to tell her how I felt, to confide in her …maybe? It was worth a try.

  “Hoyo,” I began, slowly, sniffing, choosing my words carefully. “I know how happy you have been since Abo came back. I can see it. And I’m glad for you. It’s just that, for me, it hasn’t been that great… In fact, it’s been really awful…”

  She frowned then and I hesitated, wondering whether or not to continue. But then I saw that her frown was not one of anger but of incomprehension, and I continued.

  “Of course I was happy too when you told us Abo would be coming home – we all were. But when he did come, everything changed: you changed, Abdullahi changed, Ahmed changed and… and I changed. All of a sudden, I wasn’t part of things any more. I was shut out all the time. I don’t know anything about Somalia or politics – does that mean I don’t have anything to say? I felt that Abo didn’t have time for me, that he wasn’t interested in me at all.”

  “Of course he was, Safia,” Hoyo began – but I continued.

  “But I could have handled that, Hoyo, it was OK, really. It was what happened with Ahmed that made it worse. I blamed Abo for making him run away and… and when you told me that Abo didn’t want Ahmed to come home, I couldn’t take it: I was angry with him and I was angry with you…” I said the last bit quietly, looking at the floor, waiting for her reaction, knowing that this was ’eeb, not done, not acceptable to be angry with your parents.

  Hoyo sighed but was silent, waiting for me to continue.

  “You were so busy with being a wife again and preparing for Habaryero’s wedding that you didn’t notice me: you didn’t notice that I was hardly ever around, that I wasn’t eating, that I was doing badly at school. I felt like you didn’t need me any more, that I wasn’t special to you, now that Abo was back. It’s like he became your whole world…” My voice trailed off as I remembered the loneliness of sitting in my room on my own while Hoyo and Abo spoke softly downstairs, drinking cups of sweet tea on the kitchen floor. I looked up at Hoyo and she was quiet, thinking, holding my hand and stroking it for a long time. I didn’t say anything: I waited, sniffing, listening to the ticking of the clock and the faraway traffic from the street outside.

  Then, finally, Hoyo spoke. “Safia, I never told you the story of how your father and I got married, did I?”

  I sniffled and shook my head.

  “Ayeyo and Awowo had always planned that I would marry someone from our town, from the same qaabil, as they had done. In fact, men from our qaabil had been asking about me since I was fourteen years old and could cook suqaar. But I was stubborn. I refused them all – I knew they weren’t right for me. So I waited while my parents became more and more frustrated, worried I would be left behind while other girls my age were on their second, third, fourth babies.

  “Then one day, Awowo became very angry with me. I think it was because he had just received the news that his brother’s youngest daughter was getting married. Ayeyo too was ashamed that she should still have an unmarried daughter. It was ’eeb, it wasn’t right, and the neighbourhood gossips tore my mother’s flesh with their rumours.

  “Well, anyway, Awowo sent my mother to tell me that he swore wallahi that he would marry me to the next man to walk through the door, whether I liked it or not. I thought then, maybe I had made a mistake, maybe I should have married Ismaeel, the carpenter’s son.

  “But the next man to come to speak to my father was tall and handsome, with a soft voice and wavy hair. Wallahi, I caught sight of him in the compound and my heart missed a beat.”

  I shifted then, a bit embarrassed, aware that Hoyo had never, ever spoken to me like this before. But I wanted her to continue, wanted to hear who the handsome stranger was.

  “Well, my youngest cousin raced to me in the kitchen to tell me that Hassan Maxamed was speaking to Abo, speaking to him about me.”

  I let out a little gasp. Abo?

  Hoyo smiled at me. “Yes, Safia, that was your father. But Awowo was not pleased at all. I could tell from the deep frown on his face when I brought him his qahwa. Ayeyo looked worried and kept wringing the cloth of her dira’, glancing up again and again at my father’s angry face.”

  “Why, Hoyo, why?” I couldn’t think why my grandparents weren’t pleased for Hoyo – they had wanted her to get married, hadn’t they?

  “Your father’s family were from the same qaabil but they were desert people, nomads. My parents didn’t think his family were honourable or rich enough for their daughter, even though Abo offered a very good dowry for me. As you know, in the Somali daqaan, a marriage is between families, not just individuals so, for them, the status of the family was even more important than the fact that your father was educated and was building his own house.”

  “But why didn’t they just refuse to allow it?” I was baffled. After all, without the parents’ consent, no Muslim marriage could go ahead: everyone knew that.

  Again Hoyo smiled. “Haa,” she said, “but remember that your grandfather took an oath: he swore wallahi. And the imam told him that that was it. He had taken an oath and he had to stick by it. So they had to consent to the marriage even though the family was outraged. Some family members threatened to disown me, to cast me out, some cursed me and told me my children would be no better than mongrel dogs.

  But you know what, Safia, I didn’t care. I saw something in your father; I saw it in his eyes, in the way he walked, the way he carried himself, that he was different. And I prayed, Allah! I prayed so hard for Allah to show me the right thing to do. And so I married him and left my parents’ home. And the minute I stepped into your father’s house, my arms heavy with gold, my fingertips stained black with henna from Yemen, my eyes made smoky with kohl from Mecca and I glanced into your father’s face, I felt safe. It was as if I had come home…”

  Her voice trailed off, far-off memories misting her eyes. She continued to speak, on and on, describing the little house my father had built for her, how he taught her how to read, how tenderly he looked after her when she was heavy with their first child, Abdullahi.

  “And when I had you, Allah, you should have seen his face! You would think his daughter was Bilqees, the Queen of Sheba. He loved you so much, he was so proud to have a daughter who looked like the two of us. We were happy then, wallahi, so happy that Hoyo and Abo changed their minds about the marriage. They soon grew to love your father like their own son…”

  I followed her story, breathless, sometimes forgetting that this was my mum and dad she was talking about. It sounded like a romance from a storybook, full of intrigue, family feuds … and the kind of love that could change the world.

  “What about the rest of the family?” I asked.

  “Well, there are always those who hate to see others happy – so the gossips kept talking. And then the war came, and everything changed.”

  I shivered when I heard Hoyo’s voice change.

  “People were dying every day, Safia. Somalis shooting other Somalis, people being robbed at checkpoints, women being taken as slaves and worse, children disappearing: it was a terrible time. We were afraid, so afraid. Your father wanted to send us away with my mother and father but I refused. ‘We live together or we die together,’ I told him. I was not going to abandon hi
m in Mogadishu, where the warlords could shoot you if they didn’t like your face.

  “But the situation became bad, Safia. Abo insisted that we had to leave, so we packed up a few things and made our plans to join Ayeyo and Awowo who were in Kenya by that time.

  “But, subhanAllah, it was not meant to be. The car we were riding in was ambushed and we all found ourselves out on the dusty road with guns pressed against our heads.”

  Hoyo was shaking now, her voice trembled, reliving every detail. “Abdullahi and Ahmed were crying, clinging to Abo as the soldiers questioned him. They had tied his hands behind his back and he struggled to keep his balance as they pushed him from side to side. ‘What is your tribe? Where are you going? This one,’ said one of the soldiers, ‘this one is one of those dirty midgaan – you can see it in his face!’

  “You were too young to know what was happening and you were hungry. You kept pulling at my dira’ because you wanted milk. When I didn’t give it to you, you started screaming and one of those soldiers told me to shut you up before he did. ‘She’s a baby!’ I shouted at him. ‘She needs to eat!’ Then I cursed his parents and forefathers and turned my back to him and sat down to feed you.

  “My heart, Safia, my heart was beating like a thousand racing camels. Maybe he would shoot me right there? But no, they were still questioning Abo: his clan, his politics, how much money he had… With every answer he gave, I could see them going more and more crazy. I had heard about these militiamen – I knew that they were high on qaat most of the time and I was afraid, so afraid that they would kill us all. Then one of their commanders drove up and yelled at them. ‘What the hell are you doing? Stop wasting time with these cockroaches! Bring that man in and kill the rest of them!’

  “They started pulling Abo towards the van and I jumped up, my heart in my mouth. ‘No!’ I screamed as I ran towards them, ‘don’t take him! Please don’t kill him!’ I grabbed Abo’s arm and held on, hitting out at the soldiers. I was like a wild animal. They tried to push me away but I hit out, kicking and spitting until one of them hit me in the head with his rifle butt. Everything went black.