Footsteps

by Umm Zakiyyah

  She simply could not support Teddy marrying their daughter under circumstances like this. But she had no idea how to tell her son that as she listened to his excited recap of the meeting and Ismael’s encouragement at the end.

  Dear Diary,

  I went home this past weekend, and I feel drained. Each time I go, I have no idea why I do, and even Kevin can’t understand why I put myself thru this. But I know somewhere deep inside I know it’s the right thing to do, even if I can’t stand going more than once or twice a month.

  All my mom does is cry, asking me the same question over and over again. And all I can do is give the same answer I always do. ‘I don’t know.’ She thinks I’m being flip, but I’m not. I’m being honest.

  The irony is, all I ever wanted was Jannah. And a distant second, to please my parents, especially my father, who says absolutely nothing to me on the subject.

  The irony of the irony is that I enjoy what I do. It’s just that it’s not what I see myself doing in the distant future. In the end, I want a family, a Muslim family. And I want no connection to this life I’m living now, except for a few mementos in my scrapbook.

  It doesn’t make sense, I know. And I’ve pretty much given up making sense of it. It’s just that I love what I do, and I can’t do it and pray and cover at the same time. It’s like it’s just ‘passive enjoyment.’ But the biggest irony is, I know too much about this fleeting life to even enjoy it as I pass thru it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was Sunday, the last day of August and Tamika’s husband had resumed medical school a week before although he was home today as Tamika sat in the front room of Nusaybah’s home. During the summer, Tamika had come to respect Nusaybah, not only as a teacher but as a Muslim woman dedicated to Islam. When Tamika had been unable to arrange a schedule to attend Qur’an classes, Nusaybah came to Tamika’s home once a week to teach her herself while Sulayman was at work. Her teacher’s sacrifice reminded Tamika of the selflessness of Sister Sarah’s family after she became Muslim. It was heartening to know that Islam was more than a belief system for the people Allah had put in her company. It was a way of life.

  Nusaybah was talking about the brevity of the life of this world and the nearness of the Day of Judgment, and Tamika thought of the last entry she had read from Dee’s diary. “I know too much about this fleeting life to even enjoy it…” Then why not give your soul to Islam instead of your desires? That’s the question Tamika could not get out of her mind. What would happen to Tamika if her desires got the best of her? She shivered at the thought. No, she could not, would not let that happen—with the help of Allah. If nothing else, she would hold on to her prayer. So she could hold on to her Islam. Why hadn’t Dee done that? If she was too weak to give up modeling and singing, she could have at least prayed. Then her fate would have been, if nothing more, that of a Muslim.

  Ismael stood facing the window of the bedroom he shared with Sarah. The glass overlooked the front yard, but he couldn’t see it clearly through the sheer white curtains, and besides, he wasn’t thinking about the landscape right then, or the yard that he already knew was in need of mowing. If it were any other time, someone else would have been responsible for its upkeep. But as it stood, he was responsible. He had made a commitment to take care of it. Just like he had, more than twenty-six years ago in a quiet, unglamorous ceremony attended by no one he knew, made a commitment to his wife, who was waiting, rather patiently, for him to turn around and acknowledge what she had just asked.

  Ismael hesitated, but not for the reasons she suspected. No doubt, this was one of the questions all married men must face, regardless of whether there was or would be “another woman.” It didn’t matter how he, or any man, responded. Every answer was wrong. But after over two and a half decades of being cornered with such impossibilities of women, he’d grown tired of dreading them. He expected them, with neither longing nor dread. He faced them like an overworked, stressed employee would an implacable boss whom he had long since given up pleasing or even inspiring the slightest flicker of appreciation or gratefulness. Ismael accepted women’s contradictions as one of the lesser stresses of life’s endless web of disappointments.

  Faith. She had gone to Faith, the psychologist, the marriage counselor. A woman who had accepted Islam just over a year ago. Did Sarah really think Dr. Faith Anderson-Blackman had any Islamic wisdom behind her words? Did it occur to Sarah that Dr. Faith could be speaking out of fear for her own marriage than from intentions to rectify Sarah’s?

  Ismael would have never wanted his wife to see a psychologist, even if she were also a friend. He felt that most of what they told you, even if it were true, was something you could have figured out on your own, if you just trusted yourself beneath the doubts and insecurity that contaminated any human with blood in their veins. It was no revelation to Ismael that there was far more on the table than the issue of polygyny itself.

  Even as the heart held the truth behind any union, the mind remained obdurate in its authentication of love. In the end, heart and mind were only marginally honest about the intangible feeling that drew otherwise unlikely partners together. Most claimed that it was the heart that led in love, and the mind that followed. Yet, Ismael had submitted to the reality years ago that it was the other way around. The mind was the leader in choosing a mate, and only after years of familiarity and sacrifice would the heart submit, one beat at a time.

  Wasn’t it the mind that determined what you admired, what you counted as beautiful, or what you would even consider in the first place? Although, Ismael knew, the heart, in rare exceptions, betrayed even the strongest convictions of the mind.

  Sarah says she wants to know why. But, Ismael thought, I know she doesn’t. Women never do. He imagined the hardest thing for women to understand was, it rarely had anything to do with them at all, let alone anything they could hope to comprehend. Men who were determined to make women understand, if not accept, their desire for more than one woman, inevitably harmed their women. But, more detrimentally, themselves.

  Ismael had listened to countless men, Muslim and non-Muslim, rant and rave about women’s selfishness, jealousy, and stubbornness on the otherwise hushed nature of a man. Their time was better spent convincing the woman how much they truly loved them, not through words alone, but actions, acts of love, that never wavered in the face of women’s mood swings, complaints, and stress. This was something Ismael himself had begun to learn in the last two weeks.

  Women simply could not comprehend man’s desire, or need, for another woman. And men could not remove women’s jealousy, or resentment, when he sought to act upon that desire. It was one of Allah’s tests on the earth. He gave men a polygamous nature, and women a jealous one. And it was up to men and women to find a middle ground.

  It was tempting, so tempting, to get irritated with Sarah’s nagging and demand for answers right then. But he had already gone there. And he wasn’t going back, with the help of Allah. Yes, Imam Abdul-Quddus was right. Men who sat around complaining about women’s jealousy, or their wife’s disapproval or upset over them taking another wife, did not even understand the discipline required of the nature Allah had placed in men themselves. How then could they begin to speak of a woman’s? Such men didn’t have the ability to be just between women. And how could they? They were not even just within themselves. If you couldn’t accept how Allah created her, how could you expect her to not only acknowledge, but accept and support your expression of how He created you? All of this in hopes of marrying someone with a nature just like hers.

  An hour later Ismael sat next to Sarah in the basement of Imam Abdul-Quddus’s home, a bit distracted by their earlier conversation, or lack of conversing, in their home. He never really answered Sarah’s question, and part of it was because he knew he would have to talk now, at the meeting Sarah had arranged with the imam, in hopes of putting a bandage on the wound he had inflicted in the handling of the marriage contract with Alika. He didn’t like the idea of talking
to someone else about his marital struggles, but given the imam’s involvement in his relationship with Alika, Ismael couldn’t feel completely violated as he sat on the couch next to his wife with Imam Abdul-Quddus on the soft computer chair whose wheels moved against the flat carpet whenever the imam leaned back to gather his thoughts.

  “Brother Ali,” the imam said, “I’m not going to delay this any further than I have to.” He drew in a deep breath and paused only briefly. “Your wife called me a week ago with serious concerns, and it was my idea to bring you both here to address them.” He paused. “In short, your wife told me she doesn’t feel like this can work.”

  Ismael nodded, remembering his wife saying the same thing. “Yes, brother, I know.”

  The imam’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Sister Ali?”

  His wife shook her head.

  The imam exhaled. “No, brother, I think you don’t.”

  There was an awkward silence, then a feeling of offense as Ismael sensed that the imam and his wife were having a moment of shared understanding from which he was excluded. “Excuse me?”

  “Your wife wants a khula’.”

  “What?” Ismael nearly jumped from the couch, and he found himself on the edge of it, staring at his wife in disbelief. This couldn’t be serious.

  “Brother Ali, Brother Ali.” The imam’s hand was out, as if poised to put Ismael back in his place on the couch if Ismael wouldn’t go himself, but his voice was calm, almost diplomatic. This enraged Ismael even more. How could the imam play both sides, opposite sides at once? What was he trying to prove by keeping such a deceptive plot from Ismael? Didn’t the imam think it worth mentioning, even if only through a phone call, that Sarah had called him to request an annulment of their marriage?

  Ismael stood and glowered at his wife, but he tried to hide the fury hidden behind his tightened jaw. “What is this about?”

  Sarah did not respond. Instead she looked at him, weak and tired, a calm, collected expression that reflected the same emotion he had weeks ago when he had walked out and gone to Alika, imagining he could live without Sarah. A pang of panic struck him, as he realized he could actually relate. But he had never imagined she would, or could, feel the same exhaustion. His had been short lived. His irrationality had dissipated as soon as Alika stood to tell him it was time for him to go. He realized then that he couldn’t live without Sarah, and it was his choice. He simply would not let her go.

  Now, he felt as if his heart was in his throat and his astonishment was getting the better of him. He heard his breathing, a panting as if in preparation for a boxing match as he continued to glower at his wife. It was then that he saw his wife glance at him, as if his angry reaction itself confirmed for her that she had made the right decision. It was a look of stoicism, as if she had no more feeling in her, not even enough to recognize the man to whom she had professed love so many times in the last two and a half decades that it had become too many to count. Then there was the look of one wounded, as if she were too debilitated by the injury to think of anything but healing, immediate relief from the excruciating pain. She turned away from him and toyed with her ring, pulling it up and down, staring distantly beyond the imam and the computer monitor behind him.

  “Brother Ali,” the imam said again, louder this time, as if Ismael hadn’t heard him the first time.

  Ismael then turned to glare at him, his eyes hating every bit of this man who played the role of friend and imam, marrying him to Alika only to turn around and facilitate Sarah’s abandonment of him. Was Imam Abdul-Quddus deranged or just suffering an acute case of amnesia?

  “Brother Ali, you need to sit down. Now.”

  Ismael kept his eyes on the imam as he obeyed, as if warning him that he was not finished with him.

  “I told Sister Ali when she called that I didn’t like the idea of a khula’.” He looked at Ismael. “I was under the impression your wife was informed when we wrote the contract.”

  “She was,” Ismael protested. “I told her.”

  Imam Abdul-Quddus ran a hand over his head. “That’s not the impression she gave me.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t listening,” Ismael said sounding more angry than he liked, “but that wouldn’t be unusual.”

  For a minute, the imam said nothing, and Ismael looked at Sarah, who still toyed with her ring, frowning only momentarily before her gaze dropped to her hand, as if not moved or surprised by his sarcasm. It was as if Ismael weren’t even there. She didn’t care. She had made up her mind. She was leaving him.

  But how could she leave him? No, he wouldn’t let her. He needed her. He needed her!

  “If he annuls his marriage to the sister,” the imam turned to Sarah’s direction, his head lowered as his spoke, “will that change your mind?”

  Sarah was quiet momentarily as she twisted and pulled at the ring, her eyes still there. She seemed to be thinking this over. Ismael held his breath, though he knew he didn’t have the heart, or the mind, to annul his contract with Alika. But right then he was feeling desperate. If he could just hold onto Sarah, he would worry about what to do about Alika later.

  At first Ismael thought he imagined it, wanted to think he imagined, but when her oral confirmation followed her shake of the head, he felt as if someone had ripped his heart out.

  “I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t.”

  “Did you pray on this like I suggested?”

  “Yes.”

  This conversation, between this man, this stranger and his wife, as if they shared an understanding that Ismael didn’t, infuriated Ismael, and he wanted to jump from his seat, but this time to grab the collar of the thobe the imam wore and shove the man against the wall.

  “More than once?”

  “Every Sunnah prayer.”

  There was a brief silence as the imam seemed to be mulling something over in his mind. “At night too?”

  “In the last third,” Sarah said, as if this formality was boring her. It was that same robotic voice she had used to tell Ismael to pray on it and do what was best.

  Ismael huffed and turned away from them both, his gaze on the open curtains of a large window whose sill met a patch of dirt on the ground outside. There were the beginnings of flowers, and he wondered if the brother’s family was planting a garden. Planting a garden. Imam Abdul-Quddus was actually planting a garden while he plotted the destruction of Ismael’s marriage. How heartless. How heartless of him.

  “And you sought the advice of other sisters?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a sigh, the imam’s sigh, a regretful sigh, and Ismael wished the brother would cut the pretences. He had set this whole thing up. Why was he pretending to dislike the conclusion that he himself had plotted with Sarah?

  “Sister,” the imam said, “I must say I don’t encourage this action at this time. You have a marriage, a long marriage of twenty-six years. You have children. I’m sure Sulayman and Aminah would—”

  “Brother,” she interjected, her voice so firm and set that Ismael turned to look at her, “I’m more aware than you are what this means. But with all due respect, none of that is more important than my soul.”

  “What I’m trying to say is—”

  “I know what you’re trying to say, and I appreciate your concern. But I’m only coming to you for formality, because I know Ismael wouldn’t have granted this to me without it. I’ve given this a lot of thought and, for the record, I’ve already talked to my son about—”

  “What?” Ismael couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You talked to Sulayman?”

  “—this. As for Aminah, I don’t think it’s something she deserves to deal with right now. She’s happy in her engagement to Abdur-Rahman, and I’d like to keep it like that.”

  “You talked to Sulayman about this?”

  “So, if you don’t mind,” she continued as if Ismael weren’t even there, “I’d like to go ahead and return my ring.”

  The imam sighed, that sigh of sadness and disagreem
ent, but this time Ismael sensed that it was sincere. Maybe this was all Sarah’s idea. But still…

  “Sister, I do mind, and honestly, I wish I had the authority to deny this request. But,” he breathed, “I don’t.”

  Sarah pulled at the ring, hesitating only momentarily before removing it completely from her finger. Ismael watched in horror, his heart as if being torn with the movement.

  There was a long pause, and Ismael thought he heard the pain in his friend’s voice as the imam asked, “Do you accept the return of the mahr?”

  Ismael narrowed his eyes at the imam. “Are you joking?”

  The imam sighed. “I’m sorry brother. I have no authority to—”

  “You do have authority to stop this,” Ismael’s voice rose so much that it sounded strange to his ears. “You just won’t. This is a personal vendetta. You don’t agree with polygamy, and now you want to prove yourself right.”

  “Ismael.” It was Sarah’s voice now. She sounded so much like his mother that it quieted him immediately, and he turned to her, as if needing to confirm that it was his wife speaking. “If you care to blame someone,” she said, gradually sounding like Sarah, “blame yourself. Blame me if you want. But don’t scapegoat. Please don’t scapegoat.”

  Ismael didn’t know what to say. “You talked to Sulayman?”

  She met his gaze, her eyes challenging him. “Did you?”

  It was meant as a blow to his male ego, a sizing up of who the real man was. And it worked. Sarah had won. No, in all this time, he hadn’t talked to his son or his daughter.

  “You think you’re ready for polygamy,” she said as if speaking to someone unworthy, “and you don’t even have the decency to tell your own children, your own children for God’s sake, what you’re planning, what you’ve already done. And you write a contract, get married, and never even once think how this will affect them. And now your own daughter may not get married because of it.”