First Comes Marriage

by Huda Al-Marashi

  “Okay…,” I said, straightening my back and staring out at the stretch of highway in front of me.

  With both hands on the steering wheel, she looked over at me and said, “It doesn't mean anything as far as you're concerned. I don't even have to tell you how it came out. I just wanted to know what I should do as a mother.”

  An istikhara can only be solicited by the person who holds the niya or intention. Since Mama couldn't request an istikhara on my behalf, she'd phrased the niya from her perspective. This, too, I did not question.

  “Okay…,” I repeated uneasily.

  “So do you want to know how it came out?” she asked, her eyes returning to the road.

  I froze. Last night while I was doing my homework, God had been consulted about my future. I pictured Mama going up the stairs to Jidu and Bibi's room. She would've told Jidu she had a niya without divulging what it was about. Then Jidu would've said his evening prayers, and after checking to see if it was a favorable time of the day, he would've opened the Quran, read the verse he landed on, and interpreted whether its meaning fell under the category of good, very good, not so good, or not so bad. When Jidu advised her of the istikhara's outcome, certainly Mama would've told him what it was regarding. Now the two of them knew what God wanted for me, and I didn't.

  “Tell me,” I said. God Himself delivered an opinion about my future, and I wanted to know what He'd said.

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Just tell me.”

  “It came out very good,” she said, her voice ringing with a girlish squeal.

  “Really,” I said with a slow nod. My mind reeled, trying to think of every possible reason why my mother, my brother, and now God liked Hadi, too. “But what about the whole Hadi-not-being-seyyid thing? You don't care anymore?”

  Mama quickly glanced over her shoulder as she merged onto the highway. “Of course I care,” she said, “but we can't have everything. He's a good boy. We know his family. These are things you don't find every day.”

  Dr. and Mrs. Ridha appeared in my mind, along with memories of their kind and generous hospitality over the years. I couldn't imagine disappointing them. Maybe this was what Mama meant all those times she talked about learning to love someone. You found someone like Hadi who came from a good family, you found a way to make him cut his hair, and then you made a decision to love him.

  I released a heavy sigh. Now that my curiosity had been satisfied, questions rushed into my mind about what this all meant: Was I supposed to marry Hadi now? Was my time on the marriage market already over at sixteen?

  “Why do you like him so much?” I asked with an ache in my voice. “Why did you even make the istikhara?”

  Mama shook her head as if she didn't know how to make me understand. “Hudie, every night I pray that God will bring you someone who sees your value. You don't see what I do. That boy loves you. He would treat you like a jewel.”

  Mama's words pointed me back to reality: girls like me married the right boy and fell in love later. I just didn't expect to become that girl now, for Mama to have glimpsed into a divine crystal ball and shown me my future while I was a junior in high school. I felt pressure building in my nose and at the back of my eyes. I turned to look out the window before I started to cry.

  For months after the istikhara, I tried to think of reasons why God had picked Hadi. Maybe it was because we didn't know the other boy or his family as well as we knew the Ridhas. Or maybe it was because God knew the other boy had a girlfriend before me, and I believed I should only marry a guy who'd lived by the same strict code that I had (if I couldn't fight the double standard that let boys bend the rules before marriage without damage to their reputations, at least I wouldn't condone it).

  I kept a list of things that confirmed the istikhara's wisdom.

  If I married Hadi, I wouldn't have to be set up with anyone. Over the summer, Jamila got married to a man she met over one weekend. Hadi had cut his hair for the wedding and wore a tuxedo. These two things—the arranged marriage I didn't want and the haircut I did—felt like signs.

  If I married Hadi, at least Baba would be there for my wedding. With Baba's most recent hospitalization, his time on earth felt like a fragile thing.

  If I married Hadi, I'd have more freedom. Mama had always clung to a tight travel policy: “If we fly, we fly together, so if we die, we die together.” She often followed up this morbid sentiment by saying, “You can do that after you get married.

  Then it'll be your husband's job to worry about you.” It made sense to get married and have more choices for school, for work, and for my future.

  I didn't catch that there was nothing on the list particular to Hadi himself. I'd grown up listening to people describe marriage prospects as if they were commodities, labeled by profession, age, family name, country of origin, religious sect, and it never occurred to me that I didn't know much about Hadi as a person. It was my senior year. I had just spent the last few years moving through high school as if it were a giant checklist marked “Get into a Good College,” and for the most part, I'd been able to tick off every goal I'd set for myself. I'd gone to Girl's State that summer. I was student-body president. I'd won several local speech competitions, and I'd been on the homecoming court. All this in spite of being the girl from the different religion who wore dark tights and the longest skirt in school and who was seventeen going on eighteen and had never been kissed. And somehow I felt strengthened by these recognitions, as if they proved definitively that it was possible to meld the rules of being Muslim with an American lifestyle. This list of reasons to marry Hadi was just another part of all the organizing and planning I was doing in the rest of my life—filling out college applications, writing essays, studying for the SATs, and picking a husband.

  These thoughts were swirling around in my mind when Mama came to me in my bedroom and asked if I wanted my aunty Najma, who happened to live in Lebanon, to tailor me a dress. “You know, in case something should happen?” she added.

  “Like what?” I asked because I suspected she meant something to do with an engagement, but I wanted to hear her say it.

  “Are you going to go to your senior prom?” she asked. “You could always go with Hadi.”

  The question surprised me. Mama had learned about proms from Mrs. Ridha who'd sent Jamila with Hadi during her senior year. I never thought Mama would care whether or not I attended this American rite of passage, but a part of me was relieved that she'd mentioned it. If I was going to be marrying Hadi in a matter of time, it didn't seem fair that I miss out on this last dance of my high school career, especially after spending years covering every shift at the student government's soda booth and listening to the parent chaperones cluck, “How come a pretty girl like you doesn't have a date?”

  But at the same time, I knew the rules about going out with a boy before marriage—that it was basically forbidden unless the purpose was for marriage, and even then it was best to have a chaperone. Mama's suggestion seemed impossible.

  “I don't see how that would work,” I said, flipping the book in my lap shut. “What would you do? Pick up the phone and say to his mom, ‘Will you please have your son take my daughter to her prom?’”

  “His mom already called me and asked me if you wanted him to take you.”

  “And what did you tell her?”

  “I said I had to ask you.”

  “Does it matter what I want? What would we say to Baba, Bibi, Jidu, the whole world?”

  “We could figure something out.”

  I hugged my knees to my chest. “But what about it not being allowed?”

  “Well, yes, but I don't want you to be disappointed. Would you be disappointed?”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but I'll get over it. I don't want to do something wrong just so I won't be disappointed.”

  “Do you want me to make an istikhara?”

  I knew this suggestion was coming. Mama always looked to God for all her parenting decisions—camps,
field trips, dances, parties—but in light of Mama's previous istikhara about Hadi, this question carried a different kind of charge. It was as if she was digging for confirmation from God, and this was something I needed, too. I wanted to hear again that Hadi was the one.

  “Okay,” I said. “Do it.”

  The next morning when Mama told me the istikhara came out good, she gushed, “And you know what else? I made another istikhara, about you and Hadi, to make sure I was doing the right thing to encourage you, and it came out good again.”

  This was the third sign from God that He wanted Hadi and me to be together, and I felt not just commanded to listen but blessed. It was as if God was pointing to a path and saying, “Take this boy and have a good life.”

  After dinner Mama, Lina, and I headed up to my room to flip through magazines and books to find pictures of dresses to fax to Aunty Najma. Lina knew why we were looking for dresses, and Mama didn't want her getting the wrong idea. Thumbing through a magazine, Mama said, “Now, just because Hudie is going to the prom, it doesn't mean that you can go to your prom too. If you have someone you'd consider marrying when you are in high school, that's a different story, but otherwise, it's a no.”

  Lina shot Mama an insulted look and said, “I know that. I just don't want Hudie to get married.”

  Something inside me sank. In all my eagerness to know this one thing that awaited me, I hadn't paused to consider all the ways in which marriage was tied to loss. My marriage would mean Lina and Baba having dinner alone while Mama was at work. It would mean Mama and Baba in their bedroom downstairs and Lina sleeping alone upstairs. It would mean that my bedroom would take on that same uninhabited feel that Ibrahim's had now that he'd gone off to college, except that I wouldn't return to my room the way he did on breaks. I'd have a husband, my own house. Marriage was a beginning, but it was also an end.

  “I'm not getting married,” I said for Lina's benefit and mine. Hadi had no idea these istikharas had been made. He didn't know that if he wanted to love me, I was prepared to love him back.

  My life's only love story was starting, and so far the only characters in the scene were our mothers. Our mothers had told our respective families that Hadi was coming up to stay with us so he could attend a car show at the racetrack right by our house. Mrs. Ridha would accompany him, and when it came time for me to go to my “mandatory school function,” she'd suggest that Hadi drop me off on his way out.

  I didn't take issue with the deceit as much as it bothered me that Hadi and I had never spoken to each other about going to my prom. I didn't want the first time we went out alone together to be awkward, for him to just show up at our house the night before and leave me to say, “So it looks like you're the lucky fella who gets to take me to my prom tomorrow.”

  But the only way I could talk to Hadi before the prom was to ask for help with my math homework. Hadi was now a junior in college, but he'd been taking college-level math since high school. He had coached me through a number of sticky equations in the past, and I knew if I complained long enough, Mama would pick up the phone and tell Mrs. Ridha to tell Hadi to expect a phone call. Then my mother would dial his number at the on-campus apartment he shared with his roommates, get him on the phone, and pass it to me. All this to avoid the impropriety of me calling a boy.

  That night, after Hadi talked me through factoring a complicated equation, I brought up the prom, hoping to hear him say how much he wanted to go with me, how he'd longed his whole life for this opportunity. Stretched out on my bedroom floor, I prompted him with a series of negative statements that begged for correction, starting with, “I hope you don't feel like you have to go. It's just that I'm the student-body president, and it would be nice to finally go to an event instead of just setting it up and leaving.”

  “No, that's fine. I don't mind,” he said.

  “And, I have this red dress I've been wanting to wear that my aunt in Lebanon made for me. My friend Diana and I have this thing about being the Lady in Red.”

  The dress Aunty Najma sent me hung at the back of my closet, not only reproduced from the photograph I faxed her but improved according to Middle Eastern standards of formal wear. Aunty Najma had tiny red sequins stitched onto every curve of lace along the entire body of the dress. Although she had known nothing about the prom, she knew the dress symbolized the possibility that something could happen soon, something worthy of a celebration.

  “I like that song too,” Hadi said. “I have the tape.”

  “I only have it recorded off the radio, and it's missing the first part.”

  “I should make you a tape then. What other songs do you like?”

  Right away, I knew I wouldn't tell Hadi which songs I wanted to hear. I wanted to believe he would go searching for lyrics that best communicated his feelings for me.

  “Why don't you surprise me?” I said.

  “I can do that.”

  “Well, I'm sure you're busy. I should let you get back to your work.”

  “That's okay. I don't really have that much to do.”

  “You're in college. How can you not have anything more important to do than talk to me?”

  A few seconds passed without Hadi saying anything, and I wanted my question back. “You don't have to answer that,” I said.

  “No. It's fine.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “I guess I like talking to you.”

  “How come?”

  Another long pause followed. I twirled my hair, sniffed the tip of one of my curls, flicked something out from under one of my fingernails, and then I couldn't take it any longer.

  “If you don't have an answer, that's fine. It just seemed like you didn't want to get off the phone.” I waited a moment, heard nothing, and then added, “So either you really don't like talking to me that much, or it's hard to say.”

  “It's that one,” he said.

  “Which one?”

  “The last one.”

  “Do you ever think it might be easier to say?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When?”

  “I don't know. It's just hard over the phone.”

  “You're going to see me at my prom.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe you should tell me then why you like talking to me, or…tell me what you want me to be to you….”

  He paused for so long I thought we were disconnected. “Hello?”

  “Yeah, I'm here.”

  “Okay, never mind everything I said. You don't have to tell me anything.”

  “No. It's not that.”

  “It's just hard?” I asked.

  “Yeah. It's hard.”

  “Well, I'll let you off the hook for now, but by my prom, I'm going to be expecting an answer,” I said, half-joking, half-threatening. “Do you think you can come up with an answer by then?”

  “Okay,” he answered, but he sounded afraid.

  When we finally hung up the phone, I went unsteady with worry. If I was ever going to experience a moment out of Diana and my daydreams, it had to be now, inside this space our mothers had built for us. I couldn't afford to make allowances for Hadi's shyness or for the culture we'd both grown up in, because this opportunity to be alone with a boy before I married him would not likely come again. But now if Hadi did say something to me at my prom, I would always wonder whether it was because he sincerely felt it or if it was because I had been shamelessly pushy. And Hadi's phone presence concerned me. He paused for far longer than the socially accepted standard in a conversation, so much so that I'd wished I had a buzzer to signal that the time for a response had expired. This phone call had been our longest conversation, the first on any topic of substance. How unfortunate to be discovering what Hadi was like on the phone now, now that the istikharas had been made, now that my future had been decided.

  In the weeks leading up to the prom, I talked myself out of all my hesitations. There was no sense in missing out on yet another high school milestone if I was going to end up marryin
g Hadi anyway, and this was the perfect opportunity to start falling in love. Maybe Hadi would answer the questions I left him with at the end of our phone call as soon as we were alone in the car. Or maybe he would wait and ask the DJ to play “The Lady in Red” before he confessed how much he'd always loved me. Either way, by the end of the evening, we would be more than just a couple brought together by their families and shared religion.

  That morning, I got my hair done at the mall. Back at home, I did my wudhu for my afternoon prayers, washing my face, arms, and feet while being careful not to disturb my updo at the second-to-the-last step, when a wet hand is run across the top of the head. After I prayed, I secured the hairs that had come loose under my head-covering, then put on nail polish and makeup. It wasn't until I came downstairs and discovered that Mrs. Ridha was occupying my grandparents in one room while Mama snuck me and Hadi out the door that the absurdity of going to the prom hit me. I was going through such an American rite of passage like such a Muslim, Arab girl. My prom was my first time out of the house with a boy, a boy who could be my future husband.

  In the car, I reached for my seat belt and said, “I feel bad sneaking out like that.”

  “Sorry,” Hadi said, and after an awkward pause added, “Your dress is nice.”

  Some of the evening's anticipation went flat at the tepid compliment. Just my dress was nice? I had hoped Hadi would tell me that I was beautiful.

  “You look nice, too,” I said, and I meant it. With a brand-new haircut, his face freshly shaven, and a crisp tuxedo, Hadi looked more handsome than I'd ever seen him before.

  Another pause, and then Hadi said, “I have something for you. Open the glove compartment.”

  Already? I was sure it wasn't a ring, but maybe it was a piece of jewelry, something to promise us to each other.

  I lifted the latch and found a miniature BMW convertible in a clear, plastic box—the model I had told him I wished my first car would be. And it was red.