BABS AND I went back to school two days after the second funeral. One of my father’s drivers took us. I hadn’t wanted to go because I was reluctant to leave Amariya, but we all knew how highly Yaya valued education and how important it was to him that we do well in school. My sisters were there to watch over our mother, and Amariya’s sisters had come to stay with her for a while, too, so I felt a little less bad about leaving her.
I went to classes; I studied as best I could. But it was a very, very hard time for me. I felt dazed, numb. I tried to pay attention in class, but my mind would not stay put. It kept floating off to some other place – a place where my father was still alive. My father had dropped me off here, at school, how long ago? Just about a month ago. I’d often gone longer than that without seeing him. He was just off on a trip somewhere. He’d be back. I’d see him soon. This weekend probably. And he’d bring me that new skirt, like he promised. Ha! And he’d tell me all about the new clothes he bought for himself while he was away. ‘Oh, Fauziya, wait until you see them. They’re so beautiful you won’t believe it.’ Oh, Yaya. You’re so funny.
But no matter how hard I fought it, I could never completely block out the truth. No, Fauziya. Your father will not be coming to see you this weekend. Or the next weekend. Or the one after that. He’s dead, Fauziya. You have to accept it. He’s gone.
Everyone at school knew, of course. Everyone said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ But mainly people just let me be, which was what I wanted. My friend Okasha was kind. I could tell that he really felt bad for me, but he didn’t try to make me talk. I was grateful. My friend Lisa would sit with me in the dorm. She didn’t try to make me talk either. But if she heard me crying in the middle of the night, she’d come to me and hold me.
I saw Babs as often as I could. He was my only real comfort. He was my baby brother, but he watched over me like a big brother. We watched over each other. We had to, because there wasn’t anyone else at school who could really understand.
We returned home in April. One of my father’s drivers, the same one who’d brought us back to school, came to pick us up. It was good to see my mother again. I’d been worried about her. Nobody wrote to us while we were at school, so I didn’t know how she was doing. When we last saw her, she was still grieving deeply. She cried sometimes, but mostly she was just quiet, quieter than ever.
The whole house was quiet. Quiet and empty. Ahmed and Adjovi had both left. There wasn’t any work for them anymore. Sweet little Asana had returned to her family. All my sisters were married. Alpha was long out of the house, having moved in with his boss’s family to be near his job on the outskirts of town. And now even Babs was in Ho, at boarding school, with me.
My greatest desire as a kid was to have a whole bed to myself. Now I had a whole bedroom to myself, and all I wanted was for things to be the way they used to be, with the house filled with family and me sleeping on a mat on the floor.
At least my aunt stayed away. I didn’t see her at all during that break. That was a blessing. I saw my uncle when I went to madrasah, but he kept his distance too. We greeted each other politely. Beyond that we didn’t speak, which was fine with me. All we’d ever asked of my aunt and uncle was that they leave us alone. It was beginning to look like maybe now they finally would.
When our school break ended, I said a worried farewell to my mother. As Babs and I got into the car that would take us back to Ho, she reassured us that she would be fine. She told us that no matter what happened to her from then on, she would be happy because her husband had blessed her before he died. As the car drove away, I turned and waved to her, but I don’t think she saw me. Her head was down.
My grades had suffered badly the previous term, but spring term I did a little better. I was able to concentrate more. I measured my progress in how long I could pay attention in class without floating away, how many paragraphs I could read in a book without drifting off, and how many hours I went without crying. Sometimes I could go the whole day without breaking down, but I always cried at night. Though I still kept pretty much to myself when I wasn’t with Babs, the wound in my heart was beginning to close, at least a little. And yet, there were still moments, when I least expected them, when it could rip open again. I’d be walking to my dorm or my class and I’d see someone wearing an especially nice shirt or driving a handsome nice car, and I’d think, ‘Oh, Yaya would really like—’ And then I’d catch myself and start to cry.
One of our relatives came to pick us up when school let out for the summer. I was eager to get home. No-one had written or come to visit us that term either, and I was anxious to see my mother. We arrived back early in the afternoon. I was sad to see that her stall was still closed, for I’d hoped that by now she would be feeling well enough to go back to work again. But the stall was empty. I got out of the car and ran into the house.
‘Amariya! We’re home!’
My aunt, Hajia Mamoud, walked into the room. Oh, God, what was she doing here? I greeted her politely and headed for the kitchen to look for my mother.
‘She’s not here,’ my aunt said.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Your mother. She’s not here.’
‘Oh. Where’d she go?’ Maybe she was at the market.
‘She left.’
‘Left? Left for where?’
‘She went to be with her family in Benin. I’m staying here while she’s gone.’
I felt like I’d just been punched in the stomach. Everything tilted and spun. My mother was gone? How could she just leave without even telling us? Couldn’t she have waited until we got home? How could she just leave us here with our aunt! I felt a wail rising up inside me. My aunt stood watching my reaction. No! She would not see me crumble. I turned and walked woodenly out of the room, went to my bedroom, collapsed on my bed, and cried for a long while.
I stopped crying eventually and lay on my bed, trying to make sense of things. I was still angry. But I tried to see my mother’s side. She’d been through so much loss, so much pain. Alpha and my sisters came to see her when they could, but they had their own lives now. Babs and I were gone too. Maybe things had just gotten too lonely for her, and she really did need to spend time with her family. Maybe she had wanted to wait until Babs and I got back, but then someone had offered her a ride and she decided to take advantage of the opportunity. Or maybe she thought she’d be back before we got home but had somehow gotten delayed. There was no knowing, no point in speculating, and no reason to take my anger and disappointment out on my aunt. There was nothing to do but make the best of things until Amariya returned.
So I did. I was polite to my aunt. I showed respect. I even kept silent when she moved into my mother’s bedroom, which really upset me. I went to madrasah. I was polite to my uncle. I read. I watched TV. I kept myself busy. But I was still angry. Whenever I went to visit my sisters or Alpha came by to visit me, I couldn’t help grumbling.
‘I wish she hadn’t done that. She could at least have waited until we got home.’
My sisters and Alpha made excuses for her. ‘We know how you feel, Fauziya. We miss her too. We all miss her. But she really needed to see her family. Try not to be too upset. You just have to be strong and try to get along with Awaye, OK?’ (‘Awaye’ means aunt, and that’s how we referred to her.)
Easy for them to say. They weren’t living with her. I decided to get away from the situation by going to see Ayisha. I’d been spending a week with her in Lomé during every long school break since she got married, so there was nothing unusual about this, and my aunt had no objections.
I went down by passenger van a few weeks later – but not one of my father’s. My father’s drivers were no longer around to take me. They’d all drifted off in search of new jobs.
Ayisha and her husband, Abass, and their beautiful son, Ayatollah, lived in a rented room in a n’gwa called Agoi. Cramped as the accommodations were, I was so glad to see Ayisha. We greeted each other warmly and I teased her because her head was uncovered. ‘Ayisha! Where’s your scarf!’ She laughed. I always teased her about that. She didn’t hold to the custom of keeping her head covered at home. She went bareheaded even when company came over. Our mother knew, but it didn’t bother her. ‘She’s a grown woman,’ Amariya would say. ‘What she does at home is between her and her husband.’
My mother’s respect for other people’s beliefs was one of the things that made my mother so special. But I was still angry at her.
I asked Ayisha, ‘How could she just leave us with Awaye like that?’ I started crying. ‘Couldn’t she at least have waited until we got home?’
Ayisha sat down across from me, looking very serious.
‘Fauziya, I have to tell you something.’
‘What?’ I said belligerently. I was tired of the speeches all my siblings were giving me about how my mother had needed to see her family and I was going to have to be strong and try to get along with my aunt. Didn’t anybody care about my feelings, my needs?
‘Fauziya, look at me.’
I wouldn’t look at her.
‘Fauziya, please.’
I looked up. She was gazing at me tenderly. Her eyes looked tired, troubled, sad.
‘Fauzy. Amariya didn’t want to go. She had to go.’
‘Why? Why didn’t she wait until we got home?’
‘But why couldn’t she?’
Ayisha sighed wearily. ‘Because they made her leave, Fauziya. They sent her away.’
That’s how I learned the truth. My sisters and Alpha hadn’t told me because it was too hard for them. Besides, it wasn’t their place. It was Ayisha’s place, as the eldest, to tell me what had happened. My aunt wasn’t just staying in our house for a while. She was living there. My aunt and uncle had done what they’d always wanted to do and now had the power to do – gotten rid of my mother.
Under tribal law, everything my father had owned now belonged to them, his house, his vans, his money, everything. Even Babs and I, the only two children left in the house, were now theirs. They’d allowed my mother to remain in the house for four months and ten days in accordance with tribal law. Then they’d given her a share of his money – the widow is supposed to get one third – and they’d told her to go. My mother hadn’t gone off to visit her family for a while. She was never coming back. She’d been evicted from her home. I’d lost my father. And now I’d lost my mother too.
I went hysterical with rage and grief. Ayisha held me and cried with me. How could my aunt and uncle have done this? My mother never hurt them. She’d never hurt anyone. But they’d sent her away and broken up what was left of our family.
‘Where is she?’ I asked Ayisha. ‘Where did she go?’
Ayisha wasn’t sure. Benin, she thought, where most of Amariya’s family lived. Or maybe Nigeria, where one of her sisters lived. When Amariya had gone to see Ayisha before she left home, she had told her she was going to stay with her family, but she hadn’t said where. It depended on who had room to take her in. But she would almost certainly be leaving Togo because, like Ayisha, all my other sisters lived with their husbands in small rented rooms, and Alpha lived in his boss’s house. None of them could afford their own homes yet, so they had no room for my mother. Besides, my sisters’ husbands wouldn’t have liked it. My mother knew that and wouldn’t have stayed with my sisters even if they’d wanted her to. She was very traditional when it came to honoring the husband as head of the household, and would never have allowed herself to be a burden or irritation. She told Ayisha she’d send a message when she settled someplace, but so far there’d been no word. It isn’t easy for people to communicate long-distance where I come from, because most people don’t have telephones.
‘How did she seem?’
‘Calm. Strong. She said we shouldn’t worry. She said to tell you she was sorry she had to leave but that you should be good and respect Awaye. She said Yaya would want that.’
My aunt. My aunt had lied! She’d let Babs and me believe that our mother had just gone off and left us, when in fact she knew the real reason Amariya left. I never wanted to see my aunt again. But I had no choice. I had nowhere else to go. I had to go back and live in my father’s house with her until I returned to school.
I didn’t say anything to Awaye when I came home from visiting Ayisha. I wanted to, but I kept all my thoughts and feelings to myself. When she greeted me upon my return, she could see that I now knew the truth, and I was sure she knew how I felt about it, because as soon as her eyes met mine she looked away.
I told Babs what I’d learned when he returned home from visiting with friends later that evening. He couldn’t believe that our aunt had been so underhanded. ‘All this time she let us blame Amariya for deserting us,’ he said. But he took the news much more calmly than I had. No tears, no hysterics – at fifteen he was almost a man, after all. He was angry but rational, reassuring me that we would have to endure our aunt’s presence only until we went back to school in September. Of course, since Babs spent most of his time with his friends, away from the house, this was going to be much less of a problem for him than for me.
I got through the rest of the summer as best I could. I was polite but distant. Before I’d gone to visit Ayisha I used to eat with Awaye. I didn’t do that anymore. Nor did I ever voluntarily sit in the same room with her, not to read or watch television or anything. I came when called, did as told, and then retreated to my room.
I saw my uncle when I went to madrasah.
‘Hello, Fauziya, how are you?’
My father had just died. My aunt had sent my mother away and was now living in our house. He knew that. It could only have happened because he had said it should. How did he think I was?
‘Fine,’ I replied.
I spent as much time as I could with my sisters. I’d go visit them, help them cook, eat with them. But I couldn’t stay with them. There wasn’t any room. In the evening, I had to come home.
I prayed. I read the Qur’an. I went to madrasah. I studied. I watched TV when my aunt wasn’t watching it. I wrote to my friends Lisa and Okasha in Ghana and Aziz in Libya. I counted the days until school resumed.
Finally September came and Babs and I boarded the bus back to Ho. I’d have walked all the way if I had to, I was so desperate to get away from my aunt.
I was a lot happier when I got back to school. Not really happy, but happier than I’d been at home. I had my friends and my schoolwork. I had Babs just down the road, and I had Mr Bawa, my favorite teacher, who’d taken a special interest in me my first year at school and now seemed to go out of his way to keep my mind occupied with interesting and challenging work.
When Babs and I went home for Christmas break, nothing had changed. And all was still the same in April, when we went home again. Ayisha had heard from my mother by then. Amariya was in Nigeria with her sister. She wasn’t sure how long she’d be there, but that’s where she was for now and she had said that we shouldn’t worry about her, she was fine. I cried in relief. I still didn’t know when or if I’d ever see her again and I missed her terribly. But I thanked Allah that she was OK.
When I went back to school after spring break I worked harder than ever. School was all I had now. I had finished three years of secondary school, and had four more years before I finished. I wanted to go on to university after that. Nobody in my family had ever even gone to secondary school, much less university. My father and I had talked about my going. That’s one of the reasons he had kept such a close eye on my scores and grades. If Yaya had lived, he would gladly have paid the costs. My aunt and uncle were a different story. I knew how they felt about educating girls, and since they controlled the family finances now I’d have to figure out some other way to go. Maybe I could get a scholarship. If not, I’d have to get a job. But I’d worry about that later. At that point, I had to focus on my studies.
My father’s passenger vans were gone when Babs and I came home from school at the end of that school year. I didn’t ask my aunt what had happened to them and she didn’t tell me. My sisters and brothers didn’t know either.
‘She must have sold them,’ Babs said when we discussed it.
‘Then Amariya should get a third of the money, shouldn’t she?’
‘Yeah, I think so.’
‘You think she got any?’
Babs shrugged. We couldn’t ask. That’s just not done. We’d never know.
I resumed my old summer routine, going to madrasah, studying, spending whatever time I could with Alpha and my sisters. I still hadn’t forgiven my aunt for sending my mother away, but now that I knew my mother was all right, I relaxed a little. I went back to eating with my aunt, and watching TV with her. I tried to stay on good terms with her, but it wasn’t easy. She’d begun complaining about all the money my parents had wasted sending my sisters to school.
‘For what?’ she’d say. ‘Look at them. They’re all married now.’
Yes, I thought to myself, and except for Asmahu, who has a stall in front of her house, they all have jobs they wouldn’t have if they hadn’t gone to school. Narhila is a secretary, Shawana is doing catering work at a local restaurant, and Ayisha is a dressmaker. But I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t my place and it wouldn’t have served any purpose.
‘It’s a waste of money,’ she said one evening as we were sitting and watching TV. ‘You know how to read and write. That’s enough.’
Oh, so now we were talking about me. I ignored her. I didn’t care what she thought. She could complain all she wanted as long as she kept paying my school fees.
‘Think about it, Fauziya,’ she said a few days later as we were eating together in the kitchen. ‘You’re just going to end up married and spending the rest of your life in the kitchen. You don’t need any more schooling. You’ve had enough.’
My stomach got queasy. She couldn’t be serious. She wouldn’t take that away from me too. She couldn’t. It was all I had.
I stayed calm. Maybe she was just testing the idea out on me to see how I’d react.
‘Of course I have to go to school.’
‘I don’t think so. I think you’ve had enough.’
‘No, I have to finish. I have to go to school.’
She let the subject drop.
It was around this time that my aunt began talking about Ibrahim Ishaq, who seemed to be a new person in her life. ‘He’s a very respected man,’ my aunt would say as we sat watching TV together. ‘A very powerful and respected man. Very wealthy, you know.’
‘No, I didn’t know that.’ I’d never heard of him.
‘Oh, yes. He’s the leader of Fiakomé.’
‘Really.’ That was a different n’gwa. Maybe that’s why I’d never heard of him.
‘Oh, yes. Anytime anyone wants anything done, they go to him. He fixes the roads, he helps build schools. He donates a lot of money to the madrasah, you know.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh, he’s very well known for his charity. He gives money to the mosque, he helps the poor. I hope you’ll have a chance to meet him soon.’
‘Yes, I hope so too.’
It sounded to me like my aunt was in love. It sounded like she might be getting married again soon. God, I hoped so. If she married this Ibrahim Ishaq and went to live with him in his n’gwa, maybe she’d let my mother come back home. I didn’t catch the name of his tribe but I figured he must have been Tchamba-Koussountu, because I couldn’t see my aunt marrying someone from a different tribe. My aunt told me that Ibrahim was forty-five years old, which would make him a good ten years younger than my aunt, but that didn’t seem to bother her. I could only hope he felt the same way.
I was sitting on the porch reading one day a few weeks later when a tall, thin, pleasant-looking man approached.
‘Hello, Fauziya,’ he said.
I started a little. I’d never seen this man before. How did he know my name?
‘I’m Ibrahim,’ he said, smiling. ‘Your aunt has told me a lot about you. Could you tell her I’m here, please?’
I went inside to get my aunt, then returned to the porch until my aunt came out. I wanted to be courteous to her suitor. When my aunt came out, I excused myself politely and went into the house.
‘She’s really beautiful,’ I heard her friend say.
An hour or so later my aunt called to me. ‘Fauziya! Could you come here, please? Ibrahim is leaving. He’d like to say goodbye.’
Did my aunt say please? She must be really trying to impress him.
I came out to say goodbye, and as we exchanged pleasantries he handed me some money. Gee, maybe he really was rich. He was nothing like the impressive-looking figure I’d imagined from the way my aunt had described him, but he seemed to have money, and he was pleasant enough. I thanked him and went back into the house to let them say goodbye to each other in private.
My aunt came to find me as soon as he’d left. ‘Well? What do you think of him?’
I couldn’t believe it. She sounded just like the girls at school when they had a crush on some boy. What difference did it make what I thought?
‘He seems like a very nice person,’ I said. He did. He seemed perfectly nice.
My aunt was pleased. ‘Oh he is,’ she said. ‘He’s a very nice man.’
He came to visit about once a week after that. I was always polite. He’d ask me to bring him a glass of water and I’d bring it, and he’d praise me to my aunt. ‘She’s such a respectful girl.’ He was always friendly. ‘How are you today? How was madrasah?’ I’d answer politely, then excuse myself until my aunt called me out to say goodbye.
‘Well, what do you think?’ my aunt asked after every visit. And I always answered favorably, because I wanted to do everything I could to encourage her feelings and speed this romance along. I kept hoping that if nothing else, it would distract her from the subject of my schooling, but it didn’t. When she wasn’t complimenting Ibrahim, she was complaining about the cost of sending me to school. Soon we were arguing every day about my returning to school, and the arguments were becoming more and more heated. Instead of softening her heart, her new romance seemed to be hardening it.
We were sitting at the table eating one afternoon in early July. Ibrahim had visited earlier that day.
‘I told him you’re not going back to school,’ my aunt said.
Why had she told him? What business was it of his?
I began to panic. ‘But why! Why can’t I go back! I have to finish!’
‘No, that’s behind you now.’
‘Behind me? What are you talking about?’
‘You know how you’re always saying what a nice man Ibrahim is?’
Why did she keep mentioning him? I just looked at her, puzzled.
‘Well, he likes you too. He wants to marry you.’
‘Marry me!’ I exclaimed, shocked.
My aunt got angry.
‘I’m not joking. I’m quite serious.’
‘But I don’t want to marry anybody! And I certainly don’t want to marry him!’
‘Stop it. You don’t mean that and you know it. You like him. You’ve said so many times yourself. You’re always saying what a nice man he is.’
‘Yes! Because I thought you wanted to marry him!’
My aunt was taken aback. ‘Me!’
‘Yes! I thought he was going to marry you.’ It would have been funny if it wasn’t so horrific.
My aunt was silent for a moment. ‘Well. He’s a nice man, and he’ll take good care of you, so there’s nothing to be afraid of. You already like him. You’ll learn to love him in time.’
This was some kind of bad dream. ‘I won’t do it! I’m not getting married.’
My aunt was steel. ‘You will marry him, Fauziya. He is forty-five and can take care of you. It won’t be so bad. He already has three other wives.’
My eyes opened wide. ‘Three wives! He has three wives?’
She ignored me and continued. ‘And once you are circumcised, you will learn to love him.’
My alarm grew. ‘What? No! I don’t want to be circumcised. Awaye, my parents would never do something like this to me. Why are you doing this?’ I pleaded.
‘Your mother was here and I told her all about it.’
I was stunned. ‘Amariya was here? You saw Amariya?’ Surely she was lying, just as she’d lied before.
‘I don’t care if you believe me or not. The fact remains that you’re marrying Ibrahim, and your mother knows all about it.’
A few days later I went to visit Ayisha. Would she tell me the same thing my aunt had?
She did and she didn’t. My aunt had been telling the truth. But she’d left some things out, Ayisha explained when I went to see her. Ayisha told me that while Babs and I had still been at school, my aunt had sent Amariya a message telling her to come to Kpalimé. My mother, who was by this time back in Benin, came as requested. She could only come when called or invited, and she could only stay as long as permitted. My aunt had summoned her to tell her that a man wanted to marry me. Ayisha told me that my mother pleaded with my aunt to let me finish school and kept saying that I was just a kid. But my aunt told my mother that she didn’t need her permission or approval. In fact, my uncle, as my legal guardian, was the only person who could give or withhold approval. I believe my aunt told my mother of her plans for me mostly to see her suffer.
According to Ayisha, Amariya cried and begged my aunt to reconsider. My aunt was unmoved.
Amariya went straight to Ayisha to tell her what my aunt had said. But there was nothing they could do for me. My mother had no home of her own now, and my brother and sisters couldn’t hide me. My aunt and uncle would find me and claim me. I was their property now. They could do with me as they liked. That was tribal law.
I had to resist. That was my only recourse. I figured if I resisted hard enough, my aunt would get tired and relent and send me back to school just to be rid of me. My only hope was to try to wear her down.
Now when Ibrahim came to visit, I avoided him. I stayed in my room until he left. If my aunt called to me while he was there, I didn’t respond. If I came home from madrasah and saw him sitting on the porch with my aunt, I’d turn and walk the other way. I wanted her to know my feelings. And I wanted him to know them too.
August came. It was time for my aunt to start buying the things Babs and I needed for the next school year – our shoes and uniforms and supplies. My aunt bought them for Babs, not for me. She meant it. She really meant it. I wasn’t going back to school.
‘Please! Please! I have to go back to school! I have to!’
We were sitting in the kitchen.
‘No, Fauziya. You’re not going to school. You’re getting married.’
‘No! No!’ I was yelling at her now, screaming, out of control. ‘I’m not getting married! I won’t!’
I’d never yelled at my aunt before. She was enraged. She kicked hard at the edge of the seat I was sitting in and sent it tumbling over backward, with me in it. The back of my head struck the floor with a loud thwack.
‘Don’t you ever, ever, raise your voice to me!’
I got up off the floor and ran to my room, holding my head and crying. I threw myself on my bed and sobbed.
Awaye began training me, making me cook and clean and do laundry. I wasn’t very good at any of it. I did it, but badly, which made her furious. I didn’t care. I became less respectful and responsive. Before, I’d always come when she called me. Now I often didn’t. The more I ignored her, the more furious she got. Soon we were at war. Babs got caught in the crossfire. My aunt was yelling at me all the time now, and she began yelling at Babs too. He didn’t speak back, but whenever she raised her voice to him, he’d glare at her just long enough to make her feel uncomfortable, and then turn and walk out of the house. He could do that. He was a boy. Not even so much of a boy anymore – almost a man.
I thought I could wear my aunt down, but I was wrong. She would wear me down. I couldn’t fight her. She was too powerful. My will to fight would slip away.
September came. Babs left for school. I walked him to the bus station. I was numb. He hugged me before he got on the bus. I gave him a limp hug back. He looked at me with concern. My eyes filled with tears.
‘Are you going to be all right, Fauziya?’
I shrugged.
‘Try to be strong.’
I started crying as Babs turned away from me to board. As the bus pulled out onto the road I walked beside it, still crying, eyes glued to Babs’s face in the window, until there was nothing to be seen in the distance except a puff of dust where the bus had been. And then there was nothing for me to do but turn back and go home.
Ibrahim didn’t come around anymore, but that didn’t seem to mean anything. My aunt was still talking about my marriage. She hadn’t changed her mind. Just her tone.
‘You’ll be happy, Fauziya. You’ll see.’
‘I’m not getting married!’
‘Don’t worry. You’ll feel differently after you’re circumcised. It’ll really help calm you down. Then when you start living with your husband you’ll start to love him and you won’t even remember there was a time when you didn’t want to marry him, because you’ll love him so much. You’ll really feel attracted to him, and you’ll want to respect him and obey him. You won’t want anybody else but him.’
Wanting somebody else was not the problem. ‘I don’t want to get married! I’m too young!’
‘Lots of girls younger than you get married, Fauziya.’
‘But I want to go to school!’
These arguments would go on until I’d run out of the room, holding my ears. How could she do it? How could she force me to marry a man I didn’t love? A man I barely knew? A man almost thirty years my senior who already had three wives?
‘Please, please,’ I’d beg my aunt. ‘Don’t do this to me. Let me just finish two more years of school. Please.’
But she never wavered from her plans.
September passed. I continued going to Arabic school. It was all I had now. I kept praying and reading the Qur’an. I spent as much time as I could with my brother and sisters. And I kept resisting. No matter how many times my aunt brought up the subject of my marriage, I kept saying no. It was the only thing I could do, the only way I could fight her.
She kept saying, ‘You’re getting married.’ But she never said, ‘You’re getting married a month from now,’ or ‘You’re getting married in two weeks.’ I thought she was waiting for me to finally surrender and say, ‘OK.’ But I’d never say it. Never! I’d keep saying ‘No!’ forever. She won’t force me, I thought. As long as I keep saying no, she’ll wait. I clung to that hope. I honestly believed it, until the morning I woke up and saw the dresses and jewelry laid out on the bed.