Without Ali’s support, Kathmiya had no one to present her to her new husband.
Until Uncle Haider rushed down to Basra. “Thank you,” she breathed, profoundly grateful not only because he had come to help—though she needed that, for sure—but because he was living proof that she could feel some natural affection for a family member other than Jamila.
Haider, tall and tanned with gray streaking the front of his black hair, seemed to sweep in from the marshes still carrying the pride of their fierce people, that superiority that no one in the city ever recognized but that every Midaan claimed. As much as Kathmiya wanted to resent him for not arranging a match with his son, she couldn’t help but be grateful that he was helping this time around.
“How’s my father?” she asked.
“Good,” he replied in a tight voice.
Wearing Western clothes borrowed from the late Hajji Abdullah and pretending Salwa was his wife, Uncle Haider could almost manage to fit in, if not for his heavy accent.
“Try not to say much,” Kathmiya cautioned, not wanting to upset him.
As they rode the taxi to meet the groom, she felt her body sway with sickness. It wouldn’t be long before she would show, and then her luck would be over—no chance to escape destitution, if not death.
She kept her veiled head down as they approached the home that might become hers. The door opened but all she really saw was the clean brick floor. When she heard his voice, though, she had to look up.
Older—maybe forty-five—with his hair thinning from the top back, hazel eyes and a small moustache. Haider’s age, really. Like a father, or an uncle, a man who could take her in. She blushed when he looked at her, but held his gaze. “She must have large, dark eyes,” the matchmaker had said. Kathmiya blinked hers. He nodded. She was confident she had passed the test, until he spoke.
“This girl looks nothing like either of you,” the man said to Kathmiya’s “parents,” Uncle Haider, who was partly responsible for her being in this mess, and guardian Salwa, who was doing everything possible to get her out of it. “How do you explain that?”
“God is great,” shrugged Salwa. Haider smiled. And the man bought it.
Kathmiya had her own Night of Henna, surrounded by strange women who painted brick-red designs on her hands while drummers and dancers performed. The air was thick with smoke from hand-rolled cigarettes and the burned sweetness of ashy incense. It was dizzying and exhausting and overwhelming, but Kathmiya rode a wave of euphoria. Two of the other wives looked nearly as young as she felt, and the third was free with advice. “He likes us to smile when he comes home from work.” Kathmiya nodded as the soles of her feet were tickled by the tattoo artist’s brush. “Never speak when he reads the newspaper,” she went on, and Kathmiya smiled an of course not. “And don’t let your hands get rough,” the wife insisted. “That’s for maids.”
Kathmiya’s fingers curled under her palms. But the only lighting was from candles stuck in little mounds of henna paste, and soon one of the servants was sprinkling her with fragrant rosewater, and she knew her skin was getting softer by the minute.
The next day, Kathmiya cleansed herself at the Turkish baths. She took off her clothes as though she was used to having other people pick them up and then went through a series of small pools, each in a room deeper and deeper down the noisy building’s long hallway. The water got warmer and warmer, and by the time she emerged from the loofah scrub, she was so content she could barely remember how to clean up after others, and she was on her way to forgetting how long she had done it to survive.
All the boisterousness and noise and energy of the Night of Henna fell silent by the time the mullah arrived for the wedding ceremony. Kathmiya was alone with Salwa, sitting behind a curtain with an open Koran in her lap and a candle flickering in her hand.
“Any violation of this contract would be a sin,” the mullah warned. And then he read the terms. She knew she would be companionable, but she hadn’t been chaste. Still, when he called for her to procreate and raise children, Kathmiya was glad for the curtain concealing her secret smile.
“Does she agree?”
Salwa was supposed to answer, but she stayed quiet.
“I said, does she agree?”
It would have been suspicious for a mother to assent too quickly. So Salwa held quiet still, while Kathmiya held her breath. Nearly there, she thought.
“Agreed, or not?” the mullah asked.
Salwa spoke so softly even Kathmiya couldn’t hear.
“Louder!” the mullah commanded, and even then, Salwa’s voice was just above a whisper.
“Louder!”
“I said yes,” she said, still faintly. Kathmiya wanted to accept herself, but after ten entreaties, Salwa was shouting, the mullah was satisfied, and the maid who a minute before had no certain future was finally married.
In the wedding suite that night, her new husband was too busy looking into her eyes to see her hands scraping the scabs on her wrist to bloody the sheets.
In her four-floor, nineteen-room home on the banks of the Shat Al-Arab, Kathmiya felt like the star of one of those movies that set everyone in Basra talking. She had never seen the films but read the titles in the newspaper: A Wife by Proxy, was one; and another seemed even more made for her: His Highness Wishes to Marry.
She acted the part of an educated, well-bred woman, navigating the household politics by charming each one of her husband’s nine children. To all of the wives, separately, she praised their sons and their beauty over the others, and this easy pandering won her their affection.
The only time her real identity almost came to light was when her mother-in-law introduced Kathmiya to a pale girl in ragged clothes who looked no more than eleven years old. “This is your new maid.”
Kathmiya felt like a hook had caught her and she was being reeled back in time to when she was first introduced to Salim’s mother. She recognized the fright that darted through the girl as she tried to overcome the shock of her new surroundings.
“Welcome. What is your name?” Kathmiya asked.
The mother-in-law looked skeptical. “Better to tell her to do something!”
The girl just looked down.
“I’m Kathmiya.” The new wife leaned down to eye level with the girl, who was so young the traces of her baby face still showed through. “We’ll be together a lot, but there’s nothing to worry about. And I’m just wondering, what do they call you?”
The sound was almost inaudible, but Kathmiya was listening closely. “Latifa. What a beautiful name. Welcome.”
When Kathmiya’s pregnancy became apparent, her husband beamed with pride. She had spent many nights watching the side of his face and squirming under his weight, and now he had no doubt the baby was his.
She felt so lucky to be alive, safe, home, that she didn’t think too much about what she was missing. Just as she had always anticipated, the simple act of finding a husband and a household had solved all of her problems and resolved all of her concerns.
The only tiny source of irritation for the proud wife was the fact that she had not been able to return triumphantly to the marshes. But Kathmiya still dreamed that someday, somehow, she would.
Silk dresses, sumptuous meals of juicy meats, flavored rice and tangy vegetables, even the bit of money Kathmiya had to spend—none of it was more strange than having leisure time.
With all the governesses and nannies and maids around, she could play with children only when she wanted to, and hand them to someone else as soon as they were fussy or she was bored. Then, she might stroll through the many rooms in the house, mussing up the bedding without bothering to remake it, or scattering pillows, which would be collected by someone else, or leaving her teacups on any one of the polished side tables that flanked the upholstered chairs in the cool, curtained front room.
The marshes were supposed to be a fading memory, but the more Kathmiya tried to fill her mind with the many distractions her new life afforded, the more her old came rushing to the forefront of her thoughts.
Her husband’s total lack of interest in her family worked in Kathmiya’s favor; for once, going unnoticed was a blessing.
Kathmiya’s kindness toward Latifa paid off as she kept quiet when she accompanied her matron, now and then, to meet with a strange Midaan woman at the port.
Happiness was like the clear water of the marshes and life a vessel to catch it. After her wedding, Kathmiya felt filled to the brim, but it slowly seeped out through the holes in her story. Too many unfilled gaps blocked satisfaction from welling up.
The baby was kicking now, offering a steady reassurance that no matter what, she would never be alone. But there was a thrumming fear nagging at Kathmiya. She had never known affection from her father, and she worried it would be the same with her child.
At the port on a bright day in late August, Kathmiya asked the young maid Latifa to wait in the distance and went to meet her mother.
“Ali is dead,” Jamila said softly. Almost apologetically. But not quite sadly.
Kathmiya froze for a moment, then collapsed to the ground.
Latifa rushed over but Kathmiya was too encased in shock to wave her away. He’s not gone. He cannot be dead. Please he’s alive, he’s just so so sick but he’s okay he’ll be okay I’ll see him again, I need to see him again, I need to tell him how sorry I am that I was not there to wipe his brow and soothe his pain and make him happy I never made him happy I just caused trouble Abuyah I am sorry for all my mistakes please Allah will I ever see him again? Will I ever see my father?
If Ali had cherished her in life, the sadness would have been vivid, and it would have found a permanent home in her heart. Since he had not, and now she would never have a chance to make it right, the pain was dull and surrounded her like a mesh net she was powerless to escape.
And then she remembered her way out. “I have money—he can be buried at Najaf.”
“Too late,” said Jamila, and the desperation became permanent.