A Ripe Banana

Friday morning Saqr asked me to put on my abaya to accompany him to prayers. I mentioned that he’d told me it was better for a woman to pray at home. He said this was for my own good because I had become like a “ripe banana” no one wanted to eat, and he had to do something about it.

I was seventeen years old when Saqr informed me in his special way that I was an old maid: I was a ripe banana and no one would want to eat me.

His plan was simply for one of his friends to see me and wish to have me. Of course I would be most suitable as a second or third wife, assuming his friends were his age. When the prayer ended and the crowd dispersed, I was the only one left in the women’s prayer area. I sat on the red carpet that had been spread out. O Almighty, make me invisible. Make me disappear.

I stayed in the women’s prayer area waiting for the time to pass, for everyone to leave, and for Saqr to boil under the sun, trying to delay those of his friends he believed would be suitable as a brother-in-law. He was doing what he could, and I was doing what I could. An hour went by until everyone had left. One remained.

“Hey! Hey boy!” Saqr had lost his patience and started calling out to me. Naturally, he was calling me “boy” so as not to cause a scandal by saying my name within earshot of a strange man, even if this strange man had been promised a chance to devour me with his profoundly ravenous eyes moments later. He’d told one of his acquaintances about me. My sister, I raised her myself, she wants to settle down and get married! The man Saqr happened to choose—randomly and most likely due to fleeting circumstance more than anything else—was between forty and forty-five years old, skinny, with a hennaed beard, a crooked nose, and a shaved moustache. Saqr repeated, “Boy! Come out, boy!” Then he risked poking his head inside the women’s prayer area. He spotted the corner of my abaya and knew I was hiding next to the entrance. My heart was pounding. When he knew I was alone inside he took a few steps in and pulled me by my hijab.

“What are you doing? I’ve been calling you for an hour with no reply!”

“I’m praying! Praying!”

“Right. The tarawih, you realize, are performed in Ramadan. Get moving.”

He pushed me before his friend, joking with him and repeating, “She’s being bashful! I raised my sister myself. I raised her to have good manners and avert her gaze.” I felt the man’s glances piercing my face and injuring my spirit, as if I were a car, new shoes, or maybe, in this case, a race camel being traded.

I hurried to the car and sat in the back seat holding back my tears.

We arrived home. I ran to the kitchen with Saqr chasing and threatening me. I picked up a kitchen knife and put it to my cheek. “I’ll do it!” I said. “By God, I’ll do it! I’ll slice my face and throw the pieces at your feet if you force me to get married. Then no one will want to marry me ever.”

“You’re crazy! You foolish girl! I want the best for you! I chose the best for you!”

“You can keep him. I don’t want him!”

“Abu Fahd has lots and lots of money. You won’t have to work or even finish school. He will give you a comfortable life!”

“I don’t want him! I don’t want him! I’d rather have a hard life.”

“It’s true, you lack intellect.”

He said it stressing his pronunciation syllable by syllable. He pulled the letters out carefully, picking them from his teeth: You lack intellect. He was referencing a hadith, and naturally he also said, “And religion.”