***
Bad Apple
I was 20 when I met Ali, a young
man whom I thought would be my future husband. He was a year older than I,
smart, charismatic, friendly, and charming. My parents and his parents were fully aware of
our courtship and blessed it. We agreed to get married after I finished my
university degree. Ali wasn’t cut out for school; he had dropped out of high
school and was working as a cabbie, but I was in love with him and he did not
mind my pursuit of higher education. I have never met a man who was as smooth a
talker as Ali; he gave the phrase “used car salesman” a whole new meaning. If I
were angry with him, he always managed to make me forget about my anger. He had
a way of reassuring me and calming me down.
Unfortunately, after three years
of courtship, Ali became what young Somalis refer to as someone whom “a dog has
eaten.”(“Eey baa cunay”). It means,
he is out of my life and, hence, the relationship has come to a screeching
halt. I have strong views about marriage being noble and honorable. I do not believe in pre-marital relations,
but Ali did. He got tired of me and as a result he ended up meeting another
young lady.
One day, my father met me in the
parking lot as I was coming home from the university. He seemed anxious and
worried, and my immediate thought was that someone in my family had passed
away. My father held my right hand and said: “There are more than 20 people in
our house now because your mother invited them.” I asked him the reason for
their presence. “Your mother and Ali’s mother invited them because you are
going to have a marriage ceremony,” he explained. In our culture, a marriage
ceremony is a small gathering in which marriage contracts are conducted. This
ceremony is usually followed by a wedding, which can be performed at a later
date, or sometimes the same day.
I felt like I had been hit on the
head with a sledgehammer. No one had told me about the event. I entered the
house to find all eyes on me. After I greeted the guests, I went straight to my
room and called Ali. “Do you know anything about this so-called ‘marriage
event’?” I asked. His answer was unconcerned and more problematic than I
expected: “I have nothing to do with this matter,” he said. “It’s an
arrangement by our mothers.” I was upset by his nonchalant attitude and his
failure to warn me in advance. “If that’s the case,” I said in annoyance, “let
our mothers get married to each other.” I slammed down the phone.
My father came to my rescue.
Initially, he made only covert allusions, telling me that Ali was a troubled
young man who lacked good values. “You are a fine young woman and
well-behaved,” my father added. Then, he dropped a thunderbolt: “Do you know
that Ali has impregnated a teen?” I was shocked and felt faint. I knew Ali had
a wandering eye and was a bit flirtatious with other women, but I knew nothing
about this important detail of his amorous life. The fact that he not only had
cheated on me but also had gotten another woman pregnant was too much to bear.
I called him again and,
surprisingly, he did not deny the affair or the pregnancy. His justification
was indeed scandalous. “I did it,” he shamelessly said, “because you did not
want to sleep with me.”
That was several years ago.
Ali has been married for the last
five years and has three children. I married a man from another nationality and
I am very content. Ali approached me a few times when I ran into him and had
the nerve to ask me to have an affair with him. “I have an apartment downtown
and we could meet there,” he told me. I reprimanded him, but this man never
gives up. My husband knows about Ali and has threatened to confront him and
teach him a lesson.
I think I am a blessed and
fortunate woman that I did not marry Ali. I found out that he is involved in
illicit activities and is no stranger to the law. Somehow, I feel God was
protecting me from a toxic relationship. I am also grateful to my father for
saving the day.
One bad result of my break-up
with Ali was that my parents, after 25 years of marriage, divorced on that
memorable day when the plan for the marriage ceremony collapsed. My mother and
I are still close, but she never forgave me for not marrying Ali. She naively
believes that Ali, the bad boy, would have changed if he had married me. “Look
at him now,” I tell her, “he’s
married but he’s cheating on his wife and seems hell-bent on self-destruction.”
The Bachelorette
My wife acts as if she is single.
She is pretty, six feet tall, and athletic. Needless to say, she is a fitness
fanatic and jogs five times a week. I know many Somalis are already spewing curses
at me for saying that, as our women simply do not go out jogging. Right? I, on the other hand, have a deep-seated
aversion to most forms of exercise. However, I am slight as a sparrow and
healthy. We have been married for four years and we have no children.
There is one thing that bothers
me about my wife. Men constantly hit on her, but she never tells them that she
is married. She hates wearing a ring. When men approach her to get her number,
she does not mention her marital status, but she never fails to inform me about
all the attention she gets. I give her a lot of credit for not hiding these
things from me; however, I am upset that she does not have the guts to announce
to her pursuers that she is married. She merely brushes these men off and never
gives out her telephone number.
I think my wife likes all the
attention she gets from men. It gives her a sense of power to reject them.
Power, after all, is an elixir.
I am beginning to resent my
wife’s double standard. I have always been faithful, and everyone who knows me
is aware of my strong commitment to my marriage. I wish my wife would show the
same commitment.
Other than this minor nuisance of
not divulging her status, I have a happy and fulfilling marriage. However, I
can’t wait until my wife becomes a mother. I wonder what she will tell her
pursuers then.
(Reprinted with permission from Sahan Journal, October 5, 2015).
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