Kauthar Read online

  The phone rings. Rafiq picks up, then hands me the receiver.

  ‘Lydia?’

  ‘Mum.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to get through to you for hours. Always engaged.’

  My mother doesn’t like ringing my mobile.

  ‘Rafiq is trying to get through to his people in Iraq.’

  ‘Does he know people there?’

  ‘Of course. He comes from there. He’s got family, relatives and friends there. You know that.’

  ‘How awful.’

  ‘Mum, I really can’t talk for long now. Rafiq would like to keep the line free in case someone from home calls.’

  ‘I’m going into hospital tomorrow for an operation.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I have a tumour.’

  I feel the receiver in my hand and I feel myself swallow.

  ‘What sort of tumour?’

  ‘Dad said I shouldn’t tell you. You have enough worries about the war and you probably take it personally – the war, I mean – because you are now a Muslim.’

  ‘What sort of tumour?’ I repeat.

  ‘They say it’s been growing for a while. And they also say the operation will be fine. But operations are always risky. Especially at my age.’

  ‘Tell me the name of the tumour.’

  Rafiq is pacing up and down the length of the room and throws me glances I can’t interpret.

  ‘If you want to know,’ my mother’s voice comes through the receiver, ‘although I’m not sure how that is supposed to make a difference because you are no doctor . . .’ She pauses. ‘It’s a pituitary gland tumour.’

  Pituitary gland, I repeat silently in order not to forget. Aloud I say, ‘Mum, I will call you right back from my mobile.’

  Rafiq stops pacing and sits down next to me on the sofa. He explains that the tumour is more than likely benign. The operation will be routine. On the other hand, no surgical intervention is without danger.

  ‘Your mother is clearly frightened. You should go and see her.’

  ‘But I want to stay here with you. Especially now.’

  ‘Habibi, we can’t do anything here. Go and see her.’

  The following day I catch the train to my parents. I hold my mother’s hand in the hospital. The operation went well. She says I look like a nun. Over my abaya I am now wearing a jilbab, a poncho-like hijab that covers my entire upper body down to the knees.

  I say, ‘My garments create a space for inner peace, when outside war rages everywhere in the world.’

  My father says, ‘This situation was forced upon us. But it won’t take long, we are sorting it out.’

  ‘It is none of our business to sort anything out. Who are we to think we can sort things out?’ I reply, and try not to raise my voice.

  My father shrugs his shoulders. ‘Lydia, you need to learn to discuss matters coolly and without getting emotionally involved.’

  I bend over my mother in the hospital bed and kiss her on the forehead, and I kiss my father’s cheek at the train station and board the train with the baby in my tummy.

  And I haven’t mentioned the baby to them. My parents will never know about any of my babies. They will never know that their daughter was capable of conceiving. But she can’t hold them. They don’t want to stay with me, in my tummy. This useless tummy that is no good for anything, certainly not for carrying babies. This tummy that still belongs to Lydia, will always belong to Lydia. And I can call myself Kauthar as much as I want, Kauthar the river of abundance. But it is only a name, nothing but a name, empty and desolate, and inside me nothing can grow.

  I lose my second baby in the tenth week.

  I felt guilty because of my first baby. Then I thought God had forgiven me because He gave me Rafiq so I could conceive new life in praise of Him in the union with my husband. When I lose my second baby I know that He is angry with me. I have strayed off the path, have become a hypocrite without even noticing the changes. I still believe in Him, still pray, still fast. But do I sincerely and honestly contemplate His Being, think about Him, live and breathe in order to submit to His Glory? Or have I indeed got caught once again in the web of this glittering, blinding world? I try to appease Him with hurried prayers – the compulsory parts only – and colourful hijabs and hippy skirts. Do I think about Him every waking minute? Do I speak His name when I go to bed? When I get up? When I leave the house? When I enter our flat? When I go to the bathroom? When I leave the bathroom? Before I step on the Tube? Before I look in a mirror? I often forget. And I haven’t even noticed. Only now does it become apparent to me. When did I last attend a meeting of sisters? It’s been a while. My free time I spend either alone or with Rafiq. We visit his uncle once a week and I see Mrs Alim once every other week. She has taken me under her wing and shows me how to cook Arabic meals, and we watch Egyptian soap operas, which she loves and I find loud and silly, but watching them at least improves my Arabic. Otherwise, I spend hours perfecting my calligraphy skills. And at work I joke with my colleagues.

  ‘You are so much more relaxed since you got married,’ the bespectacled David told me a few months after my wedding. ‘If you weren’t wearing a hijab one couldn’t tell you were a Muslim.’

  Back then, I responded to his comment by smiling. In my mind he was young and naive. There was no point trying to explain my religion to him. But now his remark comes to haunt me. It rings in my ears again and again. And I realize I have strayed too far from Him. I stay in bed for days. After the miscarriage the doctor writes me a week’s sick note. Rafiq strokes my head, makes me tea and brings it to my bedside. He also says that from a medical point of view there is no reason why it won’t work out next time. We should trust in Allah, he says. And everything will come good. Then he has to leave – either to go to the hospital or to see his friends and follow together the unfolding of the war in Iraq and wait for the inevitable catastrophe. When he isn’t working nights, he still comes home in the early hours of the morning and sleeps on the sofa. ‘In order not to wake you up, habibi.’ He brings me flowers and chocolate. And on the phone I tell my parents that I have caught a bad cold. The doctor gives me two further weeks’ sick leave.

  ‘As I see from your notes,’ the doctor says, peeling her eyes from the screen in front of her and looking at me, ‘you had an abortion a few years ago.’ She simply throws the sentence at me. And it lands at my feet.

  ‘My situation was very different back then,’ I reply calmly, and pray silently to Allah that I may leave this room quickly. This woman does not understand anything.

  ‘May I ask you a personal question?’

  I shrug my shoulders with an air of deliberate indifference.

  ‘Your husband is a Muslim too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘From which country is he?’

  ‘I don’t think I need to reply to this question.’

  ‘Does your husband put you under pressure?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  For a moment she hesitates, then she says, ‘I mean, does he blame you for the miscarriage and would he like you to become pregnant again as quickly as possible?’

  ‘My husband is a Muslim, just like I am a Muslim. Being a Muslim does not imply stupidity or primitivism.’

  ‘Please don’t misunderstand me. I am only trying to exclude certain factors. And I can only do that by starting at the beginning. I don’t know your husband, but if he comes from a traditional Islamic country it could be that you and he too are confronted by certain expectations which at the moment you can’t fulfil.’

  ‘What you are talking about has nothing to do with Islam but is a question of culture, and this is something to which my husband does not subscribe. My beliefs – and my husband’s – give me as much time and space as I need. No one is putting me under pressure – sexually or psychologically.’

  No. No on
e is putting me under pressure. But God has shown me a sign and, in His all-embracing mercy, He gives me time to understand the sign. Time and space. And so I lie in bed and only get up to wash and pray. It seems as if my body doesn’t want to function any longer. Only my mind doesn’t stop working. Loneliness begins to envelop me.

  It takes me many days to understand why God has shrouded me in this loneliness. Until I remember that once before I lay like this. Not in a bed. On a kitchen floor, drunk. And what happened afterwards? Afterwards, the next day, God sent me Rabia and led me on to the straight path.

  I have walked a fair distance along this path. I believe in Him, I follow His laws and rules. But I have slowed down. Sometimes I pause and am distracted by nice things, worldly things on the wayside. Like Little Red Riding Hood who skipped into the forest and forgot the time while picking flowers. Yet God has a plan for me. He knows that I am capable of reaching my goal and that’s why He wants to help me to get back on track and encourages me to continue unfalteringly. He knows that His sign will hurt me, must hurt me, for me to see. And I see and rise from my bed, Bismillahi wa ala barakat Allah. In the name of Allah and with His blessing. His breath enters me and straightens me and I walk on tall, with a firm step. And I know that when I become tired He will help me and He will reward me. I keep my gaze fixed on the path.

  I now cover myself with a black chador and niqab when I leave our flat. I hand in my resignation at the library, because the jokes and banter of my male colleagues are inappropriate for a Muslim woman but I don’t know how to stop them without appearing rude and unfriendly. So I decide to avoid these comments altogether by no longer working outside my home. Rafiq agrees with my decision. He knows how difficult I find the relationship with my male colleagues and that I prefer my own company. I now spend many hours listening to the Quran on CD. I want to learn to copy the words perfectly. Because only if I speak the language of the revelation perfectly will I be able to understand the revelation completely. Arabic is the language of the holy revelation. It is the language of the desert, the language of the hot wind, the gleaming sun. There we are aware of our infinite loneliness, there we are deprived of the most essential thing – water. There we have nothing – except Allah. My love of God is rekindled once more in blazing flames and my gratefulness burns anew because He has given us His book, the Quran. I now understand that I want to live my life in the name of the book. I no longer belong to the world outside the book.

  Rafiq says he would like to go to Baghdad for a few months to work in a hospital. They need qualified doctors. His current fixed-term contract is coming to an end. We start planning. He wants to go for six months. Initially we decide that I will travel with him. But then he changes his mind and convinces me to stay behind. ‘I couldn’t do my job properly, Kauthar, if I thought you might be in danger.’ And he adds, ‘Insh’Allah. God willing, nothing will happen to me. Allah won’t allow it that I don’t come back.’

  On our final night I lie in his arms, then the next morning I accompany him to the airport and wave as he goes through passport control, and I think that I will never see him again. What am I doing in this city alone? A city that increasingly perceives me as a foreigner, even an enemy.

  I lock up our flat and move to Mrs Alim’s, while Mr Alim goes to a friend’s place for the time that I am there.

  ‘I will look after you,’ Mrs Alim says, and laughs.

  I stay with her for four weeks. Then I persuade her that it would be good for Mr Alim to come back for a few days. In the meantime, I say I will go to see my parents. A white lie. In our flat I leave the curtains drawn, as if I’m not at home. Rafiq calls but the connection is cut after about a minute. I hear an explosion in the background.

  I visit my parents. It’s the first time with chador and niqab.

  ‘You can’t possibly show yourself like this on the street,’ my mother says straight away. ‘Maybe in London, but not here.’

  I ask why she minds. After all, inside the house she sees me in trackies and T-shirt.

  ‘You are not going out wearing that,’ she repeats. ‘People will think you’ve gone completely mad.’

  I say nothing. My mother goes outside to work in the garden, turning over the earth. I stay indoors, while my father gets ready to go for a run.

  Before he goes I ask, ‘Do you still do the pull-ups?’

  ‘Yes, but only twenty-five,’ he replies. ‘Do you want to come with me?’

  ‘Do you mind if I wear my niqab and chador?’ I ask in return.

  ‘Can’t you do without those cloaks for once?’

  ‘No, that’s not possible,’ I reply. Then I explain that his request is the equivalent to me asking him not to go jogging for a week, only one short week. And we both burst out laughing, my father and I, and he goes jogging on his own.

  ‘Maybe it’s best if you stay,’ he adds as a last comment before leaving the house. ‘At least your mother won’t get upset.’

  They don’t understand. They have no idea. And perhaps I would have liked them to understand and perhaps at that moment I didn’t want them to understand any longer. I head back to London and a few days later I catch a plane to Amman. I still have a valid visa for Jordan and Iraq which we had arranged when we planned to go out to Iraq together. Only in Amman do I tell Rafiq on the phone that I am on my way to him. That I am waiting for a flight to Baghdad, that it might take a few days.

  ‘Go back to London,’ he says. ‘Please. Life is hell here. I’ll be with you in four months.’

  I say, ‘I am your wife. I should be where you are. You can’t just leave me behind on the other side of the world. To do what? To wait? For what? To be told of your death. What am I doing in London? In a city, a world, I no longer belong to? I belong to you. At your side. We are husband and wife in the name of Allah, we belong together.’

  I am standing in a telephone booth, staring at the traffic-jammed square. Cars blow their horns, have stopped in the middle of the road, wedged sideways. Voices shout and swear. Men in the cars, women in hijab or chador four or five in the back; only occasionally one without her head covered rushes past. No one pays any attention to me in the telephone booth. Outwardly I finally fit into the picture. There is a crackling on the line. Dust is burning my eyes. Has Rafiq said anything or is he waiting for me to continue?

  He says, ‘OK, then come. You are my wife and I love you.’ Then he adds, ‘You remember I told you about my young cousin Fatimah? The one I was supposed to have married a few years ago? When I arrived here, her mother was dying and I promised her I’d marry Fatimah. I am the only male relative she has left. The others have all died or been killed. In order to protect her I had to marry her.’

  I had to marry her. I had to marry her. The sentence repeats itself in my ears. My eyes are burning even more. Sweat trickles down my temples beneath the veil. The rules of the game, I suddenly think. I have left one world behind and entered another. And in this world a man has the right to marry four wives. Remember, Kauthar, you know the rules better than he does: And if ye fear that ye will not deal fairly by the orphans, marry of the women, who seem good to you, two or three or four; and if ye fear that ye cannot do justice to so many then one only, I recite in my head in Arabic.

  ‘Can you do justice to both of us?’ I ask my husband.

  ‘Kauthar, please, do try to understand. It’s about survival. She is my relative. My blood relative. I can’t just turn a blind eye. We are family.’

  ‘And I, Rafiq, agree and accept your decision. I only want to know, can you do justice to both of us? Because that is the law of God, for all of us, in all situations, at all times.’

  ‘I love you, habibi,’ he says.

  I love you, habibi. I love you, habibi. The words swirl around in my head and get jumbled up. Love you, habibi, I. I you, habibi, love. Habibi, darling. Hubb. Habibi. Hubb. Love. And in my head I search the Quran and I become increasingly c
ertain about something I’ve already suspected. It’s a human construction, without sense, without meaning, useless. A human lie. There is no mention of hubb – love – between man and woman in the Quran. It says: They are raiment for you and ye are raiment for them. It says: And He ordained between you respect and mercy. Lo, herein indeed are portents for folk who reflect. And I do reflect. No one can blame me for not reflecting.

  Are we splitting hairs again? Dissecting individual words? Getting hung up on individual letters?

  Yes, indeed. That is precisely what we’re doing. I tell the voices in my head to be quiet. I am searching for the truth. I am getting close to understanding. I am getting closer and closer to Him. I follow Him, only Him and His Prophet. And you want to prevent me, as you have always prevented me? Call this splitting hairs, dissecting words. Say, No, that’s not the way to do it! Have you ever bothered to reflect, to look things up? Yes, you. All of you. I am not Lydia. I am Kauthar. The river of abundance. The source of bounty. Bubbling, pouring forth, making sense.

  Everything is clear now. Only for a brief moment does it cross my mind that if I was still living in the world of appearances, the pain would break my heart. My husband has taken a second wife. Instead, however, I feel no pain. I feel something totally different. I feel joy. And pure joy makes my heart explode. Finally I am free of the monkey bar, free of the world of appearances. My release is successful. I am in the air. Love, true, real love, exists only between God and mankind. Only God can say to man, I love you, uhibbuk. And man can say to God, Uhibbuk. Because only between God and man does such love exists. He loves them and they love Him. Yuhibbuhum wa yuhibbunahu.

  And I understand. The moment Rafiq says, I love you, habibi. Poor Rafiq. You can’t love me and I can’t love you. It’s not possible. We have been blinded. The world is a magician greater than Harut and Marut and you should avoid it. I don’t ever again want to hear from you that you love me. Do you hear me? Never again. It’s all lies and deception. A glitter word invented by the glitter-glamour world. And I had thought that you and I would have nothing to do with this world . . .