A Moment of Silence: Midnight III (The Midnight Series Book 3) (36 page)

“Wait! I have two great reasons why you should love Akemi more.” She sprung up to the sitting position.

“Good night, Naja,” I said, closing the door.

“Please listen!” she said with enthusiastic desperation. I stood in the almost shut door not because I wanted to hear what she had
to say, but because I did not want to hurt her little feelings even though I thought she was heading down a wrong path.

“One, remember when we first came to see this house? Like before you and Umma even bought it?” Naja asked.

“Of course,” I said.

“Then you’ll agree that it was a really stinky, messy place. Akemi changed this whole house and made it the most beautiful home. Not only her bedroom but every room. She even painted the whole Fatiha on our living room wall. How come she could make the Arabic letters look so perfect when she can’t even speak or write in Arabic at all?” Naja asked innocently.

“No one has to convince me about my wife. I chose her. I married her. I love her. Good night, Naja,” I said solemnly.

“And Akemi has three hearts!” Naja whispered loudly and quickly, holding her three fingers in the air and waving them.

“Three hearts?” I repeated.

“Yes, I had my face on her tummy. Her skin is so soft. I heard the babies’ hearts. They’re twins. That’s two. And I heard Akemi’s heart beating also. That’s three.”

I stood in the hallway with her bedroom door now all the way shut. I felt a little tight and a low-grade anger was building up in me. My head had been business all day and all evening, and business was real good. So, I didn’t know why I felt stuck the way I did right then.

I could see the light glowing from beneath Umma’s door. “Umma.” I knocked lightly just in case she had fallen into sleep. When I heard her reply, I pushed her door open halfway. “About Naja,” I said.

“I know,” Umma said. “I know my daughter has been stirring up a storm in our home. Step in, I can see you have a question.” Umma smiled and patted her bedspread inviting me to sit. Amazed, I loved the way she could possibly know the details of my thoughts and feelings before I expressed them.

Umma’s bedroom was how I imagined an exclusive spa or club would be, although I had never been to a spa. But people seem to go there to relax, looking for a clean, good-smelling place to unwind and get massaged. Three walls, only one with a window, in Umma’s room were lined with long, sheer, peach-colored curtains, which she kept open or closed based on her feeling. The moon pouring through the peach fabric would cast beams of colored light, creating the illusion of stars indoors. The fourth wall had wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling decorative wooden racks that held twenty test-tube-size designer glass vials in a row, and twenty shelves of rows of elixirs of perfumes, and oils and treatments that we packaged and sold. The natural scents created a scent that was pleasing and clean when you inhaled. She did not have or want a television, opting for a radio, which she had set on her favorite stations. The satin summer quilt that she made, and pillows from an array of fabrics, made her bed seem incredibly comfortable. Rather than get lost in Umma’s atmosphere, her warm smile, or my admiration for her, I opted to sit on her floor and listen carefully to whatever advice she could offer.

“Do you think it matters if a man loves his wives fifty-fifty or not?” I asked her. She paused in thought.

“Fifty-fifty,” she said with a soft confidence, “or any definite percentage would be impossible, I believe. And a fifty-fifty portion of your true love to each of your wives is not required in Islam. It is only required that a man treat them fairly. Because of course, the heart and love itself cannot be controlled or legislated by anyone else. Allah created each of us that way. Even you yourself cannot demand that your own heart obey you. You can want it to. You can ask it to, but in the end, the heart feels as it feels and does as it does,” she said softly, and then smiled like she somehow could see directly into my thoughts, feelings, and concerns.

“Your father, before we married, had once said something to me that I had never considered in my own thoughts. I was young and in love with him and I listened and hung onto his every word, and he
also clung to mine. As you know, I am from the north of Sudan and your father is from the south. He loved my talks to him about the Quran and my beliefs. I loved his talks to me about his childhood and growing up in the south and their beliefs. Well, your father said that being in love is not necessary to marry,” Umma recalled with a melancholy smile. She had mentioned my father. She had my full attention. I raised my head to look into her eyes, not wanting her thoughts of my father, and his not being here, to cause her to cry.

“I said to your father that of course love is so necessary for marriage. Then I asked him, ‘If I did not love you so deeply, what would be left over between us?’ ” Umma said and I smiled. I liked her question.

“Your father answered my question with a question,” she explained. “He said, ‘Sana, do you think every woman has the same kind of heart as yours? Do you think that each woman can love so deeply as you do?’ ” I smiled. I liked my father’s questions also.

“ ‘Some women want to marry with me because they think my father is a great man and they want to give birth to one of my father’s grandchildren.’ ” Umma imitated the rhythm of my father’s voice while speaking his words. “Your father told me that and I really laughed a lot at that idea. ‘Some women want to marry me because of the amount of land I have and the size of the house I will build for her. One woman wants to marry me because I have traveled outside of the village and she dreams of one day traveling the world with me. One woman wants to marry because her father is the chief and her father wants me to work for him. If his daughter is able to marry me, he promises her great wealth in exchange for bringing him the “golden son in law.” An even greater wealth than I myself can provide,’ he explained.”

“What did you say?” I asked Umma.

“It is what
he
said that matters. He said that he believes that marriage is a choice that a man and woman both make without force, and that was all that was necessary. He said there are so many different reasons to marry. There are marriages that are made to
bring two certain families together in relation, marriage for tribe or nation, marriages that are made for money, land, gold, cattle, or fruits and vegetables. There are marriages that are made because a man took an oath to protect his brother or his friend’s wife in the case that their soul returned to Allah and that woman and her children became widowed and alone, and even marriages that are made out of pure compassion,” Umma explained.

“ ‘What about love?’ That’s what I asked your father at that point. He said to me, ‘The same as I just gave you a short list of reasons that two people want to marry one another, love is also another reason on that list. Different men and different women marry for different reasons. Their reasons lead them into marriage. But marriage is the bond. The reason is not as important as the bond. Bonds should not ever be taken as a trifle, or lightly, and easy to break or throw aside or away. That is why a man and a woman should clearly know each of their reasons for wanting to marry before forming that sacred bond.’ ”

“And what did you think about his words?” I asked.

“Honestly, after he told me all of the different reasons that different women and either their fathers or mothers or families or tribes wanted him as their son-in-law, I had counted about thirteen women all desiring to be his wife. Even though I felt I knew, I wanted to know what kind of marriage he believed he would have with me. What was his reason to form our bond?”

“Did you ask him?”

“Of course! Your father, in his sweet talk to me, said that our love exceeded the boundaries of north and south, of tribe and nation, and of even culture, soil, and family obligations and relations. He said that his marriage to me would be a marriage of the heart. He told me that I gave him Islam, and that he gave me his heart, and that we then shared the greatest love that could exist on the Earth.”

“Did you believe his words? Or, does a woman worry about
comparing what type of bond a man has with his other wives and what each woman is receiving from the same man?” I asked my Umma. She smiled like the sun.

“What woman can hear such lovely words and not believe?” She laughed. “I believed him. We agreed to marry despite all of the opposition and challenges presented to our love and union. Your father chose me as his first wife. I knew there would be two others. I knew that his union and reasons to be with them were different, but that his bond with them and with me was the same. He gave each of us his word. His word was his bond. I did not worry at all about trying to figure out the percentages of his love. His love felt real to me every day whether he was with me or elsewhere. His love feels real to me even now. I did not feel cheated when he provided for them or spent time with either of them. I accepted them as co-wives and as family. I love him, so I love all that comes with loving him.”

Umma’s words silenced me, and for some moments she had even silenced herself.

“I agree with Naja. Your second wife is a bit complicated,” Umma suddenly said to me, and my jaw tightened. “Yet she is quite heavenly,” she added. My tightened jaw began to ease. “It’s not that Naja and I don’t love and accept your second wife. It is that Chiasa shines so brightly in every way that those closest to you, including your little sister, feel that you are only able to see her, when we are all living here closely in this one house.” Umma lay across her bed now so that she could look over and see into my eyes.

“It’s funny. You and your second wife are both quiet, yet your feelings for one another are so powerful and loud that in even complete silence, everyone around you can sense and feel them. The sea of emotions that swirls between you and Chiasa . . . What shall the rest of us do?” Umma asked me. I could tell she did not expect an answer. I also felt that she was speaking not about herself, but about Naja and my first wife’s feelings. But as my mind sped, I was one hundred percent certain that Akemi had never said
or mentioned or even insinuated a bad opinion or feeling or issue about Chiasa.

“Not to worry too much. I have never seen you doing anything
harom.
You have treated your first wife with an intensity and tenderness and with great attention and affection. You have provided for her, protected her, and it is so obvious that you love her.”

I did not have a response. I never acknowledged or confirmed whether what Umma believed she had observed between Chiasa and me was accurate. I stood up. “
Shukran
,” was all I could muster, thanking her in Arabic.

“
Afwan
,” Umma said, Arabic for “you are welcome.” I liked that she only said that one word, and did not ask me to speak on the feelings of my heart when it comes to my wives.

“Don’t be too disappointed in your little sister. She’s so young. It’s easy for someone to pull her strings like a puppet. Especially if you and I don’t set her straight,” Umma said oddly. My hand was on the doorknob, poised to leave. My back was to my mother. I didn’t move, still listening.

“It’s not the first or the second wife pulling the strings. It’s the one who feels left out and unloved. When a woman feels that way, she will draw closer and closer to the mother and siblings of the man she loves, even as he keeps his distance from her.”

Then, I knew Sudana was the one dropping these thoughts and suggestions into my little sister’s head and heart.

*  *  *

Paused in the hallway once again, I was facing the stairway that would lead me to Chiasa’s room. I was four steps away from Akemi’s door. The way I choose to flow with my wives is that usually if I have spent the entire day and evening with one, I would spend the night with the other. If I need to think, read, or plan, or just get into my own head, I chill solo right on the floor in the basement. I don’t believe or feel that either of my wives are lonely.
I’ve observed that women need and like time to themselves. Akemi needed a good deal of time to create her artwork. Chiasa loves to read and research. And if my first or second wife were lonely, I know they would both take some kind of action to show me. When I was working hard on setting up this house before bringing them over, I’d return to the hotel we had been using, late at night. Both of them missed me. I’d wake up with one of them on each side. I felt like I was in paradise. I smiled.

Beneath Akemi’s door was a purple light. In my rhythm, it was Chiasa’s night. I had been moving with strictly Akemi for two back-to-back days and nights. But her purple pulled me. Akemi had a different color light bulb for every mood she felt at night, and an incredibly varied selection of music to match her nightly mode. In the upstairs hallway bathroom, I washed my face and hands, rinsed my mouth, and removed my T-shirt and belt. Back in the upstairs corridor as I stood completely still, the house was now silent. Umma’s lights were off. Naja slept. I would never know if the ninja girl downstairs was asleep or awake unless I was lying beside her. It had always been like that since we first met. I headed down.

In the kitchen in the dark, I was purposely light on my feet. I lifted a clay dish from the cabinet that was filled with cleaned dishes without clanking it or making even one sound. Gently, I pulled open the refrigerator. I did a good job, but the appliance betrayed me and began humming. Hurrying, I assembled some foods on the dish and grabbed a couple of glasses.

When I pushed open her bedroom door, Akemi was in the midst of a yoga workout, the wicked scorpion pose. Topless, she had on only her black satin panties. Her arms were on the floor holding up the rest of her body. Her legs were curved over her head and dangling with the exact fluid look and feeling and manner in which a scorpion tail is shaped. She didn’t move out of the posture or even glance my way. That’s how she communicates, instead of speaking.

I placed the dish on the small wooden tray stand, where she kept a pitcher of fresh water each night. As I stepped out of my jeans and shorts, I asked, “Akemi, are you hungry?”