Behind the Veils of Yemen (9 page)

Another woman entered the room. She was around sixty and was dressed in black taffeta. Her heavy walk was punctuated by a limp. Two women moved to make room for her beside the widow. She sat down and adjusted her wide skirts, crossing her thick ankles underneath them. Rather than greet the women individually, she kissed the insides of her chubby hands, then opened them outward, greeting the women inclusively as a group. The women murmured their responses in unison.

The newcomer appeared to be a holy woman in charge of the visitation. She wiped her hands on her black scarf, opened a carved wooden stand and placed a gold-leaf Quran on it. She cleared her throat.

Just before she began her recitation, Fatima entered, her head low as she scurried across the room apologetically. She slid in next to me on the mufraj and whispered quick greetings to me and the women around her. She was breathing hard, her face wet and her arms damp where she had just washed them. She adjusted her black crepe dress as Sofia shot a disapproving scowl. I squeezed Fatima’s hand, smiling back at her grateful response.

The holy woman began to chant the Quran like a song without a melody. I noticed that she did not look at the Quran in front of her but recited memorized words. I wondered if she could read; most Yemeni women could not.

At several pauses in the recitation, three women injected phrases about Mohammed that elicited responses chanted in unison by the others. I wondered if the women understood the meaning of what they were reciting. I had once asked Fatima about the meaning of a Quranic passage. She had not been able to explain it; she did not understand it herself. But she emphasized the beauty of how it was phrased and the language that had been used to say it. What it meant had been insignificant.

The woman continued her recitation, pausing in rhythmic breaks to inject Mohammed’s name. A fervor seemed to be growing. The tempo was changing. The holy woman’s chant became faster and increased in pitch. The women’s responses grew louder, more intense. Each face was locked on the holy woman. Even the widow seemed oblivious to her pain as she responded with the others.

The room felt oppressive. I found myself taking deeper breaths, as if the room did not have enough air. I looked at the window I had secretly opened, wishing I had opened it wider. The recitation continued to grow faster and louder until it reached a peak. Then suddenly everything stopped, ebbing down like an engine slowing to a halt. The women became silent.

The holy woman lifted the Quran, kissed it and passed it worshipfully to the woman seated next to her, who held it reverently and also kissed it before passing it to the woman beside her. The process continued around the room until each woman except me had kissed the Quran. It had been carefully handed around me. Considered to be an infidel, I was not allowed to touch it with my unclean hands.

After the Quran was settled gently back onto its wooden stand, Fatima rose from the mufraj. “I’ll be back,” she whispered, hurrying away.

I looked over at the widow. When she had chanted her responses to the Quran, her eyes had sparkled with dark intensity and she had seemed exhilarated. But now the rose in her cheeks and the shine in her eyes were fading. As she sank back against her cushions, she seemed to be sinking back into her empty place.

Fatima returned carrying a tray loaded with hot, sweet tea. She served the oldest women first, beginning with the widow. Even though I was an infidel Christian, I was served with them because of my status as a foreign guest. Fatima served each woman, hurrying back to the kitchen in between servings to rinse the limited number of teacups. Then she motioned for me to join her at the door. It was almost
maghreb
, the evening prayer call.

“I want to go home. I am tired. I have been here from the morning.” Fatima leaned heavily on my arm as we walked toward the main street to flag a taxi.

“You were busy today,” I ventured.

“Yes, my aunt gave me much work.” She sighed deeply. “She has two daughters, but she gave the work to me, big like this.” She patted her bulging middle. “She makes me khidamah [servant] in her house.” She blinked away the tears before they could fall. “I don’t know why she treats me so badly.”

“Does her son treat you badly, too?” I asked cautiously.

“No, he is a good husband. I obey him, and he treats me well. But what can he do? If he speaks to his mother, she treats me worse. She is his mother; what can he say?” She clenched her jaw. “She has a black heart. Her son loves me, and now she hates me.”

“Maybe she is jealous, Fatima. You told me a mother raises her son to love her so that he will take care of her if her husband dies or takes another wife. Maybe your mother-in-law doesn’t want her son loving any woman but her.”

Fatima sighed. “Yes, that is true. It happened to my friends. But I did not think it would happen to me.”

I linked my arm through Fatima’s. “Maybe when the baby is born your mother-in-law will change. Maybe she will . . . Owww!” My yelp stopped me from finishing my sentence. The sting of a sharp rock hit my back between my shoulders. Another rock skipped on the dirt, sailing inches from Fatima. I turned. Three boys were snickering in the shadows of a garbage Dumpster.

“
Lah
[No]!” I shouted. “Harram [Forbidden]!”

Fatima stopped me, clicking her tongue. “No, no, Audra. You must not. They are children!” She squelched the scolding I was about to lash out. “They are little boys, not ten years old. You must not scold them.”

I was stunned. “Fatima! They could have hit you or your baby!” I stopped short of scolding her. “They cannot do this—it is wrong! They are old enough to learn that this is wrong.”

Fatima laughed at me. “Come, Audra. They are only playing. They are boys! Leave them. Look, here is a taxi.”

I was stinging from the pain in my shoulder but more from the snickering behind the Dumpster. I wanted to correct their wrong. But I relented when Fatima asked me again. I quietly climbed into the taxi behind her.

We approached the road to my house, and I leaned forward to stop the driver. Fatima grabbed my arm, a look of panic flooding her face. “Audra, please. Go with me to my house first,” she whispered in English.

“Why?” I frowned. I was eager to get home, and we were only a block from my house. “My family is waiting for me. I need to fix their supper.”

“Please, Audra,” she pleaded, dropping her voice lower. “I don’t want to ride in the taxi alone.” She laughed uncertainly. “I am afraid.”

“Afraid? But then I will be alone to ride back to my house!” I exclaimed, bewildered.

“Please, Audra,” she repeated. “You are different. You are
qawia
[strong]. You are not afraid.” She laughed nervously again. “I am afraid of the driver. He will not hurt you. He will bring you back to your house quickly.”

I did not want to do it. I was tired and eager to rid myself of my heavy trappings. But I was touched by her fear, even as it surprised me. I nodded reluctantly and sat back in the seat, listening to her sigh of relief as she relaxed beside me. I watched my street sail past.

After telling Fatima good-bye, I sat quietly as the taxi turned and headed back in the direction we had come. I looked up at the stars that were beginning to twinkle in the darkening sky.
Lord, I don’t understand these women,
I prayed silently.
They are bolder than I am to speak up for their religion, but they are afraid of being alone in a taxi. Help me understand this, Lord. Help me be as unapologetic about my faith as they are about theirs.

I paid the driver and opened the gate to my home.

Twelve hours later I leaned back on our mufraj cushions and searched the window for the sunrise. I watched as dawn kept its gray wrapped around the sun. It seemed to tease me, letting bits of light peek like yellow petals from a closed bud. Slowly the dawn peeled back and the sun burst into flower. The sky blossomed with gold and pink.

I sipped my tea, watching the light fan out and purge the darkness. I stared at the pages of my opened Bible. My soul felt parched and thirsty. I longed to drink deep from God’s Word, but questions haunted me.

Lord, if I had been raised to believe Islam, would I believe Mohammed to be God’s messenger as strongly as I believe Jesus is the Messiah?
The question was like a worm eating at my faith.

I leaned back in my chair, remembering Fatima’s prayers as she knelt on her prayer rug. I thought of God’s name invoked on the street and in every part of Yemeni life.

Missionaries are not supposed to have doubts, Lord. But these questions worm into my head, and I cannot seem to keep them out. Help me to see beyond them to You.
I left my chair to prepare for the day.

At lunchtime a gusty wind blew grit against our closed glass windows as our midday meal of grilled chicken, rice and
mushakel
[mixed vegetables] steamed on our dining room table. Kevin had brought the meal home from a
mata’am
[restaurant], a small room crowded with boisterous men and flaming butane cookers that, like many street-side cafes, did not offer a family room where women could eat. Jaden and Jack waited for me to carve their chicken legs. Madison picked cardamom pods out of her rice as Kevin tore a piece of
khobz
[flatbread] to scoop his.

“Well, summer is almost over,” I said, licking my fingers. “Jaden, you’ll get to ride the bus with Madison to school. First grade!”

Before anyone could answer, a huge cracking sound ripped through our conversation, ending our words with a loud thud. We all stared at each other, then raced in unison to the window. We strained to peer outside, but we could see only a little of the yard.

A head taller than I, Kevin pressed against the glass. “It looks like a tree fell over,” he said.

“A tree?” I shrieked. “Our tree? The tree the kids are always climbing?” All five of us ran into the yard.

The short, wiry tree that had held the children in its skinny arms was lying on its side, completely uprooted. Its gnarled roots were exposed, naked for all to see. We stood staring at it. My first instinct was to pat dirt back around the roots. I wanted to cover them, to restore the tree to its former glory. It hurt to see it in such a position after the children had played in its branches. I shivered. I was glad the children had not been caught in its fall.

I peered inside the trunk, studying the scrawny tangle of roots. “Hey, Kevin, look at this. It’s hollow. This tree has been dead for a long time.”

Kevin bent over to look. “You’re right. All this time we thought it was alive and well, but it was only a matter of time.”

The children picked at the crackling leaves. I had not noticed before that the leaves were brown.

“Can we still climb on it, Daddy?” Jaden asked.

“No, honey,” Kevin answered. “It is too dangerous with the insides dried out.”

“Why did it fall down?” Madison asked.

“Its roots weren’t getting any water or food from the soil,” I explained. “It did not have anything underneath to hold on to. That old wind just knocked it right over.”

“Oh.” Madison peeked cautiously inside the trunk. “It was a good tree.”

I nodded. “It looked like it, didn’t it? Now it’s just firewood. We’ll have to chop it up and burn it. Maybe we can roast marshmallows.”

“Yummy.” Jack’s face lit up.

“Well, come on, guys. Let’s go finish our lunch.” I waved the children to join me.

I looked back again at the lifeless tree. It had appeared so strong. I shuddered. I did not want to think what its deception could have cost my children.

School was a week away. With the children’s school clothing lost in our crates, I busied myself making new ones. I was sewing black Scotty dogs on a red gingham blouse for Madison when the telephone rang. I answered it.

“Asalam alaykum [Peace be upon you].” It was Mona, Fatima’s friend. She gushed the news that Fatima had given birth early that morning to a baby boy. Mona, Sofia and Fatima’s mother-in-law had been with her for the delivery.

I tried to ignore my hurt feelings at not being included. I knew I was still a foreigner in Fatima’s eyes. I listened to Mona chat lightly about Fatima and the baby. I drummed my fingers on the table, putting little effort into following her fast-spoken words. Something in her manner irritated me. It seemed false and contrived. She skirted over a brief mention of the baby’s illness.

I stopped drumming my fingers and interrupted her midsentence. “
Marah thanya, loh samaty
[Another time, please]. How is the baby sick? What is wrong?”

Mona brushed aside my questions, whispering, “Ma’a sha’allah [What God wills].” I knew the phrase was commonly spoken around infants and children like a charm to ward off evil. I had been warned to say ma’a sha’allah over my own children. I had responded, “I walk with God through Jesus. Jesus is all I need.”

Mona was not giving me a straight answer about the baby, and I knew something was wrong. “May I visit Fatima at the hospital?” I asked.

“Yes, yes, you must,” Mona replied. “She is asking for you.”

I hung up the phone and telephoned Alison, a physician friend from Europe. Deaths among Yemeni children were not uncommon. Most of the women I knew had lost at least one child under the age of five, and I wanted to prevent Fatima’s baby from becoming a statistic among them. I explained my concern to Alison. “Will you go with me to see Fatima?” She agreed.

Alison and I arrived at the hospital late that afternoon. We found Fatima’s private room, but she was not in it. The white-robed, white-veiled nurse told us she was with her baby, who had been taken for tests. She said they would return “after one hour.” Knowing this probably meant three or four hours, we decided to leave. I jotted a note in English and laid it on the white-sheeted cot next to an empty steel crib.

Alison flipped through a clipboard tied to the crib. The report had been written in English, as most medical documents were, and detailed the infant’s birth. Alison clicked her tongue. The baby had been born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. Attempts to resuscitate him were successful after an hour of effort by the physician.

Alison let the clipboard fall back with a bang against the crib. “If the baby lives, he will have severe brain damage,” she said grimly. “According to this report, he is unable to swallow, and he is choking on his own saliva.”

A group of four women walked into the room, including Fatima’s mother-in-law and Huda, the bride’s mother from the wedding I had attended. I did not know the other two. They hugged us enthusiastically, exclaiming over the birth of Fatima’s son. Even Fatima’s mother-in-law seemed proud that Fatima had delivered a boy.

I nodded my head, forcing a smile. I wondered if they understood what had happened, or if they were ignoring the truth.
Will they soon be telling Fatima to accept her fate and say
al hamdulilah
?
I wondered.

The mother-in-law seemed to guess my thoughts. She looked forcefully at me. “Ensha’allah, he will be strong, qawi, like his father. Ma’a sha’allah [What God wills].”

The other women agreed in unison, “Ma’a sha’allah, ma’a sha’allah.”

I whispered, “Ensha’allah [God willing].” Alison said nothing.

We quietly took our leave as the women sat down to chat on Fatima’s bed. We glanced at the empty crib, declining protests to stay and celebrate.

Two days later Kevin and I loaded the children into an agency van to drive to the home of Shirley and Johnny Higdon, colleagues with children near the ages of ours. They lived near the public hospital where Fatima’s baby had been transferred. We pulled out of our graveled yard and into the street. When Kevin got out of the car to close our wide iron gates, I heard a child screaming. I craned my neck to locate the screams but could not see anything.

“It’s the neighbor’s little girl,” Madison said, pointing outside her window.

“Yeah, her brothers are hurting her,” added Jaden.

I looked where they were pointing. In front of their father’s
baqala
[grocery store], a laughing boy of about ten gripped both arms of his screaming sister, who was around five. I gasped as their teenaged brother swung the youngest boy, a toddler, hard and fast at his captive sister so that his feet kicked her full force in her upper thighs. The boys laughed outright as the little girl screamed and writhed from each blow. The wailing child wriggled and pulled, ripping her rose-colored dress in an attempt to escape their iron grasp.

I hammered the window with my fist as I rolled it down. “Lah [No]!” I shouted at them. “Harram!
Hatha mosh tamam!
[Forbidden! This is not good!]” The boys sneered scornfully at me and continued to torment their sister.

“Kevin!” I yelled through the window, pointing at the boys. “Do something! They won’t listen to me.”

When Kevin saw where I was pointing, he strode his six-foot, two-hundred-pound bulk angrily toward the boys. He was twice the size of the average Yemeni man. When the boys saw him coming, they stopped their laughing and relinquished their hold on the sobbing little girl, who quickly darted for their backyard.

Sputtering with anger, Kevin scolded the boys as well as he could in Arabic. The boys only shrugged, snickering and nudging each other, impatient for Kevin to finish. When he had, they hurried into the backyard after their sister.

Kevin was furious. He stalked up the stairs to the baqala and stuck his head through the door. But he did not go in. Instead he turned abruptly and stalked back down the stairs toward the car. He was shaking, his teeth clenched tight.

“What happened?” I asked as he got into the car. He ground the gear into first, ripping the cuff of his sleeve on the gearshift.

“Their father and two other men were chewing qat right by the window.” He spat out the words with disgust. “They saw the whole thing. They just did not care.”

My head hit the headrest as Kevin jerked the car into the street. I strained my neck to see the neighbor’s backyard as we passed. I could not see if the boys had recaptured their sister.

“Thank the Lord Fatima’s baby is a boy,” I whispered. Kevin nodded his silent agreement.

We deposited our children in the Higdons’ courtyard. Leaving the fathers to talk projects over coffee and contemporary Christian music, Shirley and I made our way to the public hospital.

Inside a narrow door, infants and mothers roomed together in a long ward crowded with iron cots and small wooden incubators. Shirley and I wove our way between them, murmuring polite greetings to each new mother and grandmother we passed. Each wore a balto and tried to keep her hejab wrapped as she leaned against the iron rails of her headboard or sat swinging her feet off the side of her bed.

The women gestured as we passed, wanting us to see the babies bound in blanket cocoons inside the glass boxes. One infant had a cleft palate. Another had a malformed hand. The mothers patted spaces on their beds for us to sit, moving aside plastic bags of clothing. There were no televisions, only a large, black-rimmed clock that ticked hours on a peeling, white wall.

One woman held out a section of the orange she was eating. “
Ahlen wa sahlen
[Hello and welcome],” she said eagerly. I smiled at her club-footed infant and hesitated, about to take the orange. Fatima called from the end of the ward. She waved impatiently for us.

“Shukran [Thank you],” I murmured apologetically and moved on.

When we reached Fatima, she hugged me tightly, kissing both sides of my face three times before letting me go. She kept hold of my hand even as she hugged Shirley. She moved aside her plastic bags and motioned for us to sit on her cot.

“I am glad to see you!” she cried.

“I am glad to see you, too! How are you?” I asked, still holding her hand.

Shirley adjusted the blond hair that had strayed from her scarf in the force of Fatima’s hug. Her light freckled skin looked flushed and her blue eyes were misty at the warmth of Fatima’s welcome.

Fatima wrinkled her nose in a grimace. “I am good. There is some pain still. But I am okay.”

She pulled me to the incubator at her bedside. “See my son.” Her smile was proud and tender. “His name is Qasar. It means ‘emperor.’ ”

Shirley and I moved closer to the tiny baby, who was wrapped tightly in white sheeting, lying inside the framed glass box like a miniature mummy with only his curly head exposed. An oxygen tube was taped into his tiny nose. His breathing was irregular, and he coughed frequently, choking and struggling with each cough and making an effort to cry.

Fatima cringed at each sound. “My baby cannot swallow or suck his milk,” she told Shirley. “The doctor said ensha’allah [God willing] he will be better and he will grow to be strong and healthy.”

She looked at the infant and then back at Shirley. “But he cannot swallow.”

Fatima scoured Shirley’s somber face. Shirley was an American nurse and was respected as much as a doctor by local women. “Do you think he will become well soon?” she asked softly.

I ached at the worry in Fatima’s weary eyes. Her face looked gaunt and hungry for hope. I squeezed her hand tightly as we stood together by the incubator. I wanted to infuse her with hope. But I wanted it to be real hope rooted in living Truth, so that it could not be taken away.

Shirley cleared her throat. I had seen her flash of anger when Fatima described the doctor’s prognosis. Shirley had little tolerance for the local practice of telling patients what they wanted to hear instead of the truth. She had been by the bedside of dying patients who had clung to such lies. They had been kept from the truth until their diseased bodies were beyond restoration. And then it had been too late.

“Fatima,” Shirley began gently, taking Fatima’s other hand in hers. “If the baby cannot swallow, he cannot drink or eat. He must learn to swallow or he cannot survive.”

Fatima nodded, tears filling her eyes, as she looked at Shirley and then me. The anguish in her eyes hurt my soul. Shirley dropped Fatima’s hand and reached inside the incubator to stroke the infant’s tiny head.

“Fatima,” I hesitated. “May we pray for your baby?” I held my breath for her rejection.

“Yes, yes, please,” Fatima answered instantly. She did not notice the women who might be watching. She did not seem to care. She eagerly pulled us closer to her baby.

I was stunned by her response. Fatima had never allowed me to mention Jesus’ name. But now she seemed hungry for it. We hovered over the incubator. I placed my hand on the baby’s back as Shirley placed hers on his head. We bowed our heads slightly and prayed discreetly with open eyes.

Shirley prayed first, then I. We laid the infant before God, asking God in Jesus’ name to help the baby swallow so that he could eat and be nourished. We finished and stood silently beside Fatima.

Fatima’s eyes were glistening with tears. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.” She looked wistfully through the glass box at her tiny son.

A light dawned in Shirley. “Fatima,” she asked. “Have you held your baby?”

Fatima shook her head, shaking away a tear. “Not since he was in the private hospital. Here the nurse said I cannot. She said Qasar must stay in the incubator, even for the tube feedings.”

Anger flashed again in Shirley’s eyes. The baby was not attached to IV lines or to any machine other than the oxygen tank. There was nothing to obstruct his being held by his mother. Shirley raised the wooden lid of the incubator and gently lifted the infant out.

“Of course you can hold your baby,” she said. “He needs your touch, and you need his.”

Fatima took the infant carefully into her arms, holding him near her breast. She gently lowered her cheek to caress his head against it. She closed her eyes, savoring the feel of her son. Tears streamed down her bowed face.

“Fatima,” Shirley said. “You can hold your baby whenever you want. It is good for him to feel your touch. When you lift him out of the incubator, keep the tube from slipping by holding him like this.” She demonstrated. “And tell the nurse I said you could,” she added gruffly.