“What about the fire? What about our clothes?” she asked, a careful reminder. I scooped up two fistfuls of soil and suffocated the small fire. She swiftly picked up each of our pieces of clothing and we headed into the house.
* * *
“Your second wife will hand you your first son,” she said. I was sitting on her bedroom floor with my back against the wall. She was sitting in my lap with her face against my chest, right over my stab wound. “Your first wife will have twin daughters.”
“Insha’Allah,” I said. Wild thoughts were streaming through my mind now. I know why any man would adore her, get obsessed and do some real stupid shit to win her. I know that any man that has the pleasure to see and speak to her, to look into her eyes or experience her smile, would fall for her. I know a man could lose his mind over her. I did. She felt so good to me, had me so open. I felt the heat of murder with the thought of anyone, anywhere, anytime trying to get at Chiasa. Word to mother, I feel murderous if any man even looks at her. I needed to admit that to myself. If I could lock her up and be the only one she talked to or ever saw, I would, but I know that’s insane. It’s a strong feeling, I told myself. It’s something you have to manage, I told myself. Get some discipline, I scolded myself.
“What about the cuffs?” I finally asked her. She exhaled.
“I don’t like when you leave the house without seeing me, even if it’s only for a few seconds. And I don’t like when you keep secrets from me,” she said softly. “And I don’t like when we pray separately. And I want to hear you call the adhan. I miss that,” she confessed. “Remember in Itaewon?” she asked me, referring to a section of Seoul, Korea. “The mosque always had the call to prayer and we could hear it all around outside and in the open air. That was so nice,” she said.
“You want me to say the call to prayer inside our house?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, “at least in the morning for Fajr and then the last prayer of the night. I never heard you sing before. But your speaking voice is so nice. I know it would sound beautiful, you calling the prayer. And I bet if Akemi could hear the call to prayer, it would bring her to her knees finally. That’s what I love about our faith. It has everything anyone would need to hold their family together. And if we do what we are supposed to, the way we are supposed to do it, all of us will feel good.”
“So you cuffed me to Akemi so that I wouldn’t leave the house without you. But when I woke up, you were not in the house,” I said.
“But you knew I was right around the corner with Naja,” she said. “When you leave sometimes, I don’t see you for a long time, the whole day, most of the night. And that’s okay. I just want that whenever we part from one another, you say ja mata to me and then leave me with a nice mazaj.” I smiled.
“Mazaj,” I repeated. “Where did you learn that word?”
“You know I listen carefully. I might know about thirty Arabic words by now. And in Naja’s school there is this one teacher who every morning talks about her mazaj for the day. I love the sound of that word,” she said.
“And ja mata?”
“That’s Japanese. Just a cool way for young people to not say ‘goodbye,’ which sounds so final. Instead, it’s ‘ja mata,’ like, ‘I’ll see you later.’ ” She smiled.
“I can hold on to a good feeling for days and nights and even more days. I can wait for you. I’m good for that, however long it takes. But if you leave without saying anything, without letting me know what’s going on and while keeping a whole bunch of secrets, that’s no good for me. Then I’ll be worrying the whole time. I need for you to take a few minutes and leave me with a good feeling before you go. Confide in me, so I can hold onto that.”
“A whole bunch of secrets.” I repeated what sounded like an exaggeration.
“Yes.” She kissed me. “A whole bunch of secrets. Like what about your friends?”
“What friends?” I said.
“See! That’s what I am talking about. You said those guys in our backyard every day were workmen building a wall. You told Umma and Naja and Akemi and me not to come outside when they were here and not to interact with them at all. But it was obvious that they were your friends. My window faces the yard. I could see how you were with them. I could see your smile. I saw you lifting weights with the cement blocks, challenging them. I saw the three of you talking together and laughing and joking. I can tell when you love somebody. I can see it and feel it right away,” she said.
“And who do I love?” I asked her.
“Umma first of all, and Akemi and Naja and those two friends who helped you build the wall,” she said. “Is there a reason you don’t want your friends to know us?”
I was quiet, thinking about how to say the truth in a right way.
“You don’t want me to train in your dojo?” she asked. “You won’t tell me why my cousin Marcus called you? You went out in the night and came back with a stab wound. I would never have known if I didn’t dig through the trash and see all of the bloody cotton, bandages, clothes, and used alcohol wipes. And even then, I still didn’t know if it was you who got hurt. I worried about Akemi and the twins, and Umma and Naja. But I realized pretty quickly that it had to be you from examining your clothes. I wondered where exactly on your body you were hurt. Until I felt your chest, I had no way of knowing. Why won’t you let me fight with you against your enemies? Why didn’t you let me comfort you, clean your wounds? When we first met, I introduced myself to you the most natural way I could. I introduced myself as ‘Chiasa, the whole woman, not a half.’ So why not take all of me, instead of selected parts and pieces?” she asked me softly. “I am a woman. I like to love and fight and fuck and read, and learn and talk and earn and fly and ride and discover things. That’s my adventure. Are there parts of me that you want to erase?”
I just hugged her and held her close for a while.
“I’m a Muslim man, living in a foreign land,” I finally said, directly into her ear. “It’s not my women who I don’t trust. It’s this place. Should I tell you what I would do if I just acted on my instincts and impulses? I wouldn’t let you talk to any other men. I wouldn’t let them see you. I wouldn’t let you take pilot lessons with any other male students or teachers. I’d ask you to stay in the house when I go out and wait here till I get back. I wouldn’t let you go anywhere, unless I escorted you. I wouldn’t let you work for anything, but I’d give you everything you needed and everything you wanted. I know you are trained in martial arts, but I don’t want you to fight. I get tight if I think that you think I need help to conquer my enemies. I’ll protect you, provide for you, love you. How does that make you feel?” I asked her.
“It makes me feel really good. If that is your truth, I’m just happy you shared it with me,” she said.
“And those two guys are my best friends. I do love them. But here is what you need to know about all men. If any man, relative, friend or foe, sees another man having something too precious, genuine, beautiful, rare, he wants it for himself. As a Muslim man, I want my friends and brothers and all men to have good and true and beautiful things for themselves too. But none of them can touch mine. Each man has to earn his own wealth, whether it’s women, land, gold, or money. That’s the struggle each man has to wage. There are men who want the gifts that Allah provides, but who are unwilling to humble themselves in faith to receive the rewards. Men unwilling to strive, sacrifice, or limit themselves, soon as they realize that there is some work or struggle involved, they turn away. But even after they turn away, they still want the wealth that Allah rewards to those who work and strive sincerely and who respect limits and walk the straight path. That’s when there is war between men.”
“Arigato gozaimasu,” she said, thanking me in Japanese.
“For what?” I asked her.
“For answering my questions,” she said. And then she was silent. I knew it was because I did not speak about the stabbing.
“Men fight. Expect that, and don’t expect them to te
ll you about it. A real man keeps his women out of the realm of war. War is a brutal, man’s space. If a woman, who a man really loves as deeply as I love you, comes into the realm of war, she will cause that man who loves to become distracted from his target. Instead of finishing his battle, he will become preoccupied with her. Just the fact that she’s there will add more fuel to his fury. He may even kill, ignoring other options, because she is there. Her presence will make the war turn out differently than if it was just kept between men. If a man has to worry about protecting you, while confronting or being attacked by his enemies, it gives his enemies the advantage,” I said. “You wouldn’t want to be the reason your man gets merked, simply because you believed that you were trying to help him fight his battles, would you?” I asked her.
“Merked?” she repeated.
“Murdered,” I clarified.
“No, not at all,” she said. “Not murdered. That would be too harsh,” she said softly.
“Don’t worry about what Marcus said to me on the phone. Leave it between men.”
“Even though I saw his karambit in your hiding space where you keep your guns? You want me to overlook it?” she asked slowly and sweetly.
“His karambit?” I repeated.
“It’s a close-combat blade. The handle fits snug in a fighter’s fist. It’s easy to conceal and the blade itself is curved like this,” she said, drawing the shape of the blade on my skin with her fingertip. “It’s deadly. It belongs to Marcus. I’ve seen it in his collection before. But of course they make plenty of them, so maybe it’s yours, although this was my first time seeing you with it.”
Now I knew what I already knew. My second wife sees almost everything having anything to do with me. She went in the ditch I dug, the box I built and buried to stash my heat. And I’m sure checking my stash tonight was not her first time doing it. She knew so much about me that I didn’t voluntarily tell or show her.
“Yeah, overlook it,” I told her solemnly.
“Well, at least I know that it wasn’t Marcus or Marcus’s blade that cut you. The way that weapon is curved, if an enemy swung down properly, it would have not only sliced open your chest, the hook may have even snatched out your heart. The cut you have is not so deep,” she said with the feeling of love streaming through her voice. “The cut you have looks like it was done by a halfhearted fighter.”
“Halfhearted fighter?” I repeated.
“Yes, like a guy who wanted to make you hurt, but not enough to push the blade in forcefully. Like a fighter who was undecided, which is the worst kind of fighter. My sensei would say that this is a person who doesn’t deserve the weapon he holds in his hand. My sensei would say that whoever did that had a weak mind. If his mind was strong, and if he was capable of making a decision and following through on what he decided, that guy would have never picked up the weapon in the first place. He would have figured out that he is afraid of the fight, he is afraid of killing and equally afraid of dying, and he lacks confidence in his victory. It would have been better for that kind of guy to just communicate and try to solve his disagreements with you. And Marcus has had military training. I don’t think of him as a halfhearted fighter. Why would he fight you anyway?” she asked naïvely, but still poking around for details.
“Oh, and I decided that he probably called you to make sure that we all show up to the Martha’s Vineyard July Fourth celebration.”
“Vineyard?” I repeated.
“Martha’s Vineyard, it’s in Massachusetts. You must’ve heard of it before?” she asked softly.
“So you must have gone there before?”
“Twice,” she said, smiling. “Once with Daddy; he was only able to come one time in the last ten years because he’s always on duty. And the other time I went with Aunt Tasha and all of my cousins. Uncle Clementine owns a pretty huge house on the vineyard. We are invited to stay with them for the weekend, and this year July Fourth is on a Friday, so it’s just perfect. If you’d like, we can go up on Thursday night and stay until Sunday, late afternoon.” She looked up at me eagerly.
“Why would you think that I would know that place? Is it just because your aunt and uncle own property up there that I should’ve known about it?”
“No!” She laughed. “It’s because it’s a famous place for African-American families to vacation. Like especially the families of doctors and lawyers and judges and architects, engineers, executives, and you know . . . people who have professional practices and who own successful businesses.”
I caressed her. I already knew I would be playing in the championship game in Brooklyn on July 4, not in a vineyard. I kissed her on her ear. I stroked her hair. I kissed her nose. I kissed her lips. I flipped her. I kissed her neck and caressed her butt checks. I fingered her from behind. She grinded on my finger. I mounted her from behind and entered her pussy. She pushed up onto her knees. Her breasts were dangling. I grabbed them. We were humping. I was aware that right then I was a little rough with her. As I was stroking her, I was convinced that I was right in my stance with her. She’s a woman, one hundred percent emotion. She’s naïve. She thinks her father and her male cousins are nice guys. She didn’t realize she was inviting me to stay in a house with a man who’d tried to stab me in the back. So of course I should make all of the decisions and protect her. She is my love. I was caressing the back of her thighs. She was completely quiet except for her beautiful breathing. All of her curiosities and requests slipped away. As I pulled her into a new position so I could see her pretty face, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were the eyes of a woman who would willingly obey. I was inhaling her scent, coconut skin and olive oil sweat, lavender hair and a clean-smelling pussy. Oh, Allah.
* * *
“And the dojo, the same thing. Stay out of my training space. Don’t make me break somebody’s neck,” I warned her.
“Is there anything that women can do, in your mind?” she asked me softly, staring down at her own feet.
“Women can do everything,” I said. “But women should do it among women, and men among men. If you want to be a doctor, be a doctor for hundreds of women. Do you think I would take you to a male gynecologist or male obstetrician? No,” I told her. “I wouldn’t. That’s how it is back home. The men marry and love the women, protect and provide for their women and children. The men work and the women work also in separate realms, even the ones who have college degrees and powerful professions. Umma had her own business in Sudan, same as she has one here in America. She had many women working for her on our estate, but only women. She dressed so many women of the Sudan with her fabrics and fashions and designs. When she made clothing for men, she spoke to them through their wives, or their female servants.”
“I like that,” Chiasa said, surprising me. “I would think that it was really too much if you thought that women couldn’t do anything. You are just saying that we should open businesses for other women and with other women, and not interact with men who are not our husbands or brothers or sons or cousins, like family, right?” She was right, but her cousin Marcus came to mind and that made me pause.
“Right,” I said. “But you know in Sudan, some cousins can and do marry one another. It’s the same in other Islamic countries as well.”
“No way!” she said. I was glad to hear her feeling about it leap out like that.
“Seriously, sometimes two cousins have been promised to one another in marriage from early on. It could be an arrangement made by their parents or even between themselves, because they spent so much time together they just naturally became attracted.”
“That would be weird. I couldn’t imagine having to marry Marcus or Xavier, or any one of my cousins. I mean they all have known me since birth. We are related by blood. I don’t look at them that way,” she said.
“What way?” I asked.
“The way I look at you.” She kissed me.
“There you go.” I pulled back. “Trying to distract me with those pretty lips.”
“
I’m not!” She jumped back, smiling. I just looked at her.
“Don’t stare at me like that,” she said.
“Why not?” I asked her.
“It makes me crazy, gets me all turned on.”
* * *
“Tell me your secrets,” I said. I was hoping she didn’t have any secrets. It was 2 a.m. then. We were naked beneath the sheets in her darkened room.
“I’m not going to lie and say that I don’t have any secrets. But I just hope that if I tell you mine, you won’t get angry about any of them, and that you’ll always trust me,” she said softly.
“I won’t get angry. I know you wouldn’t do anything that you knew would make me angry.”
“Well, my father has given me a bank account with twenty thousand American dollars in it,” she said. “But, he says that it’s not the birthday present for my birthday in a few weeks. He says it’s for me to use for college in September, an education fund.”
“Did you ask him for money?” I asked her.
“Not at all. He said he had been saving it up for me since birth, little by little and that he would provide a portion of it at the start of each college school year. I never knew anything about it. Right before you and I married, I always worked really hard to make money to pay for my flight courses. But now that Daddy wants me to go to a four-year college and to become an aeronautical engineer, not just attend a flight school, that’s why he sent the money.”
“Anything else?” I asked, avoiding reacting one way or the other.
“And Aunt Tasha scheduled an appointment for me at her gynecologist. She wanted me to get on birth control. I told her nicely that it was not what we wanted. She also offered me to use the ground-floor apartment in another brownstone she owns in Harlem,” she said. I felt heated but remained quiet.
“But I told Aunt Tasha ‘no thank you,’ that I am happy living here with my husband and his family. So she said for my birthday she would gift me two memberships in their health club. It’s really nice. I think you would like it, and that’s a place where the male and female facility is separate. I can work out there and it wouldn’t be so bad that I don’t have an all-girl New York dojo to train in just yet.”