Sitting there, amid the haunting of her past, she knew if she could’ve, she would not have chosen what her life had become. Guilt twisted her insides, because she wouldn’t have had that brief time with her sons. Murder of a different sort. That’s why she’d stayed. She wanted to flee from the thought. Her hands moved to start the car.
The first lines of the poem popped in her head. To live is to be free of the spell … She dropped her hands back into her lap and gave herself over to the soothsaying of these words that made sense without logic. They found their way into her tense muscles and rigid jawline. She’d bound herself with old cords of regret and sorrow, and yesterdays that could not be relived – but perhaps could be relieved.
Qabila’s car cut through the dancing sand as she drove home through the dark Strandfontein backroads. The roiling ocean to her right was a fitting complement. There was no resettling for her. Not yet. There was one more question she had to ask Rashid. The question that had haunted and tormented her. The question she’d never asked.
Qabila put her keys down on the little table littered with in-between things: keys, bank statements, her vermillion scarf, his gloves. She should have just lived in this narrow little corridor.
‘Where were you? I called you. You left your phone at home.’ Rashid’s voice slammed into her tender skin.
‘I went for a drive,’ she replied softly.
‘I got chicken,’ he accused.
She couldn’t help the snicker that escaped. ‘Chicken for chickens,’ she muttered.
‘What? What did you say?’ His voice boomed down the passage.
She met his eyes. Saw the anger, hurt, fear. So much fear. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘The chicken’s cold now. It’s in the kitchen.’ The evenness of his voice was at odds with what his eyes were telling her.
‘I went to Strandfontein Pavilion,’ she said, ‘to that parking lot where we used to go.’
‘What? Why would you do that? That’s mad.’ His distaste could’ve sent her flying. She felt its full force before he swivelled, starting his retreat. She sighed.
‘Do you love her?’ Qabila asked. Her voice soft with the faintest undercurrent of hurt. She watched his arm grabbing the wall to correct his stumble. For a breath, nothing moved. She stared at his back. He nodded. Slowly. Solemnly.
Although a small part of her she rarely fed had hoped otherwise, she was not surprised. Was not upset. It should have hurt. What kind of wife calmly accepts her husband’s affair? A trickle of relief softened the tension in her bones. For years, Qabila had imagined that this answer to this question would break her. Had imagined her marriage would end with screaming recriminations. Hoped, too, that after the screaming, he would say it had been a mistake and that he’d loved her all along. That he just needed to almost lose her. She smiled wryly at the foolishness of not realising that some endings start long before they are spoken. He had left her a long time ago, and she’d grown accustomed to his dutiful not-love.
‘I want a divorce,’ she said to his back.
His shoulders dropped. Four words. Four steps to lay her cheek against his back and beg him to turn. Four steps. Until he goes where she cannot follow. ‘It’s been a hard week, Qabila, a long day,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m going to bed.’
Even if she ran she would always be four steps behind. Four steps too many. She felt as if she should cry. Instead she went to the kitchen and ate cold chicken and potato wedges that stuck to the roof of her mouth. Tomorrow was soon enough to find a lawyer.
Chapter 5
Qabila floated through her morning rituals. Rashid must have woken quite early to avoid her. Once, her need for his love would’ve weighted his absence. Now, an undiscovered life without him lay before her. She could live in Paris for a year or go for singing lessons or buy a little cottage in a forest. She could go on road trips to nowhere without his sullen presence.
Early in their marriage, they’d often driven up to Joburg to visit Faghria. They always went in secret. Mummy Kayna and Boeya would have disowned them if they’d known – might never have spoken to them again if they knew they went to Faghria’s wedding. But Qabila wouldn’t have missed it for anything: that wedding was one of the warmest unions she’d witnessed. Caroline was an academic too, a literary scholar who specialised in queer theory. She and Qabila frequently attended the same conferences. Faghria used to enjoy telling them all not to talk shop, particularly when they complained. ‘Be an artist,’ she’d say, ‘like me – and not the troubled kind. Then you don’t have to worry about all this institutional stuff.’
She hoped they would still be sisters. Faghria was the only Fakir she was completely comfortable with, and she didn’t want to lose her or Caroline.
The house phone’s shrill ring startled her. ‘I’ve been trying to call you for the last two days,’ Zainab’s voice accused. ‘Your phone’s turned off. Where’ve you been, what’s going on? Are you okay? I’ve been dreaming of you every night.’
Her sister’s worry was palpable, but instead of making Qabila feel smothered and impatient, she felt something she’d forgotten how to receive. Love. Not the movie kind. Not the Rashid kind. The kind that was rough and unrestrained and spiked a room with need and fear and tenderness and memories. The love brought by the chaos of being tied to unpredictable beings. Beings we barely understand but who we depend on for the fullness of our days. Love. Qabila folded into the chair next to the phone.
‘I’m sorry you’ve been worried,’ she said.
‘What’s happening with you? Rashid said you were sick last week and needed space. What’s going on? Did you have a breakdown?’
‘I really miss Mommy. I think it’s only hitting me now. It was a difficult week. I was remembering so much.’
‘Memories of Mommy?’ Zainab asked.
Qabila sighed. ‘Everything. How did I get it so wrong, Zainab? For so long, I’ve just floated along … I was so unhappy, but I wouldn’t acknowledge it. Never mind try to change it. But I’m getting well. That’s where I was: getting well.’ She knew she wasn’t making sense, and yet this was the most sensible she’d felt in a long time. ‘I’m divorcing Rashid.’
‘What? No wonder I’m dreaming of you. Rashid warned me that something is off. Stay there, I’m coming over.’
The phone clicked off. It was just like Zainab to issue a command and expect to be obeyed. Her homemaker sister was one of the most intelligent women she knew. Over the years, Qabila had tried to convince her to do something with her brilliance. Zainab would sigh and tell her that she was doing exactly what she wanted. That there was more to life than accumulating possessions and strangers’ respect.
‘What’s wrong,’ Zainab would say, ‘is not that I am doing something that doesn’t show I’m brilliant, but that the world doesn’t reward the brilliance in small everyday acts of love.’
Qabila would usually shake her head. ‘But you don’t have to struggle the way you do! And what will you do when the kids grow up?’
‘Allah Kadir. God is capable.’
Qabila was stunned by the fatalistic surrender, but had learned to respect her sister’s faith. It usually won the argument. God, after all, had given her three children and a husband who loved her. Qabila couldn’t argue with that.
She bustled about, clearing some of the mess that had accumulated in the last few days. This must be what young people felt when their judgemental parents came to visit. She smiled wryly as she imagined Zainab wiping white-gloved hands over the furniture. And what did she mean about Rashid warning her? She would have to call Ntombi to come and clean again. Rashid had