One Secret Summer (11 page)

‘Did I ask for anything?’ Niela muttered stubbornly.

‘That’s not the point. You’re engaged now. Stop acting like a spoilt child. You’re behaving like your cousin.’

‘Why don’t you marry
her
off to that fat old man?’ Niela asked bitterly. ‘If you’re so keen to have a wedding.’

‘Niela!’ Saira’s exasperation boiled over. She snatched back the silk, stuffed it in the suitcase and snapped it shut. ‘I’ve
just about had enough. Go to your room.’

Niela turned without a word and left the room. She ignored Korfa and Raageh’s worried glances and walked straight down the
corridor to her room. She shut the door firmly behind her and leaned against it, breathing heavily. In a week’s time, her
life would be over. The wedding was scheduled to begin on Friday afternoon. Hassan had organised the rental of a community
hall in Meidling where the
nikkah
would be performed in front of
practically the whole Viennese Somali community. A day and a night of feasting and celebration, followed by an elaborate luncheon
the next day for family and close friends. Hamid had reserved a hotel room for the wedding night, and early on Sunday morning,
after saying goodbye to her family, she would set off for Munich and her new life as his wife. She pulled the coverlet up
over her face to try and blot out her thoughts.

The day of her wedding dawned early. Niela woke with the first shaft of light. She’d forgotten to draw the curtains the night
before, and every now and then, a ray of sunlight emerged from behind the low grey clouds and came to rest on the carpet.
There was a small, escaped feather lying on the bedspread. It stirred and flattened gently as her breath rose and fell. She
lay still, trying not to think about what would happen next. She could hear the sound of her mother moving about in the kitchen,
pots being clattered around, the fridge door opening and closing. In an hour or so, Saira’s friends would start arriving,
Uncle Raageh would bring his car round to the front and the business of loading it up with food and drink would begin. The
day she’d been dreading all week was finally here.

There wouldn’t be much she would remember. She didn’t know when she’d first stumbled upon the trick of seeing herself from
a distance, watching herself go through the motions of some fearful activity or another. Perhaps it had started with the war.
She could clearly recall walking down the road to the house one day and hearing the by now familiar ‘crack’ of a rocket exploding
somewhere close by, followed by the high-pitched whine of an engine and people’s screams. She’d stopped, the hair at the back
of her neck rising in awareness of the potential
danger she was in. It took only a few seconds – suddenly she was no longer there, in her own body, sweat seeping from her
pores. She was somewhere else, watching herself in a long, slow series of moving images, walking calmly to the side of the
road. She hid behind a row of black plastic dustbins and waited for the engine sound to draw near. Gunshots rang out; there
were more screams. Niela crouched behind the dustbins but
she wasn’t really there
. She could hear the jeep approaching – people shouting, crying, begging. It passed right in front of her, men with guns swinging
wildly from its sides, shouting, gesticulating and firing into the air. She’d waited there for almost an hour, her legs aching
with cramp, until she slowly came back down to earth. The film stopped; she returned to herself. She walked on. At home, Saira
was hysterical with fear. She was not to go out alone again. Ever.

As she allowed the women to dress her in the pale lilac
dirac
that Saira had shown her, the same sensation of leaving her own body returned to her. She watched the proceedings almost
dreamily, her mind anywhere but there. She saw faces turned towards her in delight, heard the ululating cries of the women
and the hearty, suggestive laughter of the men. Hamid gave a speech; the imam recited verses from the Quran. There were tears
from some of the women, but not from her. She repeated her vows in a flat, obedient voice, devoid of emotion. She wasn’t really
there. Hamid’s grip on her arm was proprietorial. She stared at the thick fingers with their smattering of hair and his pink,
buffed and polished fingernails. Sweetmeats and the soft, floury delicacies that her mother and Mrs Qureisha had been preparing
all week were pushed into her mouth. She sat in the high-backed chair with the lacy veil covering her face as cameras went
off, one after the other.
A good match. Yes, a very good match. Pity about the bride, though. Why doesn’t she smile more? Silly girl, anyone’d think
she was going to a funeral.
She heard the muttered comments as if they were directed at someone else. She was not the one being addressed.

Her parents were amongst the last to leave. The wedding party broke up in fits and starts; people left, were called back to
have one last drink, one last chat. They came and went and came back again. Niela’s gaze drifted every now and then to the
large clock at one end of the hall: 9.56; 10.07; 11.13. It was past midnight when the swing doors finally banged shut and
she was alone with Hamid. His car was waiting outside, he told her, helping himself to the last of the whisky bottles that
remained. The women had cleared the tables and the younger men had stacked away the chairs. There was almost nothing left
of the party that had taken up the better part of the day – brightly coloured streamers, a collapsed balloon, an empty Coke
bottle or two. She got up stiffly and picked up the bag containing her overnight things. The folds of her long ivory
dirac
swirled about her legs as she made her way across the empty hall to the exit. It was her third change of clothing that day
but she couldn’t even recall the colour of the previous two.

It was chilly outside. She waited by the front steps of the building as Hamid brought the car to the entrance. Aside from
their vows, they’d barely spoken to one another all evening. He leaned across and opened the door for her from the inside.
There was a moment’s awkwardness as she fumbled with the handle and then she slid inside the car, placed her bag at her feet
and was enveloped in the darkness that smelled of cigar smoke and the pungent aftershave she’d come to associate with him.
‘Fasten your seat belt,’ he said to her as he pulled away from the kerb. She did as she was told in silence. He didn’t speak
again until they drove up in front of the hotel.

She didn’t even have the luxury of fear. He was shorter than she but twice as strong. She was barely inside the small hotel
room when his hand was on her waist, pushing the thin fabric of her dress up her body to lay claim to her skin. She tried
not to panic, remembering what her mother had told her.
Submit and it will get easier, insha’allah
. He fumbled inexpertly with her clothing, tugging impatiently at the offending
dirac
and then at her bra
underneath. She had no recollection of how they moved from standing in front of the bed to lying on top of it, but when she
had gathered her wits sufficiently to understand what was happening to her, it was too late. He was heavy. He pinned her arms
to her sides, his mouth leaving a wet, sticky trail across her skin. Was he kissing her? She had no idea. She twisted her
head to one side, looking away from him. He didn’t appear to notice. Her legs were shoved quickly apart; she felt the weight
of his belly against hers and then the thing she’d feared most – his hands on her, parting the way. She lay very still, her
heart beating almost inside her mouth, waiting, waiting. When he finally thrust and pushed his way inside her, the scream
seemed to have come from someone else, somewhere else. He clamped a hand over her mouth; her ears were filled with the sound
of his grunting and panting so that her own answering screams were drowned. There was a wrenching upheaval inside her as her
entire body convulsed and turned. She tried to bring her knees up to her chest to push him away, but his large, heavy body
was in the way. He must have sensed her resistance; his hands gripped her arms, those buffed and polished fingernails digging
painfully into her skin. She twisted her head to the left and to the right, bruising her lips against his beard, trying desperately
to avoid his mouth. He rammed himself into her over and over again, saying things … calling her names … his voice a roar in
her ears. An extraordinary tension seemed to come over him; he stiffened, gasping for breath, and then suddenly, almost as
quickly as it had started, it was over. He convulsed like an animal in pain and then slid from her, rolling over on to his
back, gulping in air like a man about to drown. After the noise that had surrounded her for the entire duration of his assault,
the silence was shocking. She rolled away from him, curling herself up into the tightest, smallest ball, and stuffed her fist
in her mouth. Pain spread from the centre, between her legs, through her limbs, up across her stomach and breasts, all the
way to her mouth. She could feel the mattress shuddering slightly as he fought to bring his breathing back under control.

‘Go and take a shower.’ The command came from him in the manner of someone speaking to a servant.

Niela rose and stumbled towards the bathroom. She was too stunned to think. There was blood on her thighs as well as a trail
of rapidly drying wetness that had come from him. She turned on the tap and stepped inside. After a few minutes she realised
that the salty taste of the water was the brine of her own tears.

They drove away from Vienna early in the morning. Niela did not look backwards, not once. It was Hamid who lifted a hand to
her parents in farewell, not she. She sat beside him, her profile turned away, chin set against the anger that was building
dangerously inside her. Fathia sat in the back, alternately munching on the sweets Saira had packed for the long journey,
or chattering away to her brother. Neither said much to Niela, which suited her just fine. The radio was tuned to a Somali
news programme; she listened with half an ear, and tried not to think about what lay ahead, or what had happened the night
before. Hamid drove impatiently, keen to return to his business interests in Munich, or so she gathered from his comments
to Fathia. Niela had only the vaguest idea of what it was he did; he was a businessman, not a professional like her father
or Uncle Raageh. The dialect he and his sister spoke was harsher than the language spoken in her home – another sign of the
times. Back home such a union would have been unthinkable. Here, in exile, the impossible had come to pass.

Austria came and went in long, empty expanses of fields, rivers and hills, occasionally punctuated by towns and villages,
sometimes a city or two. Graz. Innsbruck. Klagenfurt. All passed before her eyes in silence. They drove through Switzerland
in a few hours, stopping at the border with Germany for the night. This time, to her immense relief, he made no move towards
her. He slept on his back, snoring loudly. She lay awake for hours, unable to sleep, watching the pattern made against the
flimsy curtains by car headlights as they swept past.

In the morning she was awake long before him. She got out
of bed without making a sound and collected her things. She crept down the corridor to the bathroom and took a shower. She
dressed quickly and slipped back into the room to stow away her bag. She was almost out the door when his voice stopped her.

‘No trousers.’ He said it in German. She turned in surprise. He was still lying in bed. His white singlet had risen up over
his belly; the mound of it was very dark against the white sheets. ‘No trousers,’ he repeated, yawning as he spoke. ‘You must
not wear trousers. Go and change.’ Niela opened her mouth to protest, but before she could utter a single word, he flung back
the covers and got out of bed. ‘No trousers!’ he half shouted at her. ‘Skirts.’ He picked up his suit from the back of the
chair and began to dress. The conversation was over. Niela silently pulled out a skirt from her suitcase and opened the door.
He didn’t even look at her. She walked down the corridor, her heart thumping against her ribcage. She hadn’t even thought
of it – would he demand that she veil herself as well? She pulled off the offending jeans with trembling fingers and put on
a skirt. When she walked into the dining room to join him and Fathia, neither of them said a word. She picked at a piece of
toast in silence, fighting back the urge to scream.

It was nearly dusk by the time they finally drew up outside a small suburban house somewhere on the outskirts of the city.
Niela had finally fallen asleep, lulled by the hum of the heater and the steady drumbeat of rain against the windows. She
woke with a start; Hamid had switched off the engine and was busy taking their suitcases out of the boot. She opened the door
cautiously. A small garden with a wire fence separated the house from the neighbour. A short flight of steps to the front
door – a brick house, flat-roofed, two storeys. She quickly took in the details. Up and down the street the houses were identical.
Even the front doors were painted a uniform shade of dark grey. Hamid and Fathia led the way; Niela followed behind them,
carrying her overnight bag. The house was warm at least, she
noticed, as soon as they stepped inside. It was crowded in the way of most Somali homes – too many couches and chairs, too
many small side tables, shelves crowded with pictures, almost every square inch of wall space taken up with framed photographs
of relatives and landscapes of home. She looked around her and swallowed nervously. Home. This was home.

Fathia showed her through to the bedrooms. ‘I sleep in here,’ she said, pointing to the second door down the corridor. ‘When
we clean tomorrow, I will show you where everything is. You and Hamid will sleep in here.’ She opened the door to a medium-sized
bedroom dominated almost entirely by the double bed. Hamid brought Niela’s suitcase into the room. ‘Tomorrow,’ Fathia said.
‘We can arrange things tomorrow.’ She and Hamid left the room, arguing mildly over whose turn it was to place the weekly call
to their parents in Mogadishu and Niela was left alone. She sat down on the edge of the bed with her hands in her lap. She
was too exhausted from the long car journey and from the effort of trying not to think to do anything other than sit. She
was still sitting there an hour later when Hamid came through. ‘It’s time to eat,’ he said briskly, walking over to the wardrobe
and pulling out a pair of worn slippers. ‘Tomorrow you will cook.’ She got up wordlessly and followed him through to the dining
room. She’d hardly eaten anything all day. The simple meal of rice and chicken stew that Fathia had prepared was a welcome
distraction. She accepted the plate from her sister-inlaw and was just about to raise her fork to her mouth when she noticed
Fathia’s frown. She glanced at Hamid. He hadn’t yet raised his own. Fathia sat opposite him, waiting patiently until her brother
had taken his first bite. Then she nodded at Niela.
Yes, you may begin
. Niela felt her whole body tense with rebellion, but again she said nothing. She swallowed her pride, along with a mouthful
of rice, and concentrated on her food.