The Nur Ul Ain Tiara #3
Because of the unwanted pregnancy and motherhood, her parents couldn’t marry her off at the right time: disgrace and ruin for any woman who is relegated to eternal spinsterhood and deemed a useless burden, a waste of space.
Hanani’s misstep has marked her for life, and not only her but her family, who kept her secret for years.
An open secret, of course; it couldn’t be any other way in a closed society, so folded into itself.
But there had at least been the appearance of a secret, which helps to some extent; in the end, it’s not about things being unknown, but about trying to not know them.
To justify the existence of Layal, the boy who was born, Hanani’s pregnancy was hidden under lock and key until birth, when it was attributed to Hannah.
From then on, the grandmother acted as mother, and Hanani as an older sister.
The one person who can’t be led astray is Layal himself. He loves his grandmother and calls her ’um, but he’s deeply attached to Hanani, his friend and accomplice. I know you’re my mother, he tells her when no one else can hear.
Hannah, a great fan of telenovelas, was deprived of the pleasure and pride of choosing for her only daughter a handsome young man who could grant her happiness and many offspring.
Great preparations and festivities for the wedding: There would be none of that.
Hannah had dreamed of the four days leading up to the ceremony, during which her Hanani would have adorned her body with henna and worn four different outfits, one for each day and each a particular color, green on the first day, turquoise on the second, pink on the third, and yellow on the fourth, each more lavish than the last, until finally arriving at the crimson outfit of the wedding day itself, majestic enough to be worthy of the Queen of Sheba.
Abdel, her husband, has been a good man and a devoted father, but he’s twenty-five years older than her, and for Hannah there’s never been what she calls a dream of love.
Nor will there be one for her daughter: That’s the price they’ll have to pay for fixing her past stumbles.
Hannah’s moment of glory would have been to see Hanani don the Nur Ul Ain tiara, which she herself wore when she married.
It won’t happen: Nuptial ceremonies for fourth wives are discreet, without great displays or expense.
The Nur Ul Ain tiara—a large ruby set among gold arabesques, eighteen topaz pieces, and a profusion of diamonds—has belonged to Hannah’s family for generations.
Though poor, they’re part of Yemen’s noble clans; the Nur Ul Ain tiara gives them special status.
Decades ago, Hannah’s marriage was arranged by her parents with Abdel’s clan, who held a long lineage as jewelers.
Abdel was not an aristocrat like Hannah and her people, but he was rich.
One thing for another. Despite their difference in fortune, Hannah’s ancestry allowed her parents to require that their daughter be the first and only wife, a privileged position that let Hannah enjoy protection and fortune without having to share it with others.
Hanani, more beautiful than Hannah ever was, would have deserved a similar circumstance.
But it couldn’t be. However, life, which brings such pain, also brings compensations, and you have to know how to make the most of them.
Something is something, better than nothing.
Now the family could recover their dignity and good name thanks to this marriage offer that seems to have fallen from the sky.
In the end, the demotion to fourth wife doesn’t matter; what’s essential is that Hanani will finally be a legitimately married woman.
Given her age and her sin, it’s understood that the proposal won’t be optimal; even so, her parents have accepted it with joy and relief.
Plus, they’ve agreed to a considerable sum for the dowry they’ll receive in exchange for their daughter’s hand.
The past will stay buried, shame erased.
Things are as they are, yet different at the same time.
The story the way Hannah tells it is one thing; the way Hanani has lived it is another.
What was tragedy for the mother was salvation for the daughter, who could grow into an educated, free woman.
Because it was impossible to marry her off, her parents let her finish high school, attend Sanaa University to study psychology, and later travel to Jordan, where she completed graduate studies; all that’s left is her thesis, and she’ll have a master’s degree.
Though she still lives in her parents’ house and respects customs like veiling her face in public, today Hanani is a professional psychologist with her own private practice who earns her own income and goes wherever she wants in her own car.
Now all of that will change.
Once she’s married to that man, she’ll have to move north and live under his control, in a place dominated by feudal customs. She’ll have to give up her profession.
She won’t be able to work, earn money, keep books or her Western clothes, or even use the internet.
Her English and French will be worth nothing, because she won’t have books in those languages to read, or anyone to talk to.
She’ll be trapped in the routines of domestic life.
She won’t drive her own car; she’ll only be able to go, under strict supervision, wherever her husband’s drivers and bodyguards take her.
She’ll be isolated from her own family, shut away in a huge, unfamiliar mansion, with the other three wives and their twenty-one sons and daughters. It’ll be like being buried alive.
In the end, she can bear all of that, making a monstrous sacrifice for the sake of her family’s peace and happiness.
But this marriage means giving up something else, a much greater loss, impossible to accept, which will tear her soul to shreds and plunge her into wrenching sorrow.
And not just her, also Layal, her son, because she’ll have to give him up.
She won’t be able to take him with her to her husband, to that rich northern landowner.
Layal won’t even be spoken of; it has to be as if he did not exist.
In that attic, friends have gathered in honor of Hanani, but she’s not the center of attention.
She’s sitting toward the back, withdrawn and slightly apart from the others, gaze turned inward, unable to focus on anyone or anything that isn’t herself and the turbulent waters inside.
She tries to pretend, to keep up appearances, but her fake smile betrays bitterness, rage, and secret rebellion.
“Come on, Hanani!” Her friends try to cheer her up, knowing her dilemma. “Come on, lift those spirits up, this is like a wake.”
She pulls Zahra Bayda aside. The two shut themselves into a bathroom, and Hanani comes undone. She trembles, starts having a panic attack.
“I see death in that man’s eyes,” she says.
Zahra Bayda makes a thousand arguments to convince her not to marry. She brainstorms options, describes how life could be different. She begs her not to give up her son, her freedom, her intelligence; she offers to help her escape. Hanani only trembles. And weeps. And trembles.
I ask Zahra Bayda to describe her to me.
I want to know what she’s like, physically; I’m captivated by her even though I don’t know her, I can’t wait to write her story down, from this moment on I’m turning her into a Queen of Sheba who trembles at the premonition of death in the eyes of the faraway king who courts her.
Zahra Bayda tells me that Hanani is very beautiful, but that I already knew.
I need details, the descriptions are still vague and Zahra Bayda is of no help, she doesn’t put a lot of effort into studying faces, I have to pull each detail out of her, every trait.
What she doesn’t say, I make up, building an image little by little out of loose pieces.
Eyes like water; a gaze lost in vile premonitions; a narrow forehead, or narrow-seeming due to being partly covered by her hair.
An otherworldly pallor. A sharp nose and a mouth like ripe fruit, perhaps too ripe, that is, sensual and juicy but with a bitter aftertaste.
As expected, her most notorious feature is her hair.
Definitely her hair. I know, I feel this way about all Arab women, the niqab that shields them from my eyes makes me imagine bodies in the style of Giacometti topped with lush hair, as if they were young trees.
In this case, the association with Giacometti doesn’t seem arbitrary, Zahra Bayda says Hanani is tall and bony, even more so these days, because she’s barely eating and has lost twenty pounds in two months, and while she was already slender, now she’s extremely thin.
Although, according to Zahra Bayda’s exact words, despite her undernourishment, Hanani still has an enviable body.
That’s how she puts it: “enviable body.” Then comes her crowning glory, her hair.
My informant tells me that Hanani’s is spectacular, truly splendid, of astonishing volume, a dark brown color, wavy and lustrous, parted in the middle and cascading down either side of her face. Incredible.