6 HOURS

THE CONFRONTATION

The next morning was bright and sunny. By 10AM we were seated in the doctor's office, after we had both received a non-reactive result from the HIV test and a negative result from the STD test. The doctor was explaining the whole process to us.

"A non-reactive result means you're both HIV negative. But a negative result doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t have HIV. This is due to what is known as the window period", he said.

"What is this window period?... what does it mean?", I asked.

The doctor, known as Dr. Zafar Ismail, was a Pakistani and a very competent General Practitioner. I was on a retainer-ship agreement with his hospital, Ahmadiyya Muslim Hospital, on Bompai Road, Kano.

"The window period is the time after infection and before seroconversion. During this time, the p24 antigen and antibodies are still absent or too scarce to be detectable. Tests cannot always detect HIV infection during the window period", he explained.

I was tense, and I couldn't even comprehend what he was saying. What did he mean by all this mumbo jumbo? Was I going to test HIV positive?

Looking over at Hanan, I could not even read her mind from her expressionless face. She was just listening to him in a relaxed manner. Her coolness began to get on my nerves.

Noticing my agitation, Doctor Zafar tried to calm me down.

"If you test again after the window period, with no possible HIV exposure during the window period, and the result still comes back negative, you do not have HIV", he said.

"So none of us is positive?" I asked.

"Yes, none of you is yet positive".

"Okay", I said. "This… window period, how long is it? Two days or a week?"

To my alarm, he said "It's usually between four to six weeks. By the fourth week, there is a 95% chance that the antigens will appear. By the sixth week however, the chances are 99%. Personally, I'll recommend you come back in six weeks to do the final test".

So we had another month to live together without engaging in any intercourse. I wondered how Hanan would behave during this period. I earnestly prayed that our marriage survived this storm. I knew enough about a woman's psychology to understand the importance of making love to Hanan ASAP.

Understandably, she ought to feel upset over the fact that she caught me red handed. In this case, I was caught 'phone-handed'. When we got married, we had sworn to be faithful to one another. Fidelity was one thing that the two of us were committed to, unless I decided to take in another woman as my second wife. That was within my rights as a Muslim. She had made me promise that I would not cheat, but I would make the right move to marry whoever I fall for in the future.

She would be emotionally devastated, and I was smart enough to know I had to get between her legs in order to get back into her heart.

On our drive back home, she suggested we should pass through the nearby Sufi Mart to buy some groceries. I stole a glance at her, and was surprised she looked cheerful. She kept talking about everything: politics, religion, wars, insurgency, inflation, the latest fall of the naira… she just kept on talking. These were issues that never bothered her one bit. Yet, she kept on while I concentrated on my driving.

Infidelity was a funny thing. It made a happy couple become like strangers. Here I was, and I could not make love to my wife. I was scared to talk to her. I was actually scared to make any move, lest she reacted negatively to it. My own wife. That was the way the cookie crumbles, I thought.

As soon as I parked outside Sufi Mart, I touched her hand and said,

"Mai Twins…".

"Please Marwan, let's not talk about it. Don't talk about it… Please don't make me talk about it. Right now, I'm handling it the best way I can without flipping my lid", she said and practically ran out of the car.

SubhanAllah! I thought. This was as serious as I had anticipated. How do I handle this? It was all okay for Usman to tell me about his plans A and B. It was easier said than done. Right now, I didn't think that if I ran through all the plans from A to Z, I would find a solution. This was what my late mother used to term "finding yourself in a round box".

Some minutes later, Hanan came back holding some packs in both hands. She opened the offside door and slid into the passenger seat. Her eyes were swollen and red from crying.

"Hanan", I said. "I'm sorry".

"Marwan!" She yelled at me, banging her clenched fists on the dashboard.

"I said leave it! I don't want to talk about it! Pleeeeeeease! I am so hurt. I am so disappointed in you, so much that the only way to keep my sanity is to pretend it didn't happen. If you want me to absorb the shock, don't ever talk about it. WALLAHI if you mention this again, I'll leave you! I swear! When I am ready to talk, I'll talk. But right now I'm grieving. Dole kayi hakuri let us ride out the storm together, until our love is able to heal from this mortal wound. At least for the sake of our kids…", she ran out of words and breathlessly slumped in the seat, her chest racking with the sobs that escaped from her.

I felt like the original south end of a northbound horse.

Anyway, we eventually got back home and Hanan immediately went into her room and closed the door. She even ignored Ameera and the kids watching TV in the sitting room. I grimaced and stopped to play with them for a while, then went into my bathroom to take a shower. I was thoughtful while the jets of warm water sprayed over my head and shoulders. What was I gonna do, I asked myself. Six weeks without s*x with my wife was like a prison sentence to me. Of course I couldn't go to Muhibba now, it was too soon. In fact, my Undercover Phone had been "undercover" for days now. I was sure Muhibba had sent me so many messages they could be wrapped into a book. For now, no more Muhibba.

After my shower, I towelled my body dry and slipped on my white Jallabiya. I said my Zuhr and Asr prayers, as the time was close to 4PM. There was a Premier League derby between Manchester United and Chelsea, but I discovered that I was not interested. I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts. Then Hanan entered the room and sat by the edge of my bed.

"I have been thinking,'' she said to me. "I've tried to find happiness in this marriage by giving my love to you. I did everything I could think of to make you happy. I never considered myself, I always put you first, our children second and myself last. But you didn't appreciate me".

"It's not like that Hanan", I said.

She held up her hand, "Let me finish, please. There is nothing I can do about the fact that I love you. I am hurt, but I still love you. However, I can't forgive you now. Maybe I'll never forgive you. If I had loved you less, I may have been able to forgive and forget this. But my love for you is so much, so deep, that I can't forgive you just yet".

"Haba Hanan", I said. "How can you…"

She interrupted, "Marwan. I think you should be thankful that I didn't leave you. Some other women would have left, you know that. In fact, I know that I love you, but I never knew just how much until now. I love you so much I'll never leave you, but then I also love you so much that I can't forgive you. So, let us wait for six weeks like the doctor advised. Let us pray that she did not infect us with anything. Then let us start all over again", she said and left the room without waiting for me to say anything more.

Would she ever forgive me? I asked myself. For the first time, I tried to walk a mile inside her shoes. What would I have done if I was the one that caught her with another man? Hmmmmm… I shook my head. It would have been a divorce oh. Straight to the point, to the point no faking. In fact, before she came back home, I would have called her father and told him to send for his daughter. I considered this response critically. Yes..., that was what I would have done.

So why was I expecting Hanan to forgive me for a crime I couldn't have forgiven her of? Why was I demanding something I couldn't have given? It was a man's world, I guessed. Men were expected to cheat, so we cheated. Society forgives us when we do it, that was why I was also expecting her to forgive me. It was not fair, but that was the way it was, that is the way it is, and that is the way it will ever be. Men cheat, women forgive. It was patriarchal, but I wasn't the one that made it so.

In fact, with the way my mind was working, I was already telling myself that I didn't really do anything wrong. Hanan would hurt for a while, she would forgive, she would heal. We would go for the second test like she said, and in sha Allah it would also be non-reactive. We would come back home, as excited as on our wedding night, and fall in love all over again.

We mooooove!