The Rebel

Amina-3

“Please, let him stay. I would tell him everything later anyway, at least he can hear it straight from you.

My father lowers his shoulders with resignation and nods. He apparently doesn’t want to argue any longer about the issue. He removes the shemagh from his head, drops it onto the nearest cushion, and begins to massage the back of his neck with worry. Hamid and I blink at one another, but we both know it wouldn’t be too smart to go too far, so we are wise enough to stay quiet, waiting for dad to speak first.

“How much did your mother say?”

“Nothing,” I whisper, only to realize I’ve said something stupid.

“What do you mean nothing?” he grunts with anger.

“She said, I should be happy that the sheikh is ready to marry me regardless of my bloodline.” His eyes are sparkling with rage as he looks at me, as if he was taking the previous statement for personal offence. “What’s wrong with me, dad?” I ask with despair.

“Everything is perfect with you, there is nothing to object about you. The sheikh can consider himself lucky for marrying you,” he says with fury. My heart jerks painfully due to the factual nature of the sentence, but I don’t react, I just wait for him to go on. “You are my daughter, my blood,” he continues with something like conceit, but then his voice breaks. “The only thing is, Nasirah is not your birth mother. You were not conceived in her womb, but she has treated you from the start as if you were her own.

I knew it. I felt that from the start. Nasirah is not my mother, my siblings are only stepsiblings. A dark fog descends on me, paralyzing me that I can’t even move. I didn’t think it would knock me out so much if I heard it with my own ears, but I was wrong. No matter how suspicious my different looks and Nasirah’s slip of the tongue were, the fact floors me. My father’s words pierce into me like poisoned arrows, and the venom is slowly spreading in my body. Petrified, I stare at my father’s profile, who turns away and begins to look out of the window, into the distance. I feel Hamid’s observing gaze on me but can’t get myself to look at him. I’m terrified of what I might see in his eyes, or rather, what I wouldn’t see in them anymore. I take it for granted that dad is now somewhere far away from in spirit, in thought he has leapt 21 years into the past. His voice sounds distant as he speaks again, as if he wasn’t talking to us but to himself.

“Your mother was the most beautiful woman I have ever met. An untamed, blond English girl with blue eyes and freckles on her nose. She was completely different from the other women I have met. Different from the women in the emirate, different from the woman I married, but also different from the sluts I have encountered.” I shiver, Hamid does the same beside me, but neither of us speaks. “She was wild and reckless, drove me crazy. She smoked and drank with the men, drove me absolutely mad. She didn’t listen to me, didn’t comply, yet, I wanted her.”

I gulp, even my heart misses a beat as I listen to this raw confession. A shocked groan breaks from Hamid, but I don’t even dare to stir, I breathe quietly so as not to distract dad from this trans-like state. He has never spoke so openly about feelings in my presence. I drink in his every word and I can hardly help myself, after all, this is the first time I hear about my birth mother. There are a thousand questions I would like to dump on him, but I have to control myself.

“She wore jeans and that shameless piece of s**t with the shoulder straps that hardly covered any of her body when I first saw her. We were in Paris at the opening of the clinic that was rebuilt with the funds donated by the al-Hosani clan, and she, with other news reporters, took pictures of us.” The recognition hits home: my mother is actually a news reporter. “She was cheeky and beautiful, and I just wanted to slap her for her for her disrespect because she dressed so shamelessly. I wanted to buy her, to pay her for one night, but she turned me down. She laughed at me,” he says with such an incredulous stress as if he still couldn’t believe that a woman goes against him, not accepting his money. I listen to him holding my breath. “I thought I could buy her like the others, but she wanted no money. I tried to get her out of my mind, did all I could, but nothing worked. The more she resisted, the more I wanted her. I tried to track her down, but it wasn’t easy to find her. She was never at one place for a long time, she kept travelling, and didn’t have a close relationship with her relatives either. She kept saying that she could never make anything out of her snobbish, aristocratic family who didn’t accept her lifestyle.” At this point he pauses in his account; his voice goes soft like someone who is trying to recall long-forgotten memories. My heart is beating in my throat, my palm sweats with excitement. So, my mother is a descendent of an aristocratic family. I pray hard that he goes on, and it takes a lot of self-control not to ask him about the details.

“She made me insane, I travelled after her, and I would have done anything she wanted. She said if she was to become my lover, she would only do it because she wanted it that way. Not for money, and not because I want it,” he says, and while shaking his head slow a disbelieving cackle comes from him. “Only because she also longed for that. She drove me nuts. I had never wanted a woman so much as I wanted to have her.” Here he pauses, narrows his eyes, his breathing gets heavy, as if he is in a serious spiritual battle. I have never seen him in such a state. Could it have been love that bound him to my mother or rather some physical passion? A desire to possess? For sure, he was strongly neglecting his own family and children just to be with her. “She had been my lover for a year already when she suddenly disappeared, and didn’t even respond to my calls. I was stressed out and desperately tried to track her down. I was simply unable to accept that she exited my life without as much as a word. My men eventually found her in Kenya, where she was photographing street kids for some magazine,” he spits out bitterly, and I’m unable to decide what this strange tone is in his voice. Contempt? Admiration? Anger? “I followed her there, even wanted to take her with me, offered to take care of her. I was going to buy her a house so she wouldn’t need to work anymore. I only asked her that I would be her only one, but she turned me down. She answered that she didn’t have another man in her life but me, but she would never give up her work, not even for me. We kept fighting, she drove me crazy, but I was unable to leave her. Then… it turned out she was pregnant.” He swallows a few times, and runs his fingers through his greying hair. “I was happy, I could hardly help myself. I thought this solved every issue, and now she would be mine, but she didn’t agree. She didn’t want a baby, she said. She wasn’t a mother type at all, and a child could not be a part of her routine. She wanted to terminate her pregnancy, but I didn’t let her. I told her I would kill her if she did that, and I swear I would have done it.

Now I have no more doubt about what is in his voice. It’s hatred and endless contempt. In Tariq al-Hosani’s world there is no abortion, and it’s unheard of that a woman decides about her own fate. It pains me to realize that my mother wasn’t happy to have me. It feels like s**t to know I wasn’t wanted. I never thought it would be so heart-breaking. At this moment I feel endlessly thankful to my father, for the fact the he fought for me and didn’t let my life to be ended before my birth.

“Eventually she agreed to give birth to our child. I had never begged a woman in my life before, not before, not after, but I made her an exception,” he said morosely. “I wanted to marry her, even offered her a villa with a separate staff, but she turned me down. She said she wouldn’t be able to live like that, she would be unhappy. She wanted to travel, to see the world, to be free, to take photos,” he spits out the words with disgust, then goes quiet.

If my birth mother is indeed such a free spirit as my father has just described it, then I’m not one bit surprised they didn’t get along. Dad heaves a deep sigh and continues talking with pain in his voice.

“I was commuting back and forth between Ras al-Khaimah and Kenya, until the time of the birth came.” What madness! I can’t believe I was born in Kenya. “I was proud of you from the first moment I took you in my hands. You were beautiful, a real princess from the Emirates,” he says, his mouth pulling a sad little smile, which breaks my heart. “But your mother was restless, unable to settle, to stay in one place. She got a new assignment and wanted to be on the road as soon as possible. She couldn’t turn to her family, and I wouldn’t have consented to someone else raising my daughter. I took you home with me and my wife raised you as if you were her own.

He goes quiet, takes a few deep breaths and closes his eyes. I sympathize with him; he has reached the end of his spiritual journey and now he’s seeking the way back to the present, trying to gather his strength, his pride. I feel numb, it’s like my whole life has been shaken to the foundations in the past fifteen minutes. My mother who has raised me is not the one who gave me birth. My birth mother is an English photojournalist who did not want me, and I can only thank my existence to my father’s stubbornness. How could she do that? And she hasn’t even tried to get in touch with me since. For heaven’s sakes, more than twenty years have passed since my birth! I even lived in England. Why didn’t she try to find me? Or maybe she did, but my father prevented us from meeting? Doubt and pain are tightening my throat. I feel worthless, just an accident, a twist of fate who was wanted by nobody. My father’s hoarse but firm voice wakes me from my self-torturing thoughts.

“You are a princess of the Emirates. Amina bint Tariq bin Khalid al-Hosani. My daughter, you get it? Never forget that!” he turns to face me, fixing his fiery gaze into mine. All I can do is nod; no voice is coming out of my throat. “If someone has a different opinion, I will sort out that person myself,” he mumbles, and casts a warning glance at Hamid. I look sideways at my brother, but he’s not looking at me. His eyes are glued to the carpet. Another knife through my heart. I try to swallow the lump in my throat, because I have to ask a question, even though I dread to hear the answer.