Love over Religion

Alhaji Lami arrives 6

In the morning, she began the performance. She was attentive to Alhaji Suleiman, not obviously, not suspiciously, but in the subtle ways that a woman might respond to a man who had noticed her, who had spoken to her alone, who had offered something her husband no longer provided.

She saw him notice. She saw him interpret. She saw him revise his understanding, shifting from the narrative of hidden children and secret paternity to a different story, one he found equally compelling and perhaps more useful.

A woman who deceived her husband with another man. A woman whose children might be legitimate after all, but whose loyalty was compromised, whose vulnerability was different than he had assumed, whose management required different techniques.

He approached her again, on the second day, in the garden where she supervised the children's play. Yusuf was building a tower of stones, Ibrahim was chasing a lizard, Fatima slept in her arms. The picture of domestic innocence, except for the woman at its center, who looked up at the approaching man with an expression he could not read.

"You are skillful," he said, without greeting. "I almost believed it myself, this performance of the dutiful wife."

"I do not know what you mean."

"Of course not. We are both performers, Halima. We both understand the value of plausible deniability." He sat on the bench beside her, close enough to touch, close enough to be seen touching. "I have reconsidered my offer. I do not want your acknowledgment. I do not want your confession. I want your cooperation, yes, but of a different kind than I suggested."

"What kind?"