A Ramadan Tale

Rion Amilcar Scott

He forgot the dried fruit.
…..It was near the end of the first week. She had specifically said dried apricots and raisins before he left. Bags and bags of groceries sat in neat rows in the kitchen, not one apricot or raisin in any of them.
…..“I said it over and over and over,” Kadijah said.
…..Omar shrugged.
…..That day Kadijah broke the fast with a slice of American cheese. She munched on a square as she brewed soup for dinner.

After she finished cooking, Kadijah filled two bowls and placed one before her and one before Omar. First, he bowed his head and then she did. Kadijah spoke slowly in broken Arabic. She heard a persistent soft clinking while she prayed.
…..“Omar,” she said. “You could at least let me finish my blessing. Are you that hungry? Damn.”
…..“Calm down Kadijah. Allah knows my heart,” Omar replied, crinkling his brow and smirking. “Besides, you were taking too long. I’m hungry.”
…..They sipped slowly and blew into their steaming spoons.
…..“So,” she said. “Have you decided where you’re going to make your zakat this year.”
…..“I’m not making zakat,” Omar replied.
…..“Umm…why not?”
…..“Because…ummm…I’m not fasting?”
…..“You’re not fasting?”
…..“Do you pay attention to anything that goes on around you? Kadijah, I’d rather not go through this right now. I really don’t feel like discussing this subject again.”
…..“I just don’t, you know, like doing it alone. You think you could sacrifice just a month—”
…..“So, you got your hair done today?”
…..“You like?”
…..Kadijah’s curls were crisp and fresh and no one could touch them for at least a week, at which point they would begin to fray and lose their shine before straightening out to a dull and flaky flatness.
…..“You’re always beautiful to me.”
…..“That’s so stale, Omar.”
…..“What do you mean? I’m expressing my feelings.”
…..“No, that’s just something that people say.”

When she returned from the mosque the next Friday afternoon, Omar had just taken the first bite of a turkey sandwich. He used meat from the breast Kadijah had baked earlier that week. The meat was thick and soft and full of juices that almost made the bread soggy. Omar took another bite and a spot of mayonnaise mixed with mustard dropped onto the plate. He crunched lettuce between his teeth.
…..Kadijah stopped her gait and watched him.
…..“What?” Omar asked.
…..Then he took a deep swallow of grape juice, the thick liquid making a swishing sound as it passed down his gullet. Her poker hot eyes dug like rooting worms into his flesh.
…..“What’s wrong with you?” he asked. He sounded almost irritated, but not quite. “Want a piece of my sandwich? It’s good. I used your turkey.”
…..“Can’t, jerk. The sun is still out.”
…..“Oh, shoot, I forgot,” he replied. “The blinds are closed. There’s no sun in here.”
…..Kadijah fell asleep in the late afternoon and woke that night just after sundown. She stumbled to the kitchen in a drowsy haze to dig through the cupboard above the refrigerator in search of the dried apricots she had bought. When she didn’t find them, she ransacked another cupboard. And another before rummaging through the rest of the kitchen and then the living room. She called out to her husband, but her voice echoed and the apartment was dark. Odd, she thought. Had he really stepped out while she slept without rousing her? Without waking her with a kiss as he usually did? Kadijah was indeed alone.
…..She remembered, as she searched, the first time she fasted, back when her name was Karen. Had it really been three years? It didn’t start so bad, but as the month trudged along, during the daylight hours, it felt as if her stomach was attacking her. Some days, she’d watch the dying light, thinking that Allah would forgive her if she snuck a dried apricot or two before He pulled the shroud of darkness up from the west. But if Omar could be faithful without complaints, she could be too.
…..Never before had Karen longed for the insistent pull of her menstrual cycle. Now, instead of being a disruption, it offered a few days off from the fast. How wonderful it was to be a woman, this time, at least.
…..There were a couple days though during that first fast, whenever shooting pangs became unbearable, that she shamefully hid in Omar’s office with a bag of dried fruit, popping them here and there into her mouth. It was all new to her, so Allah wouldn’t mind much. Back then she looked at Omar almost as her spiritual leader. She ate quietly and fitfully peeped out the room, hoping he was not on his way. Karen feared his judgment almost as much as God’s.
…..One evening during those days, Omar came home just before sundown. He walked up behind her and touched her shoulder as she sat on the couch watching Seinfeld with a nearly empty bag of raisins in her lap. She didn’t hear him arrive and jumped when he pressed on her skin. She had absentmindedly chomped down the entire bag and was more full than she ever remembered being.
…..“Karen,” he said, “I appreciate you doing this with me. I never had a girlfriend who took this much interest. Would you like to have iftar with my family tomorrow night? You haven’t seen my mother in a while.”
…..A mix of emotions swarmed her belly, then her head. Sinking guilt and joy. For a moment she forgot the bag was there out in the open. What a strong man, she thought. Determined and pious. Was pious the word? There was at least something sturdy in his demeanor. Spiritually sturdy. She nodded even though she wasn’t sure what iftar was.
…..If he had seen the empty bag of raisins on her lap, he didn’t acknowledge them. That was the last time she cheated. She took shahada not long after that. When it was time to change her name, it was Omar who suggested she take the name of the prophet’s wife.
…..This night though, it was apricots and not iftar that made her head, already gaseous and spinning from her airy stomach, churn like there was a great machine spinning around in her skull. Kadijah had flipped over every cushion, looked under every piece of furniture, even taken several books from the shelf. She kicked at the sofa and let out a primal yelp. She breathed deeply and prayed quickly. It was the hunger and nothing else that ignited such eruptions.
…..Exhausting every crevice of the house, she stumbled upon Omar’s office. Kadijah pushed open the door gently and swept the room with her reddening eyes. There next to the computer laid an empty package of dried apricots, hollow and devoid of fruit.
…..She fingered the crinkly plastic, her face drawing tight. But then she gasped, feeling her limbs becoming suddenly shrouded in ice. For a second, statuesque became an accurate descriptor and not just an approximation people grasped for because they lacked better words. Kadijah knocked the package to the floor as she reached for the papers on his desk. They were forms. Official looking and full of rectangular boxes.
…..In the box that read Former Name, her husband had written “Omar Aziz.” New Name: “Odin Arnold.”
…..Kadijah’s eyes went back and forth between the two boxes, barely understanding the letters on the page. After a while they were just symbols, devoid of any meaning. She gripped the pages tightly as if they were sheets of metal. The edges wrinkled. She sputtered a mix of staccato sounds. A fluttering beat inside her chest.
…..Omar walked in behind her, she jumped, dropping the papers to the floor.
…..“What are you doing?” he asked. “Going through my stuff?”
…..She hopped in place. “Sorry, Odin,” she replied, picking up the forms from the floor. “What the hell is this?”
…..He snatched the papers from her hand.
…..“I don’t go through your stuff. What’s wrong with you?”
…..“Odin? You’d trade a good name like Omar for a stupid name like Odin? And this is how I have to find out that you’re trying to turn yourself into a stranger.”
…..“They’re the same thing. Four letters.”
…..“That’s dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. I’m not calling you Odin. Your mother didn’t name you Odin.”
…..“And your mother didn’t name you Kadijah, Karen.”
…..“Arnold? Arnold? Where the hell did you even get that for a last name? It’s so…so…goddamn meaningless.”
…..“It was my father’s last name before he converted. You know that. Or you should.” He paused. Squinting at her. Taking her in. “Say, are you going to take that scarf off of your head? You been home for a while.”
…..“I never thought my husband would be ashamed of being a Muslim. Sorry, don’t ask me to understand that.”
…..“In case you didn’t notice, I’m not a Muslim. Haven’t been for a while. When was the last time I went to Juma without you dragging me there? Cross River Masjid, Incorporated will thrive without me. ‘Dij’, I’m sorry, but I just never even feel the need to pray anymore. Just because you were born into something doesn’t mean you have to do it for the rest of your life.”
…..“All of a sudden, you have no faith? That makes no sense. Imam Rahman says—”
…..“Good God, enough with the Imam Rahman stuff.”
…..“Do you even believe in God anymore?”
…..“Look Kadijah, every time I turn on the news there’s some terrorist somewhere named Omar saying something threatening. They just arrested four Omars in Canada.”
…..“Did not.”
…..“Sure they did. They were plotting to blow up a pig farm.”
…..Kadijah felt a laugh bubbling up from her cavernous stomach. She tried to hold her face steady, but it came sputtering out. She laughed later when she washed the dishes and she thought back to their conversation. It cut through the angry static that had become her thoughts.
…..She laughed during the commercial break of a sitcom that was so terribly unfunny that it had deepened her rage. An advertisement for Pork, the other white meat, played. She welcomed the chuckling.
…..Kadijah giggled again lying next to her husband just after they turned out the lights.
…..“You know I still love you, Omar,” she said staring up into the darkness.
…..“Even though I’m not a Muslim?” he asked.
…..“Even though you think you’re not a Muslim. When you realize you’re being silly, you’ll change your mind.”
…..Then they were quiet.
…..“You still love me?” she asked.
…..“Of course. Why would I stop loving you?”
…..Outside a chorus of dogs barked back and forth. A cat screeched.
…..“I’ll never call you Odin.”
…..Omar kissed his wife’s cheek, then her lips. She moved closer. As did he.
…..The alarm clock went off early in the morning at 4:30 a.m., about an hour before sunrise. It was a call for prayer and more importantly, the last chance for food until after 7:30 p.m. when the sun went down. Kadijah rose like the undead and stumbled to the dresser to quiet the clock. She settled back into sleep easily and peacefully and when she rose later, she never remembered waking and silencing the alarm.
…..Here is something, aside from food and drink, that is forbidden during the daylight hours of Ramadan according to Kadijah and some at her mosque: brushing the teeth with toothpaste. Many disagreed, but Kadijah was unsure, so she decided not to take any chances. What if using toothpaste during the daylight really was haraam? Why risk facing judgment for something as silly as toothpaste?
…..Kadijah woke long after sunrise and passed a dry toothbrush across her teeth and tongue, but it just wasn’t the same. Omar spit a frothy green mixture of saliva and toothpaste into the sink. She thought she saw the traces of a smirk on his paste-smeared lips.
…..“This isn’t funny,” Kadijah said bitterly. “This is your fault. You and your stupid penis.”
…..“Pew, your breath stinks,” he said holding his nose.
…..“Real sensitive, Odie.”
…..That morning, he made eggs and pancakes for breakfast. He looked up from his plate when Kadijah walked by. A brown silk scarf covered her newly curled tresses.
…..“You’re wearing that thing again?”
…..“Well,” she said. “I made a decision yesterday. I decided that I’m going to cover my head from now on.”
…..“What? You never wanted to cover your head before. What the hell’s gotten into you? You always said you would never cover your hair. Even when I was a Muslim I didn’t want you walking around all wrapped up. What’s next, a burqa?”
…..“Don’t get smart, Omar.”
…..“This is all because I want to change my name isn’t it?”
…..“Oh God, Omar. You’re so arrogant. This has nothing to do with you. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I had a long talk with Allah—”
…..“I’m sure that was a hell of a conversation.”
…..Omar rose and disappeared into his office, only to reappear wearing a jacket and clutching a handful of papers. He rustled them and loudly smacked the bottom edges against a tabletop to line up the pages. It was wonderfully theatric and Kadijah laughed inside.
…..“Baby,” he said solemnly. “I got things to do.”
…..He pressed his lips to her cheek without making the sweet smacking sound of a kiss. He slammed the door on his way out.

Sitting on the couch, Kadijah’s limbs became sore and heavy. Everything dragged and moved glacially. Her empty stomach expanded, becoming cavernous. It was all she could think about. Gas bubbled up through her chest plate. She belched loudly and excused herself even though no one was around.
…..Kadijah patted her belly. Empty. So empty. There was to be a child in there. That was what she and Omar had decided, at least. A boy named Malik in honor of her father, Michael. Malik twice slid from her womb partially formed and bathed in blood. While she cried, Omar was like steel. Spiritually sturdy. That’s how she wanted to be.
…..How long since Omar had mentioned that time? How long since he had mentioned trying again? Perhaps Odin no longer shared Omar’s dreams. Perhaps he now believed in nothing and then how could she even raise a child with him? Maybe the Maliks were messages from Allah, telling her that Omar wasn’t what he seemed; that all that spiritual sturdiness had just been a facade she should have easily seen through. Kadijah groaned and emptied her mind of these thoughts.
…..She leaned her head against the couch cushion and wondered when her husband would realize that it was Saturday and the district courts weren’t open for him to file his stupid forms. Kadijah huffed and then smiled at her husband’s silliness. But then felt anger raining down upon her. What wasn’t he telling her? None of it made any sense. Didn’t she just see him rolling out the prayer mat when even she felt —reluctantly—that five times a day every day, was excessive? It was as if halfway through a road trip, a long road trip, Omar had left her by the side of the highway while he drove off laughing.
…..But he still loved her. Right? And she still loved him. Right? They had both professed their love lying in bed the night before. And now, as she remembered it, their talk of love was so clichéd. So cheap and easy to say. Just words. Rote repetition from the parrots they had become. Do lovers express their feelings, verbally at least, in anything but clichés? Or maybe that was just them. She felt foolish for falling for it. Foolish about the entire relationship now. Stale words were so much easier than truly telling her what was different. What had shifted inside of him?
…..Next time she saw him, she thought, she would demand he give her a satisfying answer. Who was she kidding? Kadijah wasn’t the demanding type, especially not with Omar. This thing would swirl around the drain taking the whole marriage with it. She thought she had left that sort of defeatism with Karen’s slowly rotting corpse?
…..The sweet sticky scent of maple syrup wafted through the air. It mixed beautifully with the meaty scent of charred poultry flesh. Omar had fried turkey sausages to go with his pancakes before he stomped out. He had been in such a hurry to leave that he forgot to put them away and they sat there in the pan. On most days, the lukewarm, dry chunks of meat would be far from enticing, even vaguely revolting.
…..At first she resisted. Then she decided she should sleep. But sleep, she reasoned, was the easy way out. A way she took far too often. She grabbed hold of her Qur’an and flipped the pages. The scent of the turkey sausage beckoned her. It lifted her off her feet as she had seen happen to numerous cartoon characters. Before she realized it, Kadijah stood over the pan fingering the sausage. She picked one up and turned it round and round in her hand. It was the spicy kind. Her favorite. She had told her husband to put it on the grocery list. Missing breakfast always made her gut feel like the moment just after a punch. There was a fumbling from the living room. The sound was alien. Her hunger-addled mind took a second to process it. Of course: the front door.
…..“Odie?” she called with a twisted quarter-smile sitting on her lips.
…..“Laugh now,” Kadijah’s husband said. “But you and everybody else is going to be calling me Odin. I did it. My name is now changed.”
…..“Baby, it’s Saturday.”
…..“Had the form notarized. Mailed it. It is just a formality now.”
…..Kadijah watched him. He didn’t look at all like an Odin. What did an Odin look like? Like a Sven, she reasoned. Tall and broad-chested with long blond hair. Not mousy and chubby and always squinting because he could never find his glasses like her husband. But does even a Sven look as she imagined? The one she had known was pimply and fat. Kadijah could no longer follow her thoughts. They were nonsensical. She walked to the couch and collapsed into it, robbed of all energy.
…..Her husband sat next to her. He reached for her hand. She yanked it from him.
…..“Why are you pulling away? I’m the same dude.”
…..“No you’re not. You’re Odin. I’m married to Omar.”
…..“Of course I’m the same guy.”
…..“Now I know how my mother felt when you convinced me that I was Kadijah.”
…..“You can never be Karen again the same way I can never be Omar again.”
…..“Hungry?” he asked. “Want some food? There’s still some left.”
…..He rubbed her soft stomach, playing inside her belly button. Kadijah felt she should shove his hand. Tell him to stop. She felt her skin warm as if the sun’s rays had washed over her. She had forgotten the sun’s rays, but they were still peeking through the blinds. And while they did, all her desires that were now going wild―for food, for drink, her hunger for this man next to her―would have to go unfulfilled.
…..Instead of pushing him away, she tossed her head back and closed her eyes, watching the light dance against the vast black expanse. Like stars and shining heavenly bodies hurtling from the big explosion that started it all.
…..If Kadijah could keep her eyes closed long enough, she thought, she could travel back to the beginning, back to the source of all that light and one day she’d tell Omar all about it.

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→VOLUME 13