THE NARCISSIST'S WIFE

Chapter Eight - The Face Behind the Mask

She could not believe that he allowed and was still going to allow that woman, with her dirty black fingers, touch her again even now that she knew. She felt so disgusted she wanted to throw up. She felt betrayed.

***

It was unusually calm at Ya Balu's place. The air was thick with silence and accusations. They didn't speak, nor did they exchange glances, or any secret smiles as they often did.

Zahra hung her head low to avoid catching a glance of something transpiring between Sharif and Ya Balu; something she would not like. She was not sure of what she was capable of doing, if she saw them flirting right before her eyes.

Ya Balu, probably sensing the tension, was quiet too. She didn't tell Zahra to turn her head when she was braiding it, instead she used her hand to steady Zahra's head to the convenient directions.

Zahra had heard him tell her over the months of their marriage how much women were interested in him, a discussion that always made her feel less confident as a woman, one that made Sharif sound like an arrogant narcissist who bragged about himself by killing her self-esteem.

But this was different. It was different because she knew 'this woman'. This woman had seen her, touched her skin, her hair... She had drawn tattoos of Sharif's name enclosed on her upper chest, a place that no other being had ever seen or touched save her mother and Sharif.

She swallowed a gulp that kept forming in her throat since Sharif told her in their car.

When he went for salat, Ya Balu asked if they were good.

"No. Why do you ask?"

"Ehem, ehem, he was focusing more on his phone than on you." Zahra smiled at that and said nothing but on a second thought she had to comment. She wasn't afraid of her!

"Everything is well. Just rush this; we are tired." And Ya Balu continued blabbing as though Zahra's response had given her the ducat to open a discussion.

Zahra's phone began to ring the instant Sharif return to the gallery; the number was not on her contact list, but she picked anyway.

It so happened that Abdul-Azeez, a cousin and a contemporary of hers who was schooling abroad, was the one who had called. It had been very long since they met, almost a decade before. He had told Zahra how shocked he was when he saw their wedding poster in Gembu. He would be there for a few more days before returning to Abuja and then back to school. He said he would like to come over to greet them when he got to Abuja.

It was Ya Balu that first noticed the frown on his face. Zahra didn't, as she avoided his gaze, still feeling hurt over his insistence on coming to Ya Balu despite his revelation. Little did she know that having the right to display one's displeasure was something to be cherished.

As they strolled to their car, Zahra was steps behind Sharif even though she walked with giant strides. The slap arrived just as she sat on the passenger's seat; too quickly for her to prepare for it or to protect herself against it.

"Are you out of your mind? What was that attitude all about?" She was still holding her now blushed cheek. From the rear mirror, she could see Ya Balu's owl eyes hawking at their tinted car from the foyer of her gallery.

"Must you let her understand that I told you something. Can't you hide your feelings? Idiot. How wicked!" He muttered, now starting the engines of the car.

Then, without warning, he turned and issued another harder slap, then another and yet another until her eyes reeled.

"If you want to live with me, you must learn to control whatever useless feeling you are having right now! You don't have any right to be jealous whatsoever! I give you everything and what I do with my life is none of your business!"

He was unrelenting with his words.

"Can't you appreciate what I do for you Fatimah? Do you see any husband taking his wife out to make her hair?" He asked, in between clenched teeth and pointing at her head. "Do you? Idiot, ingrate! In case I never told you: I hate ingrates! Do you have to embarrass me everywhere we go?" He scoffed.

"By Allah, this will be the last time I'm taking you out to anywhere." He reversed so that the car was now facing the exit gates, the car engine jerking with fury just as he was.

"And who was the idiot calling you?" Zahra managed to speak out after she swallowed the mixture of her saliva with something salty in her mouth that she suspected was blood.

"Call him right now, put him on speaker phone, ask him who gave him your number and tell him never to call you again." She complied.

Abdul Azeez told her that he got the number from Pendo Dija. And Zahra went on with a teary voice, "Please, don't call me again."

"Okay." Abdul Azeez said dryly. Sharif collected the phone from her and hung up.

Something within her felt that this was not right. After a short while of awkward silence, Sharif told her how much he was trying to protect her, to safeguard her chastity - she wasn't going to turn wayward under his watch; it was his duty to continue from where her family stopped. He would always brag about her upbringing.

But Zahra would never understand how cutting ties with her family would protect her – protect her from what exactly? Especially since this same family's style of rearing her made her this woman he was so proud of.

Sharif drove straight to Banex Plaza and bought her a small Nokia phone and a new number with an instruction that she should only give her number to her mother and a few relatives. She could call the rest but with her number hidden so that no one could have it.

Much later in her life, when Zahra would break one of his wrong theories and tell an older woman about what Sharif had done to her, particularly, this incidence; the woman would tell her, 'Fadi, you are naïve, gullible... if I were you, I would have reported him Immediately. Again, I would have told him to tell Abdul Azeez his message by himself or at worst, I'd tell Abdul Azeez that he asked me to tell him that.'

Zahra would respond that Sharif would have beaten her up.

'But he was already beating you, wasn't he?' the elderly woman would smile sadly, showing her crown tooth.

'You are right, even after I told Abdul Azeez what he wanted, he still beat me at home. The first thing he did was to slap me on both cheeks simultaneously with his two strong hands until my ears stopped functioning for many weeks, even after he resumed speaking to me.'

The woman would smile a sadder smile...

😞💔😞
Today, I woke up the sad news of the sudden death of my little nephew; Ameer Muhammad Modibbo.

Ya Allah, make him a precursor, a forerunner and a treasure for his parents and an answered intercessor. Ya Allah, make him weigh heavily in their scales (of good) and magnify their reward. Make him join the righteous of the believers. Place him in the care of Ibrahim. Save him by Your mercy from the torment of Hell. Give him a home better than his home and a family better than his family. Ya Allah, forgive those who have passed away before us, our children lost (by death), and those who have preceded us in Faith.

Ameen.