Barakah

- I Curse You

5/02/2023

Three things I need to say

Uno, you guys have no idea how many times I written and scrapped this chapter.

Due, what do I watch now that Alchemy of Souls is over?

Tre, I hope the first month of the new year is the start you've wanted for yourself.

This is a long, long one.

I had to split it in two.

Jalal

For as long as Jalal knew life: it's experiences and definitions. He knew he had experienced beauty—the feeling of being captivated—-even before he had known there was a word for it in a single name.

Maimuna Mahmud.

His mother was beautiful. In a way that unleashed foolishness in the world. Especially when she was younger, flushed with youth that made her the moon in a herd of stars. Jalal would know. He would know, because she had him so young. At sixteen, she had nurtured him in the womb. At seventeen, she had birthed him. A son of her own.

If he could remember well, he was only seven years old when his maternal uncle had mentioned in passing as a mild joke, the ridiculousness of men at the presence of his mother.

"The doctor that had delivered you came in hours after your mother had labored with a proposal. Despite he could clearly see she was still swollen from carrying you and you were attached to her bosom, suckling your first milk." His laughter always boomed, always had an unnecessary blast to it.

"Your mother was mortified. How he found out she was a young divorcée. Allahu a'alam."

Young. Abandoned. Divorcée.

Then, he did not know the impact of what those words his uncle had laughed at meant. He did not know it meant his mother was arranged in a marriage to a man that was old enough to father her twice by his maternal grandfather. He did not know it meant she was soon abandoned and divorced.

He did not know his father had roved into a quiet small village in Adamawa to visit a sick aunt of his. He did not know his father—-powerful and stinking rich—-had endowed so many of the locals who were poor. He certainly did not know that his maternal grandfather, Mahmud— known around town as Modi—- had benefited so much from Attahir Jali as a friend to his sickly aunt, that the evening Maimuna was sent by her mother  to call her father home for dinner as they were neighbors, Attahir had glimpsed her for the very first time.

She had skin that glowed like torched light. Fair and blushed with red. At that time, she was a small delicate person with a face that wasn't sharp in the way it captivated. No, every feature of Maimuna's was soft, natural. Even the way her brows were arched—-the cut of her jaw—made her look dignified as a high-born and her eyes,  swelled with an innocence that made the world seem like a quieter place.

Attahir Jali was enamored, he wasn't a totally faithful man either. But for all the faithfulness in him, he did not indulge in zina. It was enough that he already broke the first part of the commandment not to even go near it. Just that this young girl, barely out of her girlhood had disintegrated everything when their eyes met. When she said his name unremarkably with a raised chin. When the breeze blew wild and her shawl collapsed, her hair was pulled in a tight bun. As slick as kinky-curly Afro hair could get and a dainty, fair neck and collarbone.

"Suddunu horema asari." Modi said without reprimand. That way, Attahir knew she was his favorite child.

"Attahir da Buduroji sare am. She's second born and the only girl, Muna." She was his only girl.