Veil of Lies

Haunted Past

★ Mustafa

After coming back from my office, I prayed Ishaa and recited Surah Mulk. I was making chai in the kitchen while being in a really deep thought. Although Abdul Aziz sometimes get too anxious for me to live all alone, it is peaceful. Isolating myself from everyone is better than try to fit myself into a bad company. Once upon a time, I also used to live in a 'lively' house of my parents with all my siblings. Despite I do miss those times sometimes, I know that my current life is better than my previous lifestyle. I am only a human, I can only handle criticism til an extent.
Abdul Aziz once advised me to get married. He said; ' Maybe you should get married. Otherwise you'll die before having any woman by your side who'll serve you. I don't want to serve you coffee everyday twice. '

" I can serve myself too you know. " I smirked while being irritated by remembering his comment as I continued pouring my chai in my cup.

Considering my age, people have said to me countless times in the past few years to get married. Now I cannot just tell anybody that I was once married and got divorced, right?
Zeynep Arslan: the woman whom I liked ever since I was young. Zeynep was my cousin and lived out of the country so I neither really got to see her when I was growing up nor I knew anything about her as I would avoid contacting any girl but I always remembered her how she was as a kid. Zeynep would always wear a veil over her head, she never lied, was kind and shy too. When we were eleven, she barely would look in to my eyes when we talked and I liked that about her.
When she returned to Istanbul, my parents' first choice was Zeynep since they talked with her and she matched the ' criteria ' of my family and mine so I also agreed.
According to my parents, Zeynep was a quiet, shy, educated, beautiful and a veiled woman. Due to these qualities, I agreed since she was also willing to take this commitment.
Although at first it was all fine. She truly was still a kind and shy woman with whom I was just comfortable. Whenever I thought about home, Zeynep came into my mind. She was so caring and loving, it was almost she had done magic on me. Even when we went to our honeymoon, she gave me great company and didn't travelled on her own.
It was as if she knew the importance of Husband in a wife's life and it always motivated me to work hard for Zeynep and for the family we'll have in the future. But all of these expectations were shattered when more time passed. We both realize that our perspectives and morals were opposite. She wasn't what she looked like she was.
Arguments started happening and on what? I once stopped her from texting our another male cousin and she was furious over why I stopped her. Another time she was wearing a belt around her abaya and wore perfume. Naturally, I stopped her and told her to wear another abaya as this one has a fragrance now and she argued over it very harshly.
Even after everything, I would explain softly to her why something is bad but the more I tried explaining, the more 'restricted' life felt for her. She stopped caring for me as much as she used to care for me.
And before I knew it, I got to know she had been unfaithful to me the whole time. It was true that she left signs; she would avoid meaningful conversations and was using phone too much and stretched a line of 'privacy' One day, I came back early from the hospital and she wasn't at home. I tried calling her but Zeynep's phone was off.
I started worrying and since we used to live alone here in my current mansion, nobody was there to tell me about her current location.
I waited. So much so that the clock was showing the time 11:00 pm. I was still sitting in the living room silently and it was then when I heard the front door opening.
I heard the voice of Zeynep talking joyfully with somebody on the front door. She was talking with a man ? And was giggling while he just continued hitting on her. When I realized what was actually happening, It was too late and the door closed. When Zeynep entered the living room, I looked at her appearance and it was absolutely unacceptable. An off shoulder top and a skirt is what you wear infront of your spouse, not when you're with a strange man. The amount of wrath felt at that moment could never outweigh the amount of grief I was going through at that moment. Although I tried asking her, she kept counting the reasons for our arguments and why we should get a divorce; because I was trying to snatch away her rights and it was eating her alive. Even though I didn't wanted to argue her, it felt like she wanted the fight go to the extent where I will say something to her and she will take action against it. When it didn't happened, she just packed up her things and left. That night haunts me. That was when I realized how much it hurts when you have to prove to those people whom you really love, that do you love them or not. After my failed attempts of not being able to stop her, I stared on to the front door for a long time before falling on both of my knees as the tears rolled down from my eyes.

Now I don't want to marry someone who'll think having a pious spouse is equivalent to being caged up. I would never allow myself to make a woman feel her rights are not being filled with and I also don't want my children to be astray.

But the thing which worsened the situation was the involvement of my family. They put the whole blame on me and accused me of not giving the freedom to my wife which she deserves. They didn't even let me tell my side of story because they were so embarrassed infront of Zeynep's family. That was when Abdul Aziz comforted me and would frequently visit my house to cheer me up. He even once forced me to have art competition with him. He knew how bad I am in arts and how good he is in arts so he would laugh so loudly on my drawings. Nevertheless, few events are just meant to be happen to prepare us for the near future. Although I have moved on, I will not get married until I find the right one for me.

After I completed my chai, I put it into the sink of my kitchen and started washing my dishes.

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