The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf by Mohja Kahf

Author:Mohja Kahf [Kahf, Mohja]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Literary
ISBN: 9780786715190
Google: 1hI1lsCx60YC
Publisher: Carroll & Graf
Published: 2006-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

In the months after the wedding, not a week went by when someone didn't ask Khadra if she was pregnant.

"Why not?" Aunt Fatma said in dismay, when Khadra explained that not only was she not pregnant, but she didn't plan to be just yet. "You're using prevention? Haram!"

"Oh, Fatma, you know it's not haram," Ebtehaj took her daughter's side.

"Well, but it can be harmful, I tell you," Aunt Fatma insisted. She was a little teapot, short and stout. "My aunt took the pills and do you know what?"-Aunt Fatma lowered her voice, her eyes widening-"they made her sterile. I hope you're not using the pills!" She pulled Khadra close and whispered, "The West sends the pills to Egypt and the other Muslim lands to make us all sterile!"

Khadra wished she had never divulged her plans.

Ebtehaj stepped in. "Stop making her worry. When did your aunt take the pills, in the sixties? Horse pills! Big dosages-they tried them out on poor Third World women before deciding what was safe."

"I'm telling you, God doesn't like you trying to prevent life," Fatma pressed. "I'll admit, Abdulla and I tried it once."

Khadra stage-gasped.

"And thats when God sent us the twins!" Aunt Fatma blurted.

"Still," her mother told her at home, "you can have babies and finish college too. You can do it all. Look at me: I did."

And her father said, "You have a stable home, and your husband's not poor, even if he is a student. What are you waiting for? Yes, birth control is allowed in shariah, but not indefinitely," he said gravely.

"Maybe you should have just one," Aunt Trish offered. "One, then wait." Her son, Danny, and his wife, Tayiba, had started out with the resolve to postpone children too, but it hadn't taken them long to produce a lovely little granddaughter for her, after all.

Juma's mother, on the weekly phone call from Kuwait, concurred. "Have just one," she cajoled. "At least then you'll know you're able to have them.

What Juma heard was: "Real men don't use condoms," and "I hear spermicide can make you impotent."

"Not impotent, dummy, sterile."

"Bad enough, either way!"

"What's wrong?" Juma asked, when Khadra slid out of his embrace one evening.

"I can't," she said, staring at the ceiling. "It's like they're all here in bed with us, going `Have babies! Do it, do it!"'

Things came up in their marriage. Little things at first. Like Khadra's bike.

"Where are you going?" Juma said. Khadra threw her leg across the seat. She'd biked to class a couple of times since they'd been married, but he hadn't noticed. Or perhaps he had, but hadn't said anything.

"To Kroger for milk." She'd added a wire basket to the front handlebars. It was all tricked out for cute newlywed couple grocery shopping.

"But-" he looked puzzled. She was an Arab girl, familiar with Arab customs. He hadn't expected her to be doing things that would embarrass him. If he'd wanted to have to explain every limit of proper behavior, he'd have married an American. "But someone might see you.

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