“God is Punishing Me!”

Roses are red, and so is Blood

The Narrative of Amina
As told to me by Kol Kalkut

Kol is a good friend of mine. We are family. He has respectfully given me permission to piece together the story of Idhil — at least the parts I know too well. And those parts, if ever read in God’s court, will lay the foundation — brick by brick — for the justice I pray Idhil receives one day.

I’m not a great storyteller. I get emotional. I tend to hop around. But I’ll be granted that. Kol, reading this, will figure it out.

I, Amina, knew Idhil because she became my neighbor. Actually, I became hers when we first moved to Kilimani. I remember her enchanting presence. To be honest, I’m not someone who warms up to people quickly. I usually observe first, quietly taking mental notes. But one thing stood out about her from the beginning: her patience.

God. Am I writing an obituary?

Let me begin Idhil’s story with the urgency it deserves.

Idhil was in trouble. Real trouble. She was being abused — no, battered — night after night.

The first time I saw her like that, she came running into my house. She burst into my bedroom, screaming. Shoeless. Her soft hair disheveled. Her dira torn at the neck. She wore the bruises of a boxer: a black eye, swollen cheeks, and a deep cut just below her left eye. She was bleeding.

It was the middle of the day. Thankfully, my two- and four-year-olds were still at school and spared the horror.

She was torture personified. Horror reeked from her face, dripping from her soul like the streaks of blood that trickled across my bedroom carpet. I couldn’t convince her to come out of the closet. She was shaken — like a chicken caught in the rain — her eyes wide with terror, frozen, shivering.

“Idhil,” I whispered softly.
“You’re safe,” I implored. “No one is going to hurt you. You’re safe here. Come out. Come, give me a hug.”

It took me nearly half an hour — beseeching, coaxing, promising. Finally, a worn-out figure stepped out of my closet. She sobbed. I sobbed. We held each other, clinging tightly, until she pulled away, wiped her tears, and whispered:

“God is punishing me. I know God is punishing me.”

Those words pierced my heart.

“Don’t say that,” I whispered back.
“Idhil, please… tell me what happened.”

She narrated her painful ordeal. And by the end of it, it dawned on me that she was simply unlucky. Her dad had died. Her mom was jobless. Her two brothers were barely managing to stay in school. At nineteen, it wasn’t love — it was circumstance that pushed her into marriage. And to make matters worse, she ended up with the most vile, hateful, godless man.

What he did to her was unthinkable.

Her ordeal began during the last holy month of Ramadan. Actually, that was the beginning of what to us — strangers or passersby — would appear to be the end. Even now, where she is stationed in life, her horror continues. It haunts her like millions of moths eating away at her brain. She has no respite. No love.

Months earlier, she had to contend with verbal abuse. Physical abuse. Emotional abuse. She withstood all of that. What she also had to endure was the flagrant violation of her boundaries and an unending display of total bad manners.

I will mention his name. How painful it is to utter it, and how bitter it tastes in my mouth. But I do it to grant our villain a name — so that the world gets to know him. His mother named him Samir.

Samir regularly came in late. High, at times. On either khat, tobacco, or some other stinking thing criminals in cohort place under their teeth. Sometimes he reeked of alcohol, though he’d never admit it. And if confronted, he would beat the life out of Idhil — until she passed out, waking hours later on the cold floor, stirred only by the call of the muadhin at 5 a.m.

When she could no longer bear his beatings, she chose to close her eyes and remain mute. But that too drew his scorn and condescension. In her silence, she earned more punishment.

Idhil has had three miscarriages. All because of her husband. She never confided in anyone — except me. She had nowhere else to go.

Out of the blue, one night — during the sacred nights of Ramadan — Idhil managed to cook suhoor for Samir and herself. After she was done, and after he had eaten to his fill, he called her while she was still in the kitchen.

This time, Samir sounded calm — unusually so. His head was low, legs crossed. He asked her to sit in front of him, then cleared his throat.

Idhil, for once, thought that remorse had passed through his heart. That he was finally apologizing for the hurt, sorrow, and pain that he had caused her.

Then Samir opened his mouth.

“I want you to pack your things now. Then leave. I do not want to see you near me, near my house, or near the kids. Pack and go. I have divorced you.”

Those words struck like violent blows — like a sharp samurai blade slicing Idhil’s heart piece by piece. What made it worse was the slow intonation, the cold, emotionless manner in which they were uttered.

“What!” Idhil gasped.

Then, in that brief moment, she collapsed in a heap.

She had fainted.