Nine-year-old Huda sat on an old half-buried tire, hunched over her battered science book. Science was her favorite subject, and she loved knowing how the human body worked. Between reading about the circulatory system and the benefits of a balanced diet, she found her mind swimming in reveries revolving around herself in a white lab coat with a stethoscope hanging from her neck. A patient has a heart attack, and she’s the only one who can save him. His son looks at her from behind the mother’s legs after she has told her he’s fine now and they can go in and see him. Another patient finds it hard to breathe and nobody knows what to do, and then she enters the room and hits him on the back dislodging whatever it was that choked him. She was shaken out of her daydreams by a ball made up of bunched-up plastic bags held together by rope that rolled past her legs. Omar, one of the kids who had been playing in a dusty playground nearby, strode by her. “Oh, look at you, wasting your time reading just so you’ll end up a cooker,” he jeered. “What a waste of time.” He shook his head, leaned over to pick up the ball and returned to the game. Cook, she wanted to correct him. Not cooker. But shyness kept her lips sealed. She was no stranger to such comments. There were certain expectations that came with being a girl born within the Yemeni community in the Kenyan coastal town of Malindi, and one of them was that one day she had to get married and become a housewife. But she still allowed herself to dream because her dreams made her happy. “Huda.” She heard her mother call from the two-bedroomed Swahili house as the sun started to bid the sky farewell amidst the loud twittering of agitated birds. “Time to come inside and make dinner!” She closed the book and traipsed back home with her head hung low. ## “Huda, what happened to you?” Mrs. Esther, her biology teacher, said during lunch break one day. “Your grades are slipping.” Huda sat across the teacher’s table from Mrs. Esther, staring down at the glaring 45% on her biology midterm exam. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’ll try harder next time.” “And you haven’t been attending the extra classes I’ve been offering after school.” She furrowed her brow. “Is everything all right at home?” Huda nodded. “Yes, everything’s fine. It’s just that my dad wants me home immediately after school.” “But this is for your future. I can talk to him if you want.” “You can try, but he won’t agree.” “You had passed your KCPE with flying colors. I’m afraid you’re getting too comfortable now that you’re in secondary school. This is no time to fall asleep. You must work harder.” Huda nodded, her unseeing eyes still on the paper clutched tightly in her hands. “I’ll try my best, ma’am.” She stood and left the classroom to go eat her lunch, Mrs. Esther’s words already taking a backseat to what her mother had told her the night before. “Jameela got engaged yesterday, and she’s one year younger than you. Many proposals start coming at fifteen, and you’re already seventeen. How are we going to face society if we end up with a spinster at home? That’s why I’ve invited Aunty Waheeda for afternoon tea. She’s got two sons working in Nairobi. Go put on a pretty dress and fix your hair. Don’t embarrass me in front of her. Oh God, I really hope you don’t shame us and bury our heads in the sand.” ## He was a decent man. His name was Salim. He made a decent income working in Saudi Arabia as a driver. That’s what her parents told her. No, he was not related to Aunt Waheeda or any of the numerous aunties her mother had paraded her in front of during the past two years. His mother, Aunt Sofiya, had just moved to the neighborhood and brought the proposal one month after Huda had cleared the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations. Huda sat on one of the threadbare mattresses lining the living room wall that made up for a sofa and hugged a cushion to her chest. A bare bulb hung from the ceiling, casting light on an eerily silent, box-like television. On one side, her father sat with his back against the wall and his legs stretched in front of him, a plate of roasted almonds balanced on his portly stomach. On the other, her mother sat with her legs tucked underneath her, with a green-and-yellow-colored paisley-designed kanga wrapped around her head. Her happiness lay in finding a good husband, they assured her, and this was the best proposal a girl at her age could hope for. At nineteen, she was getting too old. “Think about it. If he can’t take you to Saudi Arabia, you’ll be living with your mother-in-law close to here. You can always visit us. And if you do go to Saudi Arabia, then you’ll have a better life over there.” “Do as you see fit, Baba,” she whispered in a tremulous voice. ## The wedding passed by in a blur. She couldn’t remember much except that it was loud. Her mother and aunties organized everything, so all she had to do was follow instructions. As she stood before the doors that led to the wedding hall where the female guests sat on the jamvi2 -covered floor waiting in anticipation, her mother and aunts bustled around her, throwing last-minute advice. In the jumble of words, she failed to recognize who said what exactly. “When the doors open, walk very slowly.” “Stop every five steps so people can see your beautiful dress. Don’t forget. Five.” “Look down as much as you can. You have to appear shy.” “Especially when he walks in.” “Yes, of course! That goes without saying. People will gossip until they turn red in the face if you look at him openly. Keep your eyes down.” After the painfully slow walk to the end of the wedding hall, she sat on a beautifully decorated sofa raised by a platform, sweating under the glare of the lights, her eyes blinded by the photographer’s flashing camera. She held a rose bouquet over her green second-hand dress embellished with sparkling glass stones. She tried to smile at the camera as one invitee after another came up to pose with her, but all that would appear on the photographs would be an awkward lopsided curve of her lips. Anxiety filled her stomach with grasshoppers. When the groom walked down the aisle to join her, she realized she didn’t need her aunties’ advice. Her gaze automatically plunged to the floor. She didn’t look up again for the rest of the wedding, and all the pictures that came out after that had his arm across her shoulders — after being encouraged by his relatives — and her looking down as though the floor held the answers to the greatest secrets of the universe. That was supposed to be the moment her story ended, and their story began. ## To read more of this story; get your Kindle copy of All Bleeding Stops and Other Short Stories from the Kenyan Coast by clicking here.https://www.amazon.com/Bleeding-Stops-Other-Stories-Kenyan-ebook/dp/B01EFRMOSO?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0
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