Betrayed Read online

  ‘What’s this?’ I exclaimed, although I had a sinking feeling about what it contained.

  ‘It’s for you. Open it.’

  ‘I can’t accept a gift from you, Diyar.’

  ‘Yes, you must.’

  ‘Very well, but I won’t open it here. I’ll take it home.’

  He agreed and as my aunt had to leave early that day, it meant I was home before my father and while my grandmother was out. I went straight across the road to my friends and showed them the box, which had remained unopened.

  As they crowded around it, I slowly opened it. The third oldest girl, Warvin, a serious shopper when she was allowed into town with relatives, gasped. ‘Oh my, he is so rich!’

  We were looking at a gold ring, encrusted with rubies around the band while the centrepiece was a huge royal blue sapphire surrounded by a ring of tiny gold balls—and around them was a circle of diamonds.

  ‘Latifa, I can tell you now that there are only three of these in the whole of Dohuk. I’ve seen the remaining two in the jeweller’s whose name is here on the box. They call this the Angel Ring and it’s from Dubai.’

  I couldn’t believe my ears when she told me its value—at least $US20,000.

  ‘His family must have been keeping it for the time when his marriage will be confirmed,’ said Warvin. ‘Some families do that. He must have asked his parents for it. Oh, Latifa, he is very serious about you. Does it mean you are going to marry him, now you’ve brought the ring home?’

  ‘No way!’ I cried. ‘It’s going straight back in the morning. But please don’t tell any of my family about this. They’ll just force me to continue with this boy if they find out.’

  Back in my room I twisted the ring around between my fingers. The diamonds sparkled in the overhead light. I had never handled anything so beautiful in my life. But what was a beautiful gift for a girl if her heart remained cold?

  ‘I cannot accept this,’ I told Diyar the following day, handing the box back.

  His face fell. ‘But I have told my family all about you. They gave it to me to pass to you. This will humiliate me and them.’

  I felt terrible about hurting him, but my guilt quickly changed to defence when he suddenly lashed out. ‘Do you know how many girls would love to be in this position? I have a good family, I am a caring man, I have everything that any girl could wish for. Yet when I hold my hand out to you, you reject me.’

  ‘Diyar, please understand. Sparkling rings or money can’t buy my love. I have to feel it.’

  ‘So you don’t love me?’

  ‘I like you. You are a good man. But I cannot get married to a man I’ve known for a couple of weeks. I can’t make a lifetime commitment just like that. Things must be allowed to develop.’

  The atmosphere was tense for the remainder of the day. I breathed a sigh of relief when my aunt popped her head around the door to say it was time to go home.

  Even from my bedroom I heard the gunshot. I ran out of the room to look for my grandmother and asked her if she had heard the noise. She told me to go back to my room while she checked outside. She returned to tell me that the crowds who had gathered in the street informed her that a young man had killed himself with a bullet in the head because the girl he loved had been forced to marry someone else and this was her wedding day. But the tragedy was even greater—it transpired that he had earlier gone to the girl’s house and shot her. It was a big shock to me. Was love so strong that you could kill the one you loved? It had to be so—crimes of passion stretched even into the heart of Kurdistan. What worried me was my own position now with Diyar. I had rejected his ring, and I had to see him the next day.

  I was full of trepidation when I returned to the office the following morning. But Diyar greeted me with his old smile. I wondered whether it was an act or if he was genuine. In any case, within an hour, he laid a small paper box, surrounded by a bow, on my desk. Oh no, I thought, here we go again.

  ‘This time you have to keep it,’ he said. ‘Don’t embarrass me again by giving this back to me. For the sake of God. I would still like my mother to come to your house. I will do anything to prove my love for you—anything.’

  That was how he continued for the remainder of the day. The pressure was still on. But I felt obliged to take the small box home with me, knowing full well that it contained a ring. When I brought it out I could see that it was not as valuable as the other band, but it was still very beautiful, with a gold oblong-shaped centrepiece inscribed with Arabic calligraphy, the script being interspersed with tiny diamonds. I could read the words. ‘There is only one God,’ they said.

  ‘In that case, God,’ I thought, ‘give me some direction.’

  To that end when I said my evening prayers, I asked again for holy guidance. Then I lay on my bed and considered my position. I had tried to escape over the border and failed. I had been promised assistance from Zana and David and nothing had materialised. My father and his mother were keeping me as a virtual prisoner until the day I married and if and when that day came, all would be revealed about my ‘personal’ status. And knowing how my father had beaten me just for trying to get away, I had no doubt that he would carry out his threat to kill me next time I, in his eyes, disgraced him.

  I also remembered Sheireen, the former Sydney schoolfriend I had met in Dohuk. I had run into her again in Dohuk where she had been forced into a marriage to her cousin. She said that when she and her husband returned to Australia she would do what she could to help me. What had become of her promise?

  The one way out of Kurdistan for women who had relatives living abroad was to marry a man who would want to leave with her to be with those relatives. Alternatively, if the new husband had relatives the wife might be able to persuade him to take up his roots and leave Kurdistan. Marriage was the only way out for any girl trapped.

  Suppose I was to agree to marry Diyar? If he was truly besotted with me, as I believed he was, he might well agree to leave for Australia with me. He had told me he would do anything, absolutely anything, for me. Once I was married, my father and his mother would have no further say in what I did. But of course there was that one outstanding problem. My virginity. Or lack of it. Our wedding night would reveal all and not only would there be uproar there would be murder. Mine.

  But what if I was able to break the news to Diyar that I was not a virgin? If he accepted it, then my escape from Kurdistan was virtually assured. If things didn’t work out between us once we reached Australia, it would be easy enough to get a divorce. But if he didn’t accept it…? I thought hard about that serious problem. And I remembered how religious he was. I believe I could take advantage of his devotion to God. I didn’t like to think of such things but I was desperate and unless I did something for myself—anything—my life would be short. There would be a forced marriage and all would be revealed.

  I made a decision that night before sleep carried me away to skies that were big and blue and where the ocean washed up onto my favourite beach, Bondi. When the right moment came I would tell Diyar my secret.

  SIXTEEN

  I just had to pick the right moment.

  When I next saw Diyar I thanked him for the ring and told him that because it came with the love of God—and his love too—I would keep it. He asked if I was going to wear it, but I said I would wait until I was invited to a wedding to put it on special display. I also hoped that because girls who attended weddings were allowed to wear jewellery, it wouldn’t attract attention from my father and relatives who would also be among the guests.

  ‘But please, Diyar, no more gifts.’

  ‘There is just one more. Tomorrow, make sure you bring a bag in with you with some papers and clothes, just general things, in it.’

  I jokingly asked if he was planning to rush me away somewhere, but he was deadly serious. So the following day I arrived at the office with one of my larger handbags that had been filled with plastic bags, on top of which was a kaftan that I told my watchful grandmother was a ‘spa
re’ I wanted to keep at the office.

  It was a day when Diyar shared slices of a cake he would bring in every two weeks. I set to work on the computer as he went around the building with the cake. On his return, he told me he had saved the best part, which had small pieces of fruit on it, for me. He told me to take my time eating it and when I asked why he explained that the sooner I got through the pile of documents that had to be translated and typed up, the sooner my job would be over and that was the last thing he wanted. So the cake was a delaying tactic. Clever, but it would have only gained him an extra half an hour of my time at the office. He was obviously desperately in love with me.

  He asked me if I’d brought a bag as requested. When I put it on the desk, he said it was needed for this—and he propped a box, slightly larger than a shoe box, on my desk. Inside was a single rose. And a fluffy teddy bear. On the back of the bear was the word HUG.

  ‘Where on earth did you get this, Diyar?’ It was a cute gesture demonstrating again his desperation at winning my heart. He had asked a cousin in Baghdad, who had to travel to Dohuk on business, to bring the bear and the rose. He was not to know it, but the rose reminded me of St Valentine’s Day in Australia, when roses would turn up on my doorstep from anonymous schoolboys, accompanied by cards declaring their love for me. The bear and the rose were the reasons for him asking me to bring a bag, so I could fit them in to take home.

  I asked him why I had to be so secret about it. He said he had read my concern about his approaches and did not want my father or grandmother to see the items in case they thought I was being courted by someone and they added pressure on me to get married to him. He said he accepted I was not to be rushed, so as a sign of respect to me he thought it best that my father and grandmother should not see his gesture of love at this stage.

  This incident led me to believe that I might be able to bring him so close to me that he would understand that what had happened to me in the past was the result of rape. I tested the ground, asking him what he knew about Australia. He had heard about kangaroos and the Opera House and he responded enthusiastically when I asked if he would like to go there one day. Perhaps this was it. Diyar could well be my way out, providing he could get over the virginity problem. Marriage to Diyar would be self-serving for both of us.

  I had to bend the rose a little to make it fit in my bag, and over the top of it place the bear and the clothing I had brought to the office with me. My grandmother suspected nothing when I arrived home but I was sad about having to hide the rose and the bear in my closet. I unlocked the cupboard which had all of my secret items within it, such as my diary, CD player and my Tracy Chapman music and lay Diyar’s gifts with them, locked the cupboard door again and placed the key back in its hiding place.

  There was about a week’s work to be done when I decided to tell Diyar my secret if the opportunity arose. I had devised a plan to ensure that nothing could go wrong. He had continued telling me each day how much he cared for me and how wonderful life would be together, even though we were from a different tribe. He even made a joke of him being the ‘computer whiz’ and me being the ‘English genius’. He had now gone beyond the dream of marriage to me, asking if I had a daughter, what would I call her?

  ‘I’m going to have grey hair if you keep yourself from me like this, Latifa,’ he said. ‘Please don’t keep saying no. I’m not like this normally. I’ve never declared my love like this for any woman. You’re a Muslim woman who prays five times a day, a Kurdish woman. It’s not like you’re a Buddhist or an Arab or Jewish. You’re like me. You are perfect for me. I will give my life for you. It is the biggest sacrifice any man could ever make.’

  I believed the time had come.

  ‘Diyar, I am not like the other Kurdish girls you have met.’

  He smiled at me as he sat on his seat, just a metre away from my desk. ‘I know. I know what you are going to tell me.’

  I was shocked. ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes, you grew up in a Western culture. Your background is different. But that’s okay, I can accept that.’

  I felt tears in my eyes. He was so innocent. ‘There’s more to it than that.’

  ‘Then tell me. I don’t care what it is. Just tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can trust you enough to tell you.’

  ‘Oh, you can trust me, Latifa. You can trust me with anything. You should surely know that. Anything at all.’

  ‘Diyar, I know there are girls who would be willing to throw themselves at your feet. Even though I am very fond of you, I am trying not to fall for you because I am not your perfect woman. I am not a perfect woman.’

  He jumped to his feet, his eyes aflame. ‘So you do have feelings for me. This is the first time I have heard you speak from your heart. I don’t care if you can’t cook or if your Kurdish isn’t perfect. Cooking is not important. I don’t care if you don’t like doing the washing. And the way you speak Kurdish, with a bit of an English accent thrown in, it is so cute.’

  He was at his most vulnerable. This was the moment. I stood up and he stood up. I walked to him and put my hand on his arm, the first time either of us had touched. I felt him shudder at the contact.

  ‘What I am about to tell you must be a secret between you, me and God,’ I told him. He nodded his head in agreement. ‘And because it must be that way, you must swear your silence on the Koran.’

  His head jerked back. ‘Never have I been asked to swear on the Koran,’ he said. ‘This must be a very important secret. But I will do it for you, Latifa, I will do it for you.’

  As was the tradition, there was a Koran in the office, in its highest place, on top of the cupboard. As he placed it on my desk he told me that he did not believe it was right for anyone to use the Holy Book to protect themselves, but in my case he would make an exception.

  ‘I understand that,’ I said. ‘But this is extremely important.’

  With his hand on the Koran and his eyes on the ceiling he declared on the holy word and on his love of God that what I was about to tell him would remain a secret for the rest of his life.

  My head was down. I felt a great shame. Then his hand brushed the hair back from my face. I still had bald patches, but I had learned how to cover them well with the rest of my hair.

  ‘Now you can tell me,’ he said.

  I started to cry, wiping away the tears with my sleeve and praying that no-one would come in.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault… What happened wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘What—what are you talking about?’

  ‘It was my cousin… He betrayed me. He…’ I grabbed Diyar’s hand. ‘Oh, dear Diyar, I am not the one for you because I am not a virgin.’

  His whole body went rigid. He almost jumped back, like someone leaping from the strike of a poisonous snake.

  ‘You slut!’ he cried. ‘You filthy whore! You know it is haram (forbidden) to speak to prostitutes like you—and you have touched me. You disgusting bitch! How dare you come here to Kurdistan with your slutty Western ways, representing your father’s good name. I wash my mouth of you. Every word I have spoken to you is damned. You disgust me! You are filth!’

  And then he spat at me, striking me in the face. I felt his venom running down my cheeks, mingling with tears that flowed out of sorrow and fear.

  He returned to his desk and I could see his jowels moving as though he were grinding his teeth. The ensuing silence was too much to bear but as though on cue my aunt entered the office and told me her work was over for the day and we could leave. She noticed Diyar’s stiff, white face as he glared at the computer screen and asked if he was all right—he looked unwell. Perhaps, she suggested, he had taken on too much work.

  He shook his head and she took the hint to leave. I followed her out, expressing ignorance about the reasons for his appearance.

  What a terrible night followed. I lay awake trying to decide which was the more powerful—Diyar’s absolute hatred of me or his devotion to God. If his hatred won, I would be lo
st, for he would make sure my father knew what I had told him. If his love of God won, he would keep his word and remain silent. Once again, my life hung in the balance.

  What added to my misery was the knowledge that there was about a week’s work to be done before I could be released from the company. A week in that office with Diyar.

  But a shock awaited me when I arrived the following morning. Diyar was not there. He eventually turned up an hour late, unshaven, his hair uncombed. ‘There’s no need for you to remain here,’ he snapped. ‘I have finished all our work.’

  Although all the computer processing had been completed between us, there had still been a large number of documents to be put into order. He had taken all the paperwork home and spent the entire night working on it so that I could be dismissed early. Without a further word to him, not even an imploring word for him to remain silent about my secret, I picked up my bag and walked from the office.

  I told my aunt, in an adjoining office, that all the work was finished and that I was ready to leave whenever she was. She asked me to wait for half an hour or so. As I sat trembling after all that had gone on between Diyar and me, I cast my eyes about my aunt’s office. She had been working as a mechanical engineer, the only female in the company, for many years and was held in great respect by the men because of her strong Islamic dress sense. Despite her long employment, her office was totally soulless; just a desk, brown curtain, a simple chair and nothing on the wall but a cheap clock and a framed verse from the Koran. A simple plant or a flower in a jar would have given the place a lift, but she had lived with God and nothing of beauty for so long that she was totally satisfied with her surroundings. It was the way it was in most homes and offices in Iraq.

  While I waited, I started sketching abstract designs on a piece of paper she gave me but my thoughts were elsewhere. There was now a man who hated me and who knew my secret. Not a man who loved me and cared for me, but a man who loathed me. What was my secret doing in his ‘care’? What a fool I had been. But it was too late now. My fate hung in his hands and the strength of his love of God. I still had that ring he had given me. And the teddy bear. What was the point of returning them, even if I had the opportunity? I had no doubt he would have regarded them as tainted objects, touched by an unclean woman.