Behind the Veils of Yemen by Audra Grace Shelby Page A

guys. Let’s go finish our lunch.” I waved the children to join me.
    I looked back again at the lifeless tree. It had appeared so strong. I shuddered. I did not want to think what its deception could have cost my children.

 
    School was a week away. With the children’s school clothing lost in our crates, I busied myself making new ones. I was sewing black Scotty dogs on a red gingham blouse for Madison when the telephone rang. I answered it.
    “Asalam alaykum [Peace be upon you].” It was Mona, Fatima’s friend. She gushed the news that Fatima had given birth early that morning to a baby boy. Mona, Sofia and Fatima’s mother-in-law had been with her for the delivery.
    I tried to ignore my hurt feelings at not being included. I knew I was still a foreigner in Fatima’s eyes. I listened to Mona chat lightly about Fatima and the baby. I drummed my fingers on the table, putting little effort into following her fast-spoken words. Something in her manner irritated me. It seemed false and contrived. She skirted over a brief mention of the baby’s illness.
    I stopped drumming my fingers and interrupted her midsentence. “ Marah thanya, loh samaty [Another time, please]. How is the baby sick? What is wrong?”
    Mona brushed aside my questions, whispering, “Ma’a sha’allah [What God wills].” I knew the phrase was commonly spoken around infants and children like a charm to ward off evil. I had been warned to say ma’a sha’allah over my own children. I had responded, “I walk with God through Jesus. Jesus is all I need.”
    Mona was not giving me a straight answer about the baby, and I knew something was wrong. “May I visit Fatima at the hospital?” I asked.
    “Yes, yes, you must,” Mona replied. “She is asking for you.”
    I hung up the phone and telephoned Alison, a physician friend from Europe. Deaths among Yemeni children were not uncommon. Most of the women I knew had lost at least one child under the age of five, and I wanted to prevent Fatima’s baby from becoming a statistic among them. I explained my concern to Alison. “Will you go with me to see Fatima?” She agreed.
    Alison and I arrived at the hospital late that afternoon. We found Fatima’s private room, but she was not in it. The white-robed, white-veiled nurse told us she was with her baby, who had been taken for tests. She said they would return “after one hour.” Knowing this probably meant three or four hours, we decided to leave. I jotted a note in English and laid it on the white-sheeted cot next to an empty steel crib.
    Alison flipped through a clipboard tied to the crib. The report had been written in English, as most medical documents were, and detailed the infant’s birth. Alison clicked her tongue. The baby had been born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. Attempts to resuscitate him were successful after an hour of effort by the physician.
    Alison let the clipboard fall back with a bang against the crib. “If the baby lives, he will have severe brain damage,” she said grimly. “According to this report, he is unable to swallow, and he is choking on his own saliva.”
    A group of four women walked into the room, including Fatima’s mother-in-law and Huda, the bride’s mother from the wedding I had attended. I did not know the other two. They hugged us enthusiastically, exclaiming over the birth of Fatima’s son. Even Fatima’s mother-in-law seemed proud that Fatima had delivered a boy.
    I nodded my head, forcing a smile. I wondered if they understood what had happened, or if they were ignoring the truth. Will they soon be telling Fatima to accept her fate and say al hamdulilah ? I wondered.
    The mother-in-law seemed to guess my thoughts. She looked forcefully at me. “Ensha’allah, he will be strong, qawi, like his father. Ma’a sha’allah [What God wills].”
    The other women agreed in unison, “Ma’a sha’allah, ma’a sha’allah.”
    I whispered, “Ensha’allah [God willing].” Alison