Til Death

Contains themes of violence, murder, and domestic abuse.

At eleven, they brought in the white dress.

Habo Nima felt her nerves tighten as she looked up at the folded cloth in the woman’s hand. The woman, whom everyone called Aunty S, did not meet Habo's eyes as she laid the dress over the chair in the corner of the room. Habo had seen the white dress on the others before. She knew it was long sleeved, with a high neck. She remembered it reaching their ankles, white slippers bound about their feet as they walked down the long aisle.

"You’ll change at half past,” said Aunty S, still looking down at the dress.

Behind Aunty S, just outside of the open door, Habo noticed two other women she did not know. One held a tray of tea while the other carried the white veil.

It was like her wedding day all over again, everyone had a job then too.

Her sisters and cousins had crowded the room by dawn, arguing about hairpins and earrings, doting on her, lipsticks passing about. Her favourite cousin, Miriam, guarded the door, blocking it from the younger ones trying to sneak in and peek at the bride.

"You should use the toilet now,” she was told, knowing that once her exquisite wedding dress was on, it wouldn’t be possible.

“What?” Habo asked, blinking back at Aunty S.

The older woman smiled softly, awash with pity. “The toilet. It would be better if you used it beforehand.”

Of course. Practicalities. Habo thought.

She remembered that day when Miriam held up her trailing veil as Habo sat on the toilet, her own hands held up, fingers stretched, waiting for the red nail polish to dry.

"Look away!" Her voice came out a squeal mid-laugh. Both of their eyes were strained with tears from their nonstop giggling.

The women did not look away as Habo silently sat on the cool metal toilet seat.

At eleven fifteen, when she was done, Aunty S motioned the woman with the tray. She entered the small room and placed the tea on Habo’s bedside table.

“It’ll help your nerves,” she smiled. There was a known process to these things.

For a while the only sounds were Habo’s sipping of the hot herbal tea and the rhythmic hammering outside that had begun at dawn.

Drums pounded outside her bedroom that day, too, when her sisters danced around the room, excited for the ceremony to come.

“I can’t wait till Zeb Hasan sees you! He’ll die from how beautiful you look.”

“Don’t forget to slow down when you walk up to him.”

“Let me just - ugh - one second - your necklace isn’t sitting straight.”

Habo counted forty-seven hammerings until she was done with her tea. Her hands shook when she placed the ceramic mug back on the wooden tray.

The women looked unnerved when Habo suddenly stood. She paced the room, her heart beating aflutter, the herbal tea holding no stop to it. They let her walk back and forth, eyes following her, from her bed to the chair with the white dress and back.

She’d paced that day too, talking and laughing with her sisters as she tried to shake the nerves away. It surprised her when she remembered how happy she sounded.

The hammering outside stopped, stalling Habo in her tracks, Though her heart still carried on the rhythm. She was facing her bed and slowly turned to Aunty S, whose lips had curled to a thin line.

It was eleven thirty.

Aunty S approached the chair, picking up the special garment. For fourteen months, hardly anyone had touched her. The older woman’s hands on Habo’s body, helping her remove the gray dress she wore was welcome, even in the unusual situation Habo found herself in. Aunty S held open the top of the white cotton dress for Habo to step into. The soft cloth felt different as it trailed up her body, its zipper’s metal teeth cold whenever it touched her skin. When Aunty S zipped it up, her hands landed on the top of Habo’s shoulders, staying there for a beat longer. Habo breathed into it.

“You’ve lost weight,” Aunty S noted the way the dress hung off Habo’s body.

"I can't breathe!" Habo had giggled, once, as her oldest sister buttoned up her wedding dress. It had felt like no second passed without someone touching her. A hand powdering her neck, fingers tightening a bracelet at her wrist, someone fluffing up her skirt.

"You can breathe, you're talking, aren't you," someone had laughed.

"Careful, you'll rip it," Miriam had warned, looking over Habo's sister's shoulder.

"I told you, it's too tight," Habo shook her head.

"You should have thought of that before inhaling those donuts."

Habo had kicked back, missing her sister as she sidestepped.

A knock came, announcing Habo’s mother whose head peaked into the bedroom. “It’s time!” Her singsong voice called.

Those around her clapped and jumped for joy, infecting Habo’s nerves with excitement. Miriam gathered the trail of her wedding dress and followed close behind as Habo made her way out of her crowded room and through their home to the back garden. Miriam’s hand closed around Habo’s wrist, “Wait,” she pulled, whispering into Habo’s ear. Habo stuttered in her steps, then turned to her cousin, head held at an awkward angle so as not to disrupt the veil. The other Bridesmaids flitted past them, exiting through swinging glass doors and taking their places.

“What, Miriam?”

“Are you sure?” Her cousin’s chocolate brown eyes bored into Habo.

“Seriously Miriam? Now?”

“Yes, now. You still have a choice.”

Habo looked back ahead. The crowd of people, the tables, the small stage set in the centre of their garden, where Zeb and her were to state their intentions.

Habo stood there in her white dress, mere steps away from the start of a new life.

At noon, there would be witnesses.

There would be documents.

There would be a marriage

“Habo Nima Hasan,” the man's voice boomed through the room, causing Habo to jerk and turn. The warden was a short man, salt-and-pepper hair, a patchy beard covering half his face. He always looked in a hurry, speaking fast and jittery so that she couldn't jump in and correct him. Habo Nima. She had stopped using the name Hasan the day Zeb had died. She hardly listened to the rest of what he read from the paper in his hand.

Many phrases were ones she now knew by heart. State. Court. Sentence. Petition denied. Sentence to be carried out at twelve noon, in twenty minutes.

The official asked whether she understood.

“Yes.”

“Do you wish to make a final statement?”

“Now?”

“At the appropriate time.”

Habo looked past him toward the corridor.

“And if I don’t?”

“That is your choice.”

Choice.

A beautiful word for something that did not exist.

Would you like tea?

Would you like to wear your dress?

Would you like the ivory veil? and the roses?

Would you like to marry Zeb Hasan?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

The prosecutor had told the court she had a choice the night Zeb died, too. Stabbing once was, perhaps, fear. But the following sixteen times, was a choice.

At eleven fifty-three, someone began praying in another cell. It was a low voice. Then another woman joined. Habo closed her eyes.

She could hear the music drumming in her bones mixed with the muffled roar of guests waiting in the garden.

It was Aunty S’s whisper, “let's go,” at eleven fifty-six that made Habo open her eyes.

Her knees felt strangely steady. She had expected shaking, crying, perhaps begging at the last moment.

Instead she felt precisely as she had before entering her family home's garden, oddly numb. Aunty S clicked the handcuffs on and led Habo into the corridor aisle that was brighter than her cell. The white dress brushed her ankles as she moved towards the metal door at the end, with her entourage of Aunty S ahead of her, the two other women following behind.

Through a small square window on the metal door, Habo could see the desert and its blue sky. Obstructing part of the landscape was a wooden platform with several men.

Habo heard the woman with the veil behind her shift, opening the white cotton cloth, placing it on Habo’s head, covering her face. The door was wiped from her view as the smell of detergent and dust took over. Her arms were grasped and she heard the click of locks and groaning of the metal door opening. The fast taps of the warden’s heeled shoes announced him joining them.

"Do you have a final statement?" The warden asked once more, muffled now through the veil.

Habo thought of yes, and yes, and yes. Of tea trays and hairpins. Of Zeb’s face. Of his fists. Of the first stab, and the fifteen that came after.

"No," she said.

They had not yet moved. Habo could imagine Aunty S looking down at her watch. She was mere steps away from the end.

At noon, there would be witnesses.

There would be documents.

There would be a body.