With Interrogation and Blessings
(Scene: The Compound of Ancestral Dust. Woven mats, brass chairs, and clay jugs line the center. Elders sit in semicircles. On one side, MUHIBBA with her aunts and cousins. On the other, IBRAHIM with THOMPSON, FATIMA, and elders. SHARIFA presides at the center, veiled in gold lace like a tribunal queen. The CHORUS stands behind the crowd like a curtain of memory.)
SHARIFA (banging a carved gavel):
Let the courtship proceedings begin.
This is not a mere flirtation;
This is history with consequence.
ELDER 1:
Boy, what is your name and what wakes you at dawn?
IBRAHIM:
Ibrahim, son of silence.
What wakes me is hunger for meaning,
and the chance to share it with another.
FATIMA (aside):
He didn't mention salary.
That boy is either pure... or broke.
ELDER 2:
And what do you offer this daughter of the dynasty?
No stanzas now—speak in reality.
IBRAHIM:
I offer a shelter of steady eyes.
A partnership, not possession.
An inheritance of shared days, not gold plates.
(Elders murmur. MUHIBBA watches with deep breath. ZAINAB squeezes her hand.)
AUNT 1 (to MUHIBBA):
And you—why him?
Why the ledgerless boy when lawyers line up?
MUHIBBA:
Because he listens with his life.
Because his hands do not reach to grab, but to hold.
Because when he speaks, I remember I am not property
I am prophecy.
SHARIFA (sternly):
Love is not enough.
Marriage is memory, money, and making children.
Where is your readiness, girl?
MUHIBBA:
My readiness is rebellion against loveless unions.
If marriage is merely transaction, I decline.
But if it is collaboration—then I am already bride.
(THOMPSON rises, flipping a notebook.)
THOMPSON:
Permit me a poem of observation.
A man may build a house with bricks,
but a woman makes it breathe.
If this house of theirs will breathe
let us not seal it with suspicion.
(Chorus hums gently. Elders nod slowly. Then, SHARIFA removes her veil and stands.)
SHARIFA:
I, Sharifa of the matronal line,
was taught to bless the iron pot, not the fire.
But today
I bless the flame.
(She approaches MUHIBBA and places a woven pendant around her neck.)
SHARIFA:
Your dowry shall be the story you write.
Not goats. Not gold.
But the grammar of new lineage.
(She turns to IBRAHIM and places a calabash of water in his hands.)
SHARIFA:
Drink. And let this courtship be baptized.
(He drinks. Offers it to MUHIBBA. She sips. Thunderous cheer. The CHORUS breaks into celebratory chant-dance.)
Chorus (singing):
Let courters court in truth and trust,
Let dowries not be debts or dust.
This is the day the law was kissed
Inheritance rewritten with fists unclenched.
(Lights fade slowly. The sound of wedding drums begins to emerge faintly.)
BLACKOUT.
End of Act Three.