Three Daughters: A Novel

by Consuelo Saah Baehr

  She tried to think about her future in a hopeful way so she wouldn’t appear sad to him. He would be in new and stimulating surroundings while she faced the same routine. A few of the girls at school had found places in American colleges—Swarthmore, Davidson, and Vassar—and they were very excited. She was already overeducated and should have been a junior in college. She could probably even be admitted with advanced standing to a university. Maybe she should tell James she had plans for college, too. She didn’t want his last memory of her to be of someone whose life was aimless.

  “I don’t want you to think of me as someone weak and dependent,” she said when they had settled at a table in a small coffee shop near the Via Dolorosa. “I’d hate that.”

  “No chance of that.” He smiled.

  “I don’t want you to think of me as a person who can’t think for herself either.”

  “Now why would I think that?” He was still amused.

  “You’ve accused me of being brainwashed often enough.” Her lips clamped together and grew thin. She inspected his profile and, while the smile was gone, he didn’t look sad. He wasn’t despondent. “If you recall, it was I who constantly nagged to consummate this relationship.” She couldn’t keep the edge out of her voice, although she knew it was damaging. Their lack of physical involvement loomed as a fatal mistake on her part. Delal was right. How could he feel bound to her and keep her close to his heart when they had never made love?

  James looked around to see if anyone had overheard. He reached for her hand across the table and pressed it between both of his. “I regret one thing,” she said softly.

  “What’s that?”

  “That we haven’t been lovers all along. I’d feel much better if that were the case.”

  He put on what she thought of as his fatherly face. He was moved but also perplexed. “We went all over that. I didn’t want to put that kind of pressure on you.”

  “I didn’t feel pressured. The only reason not to do it was so you wouldn’t spoil me for someone else, isn’t that so?”

  It appeared to him that the waiter smirked. He leaned a little closer and whispered. “That’s putting it succinctly.”

  “But you’re the one I care about, so what’s the difference?”

  “There’s logic in there somewhere.” He smiled. “You won’t believe me, but I understand everything you’re saying. Nevertheless, I feel protective.”

  He doesn’t want to do it, she thought. Now it became imperative.

  He was dressed for business in a tie and a heavy flannel suit. The seriousness of his clothing made him appear unapproachable. Again there was that awful sense of panic. He had appeared in her life at a time when she wasn’t expecting anything. It was that innocence that had brought him. Now she was expecting too much. He didn’t need her as much as she needed him. This was her last chance. She had to do something bold. “James, let’s go somewhere. A hotel.”

  He looked surprised and then concerned and then unusually serious. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t have the nerve to ask if he wanted it, too.

  “All right.” He blotted the melted flakes off her face. “If that will make you happy, we’ll do it.”

  Make her happy? She was just mindlessly patching up all the loose ends that plagued her. What was it about him that made her breath catch with anxiety? He was too much to hold in her mind. He could stop loving her and go on his way at any moment. Only love would hold him there. She couldn’t pin him down and contain him. In a very real sense she was at his mercy.

  They rented a room at a small hotel on the Street of the Chain. The bed was so high that her feet dangled when she sat on it, but it also allowed her and James a beautiful view of the flakes coming down. It was a garret room with half the ceiling sloped and the walls papered with cabbage roses.

  He looked so handsome. Wearing a shirt and tie made his head look larger and softened his features, but also made him seem powerful. “This is how you dress when you’re at work?”

  “Yes. Are you impressed?”

  “You look . . . in command.” His frame of reference was vastly different from hers. She could see the way his family lived. They had an English maid who laid out their pajamas flat on the bed with the arms and legs outstretched, as if all they had to do was lie on top of them and button up. She considered that so bizarre it made her laugh, but the little niceties also intimidated her, as if she weren’t polished enough for him. Of course, at school anyone without exquisite manners soon got the picture, but this was something beyond manners and it made him more valuable. At times she would stare at the back of his neck or his profile or the way he sat with his long legs stretched out and crossed carelessly at the ankles.

  “It’s the same old me,” he said, smiling, and put his hand on her face.

  “I can’t shake the feeling that once you go I won’t see you again.”

  “Why wouldn’t you see me again?”

  “I can’t explain.”

  “It’s not going to happen. When I return I’ll be half a lawyer. You want to marry me this summer? You can come with me to Edinburgh in the fall.”

  “Oh, James.” The idea seemed so remote it had little impact on her confidence.

  “Does that mean you’ll consider it?”

  “Of course I’ll consider it.”

  “I’ll live on that for six months.”

  “Do you need something to live on, too?”

  “Nijmeh, do you have to ask?”

  She undressed without nervousness but with a sense of fatalism. He breathed deeply and sighed and stared. “Can you even guess how beautiful you are?” She smiled and put out her hand. He shut off all but one small lamp, stretched out beside her and brought his face very close to hers. “You’re my beautiful desert girl. I’ll never forget that night when I saw you for the first time.”

  “Tell me again how you felt,” she whispered. “Tell me how surprised you were.” She loved hearing that story.

  “Surprised? That isn’t the word for it. Electrified,” he teased. They were turned toward each other, their faces inches apart. His leg was over her, pinning her down. “Within five minutes you had threatened to kill me and then to slaughter a pathetic lamb for my dinner. I thought, Wow, this woman is different.”

  “That’s all? Just different?”

  “A few other things. You were brave and competent. So matter-of-fact. It wrenched me. I remember riding away with such a heavy feeling. It hurt me that I had to leave you to fend for yourself. I felt responsible for you already.”

  “Was that how you felt?”

  “Yes. I was determined to find you. All those days looking and with so little to go on. But I was determined.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I’m anxious to leave so I can return for you. Does that make sense? I feel as if I’ve known you for ages.” He closed his eyes. “I can imagine how we’ll look when we’re old. You’ll be toothless but still beautiful. I’ll still be wildly in love with you.”

  “Oh . . .”

  She had been right to make him bring her here. Wasn’t this what love was? Opening yourself completely to another? He’d never forget this. He was bound and melded, swooning with feeling and desire. Closer than breath and heartbeat. This is what she wanted for her life.

  Why then, in the midst of feeling, was there a hollowness with a deep engulfing core? This would surely break Samir’s heart. He would not understand. Or forgive.

  Outside the window it had stopped snowing and the light had turned purple. Soon she would have to leave. James was up on his elbows, his hands on her cheeks. “Hush,” he said, brushing away tears she was not aware having shed. “It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.”

  34.

  MY SISTER IS MAKING A PARTY FOR ONE OF THE HALABYS, WHO’S COME FOR A VISIT FROM
AMERICA.

  Papa, please don’t make me go.”

  “Of course you’re going. My sister is making a party for one of the Halabys, who’s come for a visit from America. She wants all of us there. Since when don’t you join us for a visit?”

  “Your sister would be relieved if I didn’t show up. She thinks I talk too much. They all think you’ve spoiled me.”

  “You make her Elizabeth look dull, maybe.”

  “I don’t make Elizabeth look dull. She is dull. She has one reaction to everything. If I said the king was wearing earrings in public or if I said too much rain had ruined the lilies, she’d have the same reaction—a dumb, round-eyed look. Do I have to waste a perfectly good afternoon talking nonsense, Papa? Papa!” He had stopped listening.

  “Delal, if you’re so clever at deducing motivation, you should know that all your whining won’t move me an inch. You’re going to your aunt’s and you’ll talk to your cousins.”

  “What sort of unnatural satisfaction do you get from bullying me into going? And you can’t dictate how pleasant or unpleasant I will be or how many words I’ll utter.”

  Her father sighed. “I’ll never worry over how many words you utter.” He couldn’t back down. He had planned this for his daughter’s good. He had to look to her future.

  Delal was indefatigable when it came to beating a discussion into the ground. She tried to wheedle out of the visit for another fifteen minutes and was still going strong. She really didn’t want to go. In fact, she was considering calling a young man at the office to go and see the new Jacques Tati film that she was reviewing for the paper. I could call him, she reasoned with herself. One pal calling another. But as it turned out, her father wouldn’t budge and she was forced to do what he said. She went to her aunt’s house and the man of her dreams was waiting there.

  Her first glimpse of him, he was sitting on her aunt Mary’s too-low damask couch. His long legs had to bend to the side and she saw the outline of his calf through the trousers. His hand, resting casually on his knee, was so large and beautifully formed that she had an unprecedented urge to trace each rosy knuckle. She was a fastidious girl and saved his face for last. He was wearing a white-collared shirt and a polka-dot bow tie.

  His hair was very straight. He must have used some sort of cream on it, because it was neat, with a precise side part that looked like a short, straight road in the forest. If he hadn’t been a doctor, his looks wouldn’t have been extraordinary. She knew that much. But given his status, nice eyes became flashing orbs of darkest light. His hair was dashing. His paleness was interesting. A tall slim man with decently broad shoulders and chest became a heartthrob when he was also a doctor.

  To help along the legend, he seemed remote and gave the impression that he was thinking of something vastly more important than what was going on.

  The girls were circling him like anxious, thirsty bees. Seated at his right and unwilling to give up her spot, Rheema’s eldest, obviously smitten, kept heaving the large breasts that had been the bane of her existence since puberty. On the other side, Leila’s daughter was attempting to talk knowledgeably about Frank Sinatra and Harry Truman, the two American names she knew. Elizabeth was giggling nonstop at whatever was said, whether serious or banal. As Delal traversed the room, he looked above all the bobbing heads, caught her eye, and held her glance for a moment. As sometimes happens between a man and a woman, there was energy, a spark, and a challenge in the look. Without stopping to think, she gave him an exaggerated flirty wink and didn’t look back for his reaction. Thank God Nijmeh wasn’t here.

  She sized up the situation: the only interesting thing that could happen between herself and this man that afternoon had already happened. She wouldn’t dilute it by grappling for his attention. She was smarter, more worldly, more sophisticated than all the girls there, but they were prettier. Whatever she said would sound stiff and out of place. Her aunt Mary’s living room was not the spot where she shone best. Fortuitously, a tire on her father’s prized Humber blew on the way and he spent much of the afternoon trying to have it replaced. He had no idea that his daughter had passed the visit that he had arranged so carefully hiding in her aunt’s bedroom, reading a book on flower arranging from cover to cover.

  She never expected to see Paul Halaby again, yet she found herself daydreaming about him the next morning. She dressed him in the appealing white doctor’s garb while they had an animated conversation on all the subjects she knew best. Of course he was stunned by her expertise in government, the economy, musical comedy, architecture, every song in South Pacific. “Some enchanted evening . . .”

  The house was empty and when she tired of being scintillating, she turned the phonograph up high and sang along with Johnnie Ray, modulating her voice to a tremolo to croon, “If your sweetheart sends a letter of good-bye-yi-yi.” The song was being played repeatedly over the Armed Forces Radio and she couldn’t get enough of it . . . the delivery more than the words, which didn’t apply to her. The thought flashed through her mind that they could apply to Nijmeh. Well, she’d have a swell song to console her. Her voice was husky and quite good. Her hips were dipping and turning to left and right. From time to time, she shook her upper torso and undulated her body downward. She had forty-five minutes before she was due at the paper and she wanted to wrench every sweet note out of the record. If she had thought anyone was watching her dance and wiggle and scrunch up her face with abandon over those sappy words, she would have died.

  He stood at the entrance to the room. “I knocked repeatedly, but . . . you must be Delal.” It was a warm day for February and he had rolled up his sleeves to just above the elbow and the shirt bloused out over his trousers. His face was flushed. His hair was smooth and shiny.

  Did Americans come calling in their shirtsleeves or was he too confident to care what anyone thought of him? “Why must I be Delal?” She sounded intentionally cranky—as if he had interrupted her fun instead of causing mortification. As she hoped, he lifted an eyebrow, surprised and interested. If he dared mention the wink, she’d deny it.

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Maybe. What do you know about Delal?” She focused on his hands. First he had draped them above his hips, with his jacket tucked through one arm. Now they were crossed over his chest and hugging his upper arms. His lovely, tapered fingers were on display.

  “Not enough.”

  This flustered her and she smiled. “You have beautiful hands.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You don’t do manual labor.”

  “Perhaps my work has made them beautiful. They deliver babies. I’m Paul Halaby.” He caught her eyes and held them, but this time she looked down and he had control of the situation. “Your father invited me here. We share a mutual interest in tennis and we were supposed to play.”

  “Tennis? My father has no interest in tennis.”

  “He said he did. That’s why I’m here.” He smiled again. “Do you suppose he wanted us to meet? Is this a trick to bring us together?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. I don’t believe it.” She was mortified. “My mother and father would never do anything like that. There must be some mistake. Anyway, my father’s not here. So you see, it is a mistake.”

  “It isn’t necessarily a mistake. What if I wanted to see you? Are you already taken?”

  “You mean taken like a squash at the market?” Her tone was too sharp.

  “No. I mean taken as in spoken for, married, engaged.”

  She narrowed her eyes as if the subject distressed her. “I’ve been close to it twice, but it wasn’t meant to be.” She was gambling that her candor would engage him. If you admitted things freely, people rushed to your defense. “I think I frighten young men because I’m too . . . well, as you can see, I don’t censor my thoughts. I gather news for the Palestine Post and it makes me forward. Aggressiveness isn’t so hot in a woman. Does it pu
t you off?” She held her breath. Suppose he said yes and walked out.

  “No,” he said softly. “It doesn’t put me off. However, I was only going to ask you for a simple date. It isn’t necessary to tell me every lurid detail of your life.”

  She knew he was joking, but even so, she was just uncertain enough to look so quizzical and vulnerable that he moved toward her. What happened next was so extraordinary that each of them saw it as an omen. He took her in his arms and placed his mouth over hers. It began as a simple brush of lips but as the current traveled downward from the contact with her mouth, he increased the pressure and she returned it. Nothing stopped them from continuing. He parted her lips and she allowed them to be parted. He investigated slowly with his tongue, allowing the tip of it to dart in and out of her mouth, and her body trembled. He left it in and for the briefest moment, unable to stop herself, she sucked it deeper before quickly breaking away.

  “Are you sure you were invited for today?” Her back was to him. She wasn’t so brave after all. “My father wouldn’t invite someone and then leave him stranded.”

  “I probably have the wrong date, but I’m glad I came.” His voice was gently teasing. “Would you like to meet again?”

  Would I like to breathe? “Yes.” She hesitated. “We did meet before. I was at the party on Sunday.”

  “I thought so, but then you were gone.”

  “I don’t like groups.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem.” She took her time removing the record that was spinning aimlessly. “I’m having dinner with relatives tonight, but we could go out afterward. Is there a film house here?”

  “Of course. The last showing is at eight fifteen. Can you be here by eight?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  She watched him leave in a small brown convertible that was so low she couldn’t believe his legs would fit inside. Later she had difficulty believing he had been there at all. It seemed more likely that he was a vivid daydream brought on by the irresistible music. But no, her heart was pounding and her mouth still felt the invasion of that tongue.