For the next two days, she walked over every part of the farm. Only when her legs were moving and there were no barriers could she cope with her feelings of hopelessness. Memory was cruel. At night she said aloud, “Mother, help me understand. Help me see what made you do it. I’m so confused. I want to make peace with you, but it’s difficult.” She made an effort to concentrate only on her mother, but Delal’s words sprung out at her in infinite variations. I’m married to James. It was so irrefutable. If she had said, I’m going to marry James, or I’m going to take James away from you, she could have fought against it. But now there was only a muddy hopelessness. They were married. She was carrying his child.
The third and fourth day, her mind opened up. She was disgusted by her own obtuseness. Larraine had seen it right away. “If he loved you, he should have moved heaven and earth until you were together again. He wasn’t the most important man in your life. Daddy was.” She had been taught to be submissive and she had accepted whatever came. Thinking of the things she had accepted made her perspire and feel nauseated. She had been a docile, stupid child playing at love.
By the fifth day, her mind opened up totally and she realized with a devastating humiliation that Delal had done what was necessary to get what she wanted. She saw it all clearly and felt deeply ashamed to have been so easy to cheat. Retroactively, she despised all of her myopic goodness. How could James have loved her? She had been a vacant, silly fool. Delal deserved him.
She kept moving, going farther afield each day even when the fair weather was momentarily interrupted by rain. If she stopped moving, she couldn’t cope with her thoughts. The first day of the second week she asked for a gentle horse, mounted it, and went for a slow ride into the wilderness. How tame and flat it all appeared, not the frightening open wilderness she remembered. She returned to the cottage calmer than she had felt in many months. That night and most of the next day she cried. She would begin with tears rolling down her cheeks over some remembered sweetness from Cassie and then it would escalate. There were heaving sobs for her mother, punctuated by frightening shouts. “No. No. No.” There was steady keening over James. There were even silent tears for Paul.
Slowly her mind began to wind down and she felt detached. She thought about Larraine with affection. Larraine had the power of clear thinking and directness and friendship. She wasn’t afraid of the truth. They’d accomplished something miraculous together.
Her daughter, Cassie, was a strong tie to life and reality. She was happy to have something positive with which to remember Paul. Poor Paul. How burdened he must have felt with all those debts. Perhaps he had hated Rashid, too, but couldn’t afford to break the ties. She felt enormous sorrow for Paul and the life he had led. He never had the energy to enjoy any of his possessions. She couldn’t remember a time when he had spent more than a few minutes with his daughter. At the end, there had been a sense of desperation about him. He had been afraid.
Every succeeding day it was a game of peeling back layers of her own sensibilities. She had always been someone’s daughter or someone’s charge or someone’s wife and now there was no one left to define who she was. But then who am I? she asked. From where do my thoughts and feelings spring? What makes me prefer one thing to another? Why do I welcome responsibility and feel comforted by it?
She was comforted by the hills that were seldom out of sight and she recognized her emotional tie to this familiar territory. She was rooted in these traditions just as those irrepressible flowers sprung through the calcined earth with barely a drop of moisture to encourage them. Her consciousness was uniquely molded and there was no changing it now. She was her father’s daughter.
The binding ties her father had in mind still bound, but they no longer constricted. She still grieved for her mother and felt compassion for Paul. As for James, what was to be made of so much pain? An inexplicable but evil retribution that had run its course. Surely there was nothing worse in store for her.
She had been planning to call her father to come and get her. Having made her decision to return to the States, she was eager to put her plans out in the open. Just one last ride up and around the olive groves where her mother had carved out a scenic path. Mama, look at me, I’m using your road. I’m walking in your footsteps. She was fixing all of it in her mind.
The early morning mist, like trailing gauze, masked the mountains until the sun silently burned it away. She wanted to catalog the fine details: the limestone dust that powdered the roads, the shocking contrast of green against blue and blue against the infinite variations of brown. It was more than the eye could enjoy at one time. Over many years it created a thrill of possession that enlarged the heart. That’s what her father had told her. The land—and everything on it—holds and nourishes, heals and comforts, melds one generation to the next. There is nothing more important on the earth than the earth itself. She stood perfectly still and opened herself to accept it. It was indelibly etched in the fabric of memory and would be hers forever.
When she returned to the cottage, it was past noon and she was surprised and annoyed to see a small red car in the driveway. Now she would have to be sociable. She prepared her face before she entered, putting on a stiff smile. Who could it be?
Oh, no! Her heart seemed to harden inside her and became a weight dragging her down. She’d created him so often in her mind, reached for him and held him close, but now James was no more than a dozen feet away and her legs were sunk deep in the ground. Her arms hung uselessly at her sides. The room was so quiet that her ears buzzed and she became aware of her own racing metabolism. Now her heart became a pendulum and it was rocking weightily inside her. Her blood rippled just under the surface of her skin, as if her pores had dilated to supply her with extra oxygen. Her vocal cords didn’t work at all. James was no better off. The two of them were locked in place, taking in and devouring the beloved.
“I hope I didn’t scare you.” James finally broke the spell. “Perhaps I should have waited outside.”
“No. It’s all right. I didn’t realize that was your car.” What a stupid thing to say. Her voice came from some deep and distant place.
This was not how she had imagined their meeting at all. She was supposed to run into his arms, coming to rest against him. She had never thought beyond their embrace.
“You must be weary after that long ride. I’ll make coffee.” Thank God for banal conversation. It was created to save people in moments such as this. In the kitchen she rushed to the sink and ran cool water along her wrists. Then she became very busy with the pot, filling it and carefully measuring the coffee and putting it, with trembling hands, on the fire. She placed several oranges on a plate, rushed inside to make sure he was still there, and was surprised to find him in exactly the same spot where she’d left him. “I’ve got to watch the coffee or it will boil over,” she said and he nodded. “Maybe you’d like to come with me.” The truth was she was afraid to leave him.
“All right.” He followed her and stood with arms crossed in front of him as she bounced the pot to keep it from boiling over.
She placed the brimming cups side by side, then, disappointed that her chores had ended, forced her eyes up and over to find his. “What are you thinking, James?”
“I’m thinking how the first thought you always have is to feed me. Is it so ingrained in you?”
Please don’t talk to me as if we have a future. “And why not? People have to eat. And at the same time it implies friendship and love.” She sucked in her breath, embarrassed to have said the word. “Besides”—she tried to get hold of the moment—“it’s polite.”
“Does that mean you’re still my friend?” His voice cracked in a sickening way.
“Your friend? Oh, James.” All her feelings came thundering back, dissolving her will. “Much, much more than that.” She could tell him anything. What did it matter? “The thing that hurts most”—her eyes were brimming over—“is . . . ho
w simple it is to see you. At one time, for over a year, I had it in my mind that it was impossible to see you again. That it would be miraculous. Why does the thing we want to madness lose its simplicity? It’s staggering to realize that in order to see me all you had to do was get in the car and drive here. Why was I convinced that it was impossible?”
He put his hand out to touch her but she shrank. “Don’t . . . if you touch me I’m lost.”
“You don’t know what it does to me to see you again.”
Her shoulders slumped. What were they going to do with all the sickening information? How could it help them now? She moved closer but not into his arms. How faithfully she’d remembered him. His dear large head, the deep-set eyes, the perfect slice of hair across his brow. He wore a nubby wool jacket and she wanted to slip her hand beneath it and touch the familiar firmness. This is where her face belonged—against his heart, against his warmth. He reached over and trailed three fingers down the left side of her face. “I never stopped loving you.”
It was useless to respond. What she needed was not words but his arms around her. All those wasted years of longing and useless dreams. “I’ve given you too many years,” she said angrily. “I want to feel your arms around me.”
They stood there pressed against each other, afraid to move. Desire ignited by their closeness blocked out sorrow and conscience. Again and again—a tortured soul—he placed and replaced his mouth over hers, driven by hunger and greed, anger and despondency. She whimpered in his arms and hung on him as if they were draped over a precipice. “Don’t let go. Please don’t let go.”
The bed was right there in a nook behind a low screen. The door was unbolted—a tribute to the sheik’s desire to let any traveler find respite—yet she unbuttoned and unfastened everything quickly as if she were used to readying herself for love on the spur of the moment. Her eyes never left his face. There was no need to hold anything back. Look! This is what I am. This is what I’ve wanted to be to you. I became a woman under your hands. Please, please, touch me now!
The thick feather mattress billowed around them so that they sank into it and into each other. He took her in every possible way, recovering an erection only minutes after climaxing. They were constructing a building and had only a limited time to finish. She urged him on. The fourth time, he sat on the edge of the bed and placed her on his lap, facing out. He made her drop forward and held onto her breasts as her legs went back. While she swam out in the air, he thrust himself so deep she let out a piercing shriek. “Am I hurting you? Does it hurt?”
“No, no! Do it! Just do it!” And afterward, she cried out, “I waited and waited for you to write. I was ready to do anything. Why didn’t you make it work? Why?” He had no answer.
He knew it was dusk because the light changed from greenish yellow to rose and then to purple. They heard a decadent, high-pitched, prolonged whine. “What’s that?” asked James.
She got up and walked to the small high window. “It sounds like a hyena. Usually they don’t get going until midnight. You’d think they were wounded, but it’s only that they’re high-strung.” She took a robe off a clothes tree and put it on. “I’m hungry. And you?” The commonplace—the idea that she could prepare a meal for him—was miraculous.
He nodded but called her back to the bed. “You never answered any of my letters. There was only one letter and that was to announce your marriage.”
“I didn’t write you any letter! I had no idea where you were because you never wrote to tell me! I was convinced you had decided against me.”
He lay back on the pillow and closed his eyes. “Oh, God! It’s so pitiful. We chose Delal to be our go-between. Each time I wrote you, I thanked her. How she must have howled.” He ran his hand through his hair over and over. “The truth is so pitiful.”
She felt more sorry for him than for herself. “I should have acted but I wasn’t strong enough,” she said dolefully.
“You’re the strongest woman I know.”
“No,” she shouted, her eyes filling. “I should have gone with you right away, but I lacked the courage and the understanding.” She let out a long painful sob. “Why did you cave in so easily, James?” She beat her fists into his chest. “How could you have just caved in after all we were to each other?”
His face crumpled and tears slid down his cheeks. “I was untried,” he said softly. “Life had been too easy for me. Delal knew me too well.” He held her and made soothing noises with his lips against her hair. “It seems so obvious now what we should have done, but it was hidden then.”
Dusk turned to night and they became aware that too much time was passing. They rose and sponged themselves off and she brought out two bottles of Dutch beer that were in the refrigerator, a pot of cold stew, and some cheese. “Come on,” she coaxed him, “we might as well eat.” When he didn’t move, she went and sat beside him. “We’ve so little time, James. Don’t speak about it anymore. These few hours are all we have left.”
He couldn’t shake his despair. “Delal is pregnant, did you know? How could I . . .”
“Shh.” She held a finger to his lips. “I know . . . I know.”
46.
I HAVE MORE CHOICES IN AMERICA. I CAN MAKE A FULLER LIFE FOR MYSELF.
Delal lay very still, pressing her hands against her stomach. Each time the baby kicked, her hands gave the foot resistance. It was a little game she played, which made the baby kick harder. “Resistance is what you’re going to get in life, so you might as well learn to fight back,” she said aloud.
“What?” James raised his head off the pillow.
“I’m talking to our child,” she said carefully and looked up at the ceiling. “He’s kicking violently. Do you suppose today’s the day?” She counted to ten, waiting for the attack.
“I don’t know,” he said and closed his eyes again.
His I don’t know had a neutral inflection that meant he wasn’t in a murderous mood. Actually, the inflection was a notch better than neutral. It was reflective and . . . a bit philosophical, as if his not knowing covered more than just the baby. She knew he had been to see Nijmeh and afterward he had been silent as a ghost. She had to pry his mouth open for a word and then, worse, he had left on a business trip. The oldest ploy in the world.
She had taken the car and driven like a madwoman up to the orchard to find Nijmeh and make sure she hadn’t gone with him. As it turned out, she was staying with her grandmother. She found them sowing flower seeds, but a change had come over Nijmeh. She was harder. Delal had had some difficulty squeezing out of the car with her very pregnant belly and Nijmeh had sat back and fixed her with a murderous stare.
“So,” Delal had asked, intimidated by this new woman, “how long are you going to stay?”
“Not much longer.” Her eyes remained on the ground and her voice was hollow. Miriam sized up the situation and excused herself. “Why so interested?” Nijmeh said icily. “Would you like me to stay?”
Delal began to perspire profusely. She felt bloated and coarse, irredeemably homely and unlovable. By comparison the sight of her cousin, the embodiment of lightness and elegance, ignited a lifetime of resentment.
“I don’t give a damn if you stay or go,” she screamed. “James is my husband and I’m carrying his child and all your cool ladylike disgust with me won’t change a thing. You hate me because you weren’t woman enough to do what I did. You thought all you had to do was breathe and the world would come and worship at your feet. The thing I hated most”—Delal’s eyes were protruding dangerously, as if an expanding core of anger was pushing everything out—“was your sense of entitlement! You just assumed you were entitled to everything. But you weren’t entitled to James, damn it. Wanting it to happen was not enough.”
Instead of quelling her anger, the words fueled it. She didn’t know where to turn and she picked up a clump of earth and flung it at a pristine portion of t
he cobblestone path. She shook with high-pitched sucking sobs, limped back to the car, and sat at the wheel holding herself tightly.
When she got home, James had just pulled in and was changing his clothes in the bedroom. The thrill of shouting out truths too long held in gave her a daring high. “I just had a screaming match with your girlfriend.” Clearly he wasn’t expecting that. His mouth dropped open and his complexion became wan. “That’s right.” Her voice rose. She felt the thrill of control. “I did most of the screaming because the golden princess chose not to respond. Shall we have our screaming match now, as well? Do you want to rant and rave at me and tell me how evil I am?”
He hadn’t said a word. He had rebuttoned his shirt, put on his jacket, and gone out of the house. “Go ahead,” she had shouted after him. “Go and comfort her. Kiss her tears away. Isn’t that what you want to do?” He was in the car and roared away, leaving her holding the door to steady herself.
She had spent the evening in a warm soothing bath, even though the doctor had warned her against it. So what if it brought on labor? She hoped it did bring it on. She imagined James hearing that she was in the hospital and feeling instant remorse. At the very least he’d be curious to see the baby. She slumped in the water and wept again, but this time they were tears of fatigue. She had been down a long, arduous road, holding too many things. Now it was out of her hands. There wasn’t anything else up her sleeve.
He returned very late that night and although she was aching to touch him, she remained perfectly still. Sleep had a way of softening even the hardest hearts. She would see how things were in the morning. After all, he wouldn’t lose sight of the fact that she was carrying what she was certain was a son.
James opened his eyes again and put his hand on his wife’s stomach. “Let’s feel that kick,” he said, and her heart leaped. She was going to cry again. She had cried two or three times in all her adult life and now she cried every few minutes. Let’s feel that kick was a conciliatory statement. It meant he wasn’t totally hostile to the little stranger, as the maternity handbook called the baby. She had been prepared for the worst. Harsh words: you lying bitch, I hate you. Or worse than that, a soft reproach: you took everything from me. But somehow, miraculously, he was back without any visible hatred. He was subdued, but she’d take care of that as soon as the invader was out of her body. She’d make life so perfect for him. She knew how.
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