“Now you’re exaggerating. Nadira raised me and my brother, and did we turn into Arabs?”
“She’s teaching the children godless, heathen behavior!”
“That is an absolute exaggeration!” He would have liked to throw his stepgrandmother’s letter, which had caused such a fuss, into the wastepaper basket, but instead he set it aside with seeming indifference, gathered his papers, and placed them in a leather portfolio. “I have no time to discuss this at the moment, dear. I have an important meeting to attend.” It was still two hours until the meeting, but he would prepare in the company office at the harbor, where he could work in peace.
With a hiccupping sob, Victoria sank onto the sofa along the wall. “You never have time for me, never listen to my concerns. Sometimes I have the feeling that we don’t matter to you!”
John took a deep breath. He hated these constant arguments with his wife. In England, she had been much more sensible. Here, he sometimes had the feeling that he was married to a stranger, and he had no idea how to handle her moods. His mother had explained to him that Victoria was suffering from homesickness and that he should be patient and understanding. But they had been living in Morocco for seven months now, and he felt she had been homesick long enough.
“Did you know that Nadira is the real reason the nanny left?” Victoria lamented. “That woman was constantly meddling in her child-rearing methods—just imagine, an African who grew up in a straw hut giving advice to a trained English governess, and you did nothing about it! I well understand why she went back to London, and I envy her!”
“My wife envies her servants! Why, I ask myself? Because they take orders all day long?” John replied sarcastically. He pointedly took out his pocket watch and looked at it.
Victoria stared at him in disbelief for a moment and then buried her face in her hands. John heard her stifled sobs, saw her shoulders trembling. She had become thin, and the misery of having to live in Mogador was written all over her.
“It’s easy for you,” his mother had said. “You were born and raised here. Mogador is your home. Your wife comes from another world. She made a big sacrifice for you and Selwyn in leaving everything that was dear and familiar to her. Never forget that!”
John hesitated. Then he placed his portfolio on the desk, sat next to Victoria on the couch, and clumsily stroked her back. He himself would not have traded his life here for huge, loud, damp London for anything in the world.
Victoria rested her head against his shoulder. “Oh, John! I am so sorry that I lost my temper again. It’s just that I feel so alone here. I imagined Mogador would be completely different.”
“How, dear?” John asked although he had already heard the answer a dozen times. Victoria felt like a prisoner in tiny Mogador. Excursions were not an option because of the recent ambushes on travelers by bands of robbers driven from their villages by hunger. Life inside the city walls was safe but boring and monotonous. There were no diversions, no theater, no exhibits, no sporting events. The house in which they lived was old-fashioned and small compared to Victoria’s villa in elegant Mayfair. There was no gas lighting, the rooms were cramped, and the servants did not follow her directions because they considered her mother-in-law their only mistress. Sibylla had assigned Firyal as her chambermaid, but the woman did not even know how to tie a bodice correctly.
And besides, Victoria was afraid of Firyal’s dark, inscrutable face and, ever since an Arab merchant had charged her triple the usual price because she did not know that she was expected to bargain, she was convinced they were all crooks.
“The streets are so filthy!” Victoria wailed. “There are beggars in front of every home and they try to latch onto you. I have never seen so many disfigured and crippled people. Oh, it’s simply horrible!”
“There are plenty of disfigured and crippled people in the East End as well, as my brother will confirm,” John tried, but she stubbornly shook her head.
“Such wretched conditions just don’t exist in England. We have clinics, orphanages, and relief organizations. I myself was on the committee of the Home for Orphaned Daughters of Soldiers.”
John took Victoria’s hands in his own. “Now look at me for a moment, dear. Don’t you think that in all your woe you have forgotten something very important? Have you not noticed how much better Selwyn is? He hasn’t coughed in months. I believe his lungs have been healed here. Is that worth nothing to you?”
“Of course!” she professed. “Selwyn’s health is the only thing that makes life bearable for me here.”
John again pulled out his pocket watch. “I’m sorry, dear, but I really must go now. I’m already late.”
She gave a resigned nod. “What is your meeting about?”
“The harbor basin, yet again. Consul Willshire and I want to persuade the qaid to expand it so that steamships might finally come to Mogador.”
“Steamships? Are the shipping companies really going to stop using sailing ships?”
“No, but I’m convinced that steamships shall replace them eventually. Even now, there are steam-powered ships traveling between Europe and America. There is no stopping this development. The future of all of us here in Mogador depends on our being prepared for the future.” He kissed Victoria on the head and got up. “I’ll see you this evening, darling.”
“Good-bye, and, John—”
“Yes?” He turned around, his hand already on the door handle.
“I’m staying here not just for Selwyn’s sake, but also for yours.”
“Really, dear? You are so good to me.” He waved absentmindedly. Seconds later, the door was closed.
Victoria followed him with her eyes, a crooked smile plastered on her face. The ticking of the grandfather clock she had brought from England was more audible in the stillness. It was almost twelve o’clock. This afternoon, her neighbor Sara Willshire was hosting her weekly ladies’ tea for wives of expatriate merchants and consuls. Her mother-in-law never attended these get-togethers, which, according to her, were no more than a pretext for exchanging the latest gossip. If Sibylla did go to tea, it was in the harem with the qaid’s wives and, even then, she managed to do business. She had repeatedly invited Victoria along, but she had steadfastly refused. It was bad enough that the cook, the gatekeeper, and the gardener in this house were all Arabs, but to socialize with them was really going too far.
She could hear Charlotte’s and Selwyn’s muffled laughter through the closed door. Victoria felt a longing to be with the children. I shall take them to the beach, she decided. They could hunt for shells there.
The muezzin’s midday call to prayer blared from the nearby mosque. Victoria would never have thought she would miss the ringing of church bells so much.
Charlotte was sitting on a blanket on the ground next to Nadira. The sun created magical little sparkles in her blonde curls. She was rocking her doll in her arms, trilling a little song with her squeaky voice. She beamed with happiness when she saw her mother.
Victoria kissed her and looked around for Selwyn. He was sitting on the swing that John had hung from a solid branch on the gnarly old olive tree. Sibylla was gently pushing him and he squealed with pleasure. Gone was the pale, coughing little boy. Selwyn had grown, his cheeks were round and rosy, and he was stronger and more self-assured with each passing day.
Although Victoria knew well that she ought to be happy that her little boy was thriving, she was jealous. Why did her son smile so at Sibylla and not her, his mother?
She pulled him from the swing more roughly than she had intended, and he promptly began to cry.
“No!” he squealed and kicked furiously.
Tears flooded Victoria’s eyes and all her disappointment erupted in Sibylla’s direction. “Why do you have to push him so high? He could have fallen off and hurt himself!”
“I’ll see that that doesn’t happen,” Sibylla answered calmly. “Let him have his fun.”
“Don’t tell me what’s right or wrong for my children!
” Victoria held Selwyn even more tightly. But he pressed both his fists against her shoulders, leaned back, and bawled so loudly that she had no choice but to put him down. He ran to Sibylla and buried his face in her legs.
“Just look at him!” Victoria screamed. “You have stolen him from me!” She ran into the house, sobbing.
Maristan was written in beautiful Arabic calligraphy and Hospital underneath in English over the entrance to the two-story riad. Drs. Thomas Hopkins and Sabri bin Abdul’s practice was located behind the mosque in the same neighborhood as the zaouia. The hospital had stood here since the city’s founding, but the building had been vacant and run-down for years until Thomas and Sabri brought it back to life.
Emily stepped through the door and was pleased to see the freshly painted white walls and the newly glazed tiles on the roof. The interior courtyard was paved, the fountain was splashing, and several palms provided shade. A colonnade ringed the courtyard. Benches had been set up for the patients on opposite sides. Thomas’s patients, the expatriates, usually waited on the left, but his clinic hours were past right now. On the right, there was a throng of people. Old and young, men and women, children and crying infants were sitting on the benches or the floor. They were barefoot and draped in filthy rags. They had stringy hair and many of the men had matted beards. Emily saw open wounds and festering sores. Some people were missing an arm or a leg. A withered old man was drinking thirstily from the fountain while a one-eyed man draped in a tattered blanket used the water to clean his hands and feet in preparation for seeing the doctor.
“Assalamu alaikum!” Emily said.
The patients knew her and waived congenially. Most of them came every Friday afternoon, when Hakim bin Abdul saw poor patients free of charge.
Instantly, a dozen scrawny children encircled her. She took a stack of freshly baked flatbread from her basket and passed it around.
“Enjoy!” she called out and ran up the stairs, elated at the prospect of seeing Sabri. The second floor was where Thomas and Sabri had set up one treatment room each, as well as a small ward. Thomas’s living quarters were on the third floor. Some of the rooms were still empty, but the two friends were planning a European-style operating room.
Emily walked over to the door with the Arabic for the word “Surgery.” An old woman draped in black sat on a bench in front and gave her a broad, toothless smile.
“Assalamu alaikum, Fatma,” Emily said. “Are you feeling better?” The old woman had been suffering from painful plantar warts that Sabri had excised.
Fatma lifted her cloak and proudly showed off her bandaged foot. “The young hakim is a good doctor. His knife did more to get rid of the pain in my foot than Sidi Hicham’s prayers.”
Sidi Hicham belonged to the Regraga Brotherhood, a mystical order, who were believed to have healing and sometimes even magical powers. Many of Mogador’s inhabitants had greater faith in Sidi Hicham’s songs and prayers than in the medicines and salves of a hakim who had studied among infidels.
“Dr. bin Abdul will be very happy that you are doing better.” Emily knocked on the door.
Fatma winked shrewdly. “Yes, Miss Emily. But he will be even happier to see you!”
Emily blushed. She quickly opened the door and entered. Sabri’s office had plain whitewashed walls and was sparsely furnished. On a rack, there were medicine bottles as well as baskets with scalpels, scissors, glass syringes, and bandages. One whole shelf was reserved for medical reference books, beginning with the five-volume Canon of Medicine by Ibn Sina, the greatest physician of Eastern medicine, and continuing with Hippocrates and Paracelsus, then onward to books about modern nursing, wound care, and obstetrics, which Sabri had brought back with him from England. Under a small window on the front wall stood a washstand with a water jug, soap, and a stack of towels. A small desk with a few chairs sat in the middle of the room. When Emily entered, Sabri was sitting at the desk, working on something. On the wall behind him hung his English diploma, next to a photograph of him and Thomas in white coats standing in front of Charing Cross Hospital in London.
“Assalamu alaikum, Miss Hopkins! How are you?”
“Wa-alaikum salam, Dr. bin Abdul!” She grinned and placed her basket on the table in front of him. “I hope you are hungry. Our cook has prepared stuffed eggplant with harissa. And for dessert, I have brought you fresh figs.”
“Wonderful!” He smiled at her and pushed his work aside. His dark eyes flashed behind the round glasses he wore for reading or when treating his patients. He was dressed in the traditional Eastern physician’s garb: white pants and a long white shirt with a black vest and a turban on his head.
Emily spread a napkin on the table and placed tableware and silverware on it. She was about to remove the wrapped tagine when he preempted her. “Let me do this, Miss Hopkins!”
“Oh, thank you. But be careful, it’s very hot.”
His arm brushed against her shoulder when he moved forward. She relished the brief touch and leaned against him a little more. He turned his head and smiled. “I hope you’ll be joining me, Miss Hopkins?”
“I already had lunch with Mother. Had I known you would invite me, I would have waited, of course, but . . .” She hesitated and began rummaging in the basket. “. . . I have brought you something else, Doctor.” She held out a rolled-up piece of paper.
He unfurled it and looked silently for a long time.
Emily waited nervously for a reaction to her sketch of him treating patients in the maristan’s courtyard. “Do you not like it? Is it not good?”
“Oh yes.” Sabir nodded slowly. “It is very good. And I didn’t even notice when you did it. What do you think, should I hang it next to the diploma?” He held the drawing up against the wall.
“It looks quite nice there,” she replied happily.
He cleared his throat. “Would you mind calling me Sabri? Of course, only when there is no one else around.”
She beamed. “Not at all, Dr. bin—I mean Sabri! But then you have to call me Emily.”
“If we were in London, I would invite you out to a fancy dinner to thank you for this picture,” he said, and his voice sounded a little hoarse.
“I would very much like to accompany you, Sabri,” Emily said softly.
Encouraged, he continued, “There may not be any such restaurants here, but what would you say if I—”
“Do I have to wait until my food is cold before I may eat?” Thomas stuck his head around the door. “Fatma told me you were here.”
“Thomas! I was just coming to see you! But Dr. bin Abdul is about to see patients. That’s why I came to see him first. Besides, I wanted to ask him if he minded if I drew his patients, isn’t that right, Doctor?”
Emily turned to Sabri and winked at him. Thomas raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Are you practicing for London, Emily?” he asked. Turning to Sabri, he said, “Has she told you yet that she’s been accepted at the Royal Academy of Arts? She’s starting this fall.”
“I didn’t know. Congratulations, Miss Hopkins.”
“Thank you.” Emily sounded dejected. She had been so proud when the letter had arrived. Now, her heart grew heavy at the thought of being away from Sabri. “Good-bye, Dr. bin Abdul.”
Thomas’s office looked much like Sabri’s, only that next to his diploma hung a photograph of him, wearing his academic gown and mortarboard, surrounded by his London relatives. The first thing visitors would inevitably see was John’s graduation present to his brother: a human skeleton bought from Charing Cross Hospital. As a special jest, John had dressed it in one of his old suits before he surprised Thomas with it. Now the skeleton stood in the corner of Thomas’s office, without the suit but with Thomas’s hat on its skull, much to the delight of the younger patients.
“You’re coming to see us more often these days,” Thomas remarked as he closed the door behind him.
“I’m interested in medicine, that’s all.”
He shook his head. “Yo
u have never before in your life been interested in science. I can tell when you’re fibbing, little sister.”
“Have you never thought that you might be wrong?”
Instead of answering, Thomas took Emily’s wrist. “Your pulse is racing,” he pronounced after a few seconds. “And you’re flushed. These symptoms indicate the serious and dangerous disease of being in love. I strongly suspect, dear Emily, that you caught this disease thanks to my friend bin Abdul.”
“You’re imagining things!” She turned away from him and busied herself with the food basket.
“Does Mother know?”
“No! And besides, there’s nothing for her to know.”
He sighed. It was not that he begrudged his sister and his best friend their happiness, but such a relationship was hopeless, simply impossible. He placed his arm around Emily.
“You are a grown woman and so I can speak honestly with you. End this infatuation now. Sabri will never requite it.”
“How do you know?” She tried to free herself, but Thomas held on tight.
“Sabri’s parents chose a wife for him when he was still a child, and you know as well as I that these agreements cannot be broken.”
“You’re just saying that,” she responded feebly. “You want to annoy me.” After all, Sabri had been on the verge of asking her for a rendezvous when Thomas had butted in. That had not just been her imagination.
Thomas pulled his sister closer. “Do you really think I would be so cruel? You know that Sabri owes his parents respect and obedience. If he had feelings for you, he would be putting you before those obligations.”
Emily sank into the nearest chair. Just a few minutes before, she had been so happy, and now she was crestfallen.
“You’re going to be leaving for England soon,” she heard Thomas say. “You are going to become acquainted with the country of our parents and study art. It’s what you’ve always wanted.”
She did not answer. There were tears in her eyes.
“I’m sure things will look different with a little distance between you,” Thomas said, trying to console her. “You’re going to meet many interesting people in London and forget your heartache. And surely another nice young man will win your heart.”
The Lioness of Morocco Page 25