No, she thought, please don't let him be like that. For them, it had to be wonderful. And they were going to meet, they had to.
"Nefissa?" a voice said.
She spun around. "Auntie Maryam! You startled me!"
"Did I just see you throw something over the wall?" Maryam Misrahi said. "And may I assume there is someone on the other side to catch it?"
As Nefissa blushed, Maryam laughed and put an arm around her. "Ah, to be young again!"
Nefissa felt a tightness in her chest. She wanted to be alone, to watch her lieutenant, to be close to him for another moment, perhaps to hear his voice. But then she heard footsteps on the other side of the wall, fading away.
Maryam smelled faintly of ginger, and her red hair shone like chestnuts in the sunlight. She had helped bring Nefissa into the world and had always felt motherly toward the girl. "Who is he?" she asked with a smile. "Someone I know?"
The young woman was afraid to reply. Everyone knew that Maryam Misrahi hated the British because they had killed her father during the revolt of 1919. He had been among the group of intellectuals and political figures executed for "murdering" Britons. Maryam had been sixteen at the time. "A British officer," Nefissa said at last.
When she saw Maryam frown, Nefissa added quickly, "But he's so handsome, Auntie, so elegant and polished. He must be six feet tall, and his hair is the color of wheat! I know you don't approve, but they can't all be bad, can they? I must meet him! But everyone is saying the British will leave Egypt soon. I don't want them to go, because then he will go, too!"
Maryam gave her a wistful smile, recalling a time, twenty-two years ago, when she too had been twenty, and in love. "From what I've heard, my dear, the British aren't going to leave so easily."
"But I hope there won't be violence," Nefissa said unhappily. "I've heard talk. Everyone is saying that if the British don't leave, there will be a fight, perhaps a revolution."
Maryam didn't reply; she had heard the same rumors. "Don't worry," she said, as they headed back toward the gazebo. "I'm sure your officer will be safe."
Nefissa brightened. "I know he and I are going to meet. It's our destiny, Auntie. Have you ever felt that? That you were just meant for someone? Did you feel that way about Uncle Suleiman?"
"Yes," Maryam said quietly. "When Suleiman and I met, we knew at once that we were meant to be together."
"You will keep my secret, won't you, Auntie? You won't tell Mother?"
"I won't tell your mother. We are all the keepers of each other's secrets," Maryam said, thinking of her beloved Suleiman and the secret she had kept from him all these years.
"Mother doesn't have any secrets," Nefissa said. "She's too honest to have anything to hide."
Maryam looked away. Amira's was the biggest secret of all.
"I must find a way to meet him!" Nefissa said, as they neared the gazebo where the Rasheed women had now congregated and were chatting and drinking tea while their children played. "Mother would never allow it, of course. But I'm a grown woman, Auntie. I should be able to decide if I wear a veil or not. Hardly anyone wears the veil any more. Mother is so old-fashioned. Can't she see that times are changing? Egypt is a modern country now!"
"Your mother can see only too well that times are changing, Nefissa. And perhaps that is why she is holding on to the old ways."
"Who is the woman I just saw her with? They looked as if they wanted to talk privately."
"Ah yes," Maryam said with a smile. "More secrets..."
"No one knows of this, Mrs. Amira," Safeya Rageb was saying. "It is a burden I bear alone." She was referring to the reason for her visit: her daughter, fourteen years old, unmarried, and pregnant. Safeya had heard that Amira Rasheed knew secret potions and remedies.
Suddenly Amira was remembering being a child in the harem, remembering a medicinal tea that was sometimes administered to women who hadn't seemed to her to be sick. But then they were sick for a while after they drank it. She had heard the older concubines call it pennyroyal, and she had learned since that it was an abortifacient.
"Mrs. Safeya," Amira said, offering her guest a seat on a marble bench beneath a shady olive tree, "I know what you have come to ask of me, and although I sympathize with your plight, I cannot give it to you."
The woman started to cry.
Amira signaled to a servant who had been standing at a discreet distance, and a moment later tea was brought, made from chamomile grown in Amira's garden. Encouraging her guest to drink it before continuing with her story, Amira waited until Mrs. Rageb was sufficiently calmed.
"What about the girl's father?" she asked gently. "He does not know?"
"My husband and I come from a village in Upper Egypt, and we were married when I was sixteen and he seventeen. I had our first child, my daughter, a year later. We might still be in that village if my husband hadn't heard about the military academy being opened to the sons of farmers. He studied very hard and was accepted. He now holds the rank of captain. He is a very proud man, Mrs. Amira, he values honor above all else. No, he does not know about our daughter's disgrace. He was transferred to a post in the Sudan three months ago. It was a week after he left that my daughter was raped by a neighbor boy on her way to school."
These are indeed dangerous times, Amira thought, now that girls go out to school, walking unchaperoned in the streets. She had heard talk of introducing a new law that would make it illegal for a girl to get married before she was sixteen.
Amira was opposed to it. A mother had only one way to protect her daughter—to make sure that as soon as the girl began her monthly cycle, she was placed in the custody of a husband who would then see to it that she was not promiscuous, and that any children she bore were his. But with people these days imitating Europeans, young girls weren't married until they were eighteen or nineteen, leaving them unprotected for six or seven years, and placing the family's honor at great risk.
But her tone was kind as she said, "The judgments of society are sometimes harsh and it is up to a mother to mitigate them for her family." She thought of Fatima, her own lost daughter, cast out of the family because Amira had not been able to save her. "When will your husband return from the Sudan?"
"His posting is for a year. Mrs. Amira, my husband and I love each other very much, I am lucky in that respect. He asks my advice in many matters, and listens to my counsel. But in this instance, I think he would kill our daughter. Can you help me?"
Amira was thoughtful. "How old are you, Mrs. Rageb?"
"Thirty-one."
"Have you been having relations with your husband?"
"The night before he left."
"Is there somewhere you can send the girl? A relative who can be trusted?"
"My sister, in Assyut."
"This is what you must do. Send your daughter there. Tell your neighbors she has gone to nurse a sick relative. Then wear a pillow under your clothes, increasing its size every month. Tell everyone you are pregnant. When your daughter gives birth, summon her and the child home, remove the pillow and tell everyone the baby is yours."
Safeya was amazed. "Can it be done?"
"By the grace of God," Amira said.
After Mrs. Rageb thanked her and left, Amira started back toward the gazebo, but stopped suddenly when she saw that the path was blocked.
She stared at the man standing in the afternoon sun. Andreas Skouras, the man who had come to her in dreams. She was so surprised to see him that she forgot to cover her hair with her veil, or to wrap her hand in a corner of the silk before offering it to him. Once before she had felt a current shoot through her palm from his; fabric had been between them then, but now she felt the direct, unhampered warmth of his skin. Aside from Ali and Ibrahim and her closest male relatives, Amira had never touched another man, and although it was only their hands that met, the contact communicated an astonishing feeling of intimacy.
"My dear Sayyida," he said, using the respectful formal address. "May God's blessings and bounty visit t
his house."
An esteemed member of King Farouk's cabinet, Andreas Skouras was not a particularly handsome man, but Amira was enthralled by the way the shadows and dappled sunlight played over his smiling face and silver hair. Of Greek descent, Skouras was only slightly taller than Amira, but his robust physique gave the impression of great power and strength.
"Welcome to my house," Amira said, hardly believing that he was actually standing there. His eyes seemed to look at her, into her, right through her. He made her body sing.
"Sayyida," he said, "I honor the friendship and memory of your husband, may God make paradise his abode. I came today because I wish to present you with a gift, to express my high regard for you."
Amira opened the small box and was taken aback to see a gold antique ring nestled on velvet. She recognized the stone as carnelian, and when she saw that a mulberry bush, a symbol of eternal love and fidelity, had been engraved on it, she was overwhelmed.
"Sayyida," he said. Then, more quietly, "Amira. I am asking you to marry me."
"Marry you! Allah! Mr. Skouras, you have taken me by surprise!"
"Forgive me, dear lady, but I have planned this for a long time, and I could think of no other way than to be straightforward. May I be cursed if I have offended you."
Amira tried to find her voice. "I am honored, Mr. Skouras, more than I can say. Indeed, I am speechless."
"I know this is a surprise, dear lady, and that you hardly know me—"
I have made love to you in my dreams, she thought, although you will never know it.
"I ask only that you think about my proposal. I have a large house, where I live alone, now that my daughters are married; my wife has been gone these past eight years, God rest her. I am in good health and am financially well situated. I would see to it that you want for nothing, Amira."
"But how can I leave my children?" she said. "How can I leave this house?"
"My dear Amira, you cannot live in a harem all your life. These are modern times."
She was stunned. Did he know about the harem she had lived in as a child? Had Ali told him about her past? Cautiously, she said, "You know nothing about me, about my life before I met Ali."
"None of that matters, my dear."
But it does, she wanted to say. I do not remember my life before I lived in the harem from which Ali rescued me; my only childhood memories are of that terrible place. She wanted to cry: my mother may well have been one of the harem's tragic residents, a concubine, a woman with no honor! She wanted to tell him that she had once even considered returning to the house on Tree of Pearls Street, to see if the answers to her true identity were still there. But the house, she had been told, had long since been torn down, the women of the harem emancipated and scattered like birds.
"My son is without a wife, Mr. Skouras," she said finally, "and my daughter is husbandless. It is my responsibility to see that they are well situated in life."
"Ibrahim and Nefissa are no longer children, Amira."
"They will always be my children," she said, and suddenly her recurring nightmare—the desert encampment, the riders on horseback, the child being torn from its mother's arms—came vividly back to her. And she thought, Is this why I am afraid to leave my children? Is it because I was taken away from my own mother?
Andreas took a step closer and Amira felt her breath catch in her throat. If he should touch her now, in this garden filled with fruit and flowers, she knew she would succumb. She would say, "Yes, I will marry you." But Skouras only said, "You are a handsome woman, Amira. God forgive me that I speak so freely, but I was attracted to you from the moment I met you. I know that Ali, as he watches us from paradise, will forgive me for saying this. He and I were more than friends, we were brothers."
She felt tears begin, and was ashamed to realize that the tears of sadness were mixed with tears of joy. She thought of everything Ali Rasheed had done for her, bringing her to this house, marrying her, and now she was standing in the garden he had created, wearing the expensive clothes and jewelry he had so generously given her, and she was desiring the embraces and kisses of his best friend! "I owe my husband more than I can tell you. He took me from a life of unhappiness and brought me into a house full of happiness."
"I honor his memory and I honor you, Amira. You are a woman beyond reproach."
She looked away. So he did not know her entire story after all. He did not know that Ali Rasheed was not the first man with whom she had been intimate. And before she could marry Skouras, she would have to confess this. But to do so would be to dishonor her husband. So she said, "My first duty is to my children, Mr. Skouras. But I am honored and flattered that you have asked me."
"Have you at least not a small affection for me, Amira? May I perhaps continue to hope?"
She wanted to say, "It is no small affection, Andreas. It is love I feel for you, and have felt since the day we met." Instead, she said, "Please give me time to think about it." And she handed the ring back to him, adding, "I will accept this when I have accepted your proposal."
She walked with him to the garden gate and watched him get into a long black limousine waiting at the curb. As she stood there, a servant came down the path from the house.
"Mistress," he said, "the master is home and is asking for you."
Amira watched the limousine vanish around the curve in the street, then she thanked the servant and turned away from the gate.
As she entered the house, she felt her fears mount. How close she had come to accepting Andreas Skouras's proposal! How easily she could leave this safe house and go and live with a stranger, simply because she desired him. How frail we women are, how prey to our passions, she thought. But Amira knew she had to rule herself with her mind, not her heart. If she and Andreas were destined to be together, then it would be so, but for now she must think of her children: Nefissa, troubled by the same dangerous romantic longings; Ibrahim, his eyes filled with grief, but also with something more, which Amira could not name but which alarmed her. She thought finally of her other daughter Fatima, born after Ibrahim and before Nefissa, whom Ali had banished from the house.
I will not lose my one remaining daughter, Amira thought, as she mounted the massive staircase that divided the men's wing from the women's. I will find a way to save Nefissa from the passions that have possessed her.
That possess us both.
As Amira entered the dark, handsome rooms that had been her husband's, she thought about the days when she had been young and Ali would summon her. She would wait on him, give him a bath and massage, serve him, make love with him, and then retreat to her own side of the house until he called again. In a few years, Nefissa's three-year-old son Omar was going to move from the women's side and take an apartment here; someday he would be entertaining male guests as Ibrahim now did, as Ali once had. A life separate from women.
As she entered Ibrahim's apartment, Amira was struck by how much her son had changed in only two weeks. He looked alarmingly thin. He addressed her in Arabic: "I have decided to go away for a while, Mother."
She took his hands between hers. "Will going away help?" she asked. "Despair reminds us of joy, my son. Time wears away mountains, don't you think it will wear away your grief?"
"I dream of my wife as if she were still alive."
"Listen, son of my heart. Remember the words of Abu Bakr, when the Prophet Mohammed, peace upon him, died and people disbelieved? Abu Bakr said, 'For those of you who worshiped Mohammed, he is dead. For those of you who worship God, He is alive and will never die.' Keep your faith in God, my son. He is wise and compassionate."
"I must go away," Ibrahim said.
"Where will you go?"
"To the French Riviera. The king has decided to vacation there."
Amira felt as if she had been stabbed. She wanted to reach out to him, her baby, the son of her heart, and take away his pain, persuade him to stay here where he belonged. But instead she said, "How long will you be gone?"
"I don't
know. But there is no peace in my soul. And I must find it again."
"Very well then. Inshallah. It is God's will. But though the body travels an inch, it seems a mile in the heart. God's peace and love go with you." She kissed him on the forehead—a mother's blessing.
As Amira returned to her own side of the house, she felt her heart become full of misgivings. The dreams ... A child being torn from protective arms. Was it a memory, or a portent of things to come? Why did she feel such dread over Ibrahim's leaving? Why was she suddenly filled with the irrational fear that she was going to lose her children? Nefissa, restless for love; Ibrahim, going away. She had to protect them, keep the family together. But how? How?
She did not return to the garden; the servants would be closing the gate now that it was four o'clock; Amira always ended her afternoon receptions at that hour in order not to miss the afternoon prayer. When she entered her private apartment, she went straight to the bathroom and performed the ritual washing required before prayer. Then she went into her bedroom, where Ibrahim's young wife had died giving birth to the baby, Camelia. She spread out her prayer mat, removed her shoes, and faced east toward Mecca. As she heard the muezzins call to the faithful from Cairo's many minarets, Amira cleared all earthly and material thoughts from her mind, and concentrated on God. Placing her hands on either side of her face, she recited, "Allahu Akbar. God is great."
She proceeded to recite the Fatiha, the opening passage of the Koran: "In the name of God, the most Gracious, the most Merciful ..." And then, in one fluid motion that was the result of years of praying five times a day, Amira bowed, straightened, slipped to her knees and touched her forehead to the floor three times as she said, "God is most great. I extol the perfection of my Lord, the Most High." Finally she stood and closed her prayer with, "There is no god but God, and Mohammed is His messenger."
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