Virgins of Paradise

by Wood, Barbara

  When she reached Declan's house she found the door standing open. He wasn't there, his things were gone, and where the Land Cruiser had been parked was just empty space and, beyond, the dark, silent Nile.

  EPILOGUE

  THE PRESENT

  EPILOGUE

  J

  ASMINE PARTED THE DRAPES OF HER HOTEL ROOM AND FOUND AN opalescent dawn breaking over the Nile. The city was just waking up to the call of the muezzin; fishermen were unfurling the triangular sails of their feluccas; and on the Corniche below, black-and-white taxis were starting to line up in front of the hotel. Tired and hungry, and overwhelmed with emotions—she and Amira had relived a lifetime in the course of one night—Jasmine turned and regarded the woman sitting across the room. Amira's white veil had slipped down, revealing wispy white hair on a small, frail skull.

  "Oh Umma," Jasmine said, going to her.

  She dropped to her knees and Amira drew her into a tight embrace. "I am so sorry, Umma," Jasmine said. "I have felt so alone. I wanted to come back, but I didn't know how."

  As she held her, Amira said, "Years ago I used to have dreams of a child being taken from its mother. For a long time the dreams troubled me, for I thought they were portents of an event to come. But I eventually came to realize that I was reliving an event that had already taken place, when I was kidnapped from my mother. But, Yasmina, my granddaughter, the night your father banished you, I thought: This is the hour the dreams foretold. And then you were taken from me."

  Amira lifted Jasmine's tearstained face and said, "But why did you go back to America after you had returned to Egypt before?"

  Jasmine went back to her own chair, next to the room-service cart bearing the remains of a meal she had had sent up during the night. "Right after Declan left, I fell ill. I had malaria, a very bad attack. I was sent back to London, where I underwent a rocky recovery, after which the Foundation put me on leave until my health improved. So I went to California to stay with Rachel for a while."

  "And then afterward you still did not come back?"

  "I went with a group of doctors down to South America. There was a cholera epidemic there that was out of control. I only got back to America a few months ago."

  "And you are well now, Yasmina?"

  "Yes, Umma. I had contracted a new resistant strain of malaria, but there are new drugs, and I am better now."

  Amira searched her face. "And Dr. Connor? Where is he?"

  "I don't know. After I got well again in London, I wrote to him at Knight Pharmaceuticals in Scotland, but they said he never took the job. The Treverton Foundation didn't know his whereabouts either. And he's never tried to contact me."

  "Do you still love this man?"

  "Yes, I do."

  "Then you must find him."

  But Jasmine already knew that. When she had been unable to find Declan after she left Egypt, she had decided that he did not want to be found, that he wished to be left alone. But, as she and her grandmother had talked through the night, telling stories and disclosing secrets, speaking of love and loyalties and the values that matter, Jasmine had felt her love for Declan overwhelm her, as if it had been sleeping, waiting to be wakened. This time, she told herself, she would search for him until she found him.

  She reached for the front page of a newspaper, dated nearly five years ago, which Amira had produced from her box of mementos. The headline read: terrorist bomb destroys nightclub. "Because I was ill," Jasmine said, "I didn't read any newspapers or listen to any radios, and so I didn't know about this."

  "That was the beginning of your father's decline," Amira said, rising stiffly from the chair she had occupied through the night. The contents of her antique box were now laid out on a table: photographs, newspaper clippings, keepsakes, jewelry—and the last birthday card Jasmine had sent to Mohammed, with the Al Tafla postmark that had ultimately led to tragedy. "Your father lost all interest in life, Yasmina. The doctors say there is nothing wrong with him, but he is wasting away and will die soon, because he does not want to live."

  Jasmine watched her grandmother walk to the window and look out. Bathed in the glow of early morning, she seemed to Jasmine almost like an angel. "No one in the family knows I am here, Yasmina, except for Zeinab. It was she who sent you the telegram telling you that I was coming. She wanted to come with me, but there are some roads a woman must travel alone."

  "Zeinab," Jasmine said. "My baby wasn't born dead. I had a daughter, and I didn't know it."

  "We thought you had abandoned her, Yasmina. Alice said you didn't want the child."

  "I think my mother wanted me to leave Egypt, and perhaps she knew I wouldn't have, if I had known the baby was alive."

  Jasmine looked at the photograph of Zeinab. "I lost my son," she said softly, "but God has given me a daughter."

  "Mohammed died a martyr's death, Yasmina. Those who saw it happen said that he tried to save the others. He must have seen the bomb, or saw it being planted, for he ran right toward it, shouting at everyone to get out. Your son died trying to save others, Yasmina, when he could have saved himself. He was given a true hero's funeral."

  "May God keep him in paradise always. And it was not Camelia who gave away my secret," Jasmine said, her tone full of wonder. "My sister did not betray me after all."

  "She did not. When I later asked Nefissa how she had learned about you and Hassan, she confessed to me that she had followed you to Hassan's house. Camelia kept your secret, Yasmina."

  Thinking of Zeinab's father, Jasmine set the photograph down and said, "Who killed Hassan?"

  "I do not know."

  When she saw Jasmine's gaze settle again upon the terrible nightclub headline, Amira said, "It was through God's mercy that Zeinab and I were spared from the bomb. We were to have attended Dehiba's surprise party, but we were delayed when I fell ill outside Medina. Had it not been for that, your daughter and I might have been among these," and she laid her hand on the news photos of those killed by the bomb.

  Amira regarded her granddaughter for a pensive moment, then she resumed her seat and, gathering her white robes about her, said, "And now, Yasmina, the final secret remains to be told. I have revealed to you that I did not know my family, that I was kidnapped from my mother's caravan. But what you do not know, what no one, not even your father knows—indeed, what not even I knew until it was revealed to me at St. Catherine's monastery—is what happened afterward. And this is difficult to tell."

  Jasmine watched her grandmother, and waited.

  "After the raid on my mother's caravan near St. Catherine's," Amira said at last, "I was taken to the house of a wealthy merchant in Cairo, a man with an appetite for little girls. The women of his harem fed me and bathed me, and put perfume in my hair, and then I was brought naked into a fabulous bedroom, where I saw a large man sitting on a chair that was like a throne. I was terrified as he stroked me and touched me and told me that I would not be harmed. Then the women lifted me up and lowered me onto his lap. There was pain. I screamed. I was six years old."

  Amira looked down at her hands. "The wealthy merchant had me brought to him every night after that. Sometimes he loaned me to his friends or distinguished visitors, and watched while I 'entertained' them. I was thirteen when Ali Rasheed, a friend of the wealthy merchant, came one day and was permitted to visit the harem. He was taken with me and asked to buy me. The wealthy merchant agreed, as I was growing hips and breasts and no longer appealed to him. But he warned Ali Rasheed that I was not a virgin, and Ali said that it didn't matter. So he bought me, and I was taken to his house on Virgins of Paradise Street."

  Amira cleared her throat. "Slavery was illegal by that time, and both Ali and the merchant could have been arrested had they been found out, because money had changed hands and I was Ali's slave. So when he brought me home, he freed me, and then he married me, and a year later I gave birth to Ibrahim."

  Sounds of traffic on the Corniche rose to their open window and filtered into the room on the morning breeze
.

  "Oh, Umma," Jasmine said. "I am so sorry. It must have been terrible for you."

  "So terrible, Yasmina, that I blocked it out of my mind. And as I buried that unbearable memory, I also buried everything of my life that came before it. But I had dreams ... and strange feelings. Yasmina, do you remember the day we took a taxi to Tree of Pearls Street? Your father had betrothed you to Hassan, but as we sat in front of that school on Tree of Pearls Street, I decided I could not let it happen."

  "Why not?"

  "Because that wealthy merchant who abused me—his name was al-Sabir. Hassan was his son."

  In the corridor outside, a service cart rattled by, a female voice called softly, "Y'Allah!"

  Amira continued: "Although I did not remember the things that had been done to me in that harem, I had a feeling that there was no honor in Hassan's family. And so I could not let him marry you when he asked for you. That is why I made Ibrahim break the marriage contract, and why I married you to Omar."

  The two women regarded each other across the room, recalling an afternoon they had shared in a taxi, long ago.

  Amira said, "I understand now that what happened to me as a child—the kidnapping, the harem on Tree of Pearls Street—made me what I am. I was afraid to leave the house on Virgins of Paradise Street, I was afraid to remove my veil. I was even afraid for my children and grandchildren to walk the streets. Perhaps that was why I could not marry Andreas Skouras, even though I was in love with him, because I sensed that something shameful lay in my past."

  "And now all your memories have been restored to you?"

  "Through God's miracles, they have. I can tell you now what my mother looked like, I can describe the beautiful boy I had been betrothed to—Prince Abdullah— who had even, for a while, visited me in dreams, years ago. And I can even hear my mother's voice, saying to me, 'Remember always, daughter of my heart, that you are Sharif, a descendant of the Prophet.'"

  "Will you look for your real family now, Umma? Your brothers and sisters?"

  But Amira shook her head. "I already have my real family."

  Jasmine smiled. "I want to go to Father now."

  When they arrived at Virgins of Paradise Street, Jasmine had to wait a moment to collect herself. Her father was ill, which meant the whole family would be here; she would see familiar faces from long ago, and a host of new ones. But they would not be strangers to her. They would all be Rasheeds, and she would be bound to them, as they were bound to her.

  When she entered the house, stepping over the threshold and feeling as if she were stepping through a time portal into the past, because nothing had changed, the garden, the gazebo, the massive carved doors were still the same, she found Nefissa in the foyer casting a disapproving frown over a dish one of the servants was about to take upstairs. She glanced up at Yasmina, smiled, then returned to the stew. And then her head snapped up again and she said, "Al hamdu lillah! Am I seeing a ghost?"

  "Greetings, Auntie," Jasmine said, her heart racing—this was the woman who had caused her banishment, who was responsible for Mohammed being taken away from her, responsible ultimately for the tragedy that had occurred at the Club Cage d'Or.

  "Yasmina!" Nefissa cried again, tears in her eyes, and she swept her niece into such a fierce embrace that Jasmine felt the breath knocked out of her. "Praise the Eternal One!" the older woman cried. "He has brought you back to us!" When the two regarded each other, Jasmine saw a plea in her aunt's eyes that reminded her of the pleading look she had seen in Greg's eyes, the night of the miscarriage. Nefissa was saying: Forgive me.

  So Jasmine said, "God's peace and blessings upon you, Auntie."

  And Nefissa cried, "Al hamdu lillah," again, threading her arm through Jasmine's and leading her up the stairs, calling out breathlessly, "Y'Allah! Y'Allah!"

  People came to the top of the staircase to see what the commotion was about, and after a moment of confused expressions, Jasmine saw smiles erupt here and there, and then more smiles, and finally shouts of "Praise the Lord!" In the next instant she was engulfed in a sea of faces both familiar and strange, smiles and tears, arms reaching out for her, to touch her, as if to reassure themselves that it was truly she.

  When she saw Tahia, she held out her arms and the two embraced. "Praise God," Tahia said. "He has brought you back to us."

  "Actually, it was Umma who brought me back," Jasmine said, and as everyone laughed, she thought of what she must later tell Tahia about Zachariah, and that his dying thoughts had been of her. "How is my father?"

  Tahia shook her head. "He will not eat, he will not drink. He won't even speak to anyone. This happens on the anniversary of the bomb—do you know about that?"

  Jasmine nodded. The bomb, which had killed her son, a waiter, and two musicians. Omar, too, had died. The only other casualty had been the unborn child of Ibrahim's wife, Atiya.

  "But this time it is worse," Tahia said, as she led Jasmine to Ibrahim's suite. "He usually goes into a depression for a few days, and then comes out of it. But this one has lasted two weeks. I think he wants to die, God forbid."

  Jasmine entered the bedroom, and was startled by its familiarity—like the rest, the garden, the foyer, her father's rooms hadn't changed since she came here to visit as a little girl. But they were smaller than she remembered, and no longer intimidating. The men who were holding vigil in the room stood up in shock when they saw her, and Jasmine was embraced again, one at a time, by uncles and cousins known and not known to her. They left the room and closed the door on the crowd in the hallway. Jasmine was left alone with the old man in the bed.

  She was shocked to see how much Ibrahim had aged. There was almost no trace of the handsome, virile man she remembered as her father. He looked, in fact, older than Amira, his mother.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and took his hand. At the instant of contact, she felt all trepidation, all doubt, and all anger melt away. What happened in the past between herself and this old man was over and done with; it had been written, and so it had happened. But now the future was written, and it was that which they must face together.

  "Papa," she said softly.

  Papery eyelids fluttered open. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, then looked at Jasmine. His eyes widened. "Bismillah! Am I dreaming? Or am I dead? Alice, is it you?"

  "No, Papa. It's not Alice, it's Jasmine. Yasmina," she corrected herself.

  "Yasmina? Oh—" He coughed. "Yasmina? Daughter of my heart? Is it truly you? Have you come back to me?"

  "Yes, Papa. I am back. And the family tells me that you will not eat, that you are making yourself sick."

  "I am a cursed man, Yasmina. God has abandoned me."

  "In all honor and respect, Papa, that is nonsense. Look around you, at this magnificent house, and the furnishings, and the people all gathered outside your door. Would you count such riches as those of a cursed man?"

  "I drove Alice to suicide and I have not been able to forgive myself!"

  "My mother had an illness called clinical depression. I don't know if any of us could have helped her."

  "I am beyond usefulness, Yasmina."

  "Lying here and feeling sorry for yourself is not going to help, Papa. It is written that God changes those who change themselves. Why would God bother with a man who lies in bed and won't eat?"

  "You are blasphemous and disrespectful," he said, but he smiled as he said it, and tears shimmered in his eyes. "You are back, Yasmina," he said, caressing her face with a trembling hand. "Are you a doctor now?"

  "Yes, Papa, and a very good one."

  He seemed to rest more easily among the pillows. "That is good. Yasmina," he said, and his hand sought hers. "You know, I have been looking back over my life. Did you know that Sahra found me by my car among the sugarcane, the morning after Camelia was born? I was throwing up, I had had too much champagne. By God"—he shook his head—"for a Rasheed! She gave me water and I gave her a white scarf. A year later, on the night you were born, she gave me her son." He loo
ked at Jasmine. "That was Zachariah."

  "Yes, Umma told me."

  "Yasmina, do you remember King Farouk?"

  "I recall a large man who gave us sweets."

  "It was an innocent age then, Yasmina. Or—maybe it wasn't. I was not a very good doctor then, you know. But later on, I became a good doctor. Do you know when that was, when I changed? It was when you started helping me in my office. I wanted you to be proud of me. I wanted to teach you the right things."

  "You taught me well, too."

  "You know, I lived my whole life trying to please my father, even after he died. And now I shall be meeting him soon. I wonder how he will receive me."

  "As a father always receives a son," she said. "Papa, you must make your peace with God."

  "I am afraid, Yasmina. Does it upset you to hear your father admit that? I am afraid that God will not forgive me."

  She smiled and stroked his white hair. "Everything we do was written long ago. Whatever happened was fated before we were even born. Take comfort in that thought, and in the knowledge that God is merciful and compassionate. Ask Him in humility and He will grant you peace."

  "Will He forgive me, Yasmina? Do you forgive me?"

  "Forgiveness is God's," she said. Then she added gently, "Yes, Papa, I forgive you."

  She reached down and embraced him, burying her face in his neck. They cried together, then she sat back and, drying his cheeks, said, "I am going to see to it that you eat."

  He started to weep again, but he smiled also, and then he started to fret. "I have wasted my years! I have treated time as if it were a cheap commodity. Look at me, foolish old man! Where is Nefissa with my soup? Where is that woman?"

  As Jasmine rose from the bed, the bedroom door opened and three people walked in. Dahiba came first, smiling and saying, "Mother told us you had come back. Praise God."

  Behind her came Camelia, her face a register of mixed emotions. Jasmine read cautious joy there, but wariness also. But she was amazed to see how little her sister had changed; Camelia was still tall and striking, still the glamorous film star.