Mirage

by Soheir Khashoggi

  In spite of the heat, Aunt Najla settled into the fine leather upholstery with a sigh of contentment. Shopping was a highlight of her aunt’s day, Amira knew, for she could remember when only men and servants ventured into the market. But in keeping with his concessions to modernization, Omar allowed the women under his protection to shop outside the home—as long as they were driven by a man, according to law.

  Along the single-lane road, the powerful car moved slowly, its progress retarded by an old man atop an aged donkey. The driver honked. When both his vehicle and his impatience were ignored, he sighed deeply, lit a cigarette, and resigned himself to the will of the Almighty.

  In time, car and passengers reached the open market, which consisted of a dozen rickety wooden stalls wreathed in a cloud of dust.

  The aroma of fresh fruit intermingled with the metallic odor of fresh- killed lamb. “Buy my melons, as sweet as sugar,” called the fruit seller. “Pistachios fit for a king,” beckoned the nut vendor. “Not a piaster more if my life depended on it,” shouted a customer in the last throes of bargaining.

  Aunt Najla led the way to the butcher, Abu Taif, a lean, stringy fellow wearing a bloodstained apron over his thobe. Standing beside the dozen or so lamb carcasses that hung in front of his stall, he bowed and smiled, showing the two gold teeth that reflected his prosperity.

  Wordlessly nodding a greeting, Aunt Najla went to work, poking and probing and sniffing one leg of lamb after another.

  “Madam, I implore you,” Abu Taif pleaded, “all the meat is excellent and fresh, tender and without blemish. Choose any piece, without looking, and I swear on my honor it will please you.”

  Aunt Najla ignored both pleas and promises, continuing her inspection for another moment or two. Then she pointed to her choice: “Three kilos. For saleeq, so leave the meat on the bone.”

  “At your service, madam.” The butcher bowed again, quickly producing a cleaver and two saber-sharp knives. Wiping them ceremoniously on his apron, he went to work, first hacking away the choice leg portion from the lamb, then weighing it. After trimming the fat, Abu Taif cut the meat into fist-sized chunks and wrapped it in coarse brown paper. He noted the purchase in his smudged and stained ledger (Omar would pay the account at the end of the month) and handed the package to Aunt Najla with a flourish.

  Next door, at the greengrocer’s stall, she quickly selected a dozen tomatoes bursting with juice, a large bunch of parsley, potatoes, onions, and three heads of lettuce.

  The two women hurried past the coffeehouse, where old men lounged, sipping dark, thick coffee flavored with cardamom, listening to the plaintive melodies of Um Kalthoum. Here and there, dark shapes much like Amira and her aunt darted in and out of stalls, hurrying about their business lest they be thought immodest.

  The next stop was the spice shop in the covered arcade. As Amira inhaled the heady bouquet of cumin and cinnamon and allspice and nutmeg and coriander, her aunt fired off her order: “Two hundred grams of allspice. Some hab hale (cardoman) and some dried mint. Make sure it’s good, mind you. None of that flavorless stuff with the bugs in it that you gave me last time.”

  “I humbly beg your pardon, madam,” said the shopkeeper, Abu Tarek, with elaborate courtesy. “I assure you that will never happen again.” He turned and smiled at Amira, whom he’d known since she was a little girl, taking a liberty he would soon take no more.

  Once served, the women moved on to Hafiz’s perfumery in the covered arcade. The air here was rich with essences and oils from Damascus and Teheran and Baghdad—ingredients old Hafiz could blend in a thousand and one combi- nations. His wife, Fadila, known for her skills in casting horoscopes and reading the stars (a talent that was strictly forbidden yet eagerly sought), often acted as adviser to the shop’s clientele; discreetly, she would suggest jasmine oil to please a beloved, or perhaps a rose fragrance to revive a husband’s waning ardor.

  Aunt Najla ordered her usual gardenia and heliotrope blend. Though there was no beloved to savor it, the powerful fragrance did serve to signal her impending arrival in a room.

  The last stop was the fabric store, where bolts of Damascene silk and Belgian lace were displayed in every color and hue. Here, too, Aunt Najla would be faithful to what she always wore: dark blue with occasional accents of white lace. No sooner had they entered the shop than the proprietor snapped his fingers, summoning one of the legion of small boys who ran errands for a piaster or two. Coffee was ordered, sweetened tea for Amira. As Aunt Najla settled into a deeply cushioned chair, the proprietor began, without being told, to unfurl bolt after bolt of navy blue fabric: silk, chiffon, crepe de chine, and taffeta, for linings that rustled.

  Suddenly, Amira felt as if all the air had left the room. She tried to breathe deeply, but the feeling grew stronger, till she was forced to flee the tiny shop. Closing her eyes, she leaned against the stall, trying to imagine the dark, cool vastness of the desert at night. She stood there for a long time until Aunt Najla came outside and shook her shoulder. “What’s wrong, Niece? Is it your time of the month? That’s no excuse for acting peculiar, you know. A loving family will forgive you such nonsense, but a husband, well, a husband expects his home to be run in an orderly and normal fashion. Do you understand?”

  Amira nodded. She understood very well what a husband expected. Hadn’t she seen the example of her own father after her mother’s death? After a mere few weeks of mournful demeanor, his life went on as usual. To Amira, the heart had gone out of their home. Yet, Omar seemed scarcely to notice, inspecting his freshly trimmed beard each morning in the same self-satisfied way, enjoying his evening meal to the fullest, rolling the last bit of pita to mop his plate, just as he always did.

  “Are we going home now?” Amira asked, hoping perhaps to salvage some of this day.

  “Certainly not,” Aunt Najla replied brusquely. “I promised Shaikha Nazli I would stop by. She hasn’t been feeling well—this last pregnancy, you know—and I promised I would give her some of the salts my mother used to make, to reduce swelling in the legs.”

  Amira groaned inwardly. She had nothing against Shaikha Nazli, a statuesque redhead born in Lebanon and married now to al-Remal’s oil minister. But a visit to her large and elaborate palace was never brief. Today would be no exception.

  “Ahlan wa sahlan,” the Shaikha enthused as the two women were escorted into her marble drawing room by a Pakistani servant. “Please, make your- selves comfortable. My home is yours.”

  Comfort was out of the question, Amira reflected, for the room, like the Shaikha herself, was clad entirely in ornate French reproductions, heavily gilded and designed more to impress than to enjoy. Still, Amira smiled politely and perched dutifully at the edge of a Louis something-or-other chair.

  Minutes later, a pair of servants in livery—the only servants in al-Remal so clad—entered the room. They offered coffee, tea, cold fruit drinks, and pastry, followed by a smoking brazier that burned sandalwood. Amira took a fruit juice because to refuse would have been impolite. And when the brazier was passed to her, she wafted the scented smoke under her arms and around her body, to refresh and deodorize, as was the custom of the desert.

  “I brought the salts for your legs, dear Nazli,” Aunt Najla said, proffering a large glass jar. “But I do hope you’re feeling better.”

  “I am, indeed, Allah be praised. And my dear husband has been so kind, so thoughtful. When he was in London last week—an important conference, you know—he brought back such beautiful gifts, I actually wept. And do you know what he said? He said that all his wealth could not begin to provide the gifts I deserved.”

  “Thanks be to Allah for such devotion,” Aunt Najla intoned.

  “Would you like to see my gifts?” the Shaikha asked hopefully, much as a child would.

  “Certainly, dear. We rejoice in your pleasure—don’t we, Amira?” “Yes, yes, of course.” Amira sat up at attention, knowing she would pay later for any lapse in manners.

  As soon as the Shaikha swept
out of the room in a swirl of silk and gold, Aunt Najla began to cluck sympathetically. “Poor woman. She’s walking at the edge of a precipice, and everyone knows it.”

  “But why, Auntie? She seems happy enough.”

  “Happy? Don’t be ridiculous. She’s trying to put a good face on her situation—as any decent woman would—but if Allah in his wisdom sends a daughter instead of a son, well, then it’s certain there will be a third wife, as everyone knows.”

  Of course. Though the Shaikha’s fair complexion and flaming hair were considered uncommonly beautiful here, she had produced, in quick succession, four daughters—much to the delight of the oil minister’s first wife, who had borne him three sons. If there were to be yet a third wife, poor Nazli would certainly lose face and social standing.

  As the Shaikha swept into the room once more, she held out her arm, displaying a gold Patek-Philippe watch studded with diamonds and emeralds. “Isn’t it lovely?”

  “Breathtaking,” Najla agreed. “And it suits you so well.” “It’s beautiful,” Amira chimed in.

  “And see what else my dear husband brought home,” Nazli said, indicating a stack of dinner plates being carried by a servant. “Limoges, service for fifty. In the pattern I had admired when we visited France on our honey- moon. He remembered … seven years and he remembered,” she said, her voice wistful and tender.

  Najla shot her niece a meaningful look, even as she went on to compliment the oil minister’s taste and his thoughtfulness. “May Allah grant you a son,” she murmured under her breath.

  O

  Since Omar had announced his intention to lunch with a business acquaintance, the women of the house dined lightly: hummus with pita bread, a selection of cheeses and olives, a salad garnished with mint and lemon and olive oil, a bit of leftover kibbe.

  As soon as the meal was finished, preparations for the next began. With her aunt standing by to supervise and instruct, Amira rinsed the lamb chunks. “Put them in the bottom of the pot,” Aunt Najla instructed. “No, not that one, the big one. Good. Now get the rosemary leaves and two cinnamon sticks.”

  “I know,” Amira said, as she quickly added some of the sweet spice called hab hale, pepper, a piece of mistika, and a piece of the lichen called shaiba. All this was covered with cold water and set on the big English stove to simmer. Two hours later, after her afternoon nap, Amira removed the lamb from the pot, strained the stock, and added water, to make eight cups. She measured two cups of rice into the stock and set the pot back on the stove.

  “Cook it slowly now,” Aunt Najla admonished. “About forty-five minutes or so. You don’t want the rice to stick.”

  “Yes, Auntie.” Amira had seen her mother prepare the dish dozens of times, but it was best to humor her aunt. When the stock was all absorbed, she added two cups of milk and continued the cooking until the rice was soggy. When Amira heard Omar enter the house, she added some salt and let the mixture cook for a few more minutes. Finally, she turned the mixture out onto a large platter, dotted it with pats of butter, and arranged the cooked meat on top.

  O

  “Good,” Omar said with a contented sigh, “very good indeed.”

  Najla sighed, too, as if a verdict of utmost importance had been rendered. Never mind that it was part of a daily ritual; the man of the house must be satisfied in every way, and no woman could afford to be complacent when it came to his care and feeding.

  “And you, my daughter, did your hand sweeten this delectable dinner?” Omar asked, turning to Amira.

  Now this was a surprise, for since her mother’s death, Amira’s relation- ship with her father had become distant at best. “Yes, Father,” she replied, casting her eyes downward onto her plate, not sure whether her heart should resent or accept the compliment.

  “Excellent, excellent.” Omar smiled benevolently. But when he patted the hand of his young wife, Amira’s feelings hardened against him.

  “Well, then,” he said, clearing his throat to indicate the importance of what would soon pass his lips. “It’s time to share my good news. Today, I have spoken with no less a personage than His Royal Majesty, our beloved king.”

  There were murmurs of appreciation at this news, though, in fact, every subject in the kingdom—not just influential ones like Omar—had access to the ruler at the weekly majlis, where grievances and requests were heard all day long. “And,” Omar continued, “His Royal Majesty has honored my house. It has been decided that his son, Prince Ali al-Rashad, will be married to Amira.” The women began ululating, a sound of joy and celebration. Omar smiled.

  “Though I refrained from boasting, His Majesty was favorably impressed with Amira’s education. He graciously said that my daughter would be a great asset to his house and to the kingdom.”

  Amira said nothing. She had known, ever since she was a little girl, that this day was coming. But now that it was here, she didn’t know how she felt. To leave her father’s house—hadn’t she dreamed of that? To become a princess, a member of al-Remal’s ruling house—wasn’t that every young woman’s dream? How Laila would have loved this, she thought with a twinge of sadness.

  “Well, Daughter,” said Omar, “to be modest and quiet is admirable. But at a moment like this, a smile of happiness would be more than appropriate. And perhaps a prayer of thanks that Allah has provided so well for your future?”

  “Yes, Father, I do give thanks to Allah. And to you,” she added with sincerity, knowing that it was in Omar’s power to marry her to anyone. Yet, he had chosen for her a prince, well known and well loved. Everyone knew of Prince Ali. He was a pilot, a hero of al-Remal. He flew the kingdom’s newest planes, he soared in the skies like a falcon. Life with him would have to be better than life at home—wouldn’t it?

  Part

  Four

  Ali

  “The foreign dressmakers are here,” Bahia announced stolidly—as if a visit from the French couturiere Madame Gres were an everyday occurrence. “Your aunts wish you to come down at once.”

  Amira snapped shut her copy of Madame Bovary and looked imploringly at Miss Vanderbeek. “We’ll have to stop now. I don’t really want to, but … well, you know …”

  “I do know,” the Dutch woman said with a smile. “Now that you have your diploma, French literature just can’t compete with French couture.”

  “But that’s not so,” Amira protested. “I want to read everything, to under- stand about people who are different from people here in al-Remal. I want to know what they think and how they feel. But there’s been so little time, what with shopping and visits and getting ready for the wedding.” Then, realizing she was being teased, she smiled, too. “You do understand.”

  Miss Vanderbeek nodded. “In truth, you don’t really need me anymore, Amira. You’re as fluent in French as I am, and your English is quite good, too. You have your reading lists—and the intelligence you were born with, ma shallah. There’s not much more I can teach you. If you were going on to university …” She trailed off, for she had broached this subject before, urging her pupil to continue her studies, if only by correspondence.

  “I want to, I truly do, but I can’t make that decision without my husband’s consent.”

  “I know,” Miss Vanderbeek sighed. “I know.” There was a long moment of silence.

  “I suppose we must be saying good-bye, if not today, then very soon …”

  Amira’s eyes filled with tears. For so long, the beautiful blond nanny had been her window into the world outside al-Remal, the one who described its colors and textures and smells. She was the one who pushed Amira to read beyond the printed words, to ask questions and not always be satisfied with easy answers. “I don’t want to say good-bye,” Amira said, her voice catching in her throat.

  “I know.”

  “I wish … oh, I wish you could come to live with me in the palace.” “Perhaps one day I’ll come to teach your children.”

  Amira was not cheered. Miss Vanderbeek was one of the best parts of her
own childhood, and somehow she did not want to give her up, not even to a child that she might bear. Tears slipped from her eyes and onto her dress. The Dutch woman held out her arms, and as Amira shared her embrace, she thought once again that everyone she loved seemed to go away.

  O

  Downstairs, in the main salon, Amira’s aunts were whirling like dervishes, trying with a flurry of activity to hide the fact that they didn’t quite know how to entertain the foreigners. At their bidding, a rapid parade of refreshments appeared. In lieu of Coca-Cola, which, along with many other American products, was on the Arab boycott list, they offered pomegranate juice mixed with water, followed by roasted chick peas, candied almonds, salted pistachios, and chewy Turkish delight.

  As soon as Amira appeared, she was thrust at the French contingent— headed by no less a personage than Madame Gres herself. “You honor our house, madame,” Amira said. “I hope your trip here was a pleasant one?” “Most pleasant, ma’mselle,” the designer replied.

  “And your accommodations, are they comfortable?”

  “Very comfortable. Thankfully, the Intercontinental has strong air- conditioning and a large swimming pool. My staff made good use of both as soon as we arrived last night.”

  “I’m sorry we have no air-conditioning here, Madame Gres, but my father believes it to be unhealthy.”

  “Ça va, ma’mselle. Please don’t concern yourself. Now if you are ready, I would like to present the group of wedding dresses I have selected for your consideration.”

  The large high-ceilinged room had been cleared, except for a row of chairs and some small marble tables. Amira seated herself on an upholstered armchair; her aunts positioned themselves on either side. Flanked by her personal assistant and two female fitters, Madame Gres stood at the doorway to the dining room, which, for the moment, was serving as an informal changing room for the three models who’d accompanied her.

  At a signal from her, the assistant turned on a cassette player, and the strains of Mozart’s chamber music filled the room. A moment later, the models appeared, wearing fairy-tale gowns of silk and satin and lace.