But the decoration! Every room carpeted with a priceless antique: exquisite scrollwork, Persian silks, rough kilims, each gorgeous, lining the house with beauty. And there were artworks: mosaics, brass lamps that cast intricate shadows, scrollwork on the walls, glass vases, sculpture. Small pieces, but carefully collected. The house was like a museum, she thought, but lived-in, warm; the servants who bustled through it, wearing baggy linen trousers and shirts, or traditional robes, greeted her kindly and seemed genuinely happy that Ahmed was home. He introduced Helen, and she was polite.
Now that moment had passed, she was getting a grip; getting her control back.
“I will bathe, also.” Ahmed stood back from the master bedroom. “When you are ready, come downstairs; they have made us a little supper.”
“Okay.Thank you.” She turned aside, toward the large copper tub with the modern, rainlike shower attachment …
… and then his hand was on her shoulder, firmly turning her toward him, and a strong arm lowered her down into the crook of his shoulder, and his lips pressed onto her mouth, teasingly, lightly brushing over hers, his tongue flickering against hers, probing, owning her.
Helen shuddered, taken utterly by surprise, and feeling his strength; she had never been kissed, and he knew what he was doing. She was light, nothing in his arms; she could feel the strength, the hardness of his muscles under his shirt….
And then, as she was in turmoil, he let her go. And stunned, Helen, seventeen, stood there, her thumb on her mouth, her lips half-open, staring at him… .
“Later,” he said. His dark eyes swept across her again. And then he suddenly turned and went down the stairs.
Helen went into the bathroom and shut the door; mechanically, she turned on the taps. She didn’t know whether that word, ‘later,’ was a promise or a threat.
She chose, deliberately, a Western dress for dinner; a long-skirted, fitted, navy blue dress from Armani that Sally Lassiter had treated her to. It was modest, with long sleeves and a square neckline, but chic and simple. Helen teamed it with the tiny diamond studs Baba had given her for her sixteenth birthday.
Very important to keep that connection to home. She vowed not to be angry about the fast one her parents had pulled. They had only her best interests at heart; but Helen was determined, she would be the judge of that.
The kitchen was full; servants, cooks, had materialized out of nowhere. Helen greeted them shyly, and went through to the dining room.
It was transformed.
Ahmed had hung up red silks, gloriously embroidered, on the walls. Antique glass and brass lamps were lit, casting detailed shadows across the walls. Perfumed candles, scented with attar of roses, were dotted about floating in water in the powder blue ceramic bowls he had laid out, their flames adding a cheerful light to the ambience.
In one corner of the room, a musician, his head studiously lowered, played a tune on the sitar.
“Will you start with a drink?”
“Thank you,” she murmured.
Ahmed had changed, too. He was now in traditional dress. Long black trousers and an open-necked shirt revealed to her that he was slim, but strong. It was his own house, and he was sprawled comfortably against the ornate cushions piled on the divan. Master of his own domain.
“Good evening,” he said.
“Hello.” Helen blushed. After that kiss, she did not know how to look him in the eyes.
“They have spent a month deciding on the menu,” he told her, lowering his voice. “So I hope you eat something.”
There was coconut-scented rice, and small roasted birds; tabbouleh salad and some delicious local pastries served in a dish of sweetmeats. Helen, not really hungry, picked a little at everything; it was all good, delicious, she was sure, if she had her appetite back. For dessert, Ahmed’s servants laid out chilled fruits: lychees, dates, and pomegranate seeds, carefully scooped out and laid in a crushed bed of freezing ice crystals.
For drinks, they offered freshly squeezed orange juice, pure, icy water, or hot mint tea, heavily sugared and served in frosted glasses.
Slowly, she began to relax. After all, he had said he wouldn’t come to her tonight. So why worry?
“This is wonderful.Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me,” Ahmed said, dark eyes on her, carefully watching. “You are not a guest here. This is your house.”
Helen bit her lip. Should she tell him?
But no, they were both zoning out, exhausted from the flight. Tomorrow would be soon enough.
She made polite conversation instead.
“How long have you lived here?”
“Four years. Since I found the market in America, and my business has done well. It is also four years since Badiya died,” he added, unembarrassed. “Had she lived, we would have married and settled in her father’s house. He owned land in Qatar—she was in Egypt to pursue her studies.”
“And you loved her?” Helen was curious.
“Infinitely.”
The answer overcame her reserve; she was conscious of an unwanted, new feeling, a stab of jealousy.
“Then why agree to this? We never met, before that day at my parents.”Why would you want to marry me?”
“Because,” he said. “Because your mother and mine are related, and I knew you were a Muslim girl, of good family. Because I heard tell that you were a believer. Because I loved Badiya so much that I thought never to be in love again, as long as I lived, with anyone.”
Helen noted how he put that in the past tense.
“Because I want to have the joy of a family, and of children, insh’Allah. And what better for that than a young girl, intelligent, a believer of good family? I saw it as my duty.What was the point of looking for love?”
“And now?” she demanded. Her pride, stung. It was she, Helen, who was doing her duty here. Ahmed should be desperate to marry her. Inflamed for her. Who was this Badiya? And she chilled to the unpleasant idea of competing with a ghost.
“And now, I find you interest me,” he said. “You seem … on the brink. Like a ripe plum, not yet fallen.You stir me … you are different. I want to train you.”
His eyes bored into hers.
“I am not an animal,” Helen managed.
“You are.We both are. Human animals.” Ahmed smiled, confident and suddenly attractive. “Tomorrow … in our marriage bed … I will show you, little American.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Talk all you want.” He grinned, not allowing her to drop her eyes.“You are a virgin … untouched, and terrified. After tomorrow, you will be mine.”
“You’re very sure of yourself,” Helen said.
He smiled. “That’s right. I am.”
She had no idea how she made it to bed. Ahmed, soon afterward, had clicked his finger for the aya, and the woman came and helped Helen away from the table and through the house to the master bedroom. “Here,” she said, opening the bathroom cupboard.There were new toothbrushes, in their packaging, cosmetics, and flannels.
“Thank you. Shokram.” Helen bowed, and eventually the woman went away.
Drained, she brushed her teeth and passed the flannel over her face. It made her feel clean, good; combine it with the bath, and she no longer sensed dust and grime clinging to her every pore. Air travel … such a nasty, unhealthy way to go.
She did not have any energy left to hunt around for a nightdress. As soon as her ablutions were done, Helen flopped onto the bed, and she was asleep almost before she had closed her eyes.
“What time is it?”
Helen rolled over, onto her side, to find Ahmed lying next to her, dressed in white, his eyes closed. Groggily, she rubbed her eyes.
“Ah.” He sat up. “I thought you would never surface. I was about to call the doctors.”
“It can’t be that late… .”
“Try three p.m. You’ve been asleep for almost eighteen hours.”
Helen groaned. “It’ll take me days to get over the
jet lag.”
“I would not worry. You have years.” Ahmed smiled down at her. “I have taken a nap myself, after lunch; very civilized, the Spanish siesta. So I will be full of energy tonight, also.”
Helen sat up. She was thirsty.
As though reading her thoughts, Ahmed clapped his hands, and a woman materialized, bearing a pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice and two enormous glasses.
“Better than water,” he said. “It will also replenish your body salts.”
She didn’t need telling twice. Helen thirstily gulped down two enormous glasses of the golden nectar, and it tasted beyond delicious; the oranges themselves even richer and sweeter than those harvested a touch too early in the California sun.
“Excuse me,” Helen said, after she was finished. Ahmed nodded to his servant, who melted away as quietly as she had come, and Helen, self-conscious, fled to the bathroom to do her teeth and take a bath.
Once she was finished, wrapped securely in her big toweling dressing gown, glad to have escaped him, she went back into the bedroom.
But Ahmed was there. Sitting on her bed.Their bed.
“Talk,” he said, in English.
“Excuse me?”
“Talk. I have now sent the staff home. We will not be disturbed. Whatever you have to say, whatever request you want to make—now is the time.” He grinned. “And then I am going to begin training you, Haya.”
She was outraged. “What did you call me?”
“Haya,”Ahmed said.“It is your name.What you were given at birth. It means ‘modesty,’ and it suits you. I asked your father. He put ‘Helen’ on you when you went to the United States, so that you would fit in with all the other girls. But you are not Greek; you are Arab. And your name is special, as you are. Ordained and written in the book of life.You are my Haya. I will never call you by that fake name again.”
His speech stopped her anger dead. But she felt obliged to add, “And you can’t train me, Ahmed. I told you that last night.”
“Let us see if you are telling me the same thing three hours from now.”
“I won’t be telling you anything,” she said, feeling out the name “Haya” in her mind. It was, in truth, very beautiful—much better than boring ‘Helen’ … maybe now she understood why she had never liked her name. “I’m not yours, Ahmed. I’m mine.”
“What is the contradiction?” he asked, dark eyes on her. Not backing down.
“I … didn’t understand what I was doing.When I signed the nikkah,” she said.
For the first time, he registered shock. Amazement, then scandal.
“What?” he said. “Do you not understand the purpose of the nikkah?”
“I do,” she said. “Of course … but I did not realize I was signing a nikkah. They spoke so fast … my Arabic is poor.” She blushed. “As you know. And my father told me it was a friendship ceremony.”
He considered this for a second. She had expected to him to curse, to stand, perhaps to be abjectly apologetic. But he was none of these things.
Instead, he looked at her calmly, with that same assessing stare that had disturbed her yesterday.
“Then tell me, Haya,” Ahmed said, “were they wrong when they informed me you were intelligent, and a believer?”
She flushed. “No. Of course not.”
“Then you know the Faith. And what ‘friendship ceremony’ did you think this was … exactly?”
She had no answer.
“And was marriage never mentioned to you?”
“It was,” she admitted. “But I said that I would choose my own husband.”
“Yet you met me and, of your own free will, went through this ceremony. Is it not so?”
She blushed.
“Yes.”
“So on some level, you knew what was going on.You are not stupid, Haya.”
It was true. She knew it in the depth of her soul.
“I have the right to choose my own husband!” she said.
“That is so. I will not force you.” He leaned across the bed, and his face was inches from hers; a young man, but older than her, confident, and on his home turf. “In fact, my Haya, I would want you to declare yourself again, now, before I would let you touch me.”
Her eyes widened.
“You are so arrogant!”
Ahmed inclined his head.
“And you want me. Do you not think I know my own?”
“How could you tell I am your own?”
“I tasted your lips,” he said to her.“And you will yield to me.” Ahmed stood up, and gave her a little bow.“Good night,” he said, and withdrew.
She woke up in the middle of the night, sweating, unsure where she was.The hum of traffic and the splashing of the fountains seemed wrong, strange and wrong; as she came to, Helen longed for the reassuring quiet of their house on Third Street, her compact, American bedroom … her parents.
She shoved the covers off her and walked to the window, shivering as the night air hit her.The moon was half-hidden behind the clouds; it looked different here, somehow. Her nightdress was thin around her legs. Helen cringed; she felt so alone, so vulnerable, unprotected, no family, no friends….
Briefly her mind flashed back to the two girls. What would Sally say? Some crude joke about Ahmed and their wedding night? She wasn’t sure if Sally was a virgin; that was an indelicate question, not one she’d want to ask. Jane was …she was sure of that. Jane had only been made beautiful recently, and had never been seen with a boy.
Ahmed, in America, had been very different. Lost—confused. Polite. Here, in Egypt, he was on his home turf. Transformed. Predatory.
Helen twisted her dark hands, confusion springing up in her. He terrified her. Ahmed had all the power in this situation, all the money, all the knowledge. He spoke the language … she was his, in his house.
And it scared her even more that she was starting to feel for him. A dark, violent attraction in the pit of her stomach. A longing, in the belly of her, when he was close; wanting him to go away, but wanting, at the same time, for him to reach out, to touch her cheek, her neck, to kiss her, even….
She was disturbed. She hated her own powerlessness. Helen’s fingers tightened on the windowsill, and she bit down in anger on her soft lips. She had herself to blame for this, for her modest obedience to her parents, for always wanting an easy life, always wishing to avoid confrontation.Yes, she still loved them. But how, how, had she given the impression that this would be acceptable … that they could ship her off to Egypt, and choose the man to whom she would belong?
The traditional ways? While her father drank alcohol whenever he felt like it, and her mother neglected prayers often enough and sometimes snuck food during Ramadan? Helen had seen her do it.Why was it one rule for them and another for her?
No, she thought. No. She would not bow to this. She would not submit to Ahmed’s rule of her body. She wanted to go the hell home, right now.
A night breeze came in through the arched window, fluttering the thin cotton of her dress. Helen shuddered and ran to her suitcase. Frantically she tugged on her underwear, her socks, a pair of jeans, and a shirt. She had no sweaters or coat—who knew it could get so cold here at night? It was a desert country; too late she remembered that.Well, it would have to do. Frightened, she worked quietly, grabbing whatever she could. A few American dollars—not many, she had about thirty bucks; she’d assumed Baba would bring the cash for the holiday. No airline ticket, but she had a credit card. She tried to remember exactly what was left in that account, from her allowance. Four hundred, maybe less. Not enough for a last-minute ticket to the States. Then she would go to Europe, she thought, go to England. Get somewhere safe. And her passport, mash’Allah, she thought with a fervent rush of gratitude and relief. Her passport was still here….
She put on her sneakers and quietly opened her bedroom door. It was oiled, and didn’t squeak. Helen’s heart thumped wildly in her chest, crashing against her rib cage. What if he heard her? Would he
be angry, feel betrayed? Hit her … beat her? Worse, drag her back to her room and rape her? She did not know this man at all.What if he regarded her as his possession, as a disobedient chattel out to humiliate him?
Carefully, delicately, she tiptoed down the stone stairs, their ancient surfaces pocked and pitted. Helen cast her eyes around, in the gloom, watching for any door to open—he had enough servants, a cook, a night watchman… .
But nobody came. They were all asleep. She looked at the clock in the hallway: it said half past midnight. She reached the door to the kitchen, then the door to the garden. Outside, it was very chilly, and she shivered again. The water looked eerie, bubbling in the dark; Helen ran across the courtyard, quietly in her soft sneakers, unlatched the gate, and made it, out into the street. She didn’t know Cairo; she had no idea where she was. She picked up her heels and ran, blindly, fast, toward the sound of traffic.
It was dark. Helen, terrified, thudded through the streets, her sneakers pounding the pavement. There were few lights; she thought she must be off the center, somewhere. The storefronts were all shuttered. A man rode by on a donkey, pulling a cart full of trash; he scowled at her. She turned left into a major street, her breath ragged, and slowed to a walk.
Okay. Okay. Don’t panic. The street signs were in Arabic; she had forgotten how to read it. No English subtitles. She looked around, hoping for a taxi, a bus—did they run at night? Anything. A way to get to the center.
A group of men walked past her and laughed raucously. She heard them say something; it didn’t sound pleasant. She thought they called her a whore. Helen hesitated, desperate to ask for directions, but one of the group, a thin man with a scarred face, whistled at her and started to move in her direction. Hurriedly, she crossed the street, starting to feel that this was a mistake. She looked like a tourist, and judging from the broken windows, the tin cans in the gutter, this was a rough part of town….
Helen felt the fear rise in her throat.The gaggle of men were conferring, looking over in her direction.Would they follow her? Rape her? She didn’t wait to find out; she raced off down a narrow alleyway, and heard them cursing. Oh, God! She prayed desperately, her mind racing.What could she do? She was totally lost, it was pitch black, cold, no place for an American girl in a thin blouse….
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