Virgins of Paradise

by Wood, Barbara

  Poor old Eddie, Hassan thought, as he made himself comfortable on a divan. Had his death truly been accidental? How did a man shoot himself precisely between the eyes while cleaning his gun? But the police report had ruled his death as accidental, and Amira, who had found Edward, insisted that it was so. Still, Hassan didn't trust her. He suspected that that woman would cover up anything to protect the family honor.

  "It's good to see you," Ibrahim said, and in such an almost cheerful way that Hassan decided luck was with him today. Surely Ibrahim was going to say yes to his proposal.

  They lit cigarettes, an English brand, Hassan noted with appreciation. "It's good to see you, too, my brother. May God bless you with health and long life." Hassan the English gentleman was gone, no more "old fellow" and "I say." Now he spoke only Arabic, and used traditional phrases. They talked for a few minutes about cotton prices and the progress of the Aswan Dam, then Hassan said, "May I be permitted to state my purpose, dear friend? I have come on a special errand tonight. This is a day of days for us, Ibrahim. I have come to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage."

  Ibrahim gave him a startled look, then said, "You've caught me by surprise. I had no idea you had this in mind."

  "I've been divorced now for nearly three years. A man needs a wife, as you yourself have often told me. And as my high position in the government calls for me to attend many state functions, even to host a few myself, a wife is necessary. I waited, of course, until her birthday, which was just a few weeks ago. Otherwise, she would have been too young."

  Ibrahim looked up. "Hm? Oh yes, too young. I don't know. You're forty-five, Hassan."

  "As young as you, my friend!" Which was true only so far as chronological age. Although Hassan had maintained a youthful vigor and passed for a much younger man, Ibrahim had aged. His hair had turned gray in prison, and his once-vigorous frame had never recovered its earlier robustness. "I suppose we can at least discuss the matter," Ibrahim said. "We had talked of Camelia joining the ballet company, but I never—"

  "Camelia! I am talking about Yasmina!"

  Ibrahim stared at him. "Yasmina! But she's only just sixteen!"

  "Of course we'll wait until she's eighteen for the wedding, but I see no reason why you and I can't agree to the betrothal now."

  Ibrahim frowned. "Yasmina? No, I couldn't agree to it."

  Hassan held himself back. He could not allow his impatience to ruin everything. He must have her! Yasmina—as beautiful as a moonbeam.

  "She wants to go to university," Ibrahim said.

  "All girls do now. These modern times make them forget what they were created for. But as soon as they're pregnant they give up ideas about education."

  "But why Yasmina?"

  Hassan paused. He couldn't very well say, "I've always wanted Alice, but I'll take her daughter instead." So he shrugged and said, "Why not Yasmina? She's young and beautiful. She's poised and graceful and well mannered. And obedient, all the virtues a man looks for in a wife." Silently he added: Besides, I'm not marrying to get sons, I have four already. This time around I'm getting married to have fun in bed. And the sexual education of pretty little Yasmina should be delightful indeed.

  As Ibrahim began to think about it, he realized that he found Hassan's unexpected proposal almost welcome. Yasmina would eventually have to marry, and Ibrahim knew that there were few men he would approve of—what man could be better worthy of his favorite daughter but Hassan, with whom he had been friends since their college days?

  "This is no hasty decision on my part," Hassan said carefully. "I have thought highly of her for some time, you know. And you and I are like brothers, my friend. How many years have we been together? I've always felt like a member of this family. Remember when you and Nefissa and I took that felucca on the river and capsized it?"

  Ibrahim laughed, a rare sound.

  Hassan pressed on. "Why not make my membership in this family official? It should comfort you to know that she will not be marrying a stranger, we know each other very well, I think. And I believe she bears some affection for me. And you know she will continue to live in the style she has known all her life. I am a rich man, after all."

  Ibrahim remained silent.

  "Besides, a man in my position must be careful in choosing a wife. She must be presentable and know now to carry herself on occasions involving the highest officials of state. She must be—I will utter the forbidden word—an aristocrat. And so my field of choice is limited, as you know."

  "Yes," Ibrahim said thoughtfully. "It is agreed then. Let us have the document drawn up—"

  "I just happen to have brought it with me." As he watched Ibrahim bring out a fountain pen, Hassan added, "I shall be your son-in-law, isn't that amusing?"

  Nefissa had been about to knock on her brother's door when she had heard her name mentioned. She recognized Hassan's voice; he was talking about the time the three of them had capsized a felucca. Nefissa had only been married a year at the time, she hadn't thought Hassan would even remember the incident. And now, after hearing the rest of the conversation, she felt her heart begin to race. She couldn't believe it. Hassan was asking her brother's permission to marry her!

  She had heard various phrases: "We know each other very well—she bears some affection for me—she must be aristocratic—know how to carry herself on occasions involving the highest officials of state." So the old days of class and privilege weren't gone, Nefissa realized with sudden happiness. The classes were still there, only the titles had changed. Everyone knew Hassan was moving up in the government; talk of a judgeship in the High Court was rumored. He would require a wife equal to such status—an aristocrat, a woman who had once been close friends with royalty.

  Feeling like a young girl again, she hurried back to her apartment and quickly combed her hair, put on some lipstick and a quick spray of jasmine perfume. She hurried down to the garden, and when she saw Hassan emerge, she stepped in his path.

  "I couldn't help overhearing," she said. "I hope you don't mind that I listened at the door?"

  He gave her a baffled look.

  "The marriage proposal!" she said, laughing. "You didn't have to go to Ibrahim. I make my own decisions these days." She put her arms around his neck. "Oh, Hassan, I have desired you for such a long time. I shall be a good wife to you, I promise."

  "You?" he said. And then he laughed. "We weren't talking about you! We were talking about Yasmina!" He pulled her arms from his neck. "There was a time when I might have considered you, Nefissa, back when you were young and attractive. But why should I want a woman who's all used up when I can have the choicest young virgin in Cairo?"

  She stared at him in horror. "Hassan! You can't mean that."

  As she watched him leave, Nefissa thought back to the one beautiful night in her life when she had been truly loved. Her handsome lieutenant, who had disappeared; she wanted him back. Someone had to love her as she had once been loved.

  SEVENTEEN

  T

  HE DREAMS HAD BEGUN AGAIN, IN MORE DETAIL AND MORE powerful than ever, disturbing Amira's sleep with the familiar images—the desert encampment, the peculiar square tower—but now with a baffling new one: a tall, ebony-skinned man in a scarlet turban. Who was he, and why was he only now entering her dreams? Did he belong in the house on Tree of Pearls Street, or had he been part of the home she could not recall, back before she was kidnapped from the caravan?

  Even more perplexing, Amira thought as she tried to solve the riddle of the dreams, was why she had started having them again. No babies were about to be born into the family just now. What were the dreams trying to tell her?

  "What is impotence, Umma?" Yasmina asked.

  They were in the kitchen, putting cups and saucers in the sink. Amira had just concluded her weekly afternoon tea, which she now held every Friday while the men were at the mosque. After she led the female members of her family in the noon prayer, she opened her garden gate and friends and visitors came, as they always had. She
and her granddaughters were cleaning up, a task which the servants could have done, but which Amira thought beneficial to her granddaughters' domestic training.

  Amira had not heard Yasmina's question. As she washed and polished the silver teapot, her mind was trying to work out a solution to an urgent problem: That morning, before leaving for the mosque, Ibrahim had informed Amira of the agreement he and Hassan had arrived at the night before; Hassan al-Sabir was now engaged to marry Yasmina. Amira had said nothing to her son, but had felt a terrible forboding steal over her.

  "Umma?" the girl said. "Did you hear me?"

  Amira looked at her granddaughter, so pretty and fair, her white-gold curls tamed by two barrettes. And she thought: If it is all I do between now and my dying breath, I shall save this child from the hands of Hassan al-Sabir. "What did you say, Mishmish?"

  "I heard Um Hussein asking you for a cure for impotence. What is impotence?"

  "It is a condition that renders a man incapable of carrying out his duty as a husband."

  Yasmina frowned, uncertain what that duty entailed. She and her fellow classmates at the all-girl high school often whispered about boys and marriage, but as most of their information was conjecture, Yasmina had only a vague notion of what the marriage duty was. "How is it cured?" she asked.

  Before Amira could reply, Badawiya, the elderly Lebanese cook, said from her place at the chopping block, "By a younger wife!" And the others in the kitchen laughed.

  Amira put an arm around Yasmina and said, "If God wills it, Mishmish, that is something you will never have to worry about."

  "Well, I'm not going to get married for years and years!" the sixteen-year-old said. "I'm going to university to study science. I know exactly what I want my future to be."

  Amira glanced at Maryam Misrahi, who had helped bring in the leftover pastries. Maryam gave her friend a look that said, The girls these days! And Amira smiled to hide her distress. She had not told Maryam about the horrendous betrothal Ibrahim had agreed to. Camelia, who was at the kitchen door anxiously watching for Zachariah, said impatiently, "I wish I could see into my future!"

  Maryam came and stood next to her, looking at the colorful garden. "Do you know how we read the future when I was a girl?" she said. "You took an egg and warmed it between your hands for seven minutes. Then you cracked it open into a glass of water. If the egg floated, it would mean your future husband would be rich. If it sank, he would be poor. If the yolk broke, he would be—"

  "I'm not talking about husbands, Auntie Maryam! I want to know if—" She stopped herself. Umma mustn't know what she was up to. Camelia returned to her nervous vigil for Zachariah, who had said he had something important for her.

  "Umma," Yasmina said, as she took a raspberry tart from the tray Badawiya had just brought from the oven. She bit into it, finding it deliciously sweet and warm. "Why do women come to you when they're sick and not go to a real doctor like Papa?"

  Amira carefully dried the cups and placed them in the cabinet. "They come to me out of modesty."

  "But Papa has female patients, too."

  "I do not know those women, Mishmish. But the ones who come to me do not wish to expose themselves to a strange man."

  "Why aren't there more women doctors then? Shouldn't there be the same number of women doctors as men doctors? Doesn't that make sense?"

  "So many questions!" Amira said, glancing again at Maryam.

  Maryam envied Amira, with all these young people about, and the promise of more babies soon to come into the house. Maryam's own children had left home long ago and now lived in different parts of the world, even as far away as California. Maryam had seen her grandchildren in person only once, and now her first great-grandchild was on the way. Perhaps it was time to take a long vacation and visit the children. After all, she and Suleiman were in their sixties. How much longer could they put it off, just because Misrahi Imports was losing profits and Suleiman had to work night and day? Wasn't family more important than business? I'll bring it up tonight, she decided, when he comes home for Sabbath.

  Sahra was in the kitchen as well, listening to all the talk as she lifted a tray of hot sesame buns out of the oven. She was thirty years old now, and growing plump. And she was no longer a kitchen girl. As Badawiya, who had been with the family since before Ibrahim was born, grew older and less able to do things, Sahra gradually took over, and it was understood that someday, when Badawiya retired, Sahra would be the main cook for the Rasheed family.

  She smiled when she heard Camelia sigh, "Oh, where is he?" Sahra was devoted to the master's children, just as she was devoted to the master, and over the years she had been able to piece together a kind of story. Because the family's annual visit to the cemetery came fourteen days after her own birthday, Sahra had been able to calculate that the mother for whom Camelia went to pray had died the night Sahra had seen the master weeping beside the canal. That must have been the night, therefore, that Camelia was born. Sahra's heart went out to the poor motherless girl, and to her sister Yasmina as well, because it was the disappointment of her birth that had driven the master to adopt Sahra's son, Zachariah. In a way, Sahra felt like a kind of mother to all three.

  "Auntie Maryam," Camelia said as she looked out the window, absently rubbing her shoulder, which was bruised from Omar's boorishness. "Have you been to see that film yet, the one starring Dahiba?"

  "Your Uncle Suleiman is too busy to go to movies."

  "Oh, but you should go! You have never seen anyone dance like Dahiba! Maybe you and grandmother could go together."

  But Amira, who had overheard, laughed and said, "Where do I have time to go to the movies!" Then she said to Yasmina, "Mrs. Abdel Rahman telephoned this morning to ask if I would take my special hyssop tea to her sister on Fahmy Pasha Street. The children are down with summer fever. Will you come with me, Mishmish?"

  "I'd love to, Umma. I'll get us a taxi."

  Just then Zachariah came into the kitchen. When he kissed his grandmother, she asked, "Is your father home from the mosque?"

  "His car is just pulling in," he said, retrieving a pickle from a jar and crunching it.

  One of the kitchen girls was preparing the small birds known as assa-feer, plucking them, cutting off their beaks and legs, and tucking their heads into their bodies. As she rubbed them with seasoning and threaded them onto skewers, Zachariah turned away, a look of revulsion on his face. Sahra thought how like his father Abdu he was, possessing a boundless compassion for all living creatures.

  He was like Abdu in other ways as well, Sahra decided, in his love for making up poems, his love of God and the Koran, and physically, too. Zachariah had the same wide shoulders and green eyes, the same gentle smile, that it was almost like being with her beloved Abdu again. She wondered if he had any memories of the first three years of his life, when she had breastfed him.

  When Amira finally left the kitchen, Camelia rushed up to her brother. "Did you get it for me, Zakki? Did you get it?"

  The day after they had gone to the movies, a month ago, Camelia had come to him and said, "Oh Zakki, I simply must find out where Dahiba lives! I must meet her. I want to study with her. Look, I've memorized her dance routine, the one she performs in the movie. I just know that when she sees me do it, she'll take me on as a protegee. But I have to find out where she lives! Please find out for me."

  Now he grinned and produced a piece of paper. "This cost me fifty piastres," he said. "I had to bribe someone at the Cage d'Or, where she dances."

  "It's her address!" Camelia cried.

  "I walked by her place, Lili," he said excitedly. "She lives in a penthouse apartment, and she has bodyguards and a Chevrolet! I saw her come out of the building. By God, Egypt still has a queen!"

  "I shall faint!" Camelia cried. Then she kissed him and said, "I shall adore you for the rest of my life, Zakki! Thank you, thank you!"

  "What are you going to do?" he called after her. But she had already gone.

  "Where are we, Grandmoth
er?" Yasmina asked, looking out of the taxi. They were in a section of Cairo she had never visited before, on a street called Tree of Pearls.

  Amira did not reply immediately. She and Yasmina had paid a visit to Mrs. Abdel Rahman's sister and her sick children, but when they left, instead of telling their driver to take them back to Virgins of Paradise Street, Amira had asked him to bring them here. And now they were in front of the very place where Amira had first met Ali Rasheed, forty-six years ago.

  Amira believed that the house had been torn down, but this was only partly true. The main building still stood—a large stone residence not unlike her own house on Virgins of Paradise Street—but the grounds and gardens had been divided, and shops and apartments now abutted the nineteenth-century mansion. Girls in uniforms hurried up the front steps with book bags and lunch boxes. The house was now a school.

  This house, Amira marveled, as she studied the ornate façade as if expecting powerful memories to spring from it, this house where I had once been imprisoned in a harem is now a place where girls become educated and are free. She closed her eyes and tried to travel back over the years, tried to make her thoughts go on a journey into the past, to travel and explore the marble corridors, to see if she could find herself there, remember anything more about a terrified seven-year-old among strangers. Could she envision her mother there also? Or where? In a desert?

  Why can't I remember being brought here? Why do I only remember the day I left this place?

  Try as she did, Amira could not bring back the memories. But although the past remained elusive, one thing did come to her—a sudden understanding. I was brought here, but not with my mother; that was when I was taken from my mother; there's something ... She was trying to protect me, I was grabbed away and watched over by a tall black man wearing a scarlet turban.

  Looking at Yasmina, Amira thought: This is what my dreams were saying, this is why I came here today. But why now? Am I being warned about something? Is Yasmina to be taken away from me to go and live with a man who is not of our family?