Virgins of Paradise

by Wood, Barbara

  "She will paint them in, as we do. A woman is more beautiful this way."

  The depilatory ritual was accompanied by a party for all the Rasheed female relatives. They had come to the house on Virgins of Paradise Street dressed in their finest clothes to shower praises, gifts, and advice upon the new bride, and to feast and gossip and dance. Qettah the astrologer was there also, the ageless woman who had been present at Yasmina's birth. Much older now, she had to squint over her charts and calculations as she forecast the horoscopes of Omar and Yasmina—a match of the star Hamal in Aries, a cruel and brutal star, with the softly yellow Mirach in Andromeda.

  Yasmina was excited. Tomorrow she was going to be a wife, and in a home of her very own! Breaking with the tradition that a son brought his wife to live in his mother's house, Omar had taken an apartment near the river. Now that he was going to receive a generous inheritance from his father, he had declared, he could afford his own place, and independence.

  When all the sugar paste was removed, Yasmina bathed, and her cousins massaged the oils of almond and roses into her tingling skin. Then she was helped into new clothes, her hair was dressed, and she was escorted into the salon to join the merrymaking.

  Alice hugged her daughter. "I am so happy for you, darling." And then she said a surprising thing. "There is something you should know, now that you will be married. You will have an income of your own, my darling. You are going to receive an inheritance from your English grandfather, the Earl of Pemberton."

  "But you told me he never approved of your marriage to Papa!"

  "My father was a narrow-minded man, but he had a strong sense of duty. When he died two years ago, he left a portion of his estate to you. There's some money in your name, to be released to you when you get married, and one of the family houses." To Alice, the earl had left nothing.

  It was finally time for Amira to explain to Yasmina what to expect on her wedding night, when she would be alone with Omar. They went into the bedroom and closed the door against the music and laughter, and when Amira described to her granddaughter what Omar was going to do, Yasmina said, "Did your mother tell you these things when you married Grandfather Ali?"

  "One of your duties as a wife," Amira continued, avoiding Yasmina's question because the family did not know about the kidnapping, or that Amira did not know her real family, "is that when you go to bed at night, you must always be sweet smelling. Before falling asleep, you must ask your husband three times: 'Is there anything you desire?' If there is nothing, then you are free to go to sleep. But remember, it is not for you to tell him of your desire. A woman who initiates the act is a suspect wife."

  As Amira talked about the mystery of a man and woman being together, Yasmina was reminded of a similar talk they had had, when Yasmina had been twelve and had discovered blood on her nightgown. "Each woman has a moon that lives in her," Amira had explained. "Its cycle is the same as that of the moon in the sky, it waxes and wanes the same way. It is there to remind us that we are part of God and His stars."

  But now Amira was giving instructions: "It is wise to resist him at first. This shows to your new husband that you are not roused to passion and so he will respect you. Never act as though you are enjoying it, for then he will accuse you of loose morals. But while resistance is wise," Amira added, "refusal is forbidden. And when he enters you, invoke the name of God, or else a jinni might possess you first."

  But Yasmina wasn't worried about the marriage act; she was going to be with her cousin Omar, so she knew she had nothing to fear.

  A carriage decorated with flowers and drawn by four white horses pulled up in front of the Nile Hilton, and the bride and groom stepped down. The many guests were already there, ready to join the zeffa, the procession that would lead into the ballroom where the wedding reception was to take place. Amid cheers and applause and zaghareets, Omar in a tuxedo and Yasmina in a white wedding gown with a long train followed bagpipers in galabeyas, beledi dancers in glittering costumes, musicians playing lutes and flutes and drums. For luck, friends and relatives tossed coins at the bridal couple as the noisy procession wound slowly through the hotel and finally into the ballroom. Omar and Yasmina were placed on two flower-covered thrones and there they would stay for the entire evening, while their guests feasted from groaning buffet tables, entertained by singers, comedians, and dance troupes in endless succession.

  As Alice took a place on the women's side of the ballroom, she thought about how strange it was that there should be no church ceremony, not even a ceremony in the mosque. There had been no ceremony at all; in fact, religion did not seem to enter into this wedding. Egyptian custom required only that two male relatives representing the bride and groom—in this case Ibrahim and Omar himself, since Omar's father was dead—signed the contract and shook hands. The bride, in another room, was then informed that she was married. No vows, no kiss at the altar.

  As people congratulated her on the marriage of her beautiful daughter, with Alice shaking hands with more relatives than she had thought it possible for one family to contain, she pondered the strangeness of this Egyptian preference for cousins as marriage partners. And she had discovered there was even a precise formula: the first choice for a girl was the son of her father's brother; if one was not available, then the son of the father's sister came next. And it was not for the young people to do the choosing and deciding. The mother of a marriageable girl found an eligible boy and called upon his mother. Over the course of several visits they discussed the boy's future prospects as a provider, the girl's health and childbearing qualities, the status of each family, and above all, each family's honor. Finally, the bride-price that the boy's family was to pay was agreed upon, the bride's parents announced the gifts they would give the couple, and the male guardians met and drew up the papers. Only then was the couple informed.

  It seemed to Alice a rather cold and calculating way to get married, but perhaps it was better than the love-match method, since so much more than just love was considered. Because, after all, how long did love last? She looked over at Ibrahim on the men's side of the room. Theirs had been a love match, and see how it had failed.

  But just why had love left their marriage? Alice wasn't sure, nor did she know exactly when the happiness between her and Ibrahim had died. Perhaps it was the night of Camelia's circumcision, or possibly earlier, when Alice had caught the two girls playing with melayas and had been afraid of the future once the British left Egypt. And then they had left, and some of the old ways had returned, as predicted. But the failure of their marriage stemmed also from Ibrahim himself, from his coldness after he had returned from prison. Alice had waited and hoped for the old passion to come back, but a love that was already endangered, she realized, could not survive for long on such a slender thread of hope. Especially as, with each passing day in which Alice had waited for Ibrahim to send for her to come to his bed, she had dwelt more and more upon the fact that he had already had a wife when he married her in Monte Carlo, a fact that she had once been able to forgive, but which she now believed had contributed to the fact that the roots of their love had not been planted deep enough to grow.

  Ibrahim looked her way and their eyes met briefly. He was thinking of the potion Amira had given him. He was going to mix it into Alice's drink tonight, after the party.

  And then he looked at Yasmina, his beautiful golden angel, the baby who had captured his heart in her first hour of life. He prayed that she would be happy with Omar, that her life was always going to be perfect and fulfilled. He was glad she had married his sister's son and not a stranger. And especially he was glad she had not married Hassan. Hassan, the brother who had betrayed him and whom he would never forgive.

  Amira sat in a place of honor nearest the bridal couple, for the first time in her life appearing without her protective melaya. She was among the most fashionably and expensively dressed, in a black beaded gown with long sleeves and a hem that brushed the floor. At Alice's suggestion, she had replaced her old-fa
shioned bun with a modest but modern bouffant hairstyle that curled just below her ears. Even so, around her neck and shoulders was a black chiffon scarf, to be drawn over her head and across her face when she left the hotel after the party.

  Amira was so filled with joy at the sight of Omar and Yasmina on their thrones that she silently recited her favorite sura from the Koran: "God will reward them with the gardens of Eden, gardens watered by running streams, where they shall dwell forever." Then her thoughts shifted to marriage matches for her other children. It was going to be hard work, she knew, and require a lot of care. Well-to-do parents always had a more difficult time in this endeavor than the rest of the population, because their prospects were fewer. Anyone could marry "up," but no one married "down."

  And so Amira was pleased to notice the way Jamal Rasheed kept his eyes on Camelia all evening. A recent widower in his forties, with six children, he was comfortably situated—he owned several apartment buildings in Cairo; he was a Rasheed, being the grandson of the brother of Ali Rasheed's father. Amira decided that she would send him a message in the next few days, alerting him of her intention to visit, and the reason why. Camelia had never voiced the desire to go to university as Yasmina had; Amira believed she would be pleased that her grandmother had arranged such a good match for her.

  Then there was shy Tahia, who was also seventeen and who had just received her high school certificate. She, too, had voiced no intention of continuing with school and seemed to Amira to be obediently waiting for her mother and grandmother to arrange a match.

  And there was Zachariah, not truly of her own blood, but she felt a duty to settle his future all the same. Amira loved him and was proud of him, and she recalled the day the family had celebrated his having learned all hundred and fourteen chapters of the Koran, at only eleven years old. Amira was uncertain about how to arrange a marriage for Zachariah; he wasn't like the others—the spiritual aspects of life seemed to come ahead of anything else for him. Perhaps he might study to become an imam first, and preach at the mosque on Fridays.

  When Yasmina caught Amira's eye, she smiled and shifted in her chair. She was becoming weary from sitting for such a long time, she was anxious to move into the new apartment and start a new life. She was a wife now. And next month she was starting at university! She and Omar would take the tram to school together, and ride home together, and study in the evenings at the same table. Someday he would have a job with the government—President Nasser had promised all university graduates a civil service job after college—and she would have babies. She and Omar would be very smart, educated, modern parents who shared equally in all responsibilities, hampered by none of the old-fashioned inequities of the older generation. Life was so wonderful that when she saw her sister at the buffet table, she couldn't help but wave, thinking she was going to faint with happiness.

  Camelia, helping herself to generous portions of kebab and rice in an effort to gain the weight Dahiba had demanded, returned her sister's wave. But her mind was on other matters, foremost being her disappointment that Uncle Hassan hadn't come to the wedding. She had hoped he would be here so they could talk, and maybe he would notice that she was no longer a child. She often wondered if he had ever thought of getting married again. She also wondered why he hadn't come to the wedding.

  A beledi dancer came onto the stage, skilled, but not superior, and Camelia thought of the past eight exhausting but blissful weeks she had spent studying in secret with Dahiba, a demanding and exacting instructor. Dahiba would say "Give me this rhythm," or "Give me that rhythm," and Camelia would be expected to do it, without music. Dahiba was also teaching her about costuming and cosmetics, and how to flirt with the audience. The afternoons with Dahiba were so sublime that Camelia was starting to resent having to go to the ballet studio first. But she couldn't stop ballet, because then she would no longer have an excuse for going out in the afternoon three times a week. But she was learning fast, Dahiba had said. Possibly within a year, when she was eighteen, Camelia might have a small part in the show.

  When Zachariah walked by with two plates, she winked at him. Thanks to him, and to the help of Tahia and Yasmina, Camelia was beginning to see her dream come true. When he did not return the wink, nor even smile, she remembered the unhappy news he had received that afternoon: a classmate of whom he had been very fond had killed himself that morning. "He was a bastard, Lili," Zachariah had said, with tears streaming down his cheeks. "His mother was never married, he never knew who his father was. The boys at school taunted him mercilessly about it, but he withstood it bravely. And then he fell in love with a girl in his neighborhood and hoped to marry her, but when his mother paid a call on the girl's mother, the girl's mother said that no family, no matter how lowly, would allow a daughter to marry him. What decent woman would want to marry a man who didn't know who his father was? He could not lead an honorable life, so he chose an honorable death."

  Zachariah returned to his table, where he handed a plate of food to elderly Uncle Kareem, who could only walk with a cane. As he watched the acrobats on the stage, he glanced at Tahia, who was sitting with Umma, Auntie Alice, and Auntie Nefissa. Zachariah was worried that Umma might try to find someone to marry Tahia. He was only sixteen, how could he ask to be betrothed to her? He was going to have to work up the courage to approach Grandmother. When a famous comedian came out on stage, the audience laughed before he even opened his mouth, but Zachariah noticed that Uncle Suleiman, sitting next to him, didn't laugh, and he wondered why.

  Suleiman Misrahi was worrying about his business. Every day the government imposed stricter rules on the import trade in an effort to boost consumerism in Egyptian-made goods. Profits were down so sharply that Suleiman had had to let a lot of old, loyal employees go. It was even looking as if he might have to sell the big house on Virgins of Paradise Street and move into an apartment. He was sorry he had had to tell Maryam they could not take a trip and visit the children. He was even sorrier that no wine was being served at this reception; he could use some now, in quantity.

  The last and most important beledi dancer appeared. She performed, not for the audience, but for the bride, a dance symbolizing the bride's transition from virgin to sexual being. Wearing a revealing costume and moving seductively, she evoked independence, sexuality, and unharnessed feminine power, all directed toward the demure bride, who sat stiffly and primly in virginal white, demonstrating by her serious manner that she was not moved by the dance.

  When it was over the party came to an end, the guests departed, and the immediate family members climbed into taxis to escort the bridal couple to their new apartment.

  The men stayed in the parlor as the women escorted Yasmina into the bedroom, where they helped her out of her wedding gown and into a nightdress. They arranged her on the bed and lifted up her shift, then Amira held Yasmina from behind while Omar took his position on the bed. When he wrapped the handkerchief around his finger, the women turned their backs, and Amira looked away. Yasmina cried out, blood was drawn.

  As Ibrahim and Alice entered the house, he undid his tie and said, "It was a good wedding, wasn't it, my dear."

  "I don't like that barbaric virginity ritual."

  He took her arm. "Will you come to my room for a few minutes?"

  "I am tired, Ibrahim." It was what she always said.

  "Let's drink a toast to our daughter's happiness. I have some brandy."

  She looked at him. The wedding had made her sentimental; she remembered her own wedding, so long ago, to a handsome man whom she had vowed to love and obey until she died. She went with him. Ibrahim watched her carefully as she sipped the brandy, and realized with relief that she didn't detect the underlying flavor of Amira's potion. She was soon tipsy. "I'm not used to drinking!" she said, laughing.

  But rather than make her romantic, as Ibrahim had expected it to, the drink only made her groggy. He kissed her, but she didn't return his kiss. But she didn't push him away either, so he slipped the strap of her eve
ning gown off her shoulder. When she didn't resist, he continued to undress her, but she hung like a rag doll in his arms, a dreamy, faraway look on her face. She didn't seem to be aware of what he was doing; she even giggled.

  This was not what he wanted, Ibrahim thought, as he carried Alice into the bedroom and laid her on his bed. He had wanted her to be a willing partner, to be warm and responsive. But he also wanted a son. As he slipped under the covers and took her into an embrace, Ibrahim felt more shameful than he ever had with any of his prostitutes.

  Zachariah couldn't sleep. He kept thinking of his friend, who had drowned himself in the Nile. Had heaven embraced him? Zachariah wondered, as he went down to the garden to find relief from the hot August night. Has Latif today gazed upon the face of the Eternal One?

  He was startled to find Tahia sitting there in the moonlight. Sorrow for Latif vanished as he thought: she is a mirage shimmering in the wilderness of longing.

  "May I sit with you?" he asked, and she smiled and moved over on the marble bench.

  He began to sing softly a popular love song, "Ya noori. You are my light."

  When she started to cry, he was startled. "What is it? What's wrong?"

  "I shall miss Mishmish! Oh Zakki! We're all growing up! We shall all leave and never see each other again! Our happiness will be gone! We shall never play in this garden together again!"

  He clumsily reached for her and was surprised when she put her arms around him and buried her face in his neck, wetting it with tears. He held her close and said soothing things, calling her Qatr al-Nana, beautiful dew-drop, and touching her hair, marveling at its softness. Tahia was so warm and giving in his arms that his feelings overwhelmed him. "I love you," he blurted. "The angels themselves must have rejoiced when you were born."

  And then his lips were seeking hers, and he found them soft and willing. He wanted more, but he stopped at the one kiss. When he and Tahia eventually made love it would be as God decreed in the Koran—in marriage only.