Virgins of Paradise

by Wood, Barbara

  My son said that we would not mourn for you, granddaughter of my heart. But I mourn for you, and I have done so every single day since that terrible night.

  When Amira heard Zachariah say to Sahra, "Come, sit down. You don't look well," she marveled at how their secret had survived all these years. When Ibrahim had brought the beggar girl into the house twenty-eight years ago, Amira had feared she would tell the truth about the baby. But Sahra had never once betrayed that confidence; to this day, she was taken to be the family cook, and Zachariah the Rasheed heir.

  The door to the garden swung open and Alice came into the kitchen, dressed to go out. Sweeping past Amira, she kissed her grandson, Mohammed. "Look what I have for you, darling," she said, handing him an envelope. "This just came. An Easter card from your Mama."

  As the other children tried to look at the pretty card from America, Alice said to Mohammed, "You know, when I was a little girl back in England, we would rise very early on Easter Sunday and go outside to look into the pond and watch the sun dance."

  He regarded her with big eyes. "How can the sun dance, Grandmother?"

  "It dances for joy over the resurrection of Jesus." When she tried to wipe chocolate off his cheek, Nefissa took the card out of his hand and said, "Come here, baby. Grandma has a treat for you."

  Alice looked at Ibrahim's sister, whose face was hard beneath her makeup, and she thought: Long ago we were friends; now we are rival grandmothers.

  "I'm going out, Mother Amira," Alice said. "Shopping with Camelia."

  "Alice, my dear, you look pale. Are you all right?"

  "I have a touch of diarrhea," Alice said, pulling on her gloves.

  "The whole family seems to have come down with something. I'll prepare a tea of savory leaves. Alice, may I have a word with you?"

  They stepped out of the hearing of the others, and Amira said, "I have decided to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, and I would like you to go with me."

  "Me? You want me to go with you to Saudi Arabia?"

  "I have been wanting to make this journey for a long time, but I can never find the right opportunity. But I consulted with Qettah this morning, and I realize that now is the time for me to go. Would you like to accompany me?"

  Alice thought for a moment, then she said, "Is it a long trip?"

  "It can be long or short, however we wish it to be." She gave Alice a searching look. "I will go there to pray at the Ka'aba. Arabia is a very spiritual place, a good place to contemplate one's life. But anyway," Amira said, "think about it. I must go to see Ibrahim now. I want to leave as soon as possible."

  The auditorium of the Cairo Women's Union was packed; over a thousand women had come to hear Muammar-al Qadaffi, president of Libya, speak on the future of Arab women. When Camelia entered the hall, she stood out from the crowd in such a way that others stared. Because of her willowy dancer's body and high heels, she gave the impression of being very tall. Heavy kohl outlined her amber eyes, and her thick black hair was caught up carelessly in a single clip, creating a stormy cloud around her head. Women usually stared at her with envy, men with lust. But in the years that she had been in the public eye, Camelia Rasheed's name had been linked to not a single scandal, not a hint of romance, despite her arresting beauty. And so her reputation increased the envy, the lust.

  She took a seat in one of the front rows, between the director of the Red Crescent and the wife of the minister of health. Now that Sadat was president, Egypt was once again the art center of the Arab world, and Camelia had become a well-known celebrity. Women came up to congratulate her on her latest film, saying, "Your family must be so proud." But as far as Camelia knew, none of her family ever went to her movies or attended her nightclub shows. Even though she was once again welcome at Virgins of Paradise Street, her relationship with Amira was still strained. "You are a Rasheed," her grandmother would say. "And Rasheed women do not dance in front of strange men." The reconciliation Camelia had hoped for between Umma and Dahiba had never materialized, each stubbornly insisting that the other must take the first step.

  She wished Dahiba were here today. But, unable to get her poetry published in Egypt, Dahiba had been forced to go abroad, and had flown to Lebanon to meet with a publisher who had agreed to publish her work. Others had not been so lucky. Only last year, Dr. Nawal al Saadawi, Egypt's greatest feminist writer, had been placed on the government blacklist and her books and papers confiscated. Some women here today were feminists, Camelia knew, some were not, many were undecided, not knowing how to apply the recent influx of Western feminism to a society whose values and traditions differed so from those of the West. But Camelia had found her position: it was time, she believed, for the women of Egypt to step into the twentieth century and claim their rights as human beings equal to men. Starting with, she decided now, thinking of her friend Shemessa, who had recently undergone a messy illegal abortion, a woman's right to have control over her own body.

  Finally the program began. The audience settled down, President Sadat introduced the guest speaker, and when Qadaffi came onstage, instead of beginning his talk, he surprised everyone by turning his back to the audience and writing something on the chalkboard behind the podium. The hall was silent at first, and then murmurs began, growing into loud talk. Camelia stared in shock at what the Libyan president had written: "Virginity. Menstruation. Childbirth."

  Turning to the stunned gathering, Qadaffi went on to explain that equality for women was impossible because of their anatomy and physiology; he declared that, like cows, women had been put on earth to bear children and suckle their young, not to work beside men.

  The audience exploded.

  Women shot to their feet, enraged and insulted, and when he defended his position by saying that women had inferior constitutions and could not be expected to withstand the rigors that men did—the heat in factories, the heavy loads of construction workers—a celebrated journalist rose and spoke in such a commanding voice that the meeting grew hushed. "Mr. President," she said, "have you ever passed a kidney stone? Men assure me that it is very painful, unendurable in fact. Imagine therefore, Mr. President, passing a stone one hundred times the size of a normal one, the size, let's say, of a watermelon. Would you be able to bear it?"

  The women clapped and cheered until Camelia thought the roof would fall in. She looked at her watch. The meeting had started late; she wondered if Alice was already outside waiting for her.

  As Alice's taxi pulled up in front of the Cairo Women's Union, she thought: Saudi Arabia! And she was surprised to find that the prospect of going there with Amira was exciting. And perhaps, as Amira had said, it would be an opportunity to reflect upon her own life, too.

  Alice's depression had deepened since Yasmina had left Egypt. What she had once imagined as a cold subterranean stream eroding away the rock and stone of her soul now seemed more like a raging river, boiling just below the surface of her skin. Sometimes she even heard it in her ears, like two massive waterfalls. "High blood pressure," Dr. Sanky, the English doctor on Ezbekiya Street, had said, giving her some pills she never took. It wasn't blood pressure, Alice knew, it was melancholia, the old-fashioned word that was written on her mother's death certificate under "cause of death."

  And now, as she considered taking a journey to Mecca with Amira, she thought about something she had seen from the car a few minutes earlier. The taxi had stopped at an intersection, and Alice had looked out and seen a poster, advertising 7Up, plastered to a crumbling wall next to an ancient mosque. And it had struck her that there was an invisible war being waged in Cairo, a quiet, unseen, deadly war—between the past and the future, between East and West. American soft drinks were in demand, while at the same time religious leaders were preaching about a return to the old ways. As the car had driven on, the image had stayed in Alice's mind: the modern bright red-and-green poster juxtaposed against a medieval minaret. The more she thought of the image, the more she understood its significance in relation to herself. Perhaps a trip would
be good therapy, she decided. A few weeks away from Virgins of Paradise Street and away from Ibrahim, a chance to stand back and take a good look at my life.

  When a long black limousine pulled into the spot vacated by the taxi, people on the street stopped to stare. Since the death of Abdel Nasser three years ago, and Sadat's ousting of the Russians, ostentation had returned to Egypt. This was Dahiba's limousine, the one she had kept in storage during the Nasser years. She was a bigger star than ever now, her shows were standing room only, and her movies drew huge crowds; Dahiba was a goddess, and Egyptians liked to see their goddesses live well.

  It was not Dahiba, however, who alighted from the flashy car, but a miniature goddess with two long braids and a missing front tooth, who sprang to the sidewalk crying, "Auntie Alice! Auntie Alice!" Alice knelt to take the six-year-old into a tight embrace, inhaling the fragrance of freshly washed hair.

  "Are you ready to go shopping today, darling?" Alice asked, as she stood up and waved at Hakim Raouf, who was getting out of the car.

  Zeinab hopped up and down, holding on to Alice's hand. "Mama said I can have a new dress! May I, Auntie Alice?" The "Mama" she referred to was Camelia, who she thought was her mother. But little Zeinab with the withered leg was in fact Yasmina's daughter, and Alice was not her auntie but her grandmother.

  "God's peace be with you, my lovely lady," Dahiba's husband called as he approached. Years and prosperity had added to the movie director's girth, but he carried it well, in expensively tailored Italian suits. A wave of cologne preceded him, as well as the scent of Cuban cigars and, despite it not yet being noon, a hint of Scotch whiskey. His florid cheeks puffed out in a genuine smile as he greeted Alice, but he refrained from embracing her as he would in private, since it would scandalize the passersby.

  "Good day to you, Mr. Raouf. I hope things go well for you."

  He threw out his hands. "Prosperous, as you can see, my beautiful lady! But I grow increasingly frustrated. The government will not let me make the films I want to. Films about real issues. Perhaps I should follow my wife to Lebanon, where there is more freedom."

  Raouf had tried to make a movie about a woman who murdered her husband and his lover. But the government had stopped production. His message in the film was to have been: a man can kill a woman and virtually get away with it, but the law severely punishes a woman for the same crime. But the censor had said, "When a man kills a woman, it is to protect his honor. But women have no honor."

  "We got a telephone call from Auntie Dahiba!" Zeinab said excitedly, tugging on Alice's hand. "All the way from Beirut!"

  Alice's heart ached to look at the little girl, so perfect, so beautiful, except for the leg that forced her to walk so awkwardly. Zeinab was the image of Yasmina at six, but a sepia version, since although she had Yasmina's blue eyes, she had the dark coloring of Hassan al-Sabir.

  Alice was about to enquire about the call when the doors of the auditorium opened, briefly releasing the feminine uproar inside, and Camelia appeared. "Hello, Auntie," she said, kissing Alice. "The meeting started late, so I sneaked out early. Do you hear those women in there? They want to roast President Qadaffi on a spit!"

  Camelia lifted Zeinab into her arms and planted a big kiss on her cheek. "And how is my baby?"

  Zeinab giggled and squirmed. "You saw me only an hour ago, Mama! Auntie Alice says she's going to buy me a chocolate egg. May I have it, Mama, please?"

  Camelia's eyes briefly met Alice's in a silent communication. Neither was thinking of chocolate eggs, but of the unspoken issue constantly between them.

  When Camelia had returned home from Port Said six years ago and asked where Yasmina was, Amira had sat her down and told her what had happened to her sister—how Ibrahim had banished her from the family; how her child had been born slightly deformed. Camelia tried to defend her sister: "Hassan forced her. She did it to save the family." But when Camelia saw the poor deformed baby Yasmina had rejected, her sympathy for her sister had turned to anger. "Take the child," Amira had said. "You can never bear children, but God has given you a daughter."

  And so Camelia had adopted her niece and named her after Sayyida Zeinab, the Mother of Cripples.

  Zeinab was now her life, and it was for the little orphan that Camelia kept her reputation spotless. She didn't take lovers; she was never seen alone in the company of a man. And a respectable, tragic story had been invented to explain the child: Zeinab's father had died heroically in the Six-Day War.

  The child was also the reason why Camelia had stopped dancing at the Cage d'Or. Since Oriental dance had grown in popularity, a hierarchy had evolved—the highest class of dancers performed only in five-star hotels such as the Hilton. Those of lesser skill and more dubious moral repute danced at clubs and cabarets. And finally, also for Zeinab's sake as well as her own, since a female performer without a male protector was taken advantage of by hotel managements and was a target for lustful admirers, Camelia had asked Dahiba's husband, Hakim Raouf, to act as her manager.

  As they walked to the limousine, Hakim saying that he had just received a phone call from Dahiba in Beirut to announce that her book was going to be published in October, Alice sensed Camelia's confused emotions, as she often did when she and Camelia were together and Zeinab was the catalyst to the past. But Alice was never going to tell the truth. She had learned from Amira the art of keeping secrets. Just as Alice had lied to the others about Yasmina leaving the child behind, and had lied to Yasmina about the baby being born dead, so did she continue to lie each time she wrote to Yasmina, reporting the family news but never mentioning the daughter Yasmina did not know she had. Alice had done it for one reason only: to give Yasmina the chance to break free of the family, to escape from Egypt as she herself never had.

  "Guess what," she said. "Mother Amira has asked me to go to Arabia with her."

  "So she is finally going," Camelia said. "For as long as I can remember, Umma has been planning to make the pilgrimage. How exciting for you, Alice!"

  When they reached the car, Alice suddenly fell against it. "Merciful Heaven," she murmured.

  Hakim caught her elbow. "What is it, my dear?"

  "I haven't felt well all morning, and now—" she clasped her stomach and grimaced—"I'm going to throw up!"

  "We'll take you to the hospital. Get in, quickly."

  "No! No hospital ... Just over there, down that street, Ibrahim's office. Hurry."

  Amira waited until Ibrahim's nurse left the room before she said, "I couldn't wait to tell you, my son. Preparations for the journey must begin at once."

  Ibrahim removed his white lab coat and hung it up carefully. "I am pleased that you have decided at last to go, Mother, but you're not going on your own, are you?"

  "Of course not. Ibrahim, I've asked Alice to go with me."

  "Alice! What did she say?"

  "She said she would think about it, but I sense that she likes the idea. It will do her good, Ibrahim. Ever since Yasmina went away, you and Alice have not been happy. Perhaps a pilgrimage to the most holy place on earth will revive her spirit. Perhaps," she added, "you would like to come with us?"

  As he watched his nurse, Huda, roll the medicine cart back into the examining room, Ibrahim thought about his wife. In the six years since Yasmina's departure, Alice seemed to have changed little, except possibly to grow quieter. She still tended her English garden beneath the penetrating Egyptian sun, still went to Fifi's once a week to touch up her fading blond hair. And she had cultivated a small knot of friends—the wife of a professor at the American University, both from Michigan; an Englishwoman named Madeline, married in a lukewarm way to an Egyptian; and Mrs. Flornoy, a Canadian widow who had settled in Cairo after her American husband had died of malaria. The four expatriate women got together two nights a week for bridge and nostalgia, a respite from the overwhelming Egyptianness of their lives. But Ibrahim knew that these mundane rituals were something for Alice to hide behind, that they were the daily, commonplace acts of living tha
t kept her from confronting the pain and anger he suspected she must be feeling. For he felt them himself, and so he, too, lived according to a basic, uncomplicated plan: rise with the sun, go through the motions of prayer, eat breakfast, go to the office, see his patients, sleep through the siesta, rise for more prayers, dinner, more patients, and the late-night hours made busy with books, correspondence, radio. He rarely saw Alice; he had not asked her to come to his bedroom since the night Yasmina left.

  They never spoke of that terrible time in June, on the eve of Egypt's humiliating defeat; Ibrahim would not even let himself think about it. There were moments, however, when he thought of his old friend Hassan, who had died under mysterious circumstances. The newspapers had reported simply that Hassan had been murdered; there had been no mention that his genitals had been cut off. And the police had never found out who did it.

  "I cannot go to Saudi Arabia with you, Mother," he said, reaching for his jacket, "but if Alice wishes to, then she has my permission to do so."

  "It would do you good to make the pilgrimage, my son. God's grace will heal you."

  Ibrahim considered the vastness of Arabia's desert and sky, and thought that they gave a man too much room for thinking. Besides, he knew that going through the motions of a pilgrimage was as fruitless as the empty prayers he now recited five times a day. How can God grant grace to a man who has lost his faith? To a man who once cursed Him ...

  He paused to watch his nurse get ready to leave for the afternoon. Huda was a vaguely pretty, capable nurse of twenty-two, who had to hurry home every day and cook for her father and five younger brothers. She had once laughingly told Ibrahim, "When I was born, my father was so angry that his first child was a girl, that he threatened my mother with divorce if she didn't give him a son the next time. Bismillah, he must have put the fear of Satan in her, because she never had another girl after that!"

  Ibrahim had asked her what her father did, and when she had said, "He sells sandwiches in Talaat Harb Square," Ibrahim had envied a sandwich seller.