He turned on his heel and walked out. Amira knew better than to say another word. That night, she cried herself to sleep in Jihan’s comforting arms, all her hopes come to nothing.
An evening or two later, she overheard her mother and father talking. “As always, I bow to your wisdom and judgment,” Jihan said, her tone that peculiar combination of wheedling, flattery, and insistence she used when she wanted something from Omar. “But while I agree with you that Bahia is an excellent servant, she is, after all, only a servant. I only bring this matter up because I know that a man of your position and stature would want his children—both his children—to be well prepared for the future.
“I know you are aware that times are changing. Girls are to be educated now, at least to some extent. You yourself told me that the government plans to open a school for them—in less than two years, I believe you said. I know that if you were not so busy, you would have considered the matter of a proper nanny yourself. So I hope you will not take it amiss if I urge you to do so now.”
A moment later, Amira heard her father’s rumble: “I have made a good living all these years, thanks be to God, by being aware of changing times, although I haven’t always liked them. I dislike what you tell me, too, but there is something in it. Let it be done.”
That was how Miss Vanderbeek, Nanny Karin, came into Amira’s life.
Nanny Karin
“What’s she like, your blond nanny?”
Amira had heard the question a hundred times in the years since Miss Vanderbeek had joined the Badir household. Nannies were a staple of talk among her peers, all of whom had one. But no one else had a nanny like Miss Vanderbeek. Amira always tried to find a complaint to make about her—she was too strict, too serious, too foreign—because, as everyone knew, it was bad luck to praise those you loved.
“Oh, she’s all right, I suppose.” She shrugged now, making a small con- cession to approval because the person asking was Laila, and it was hard to hide the truth from the girl—the young woman, really—who had become Amira’s closest friend, now that Malik was so far away.
“Come on, now. Do you think she’s pretty?”
Amira thought that Miss Vanderbeek, with her milky skin and eyes the color of the clear noon sky, was beautiful. “I don’t know,” she said. “She doesn’t think so. And she is awfully thin.” That was true. By Remali stan- dards, Nanny Karin was almost emaciated. Everyone said that she would never find a man. But she had found one once.
“European women are thin. Look at Brigitte Bardot.” “Who?”
“The French movie star.” It was the kind of worldly information Laila always seemed to have at her fingertips. Amira had never heard of Brigitte Bardot.
“Skinny as a snake,” Laila continued. “But European men think it’s sexy.
Is Miss Vanderbeek sexy?”
“Laila!” Amira had heard about the conjugal relations of men and women for as long as she could remember, but the suggestion that some particular women—especially Nanny Karin—might be “sexy” was shocking. “Relax, little sparrow. I’m only joking. I know she’s had a tragic life.”
That was true, too. Both of them were silent for a moment, contemplating the delicious sadness of it.
O
“I came to al-Remal when I was just twenty-two,” Miss Vanderbeek had told Amira, “to work as a secretary and translator for a Dutch construction company. We were building a plant to take the salt from seawater and make it fit to drink.” She sighed deeply, as if the memory were still too painful to contemplate.
“And then you fell in love” Amira prodded, for she cherished the tale of her nanny’s romance and never tired of hearing it.
“Yes.” Miss Vanderbeek smiled. “I fell in love.” “With a Saudi. A pilot.”
“Yes. Actually, he owned his own plane and carried passengers between the main cities and the small coastal towns of Saudi Arabia. It was on one of his flights that we met. We exchanged a glance,” Miss Vanderbeek continued, “nothing more, but that was enough.”
Amira sighed. To meet one's love floating above the clouds, to recognize one’s qismah, one’s destiny. Could anything be more romantic?
“Lutfi wasn’t like the other men I’ve met here,” Miss Vanderbeek explained. “Just because I was a Western woman, he didn’t try to take advantage of me …” Amira nodded vigorously. She knew her nanny could never have passed Omar Badir’s door if her reputation had been clouded with even a hint of impropriety.
“No, he behaved honorably from the start. He wanted to call on my family, but my parents are dead, and I am alone in the world. And so he came to the man who seemed to be most responsible for me—my supervisor, Mr. Haas.”
Amira smiled. She liked this part of the story, which seemed a testimony to the perseverance of true love.
“But Mr. Haas was an engineer with a rather scientific and unsentimental nature. He simply could not understand why this pilot—‘a pleasant enough fellow,’ he said—began calling at the office once a week, bringing gifts, making pleasant small talk, mentioning my name as if in passing. Of course, Lutfi was hoping for an appropriate response, so he could take the next step and begin discussing his qualifications as a husband. But Mr. Haas never said a word. Poor Lutfi.” For a moment, Miss Vanderbeek seemed to be lost in bittersweet memory.
“When he told me later how desperate he was to make himself understood—without, of course, coming right out, saying it was me he wanted—I didn't know whether to laugh.or cry. Finally, on the sixth visit, when he was ready to state his purpose openly, regard- less of the consequence, Mr. Haas mentioned that I was planning to convert to Islam. It had nothing to do with Lutfi, my decision to convert. Al-Remal was the home I had been searching for since my parents died—and Islam was its religion. But Lutfi, that dear man, he was struck speechless by what he thought was a sign from heaven: that his greatest wish was in harmony with God’s will. He set his gifts on Mr. Haas’s desk, went to his plane, and flew away.
“Finally, my supervisor understood that he had been a bit blind. That afternoon, when he told me that I seemed to have an admirer, when he saw my face, he said, “I’ve been blind and a fool.” After that, he was more than ready to play matchmaker—or whatever else it took to help us get married.”
Miss Vanderbeek paused. Her shoulders slumped; her eyelids seemed to droop in an attitude of dejection. This part Amira did not like, for she much preferred stories that ended with “happily ever after.”
“But Lutfi’s family did not want him to marry me. They didn’t care whether or not I converted. To them, I was still a foreigner. A woman without a male relative to uphold my honor. A woman who worked among men.” Miss Vanderbeek spoke the words as if they were curses, and Amira flinched at the harshness of her tone.
“They could not stop him from marrying me, or so they said. But they told him that if he acted against their wishes, he would no longer be welcome under his father’s roof. It would be as if he were dead.
“Poor Lutfi! How he despaired. He said he could not live without me—yet he could not desert his family.”
“But you urged him to be patient. You said you would wait for him until his family relented,” Amira filled in. “Forever, if necessary.”
“Yes.” Miss Vanderbeek’s voice was almost a whisper. “Forever. But we did not have forever. Two years later, Lutfi’s plane crashed in the Red Sea near Jeddah. There were no passengers. And Lutfi’s body was never found.”
Amira reached out and touched her nanny’s hand. “But you stayed here in al- Remal.” “Yes, Amira, I stayed. I remained with the Dutch company until the project was finished. Then I worked for an American corporation, teaching languages to its employees and their children. But …”
“But you weren’t really happy with the Americans.”
“No, no, I wasn’t. It felt as if I were living in Texas rather than al-Remal. So, when I heard the Badir family was looking for a nanny who could also be a tutor …”
“You came here. And you’ll stay here forever—and we’ll all live happily ever after.” Nanny Karin did not answer. She simply stroked Amira’s hair and smiled her sad smile.
O
“That’s why I wonder what she’s really like,” said Laila now. “Tell me.” “Well, she’s not like the other nannies.”
“Wait! Do I see a pillar of flame? A message from God?”
Amira laughed. “You know what I mean.” She wasn’t talking about Nanny Karin’s blond hair. Miss Vanderbeek was different in more important ways. Most of the nannies were poor women from countries like Yemen or Ethiopia; Bahia was from the Sudan. Most, like Bahia, had been slaves until, barely a year ago, the king had finally abolished slavery, at least technically. And most, again like Bahia—and like the great majority of women in al-Re- mal—were illiterate.
“Sometimes I don’t understand why she stays here,” Amira said. “She could be teaching at a university somewhere. The things she teaches me …” Amira reached for the words, trying to explain how Nanny Karin painted word pictures of the world outside of al-Remal, how she brought to life its colors and textures and smells. But seeing the impatience in Laila’s face, she settled for: “Do you know I read English almost as well as Malik?”
“Really?”
“Don’t tell anyone. Father wouldn’t like it if he knew.” “Ha! And Malik would be jealous.”
“And she’s teaching me arithmetic.” Saying this, Amira lowered her voice. “What do you mean? Two and two are four?”
“We did that when she first came. I’m learning percentages now.” “What on Earth for?” Laila looked genuinely surprised.
“Nanny says you never can tell when something will come in handy. She says that the schools they’re starting for girls are just a beginning. All they teach now is the Koran, but someday girls will learn just like boys.” “Amira! Isn’t that against the Koran itself ?”
“Nanny says it isn’t. She says that nothing in the Koran says girls should be ignorant. It’s like the gutwah, the veil. That’s not the Koran either. Some rich women started wearing it a long time ago to be fashionable, now every- one does it. But it’s not in the Koran.”
“Miss Vanderbeek told you all this?”
“Yes. But please don’t ever mention it, Laila. I know it sounds awful, but it really isn’t.”
“Don’t worry. Your and Miss Vanderbeek’s secrets are safe with me,” Laila said a bit petulantly. “But she’s not the only one who knows things. Did you hear about the village girl who drowned in the well?”
“Of course.” How could she not have heard of it? It had been on every- one’s lips for two days.
“Well, it wasn’t an accident. And it wasn’t suicide, either.” “What do you mean?”
Now, it was Laila’s turn to lower her voice. “Someone saw her going into a man’s house in town. Her brothers found out. They threw her down that well. Everyone in the village heard her screams.”
“Laila! How do you know all this?”
“I told you Miss Vanderbeek wasn’t the only one who knows things. Would you like to hear more, little sparrow?”
Amira settled back to listen. Learning from Miss Vanderbeek was fun, but hard. It was nice to have a friend like Laila to talk with about real things in the real world. Someday soon, she would tell Laila about her secret wish—that Laila and Malik would marry, and they would all live together.
Friendship
It wasn’t just a fantasy. It could easily happen. In many ways, Laila Sibai was an ideal choice to be Malik’s wife. Her father, Abdullah, was Omar Badir’s lifelong friend and his business partner, so the alliance would make sense economically, uniting the two friends’ fortunes.
True, Laila and Malik were not cousins, but the preference for marriage between cousins was less pronounced in al-Remal than in many Arab countries, and in any case, Laila was virtually the same as a cousin, known to everyone, spending almost as much time at the Badir house as at her own. Her mother, Rajiyah, was Jihan’s close friend.
Besides—not that it counted for much in arranging marriages—Laila and Malik liked each other. Amira remembered Rajiyah scolding Laila more than once for playing and talking with Malik more than was seemly with a boy who was not mahram—that is, a male relative she could not marry.
Even after Laila had reached puberty and took the veil, Amira came upon her and Malik laughing in a secluded corner of the Badir garden. Amira must have looked shocked, because Laila smiled and said, “What’s the matter, spar- row? Should your brother and I become strangers just because I’m wrapped in cloth?”
That was just like Laila, who seemed to share Malik’s philosophy about knowing when to break the rules. Even if Amira disapproved—and she was not sure she did—she would never have said so. She idolized Laila. Obviously, one reason the older girl gave her such attention was because of Malik, but what did that matter? Amira idolized Malik, too. From her point of view, the perfect thing would be for her brother and her friend to marry.
It probably wouldn’t happen, though. The problem wasn’t so much that Malik was younger than Laila—it was only a matter of a year or so, and the Prophet himself had married a woman nearly old enough to be his mother—but that Malik was still a schoolboy, and Laila was a marriageable young woman. Her father could hardly be expected to wait for his old friend’s son to grow up; he would be looking for a mature and substantial husband for her—and soon.
O
“Listen! It’s them.”
A summer had passed, and another was not far away. Laila and Amira were huddled in Laila’s father’s library, forbidden territory for females, but Abdullah Sibai was in India buying silk, and there were no other men around. Under such circumstances, Laila’s mother often became inattentive, and Laila and Amira slipped into the library to listen to Abdullah’s elaborate and hugely expensive radio. Amira’s father had one just like it—he and Abdullah had gifted each other with the sets, on which they monitored news and financial developments all over the Middle East.
Laila and Amira put the radio to a different but equally international use: they listened to music from as far away as Istanbul and Cairo. Cairo was their favorite because of the greatness of the Egyptian singers: Abdul Wahab, Farid al-Atrash, and the incomparable Um Kalthoum. Sometimes, too, they could pick up a Cairo station that played Western music; it was there that they heard a group of musicians that Malik, with British-school snobbery, had mentioned to them as being all the rage in Europe. They were called The Beatles.
“Turn it up,” Amira begged.
“No. Mother will hear. Let’s dance.”
Laila had shown Amira how Western teenagers danced (where she gained such esoteric knowledge Amira still had no idea). It was as different from the dancing Amira knew—beledi dancing, which Miss Vanderbeek said Westerners called “belly dancing”—as the music was from anything she had ever heard. It was all wild and free, almost madness—but fun. As she danced, she tried to catch the English lyrics, but words in a song didn’t sound like words read from a book. She could make out “baby” over and over again—though what a baby had to do with it, she couldn’t tell—and the phrase “twist and shout”; she would have to look up “twist” in Miss Vanderbeek’s dictionary. Malik had told them that the song was already passe, Cairo being years behind the times when it came to rock and roll, as the music apparently was called.
The song ended on a series of pounding notes on instruments Amira did not recognize, and almost immediately the station began to fade.
“Just as well,” said Laila. “We’re tempting fate as it is. Let’s go to my room.”
The Sibai home was virtually a replica of the Badirs’, only the furnishings different. Laila’s room overlooked the garden from the second floor, just as Ami- ra’s did—she, at last, had her own room, a sign that she was approaching womanhood. Flushed from dancing, they collapsed on the bed.
“Well, little sparrow, I hope you enjoyed that,” said Laila, “because I’m
sorry to tell you we probably won’t be listening to the radio much anymore.”
“Why not?”
“I think my father has chosen a husband for me. I think he’ll make his decision known when, God willing, he returns from India.”
Amira tried to sound enthusiastic. “Laila! This is wonderful news. Con- gratulations. Who is it?”
“I don’t know. I only hope he’s not too old and ugly.” “Oh, he won’t be. I know he won’t.”
“God willing.”
“But this is so exciting!”
“Yes,” Laila agreed. “Yes, it is. To tell you the truth, I’m thrilled. Isn’t it what we all dream of ? But at the same time, it’ll change things between you and me.”
Amira felt her heart sink. “Are you saying we won’t be seeing each other anymore?”
“No, no! Of course not. We’ll see lots of each other, God willing, even if I live far away. It’ll just be different.”
“Well, of course. With a husband—and children, may God give you many.” “Yes. It’s like entering a new life. I’ll be a real grown-up, and I’ll have to act like one. My duty will be to my husband, whomever he might be.” Laila was silent for a moment, then said, “I wish that … well, never mind what I wish. It’s unimportant.” Suddenly, she brightened. “Did you know that I’ve driven a car?”
“What? When?” It was illegal for women to drive in al-Remal. The sight alone would have drawn the religious police, the regular police, and a crowd of angry citizens.
“With Malik, last summer. I disguised myself as a boy. Sneaked some clothes from my brother Salim’s room, wore them under my abeyya, which I then took off. It was an adventure. We went out into the country, out where they’re building the new airport, and Malik showed me what to do.” “But, Laila, what could have possessed you?”
“You’re right, it was crazy. Anything might have happened—what if the car had broken? But I’ll never forget.” Again Laila paused, reaching out to stroke Amira’s hair. “You should do it, little sparrow. Get Malik to take you. He’s your brother, mahram. You won’t even have to make up a story to get out of the house with him. I do recommend the disguise, though, in case someone sees you driving. Besides, it’s fun to masquerade as a boy.”
Mirage Page 8
