Three Daughters: A Novel (23 page)

“Mmm. How do you tidy a chapel anyway? Isn’t it just full of pews? Suppose I don’t want to tidy it? Will they expel me?”

“Not immediately. I think they’d give you another chance.” She had no idea what they would do.

The girl sat on the edge of the bed, face in hands, looking woefully at her long feet. “They’d never chuck me. My father would charm Amelia Smythe out of her shoes. He’d stare at her for about twenty seconds as if she’s the most important person on God’s earth and she’d be pudding in his hands.”

That speech—the offhandedness, the imagery, the irreverence toward her elders—made Nadia feel that she had been thrust (through sheer luck) into the hot white center of modernity.

Her name was Margaret and for the next two hours she loosely imitated bed making, sweeping, and furniture arranging, with none of the newcomer’s earnestness. When the boys trooped in to chapel, she looked them over as if they were being paraded for her pleasure. And during meditation, while everyone else sat quietly to “wait upon the Lord,” she took inventory of which boy had what.

“Which one do you fancy?” she asked matter-of-factly as they walked to the first class of the day.

“I don’t fancy anyone,” Nadia answered sharply.

“Hit a nerve, have I?” Margaret grinned.

When it came time for the roll-call responses from Scripture, Nadia snickered. This would repay Margaret for the tactless remark.

Miss Smythe flipped her Bible to Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. “Margaret Madden—‘if I give away all I have and deliver my body to be burned but have not love . . .’ ”

Margaret straightened and placed her hands together in a reverential pose “ ‘I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, endures all things. Love never ends . . .’ ” She took a deep insinuating breath. As if she had experienced a love that had never ended.

“I see you’ve been a student of the Bible.” Miss Smythe smiled briefly and glanced at her roll sheet for the next name. “Nadia Mishwe—‘faith is the substance of things hoped for.’ ”

“ ‘The evidence of things not seen.’ ”

There was something about Margaret—and it took only a few days to realize it—a lack of reverence for convention and a forthrightness. Margaret had an incredible knack for, as she put it, “pinpointing the vulgar truth of everything” and then blurting it out. She was also incredibly smart. Nadia began seeing things Margaret’s way and it had the cumulative effect of making her feel older and more in control.

Friday evenings Margaret took the jitney to have dinner with her father, who was the national relations commissioner for the Mandate government. One evening she returned early and in a talkative mood.

“Here.” She pulled out a soggy napkin containing anise cakes and dumped them unceremoniously in Nadia’s lap.

While Nadia ate Margaret lay with her arms under her head, one leg propped over the other. She closed her eyes as if reviewing the evening’s events. “Victor Madden . . .” she began, stating her father’s name as if it were the title of a book she was considering. “My mother left him, you know,” she said quickly and sat up.

“The day she left she said to me, ‘I love him. I do.’ She wasn’t leaving him because she didn’t love him. Now this was difficult to believe, because she did leave with another man.” Here Margaret scrunched up her face to punctuate the discrepancy in her mother’s motivation. “She wrote to me afterward—something bizarre. What’s more bizarre, I believed her. The letter said: ‘I’ve left your father because I love him too much. He would have destroyed me in the end. Therefore, when a man came along that I liked well enough, I saw my chance to escape the fatal charm of Victor Madden. I won’t be left alone when I’m too old to attract anyone. One day, you’ll understand. Please forgive.’ Can you imagine such planning? But it makes sense, don’t you think? I understood right away.” She gave a little weary sigh. “I don’t know what Victor’s up to,” she said in a sad, tired voice. “He had a woman there tonight.”

“I guess he’s very handsome,” offered Nadia. She could not imagine a father who was that interesting.

“Not only handsome,” said Margaret, “irresistible. Wait till you meet him. You’ll fall for him, too. Speaking of which, there’s only one thing in this whole place that interests me, present company excluded, of course. It can be summed up in one word.”

“What’s the word?” asked Nadia lazily.

“Not what, but who.”

“Who?”

“Mmm. And the who is a he.”

“I hope it isn’t a teacher,” said Nadia, alarmed. “Is it one of the boys at FBS?” She sat up.

“Just one.”

“Who?”

“There’s only one worth anything and he’s worth everything. Think.”

“It’s not Samir, is it?”

“Precisely.”

“Well, you’re after the wrong fish. His future’s carved in stone like the Ten Commandments.”

“What? He can’t have a say in his own life?”

“Not in the way you have in mind.”

“I want him,” Margaret wailed. “He’s absolutely gorgeous. I love his hands. They’re spectacular. Large and strong . . . they could probably crush my . . . oh, never mind.” She sighed.

“He’s my cousin,” said Nadia. She had never thought much about the relationship, but now she was glad to impress the unimpressible Margaret. “When we were toddlers, I used to ride on him like a horse.”

“My Gawd!” said Margaret, sincerely surprised. “Your cousin?”

“Well, we’re not that close. His father’s the wealthiest man in our clan. They own extensive vineyards and half interest in a hotel in Jerusalem and who knows that else. He lived with the Bedouins for almost a year in the wilderness to be toughened up. They’re very strict with him. Every mother has her eye on him for her daughter.” She had a perverse need to make him as attractive as possible to Margaret. It was difficult to think of Samir without also seeing his background—the wealth, the powerful father, the exquisite mother, the half sister who was as plain as he was handsome—all ingredients for high drama. “He engages the imagination on many levels,” she said loftily, “and the most tantalizing speculation centers around which girl he will choose to marry.”

“I’ll fight for him,” Margaret giggled. “He’s so attractive . . . those brooding eyes and that triumphant glow to his skin. He always looks as if he just fought for his life and won.”

“His mother was considered to be the most beautiful woman in Nablus.” She’d heard that said so often in the family that she mentally stated it each time she saw Samir. “She’s very young. It’s the sheik’s second marriage and he’s twenty years older.”

Margaret whistled. “Has Samir hinted at the girl of his dreams?”

“Not that I know of. You can be sure if he had, the girl would have shouted it from the rooftops. He is the man of the hour.” Nadia’s tone was somewhat bitter.

“Too bad you can’t make a bid for him yourself,” offered Margaret. “But you’d have me to contend with.”

“I could make a bid for him,” said Nadia seriously. “It would be the most natural thing.” She suddenly felt very queer discussing all the clan’s deadly little secrets so casually. Nevertheless, she plodded on. “In our tradition, the best bride, the most desirable, is a cousin. I’m his cousin.”

“
Très
bizarre,” said Margaret, “but then why not? Don’t tell me you don’t think he’s special. I mean, when he enters a room, it’s transformed. It’s his . . . confidence. Yes, that’s it. Confidence is everything,” she added with conviction, as if she’d just discovered this to be true.

“I’ve never been a fan of Samir.” Nadia’s voice was sober, as if she was unwilling to confront her reasons. “He makes you react to him, which puts me off.”

Margaret had a devilish look. “Did you ever stop to think that he’s trying to make you react precisely because you’re not panting over him? Some men are like that, you know. They must have the odd lamb that’s not in the fold.”

Nadia shrugged, but then offered serious advice. “Don’t set your heart on Samir. He’s the ultimate product of our tradition. He’s been raised to follow his father’s plan to the letter, and that plan does not include any marriage outside our nationality.”

“Hmm. Well, lucky you. You’ve got the inside track now, haven’t you?”

“I don’t want the inside track,” she said hotly. “I don’t want any part of Samir Saleh.” She was jealous of Margaret’s feelings for Samir, yet she found him so threatening that she wanted to run when she saw him.

“Hit a nerve, have I?” Margaret smiled in her infuriating way. “You must be daft. But never mind. Leaves the field clear for me.”

Nadia felt two ways about Samir. When they were young, she had hated him. He used to smile at her in school whenever their paths crossed. His smile seemed to say,
I know where you come from and I know where you must return.

She stopped hating him on January 10, 1929, when he was already nineteen, preparing at FBS for the London matriculation exam. That day the Ford Foundation had sent a documentary film on the horses of the Midwest and the school had invited the villagers to view it. When the horses came thundering on the screen, the Arab parents shouted in fright and held each other.

Her father had come out afterward, still excited, and said to the crowd, “It’s fantastic. It was so real, I called out in alarm.”

She was embarrassed that her father was so naive. Samir, watching Nadia’s downcast eyes, came over and stood with Nadeem. “Never mind, Amo,” he said amiably, “when the sheik saw it the first time, he overturned his chair and called to my mother, ‘
Yullah
, come on.
Umi
. Move. They’re coming.”

Everyone laughed. If the sheik could be fooled, then it wasn’t so embarrassing after all. Her father had laughed more heartily than anyone and Nadia had been so grateful. New emotions had sprung up and she didn’t know how to react.

Several days later, she had said to Samir, “I’ve been compiling facts about you.”

“Oh? What have you come up with?” he asked, his fine eyes smiling. He felt no threat from any corner.

“You’re kind when you don’t have to be.” She tried to sound offhand, as if she had dug through many faults to find this sole good attribute.

He shrugged. “What else have you found out?”

“Nothing that I want to talk about,” she said, suddenly unnerved by those brilliant eyes focused on hers. For the first time, she was tongue-tied with him and hurried away.

What else have you found out?
His voice was a lovely mix of the lilting Judean accent with an overlay of the Continent. Aunt Zareefa said that was because he had been tutored by a Scottish woman when he was quite small and had learned her inflections. Her mother said it was more than that. It was the voice of privilege.

She would have had to be blind and deaf not to speculate on how it would upgrade her life to be married to him. She would have had to be comatose not to daydream over him as a lover. There was an aura about Samir—it wasn’t only the wealth. He was friendly but also detached and deeply private. Behind that handsome face was a hint of hidden pain that made any woman, Nadia included, feel duty bound to distract him. And the most delicious fantasy was to distract such a man by making him lust over you.

Girls paraded in front of him at any family function. Some of them were quite beautiful and a few were both beautiful and smart. One, Jaqueline George, was beautiful, smart, and rich. Nadia kept her distance. It would be mortifying to fall in love with him and know that he simply tolerated her.

If she loved him, she’d want him to be preoccupied with her to the point of madness. Dazed and wounded with desire. Sick at heart with jealousy.

Each of their encounters stood out in her mind with vivid details. When wristwatches were still a rare sight, he had appeared wearing a gold one with a tan leather strap. He twisted his arm casually to look at the time and she had considered him the most sophisticated person on the face of the earth. One of her first grown-up memories was of his profile in chapel—dark lashes making a shadow on his cheek, the curving innocence of his ear, the sincere look of thoughtfulness. Was he praying? And what was he praying for?

Each time they met, she came away with something more and hammered a new detail into place, building her personal portrait of him in her heart.

19.

IS THERE SOME MAIDEN THERE THAT HAS YOUR HEART?

H
e would remain ambivalent over Fridays for the rest of his life. But they would also serve to remind him that discipline has its own rewards. Wasn’t the soccer match more enjoyable after the tedium of the language speaking trials? His father had attended today and, to please him, Samir had put on the long, double-breasted serge
combaz
, the waist belt that doubled as pockets and held his valuables, and topped it off with a tarbush.

He looked forward to changing into the maroon-and-gray soccer uniform and hurried to the locker room. Phillips, an English boy who had become a frequent companion, walked beside him. They were a striking pair. Samir had the healthy color of the desert, a golden complexion accented by fine dark brows and large brilliant eyes. Phillips, on the other hand, had the straight flyaway hair of his race, with a complexion that reacted badly to all but the mildest weather.

“Let me have your hat. That’s what I need to give me some panache.” Phillips removed his tweed cap, grabbed the tarbush and set it jauntily on his head. “What do you think? I’ll wear this to tea and the girls will swoon. My clothes are so boring compared to yours.”

“I was thinking exactly the same thing.” Samir sighed.

“You can have mine any time you say. Can you imagine me going back to Eton with the rope and cloth around my head?”

Samir placed Phillips’s cap on his own head and was so pleased with how it felt he executed several extravagant poses.

“Please keep it,” said the English boy. “You look positively dashing, while I merely appear to be what I am—a pale boy from the British Isles. What do you say we exchange clothes altogether? I rather fancy your robes.”

Samir looked wistful. “My father would feel betrayed.”

“Betrayed?” Phillips voice rose almost to a whine in disbelief. “Because of a silly hat? You can’t be serious.”

“Yes.” He was still posing before a mirror. “You see,” he said with mock seriousness, “I am the hope of the future and must be beyond reproach. It would embarrass my father if his son chose to dress in Western clothes. It would show disdain for our culture.”

Phillips shrugged. “Sounds like a heavy load. What happens when you go abroad to college?”

“I don’t know,” Samir said thoughtfully.

“I don’t see you at Cambridge in the headcloth and agal. That will cause a ruckus and not a pleasant one either. You see”—Phillips bared tiny, even teeth and gave an exaggerated false smile—“my countrymen are rather snobbish about the nationalities. And while you are a splendid specimen of manhood, they will tend to treat you like a leper if you flaunt your differences.”

Samir’s face became stiff. “Will they like me more if I pretend to be one of them?”

“Gawd, no. They’ll probably stone you. They’ll want you simply to try your best to be unobtrusive and obsequiously fawning and to lend them your last piaster, which more often than not they’ll forget to repay.”

“This is how you evaluate your countrymen? I’m offended,” said Samir teasingly.

“This is how I evaluate my countrymen with regard to foreigners,” Phillips answered carefully.

“And yourself?” asked Samir, one eyebrow raised. “You feel the same about me?”

“Absolutely not. If your brilliance on the soccer field weren’t enough to impress me, I would have been swayed to your camp by your loyalty and friendship. You have singlehandedly taught me higher mathematics. What’s more, you have made me believe that I’ve learned it myself without your help. You’ve been generous beyond measure without being a dolt. I have only to admire one of your possessions, whereupon you press it upon me as if I would be doing you a favor to rid you of the item. You are handsome, yet you have no concern for your looks other than to slick your hair down nervously on the playing field. You are strong as a bull and could box any boy into porridge, yet go out of your way to avoid confrontations. At times I hate you for your goodness, Samir.” This last was said with a wide-eyed, puzzled look that transformed Phillips’s face into what it might have been like when he was a toddler.

Samir removed the cap from his head and placed it on Phillips straight, sparse locks. “I don’t blame you. Come, let’s get to the field and see if the Botsford boys have grown some more. Will the girls attend today?”

“Yes. Why? Is there some maiden there that has your heart?” Phillips liked to speak in elaborate words, believing he was imitating the flowery speech of the Arabs. It was a habit that had caught his fancy and Samir was accustomed to and sometimes amused by it.

“And if there were? Wouldn’t I be the fool to confide in you? You’d drag the girl to me immediately and say, ‘Mademoiselle, you have this poor fool’s heart in the palm of your hand.’ ”

“That might hurry things along.”

“You’re assuming the girl would return the feelings.”

“Of course. What girl would refuse you? Rich. Handsome. Smart. The hope of the future. Just choose the one you fancy.”

“I don’t fancy anyone in particular. And yourself?”

“I would happily take Meena, if her father wouldn’t mutilate me if he even suspected I thought of Meena.”

“Quite true,” said Samir. “Forget Meena. Now, let’s go. We’re late.”

They descended a few steps and went out a back door to the soccer field. It was a splendid sunny day and both boys instinctively looked back to survey the scene. The building stood stark on a hill, exposed to the winds that blew from the west and north. “It’s strange,” said Phillips, “but for the few dressed in headdress, this could be a school in England. It’s out of character with the countryside.”

“Feeling homesick?” asked Samir.

“Not quite.”

“You never explained why you left Eton. Is it too personal?”

Phillips took a deep breath and reduced his speed. “I fell into a physical enchantment with a young woman who lived in the parish house near school. One evening, unable to control myself, I borrowed the master’s car and attempted to drive to see her. I hadn’t the least notion of how to operate a car, not even how to turn on the headlamps. Immediately out the gate, I collided with a tree.”

“Did you get thrashed?”

“No. My father said—I’ll never forget it—he said, ‘Son, you’re sixteen. These are years of insanity to be endured as best we can. For your protection, as well as mine, I must incarcerate you.’ Then he placed me here. He said it would be best for my soul.”

“I was incarcerated to test my soul also,” said Samir. “But it happened earlier and under different circumstances.”

When he was twelve, his father had come one day and taken him from school without explanation. The following morning they started out before dawn, riding steadily southeast, beyond the walnut and olive orchards where the land dissolved into bumpy open space. On the edge of the steppe there was a custom station, but once past that they were in the uncharted desert and Samir could think only of how long it would take them to retrace their steps.

Their shelter for the night was a shallow gully and supper was hard cheese and chewy bread.

The following day his father said, “Samir, we’re going to visit the Lord of the Desert,” but they were in total wilderness and the small compound that soon appeared was comprised of about forty simple black goat-hair tents. The children were ragged, the dogs cadaverously thin, the camels mangy, and the armed men—with braided lovelocks jutting from their kaffiyehs—menacing. The women’s robust tinted faces were shaded by complicated wound cloth that looked as if it would suffocate them.

“This is the compound of the Lord of the Desert?” said Samir derisively.

“Yes.”

“But it’s filthy. There’s nothing here of value or comfort.” He was proud of his assessment.

“Even if it were as you describe, which I assure you it is not,” said his father, “you would be amazed at how little man needs to be happy and how carefree one can be without possessions.” Samir did not believe he could be happy without possessions—that seemed proof of an insufficient character.

He was certain they had arrived unnoticed, but his father refuted him. “At least ten pair of eyes and that many carbines have been fixed on us for the last ten miles.”

“Will they harm us?”

“Never.”

“How can you be sure?”

“As strangers, we are inviolable. It’s an unwritten law. The blood price of a guest is double that of a man killed in battle.”

Were these forbidding-looking men concerned with any law, written or unwritten?

As they spoke a hook-nosed man approached. He was preceded by a slave, who placed a small rug at Samir’s father’s feet and then stepped aside as both men stepped on. “God’s peace,” said the Bedouin lord, placing his hand over his heart.

“Returned to you a hundredfold,” answered Samir’s father.

The shadowy tent they entered was covered with luxurious rugs. The chieftain, leaning against a throne of cushions, motioned Samir and his father to sit at his right.

Slaves and guards with their guns and daggers took appointed places. One man, missing a hand, used the black stump in a violent manner to adjust his rifle. To Samir, everything, including the wretched coffee water boiling noisily on the embers, spelled danger.

The chief slave brought a hunting falcon on a short block, removed the leather hood, and threw a pigeon before it. With a movement too swift to be visible, the falcon pounced on the bird and gashed it to death.

The closeness of the room, the incense, and the sweet aroma of coffee made Samir feel ill. He watched with a sinking heart as slaves brought in huge platters of food.

His father spoke animatedly to the chief and when he finally rose, he ignored Samir, refusing to look at him.

“You are going to sleep now,” said his father.

“And in the morning, we’ll leave?” asked Samir. His father didn’t answer. He placed both hands on Samir’s shoulders and kissed his cheeks. “Good night.”

When he awoke alone, Samir looked at the tent ropes that held their horses, but only his mare was there, and he knew without looking further that his father had left him and returned home. Why? His heart throbbed with anger and confusion and he sat trembling.

The camp came to life with clouds of smoke from several cooking fires and little clumps of children, puppies, and lambs huddled together. Women sat on the dusty ground shaping rounds for bread. He had the doomed feeling that no one knew him.

He mounted his horse and guided it in the direction from which he had come, riding slowly, remembering the hidden guards with their carbines and half expecting to receive a bullet through the heart. Once free of the camp, he galloped confidently northwestward, elated by the thought of his escape. He would ride home.

After two hours the landscape was so unchanging he began to doubt his direction and dismounted. He stroked the horse’s damp flesh, noting with a slump of will that the animal was tired and thirsty.

There was no sound save his own breathing. A bustard flew down in the distance to peck on the woolly red desert caterpillars and he was so thrilled to see another living thing that he watched until it flew away.

The sun was not moving in the expected arc to confirm his direction. He was lost and certain to perish from dehydration or starvation, if some wolf didn’t attack him first. He covered his face with both hands and cried.

There was a sound. His crying half obscured it, and it was so unexpected that he jumped mightily, which caused laughter. Laughter! Stranger than the laughter was the sight of who had laughed. A boy. Smaller than Samir and with no part of him showing—he was swaddled in the most suffocating costume—except a round glowing face and confident eyes. His short legs barely gripped the animal.

“Where did you come from?” asked Samir.

“Same as you. From the camp of the Rualas.” His voice was very high.

He’s just a child
, thought Samir. “You’ve been following me?”
Now we shall both die
, he thought ruefully.
This baby boy and myself.

“Of course. You’re in my keep. I’m responsible for your welfare,” he said loftily. “Why are you crying?” he asked with chagrin, as if it were a reflection on him.

Samir ignored him. “Where is my father?”

“Your father left before dawn to return to your home.” Samir swallowed hard. Here was proof positive of his sentence. “Why did you ride out this morning?” asked the boy with a quizzical frown.

“I was returning home.”

The boy struggled with what he had to say. “You are riding in the wrong direction.” There was an embittered silence during which Samir adjusted the straps of his food pack and refused to look at the boy. “You are meant to remain with us. My name is Marwan and you, I know, are Samir. Come,” he coaxed, “let’s return.” Grudgingly Samir followed the little horseman, who took off confidently.

There was still only the beige vastness, but now the sun illuminated one portion of the sky from beneath dark clouds that threatened rain. Imminent moisture imbued the air with incredible freshness and Samir took huge gulps. The knot in his chest loosened. At one point Marwan stopped and pointed down to some animal tracks that appeared to have been made by a large paw and presently they saw the owner, a huge black cat, licking himself in the shade of a stunted bush.

“Panther,” said Marwan, his childish face full of concern. He held out a palm to keep Samir from continuing, rummaged in his garments and brought out a Mauser. With little preparation he aimed and shot the animal in the throat. “
Hullus,
” he said softly. It was done.

He brought out a long knife that he plunged into the animal’s chest with surprising strength. “Would you care for a paw as a souvenir?” he asked Samir.

Samir shook his head. He was amazed by the marksmanship. The smug indifference he had felt was no longer appropriate. Marwan had saved them from certain danger, for the panther could have easily overtaken them. From time to time, he stole a disbelieving look at the courageous little fellow, and rode with him obediently to safety.

In the days that followed, Marwan was his tie to life and the only buffer from desperate loneliness and homesickness. He was four months younger and half a head shorter than Samir, with six fine braids that reached his hips. He had to guide his horse with his thighs, for his legs were too short, but he was amazingly agile and a fine shot. He ate with his family but otherwise seemed to live entirely without supervision even though he was the sheik’s son.