Three Daughters: A Novel (51 page)

Odd passages from the letters reverberated in her mind. He used Nijmeh’s name frequently.
I love you, Nijmeh. I followed a girl several blocks because she squared off her shoulders with your same brave shrug . . . There are three types of weather patterns here. Damp and rainy. Rainy. And damp. The countryside here is mostly desolate. It makes you review your life as if you’ve been told you’re going to die. When I review my life, I keep coming back to you. To your beautiful face, to your eyes that haunt me . . . It’s been two months and I haven’t any news of you. I’ve taken up golf. The first thing a Scotsman tells you when you’re on the golf course is that the Scots invented golf. They want you to be surprised and unbelieving and since it means so much to them, I oblige . . . Are my letters reaching you? I haven’t heard a word and the term is half-over. Not one single word from you. It’s . . . mystifying! Are you there? Are you all right? . . . About my studies . . . I couldn’t have imagined how compelling they would be. The laws of a nation are so . . . organic. You can read the history of the race in laws . . . Are you embarrassed to tell me that your feelings have changed? You’re much too courageous to evade the truth. I’m sure of that. I love you . . .

It was the most satisfying thing she had done in her life. Keeping those letters from Nijmeh was equivalent to covering her wounds with a soothing salve. In that small community, it didn’t take long for word to get around that the Halaby boy was head over heels for Nijmeh Saleh. Wasn’t that a match made in heaven?

It took her three days to get the letter just right. It had to be a crusher and irrefutable. She couldn’t take the chance that James would come winging back and invade the Saleh household. The letter had to make him cynical and vengeful. It had to provoke him to get drunk and buy himself sleazy prostitute.

Dear James,

It was my fervent wish that I wouldn’t have to write this letter, and if my own inexperience hadn’t made me so impetuous, this whole mess wouldn’t have taken place. But there you have it. The first man who came along brought out all my emotions and I couldn’t distinguish love from infatuation. Now that I’m truly in love, it’s all so painfully obvious. I’ve met someone. He’s a doctor whose specialty is delivering babies. I tell you this so you can see that this is not the choice of a fickle, silly girl but something well thought-out (our relationship, you must admit, was not). Paul is gentle and good and right for me in every way.

Your sweet letters are stacked next to my bed and I read them and feel sad. Paul has a practice waiting for him in the States and by the time you read this we will probably be married. When you meet the right girl, I’m sure you’ll forgive me.

My affection always,

Nijmeh

When Delal wrote those things about Paul, she knew they were untrue. He had not been gentle or good. He had been a lazy listener and mildly petulant, self-indulgent, and lacking in imagination. Even knowing all this, she would have gladly had him back.

“Delal, I have to talk to you.” She had tried to reach her cousin the previous evening and all morning, but she wasn’t successful until late afternoon.

“Why don’t you come by?”

“I’ll take the bus. Can you meet me? It’s better if we meet outside your house.”

“Why not? We’ll have a coffee.”

“So? What’s up?” Delal tried to keep her voice light. One thing she didn’t want was to give any inkling of what she was going through. How many hours had she sat waiting for Paul to call? Especially in those first few days before all hope had faded. She hadn’t played it right. She had let him touch her in such an unattractive way. How many times had she lifted the receiver and dialed his number and then disconnected before it had a chance to ring? If it rang he would answer. If he answered he would be apologetic and ill at ease. Sickeningly insincere. What did she want him to say—
I don’t like you enough? Leave me alone?
She felt ashamed for herself and her father. She had warned him not to get so excited, but he had been excited anyway. And now here was the cause of it all, wanting to be consoled and reassured.

They had chosen a restaurant with dim, private booths. Nijmeh had ordered a lemon Coke and Delal an iced coffee.

She stirred the Coke round and round. “Do you think I was just dumb with James?”

“Dumb?” That’s exactly what she was. Dumb. She thought of the neat stack of letters in her desk drawer.
You were dumb not to see how much I hate you.

“Dumb to think it meant more than it did?”

“You and a zillion other women.” She spoke in a flat, dispirited voice. “Men are faithless. You know that song, ‘If I’m not near the girl I love, I love the girl I’m near.’ Everybody thinks,
Oh, that’s so cute. Men are like little boys.
It’s not cute. It stinks.”

“You’re probably right, but I can’t believe it. When he comes home, I’m going to confront him. He has to come home. I keep thinking that when he comes home, everything will be all right.”

“Then you’re a fool, Nijmeh,” she said with unconcealed bitterness. “You have the idiotic notion that you’re eternally lovable and this is just a little lapse. As a matter of fact, he probably won’t come home. He knows what’s waiting for him here. It’s a sad fact but true that now you’re James’s little burden.”

This brought a look of grief to Nijmeh’s face. Her mind opened up to accept this appraisal as if it had the seal of a judge. Delal was so wise to see it. All along, she had hung on to the idea that eventually James would come home and he would have an explanation. If he didn’t come home, nothing would ever be resolved. She’d just be left in this limbo. Her face drained of color. “How can he not come home?”

“You know Mary Belvins? She writes that column, Mary’s Parlor. She calls around sometimes and asks people their plans so she can fill up space. I suggested she call James’s parents. I thought maybe I could find out something.”

“And . . . ?”

“And they’ve rented a villa in Italy from the first of May through the summer. They’re going to Livorno. It’s a little resort town on the Ligurian Sea. James is supposed to join them there when he’s finished for the term. Very wise of him, I’d say. And cowardly.”

Nijmeh’s eyes filled with tears. She looked down and rearranged the condiment tray with shaking hands. “I can’t believe he just disposed of me like this,” she said. “He never even sent his address. He didn’t think that much of me.”

“That’s right.” She was silent a moment. “By the way, did you ever sleep with him?” Nijmeh nodded. “Too bad. Now you’ll never know if easy virtue is what turned him off.”

There were so many things to recommend Paul. Her father looked so hopeful. Her mother walked around as if she had eggs in her shoes. They didn’t want to ask her any questions for fear of interfering. Paul was more than any girl could hope for and too good to dismiss. Maybe it was for the best. She would please so many people. Her head went round and round.
Oh, James, why did you forget me? Why did you make me love you and then leave me?
There seemed no hope.

As if sensing that she was weakening, Paul made his opening plea. He was tactically brilliant. To avoid any dramatics, he brought it up casually while they were driving. The more matter-of-fact he acted, the less threatened she’d feel. “Nijmeh,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road. “More than anything, I’d like you to marry me. I know you don’t feel as strongly as I, but I want you to think about it. Just think about it, OK?”

“I’m not going to think about it. It isn’t possible.”

“How do you know that unless you think about it? Just give it a little space in your head. I just want to beg a tiny bit of space from whatever else is taking up your thoughts. That’s not asking too much, is it?”

“No.”

She wrestled with it for several days. One morning she stopped her father before he went to work and they went out for a walk along the path. It was the first time they’d had an intimate talk since their fight over James. “Paul has asked me to marry him.”

“I’m not surprised,” said Samir. “He’s been around quite a bit. How do you feel about it?”

“I respect him. It’s difficult to do what he does. And he’s very matter-of-fact about it, too. That’s appealing.”

“I think he’s a good man,” said Samir. “What do you think?”

“I think he’s a good man, too . . .”

“But?”

“No buts. He’s smart. Very concerned. Very serious about his profession.”

“What was your answer to him?”

“He told me to think about it and that’s what I’m doing.”

Samir took her in his arms and kissed the top of her head. “I have only one thing to say to you. Don’t take the offer lightly just because it seems to have come easily. Paul is unique, do you understand? There’s not going to be another like him very soon.”

“I know.”

In the end that’s what did it. How could she refuse such an eligible man? Paul played it just right and Samir played it right, too. They had brought her around to see that it was unthinkable to refuse. Part of it also was recovering her pride. It was a rebound reaction. Part of it was the unexpected comfort and relief of pleasing her father again. She had missed being close to him. He had two new creases originating at the inner corners of his eyes. Her mother’s eyes, lips, and skin had been one pale color, as if someone had leached the exuberance out of her, but now her healthy flush had returned. Even her grandmother, who was still despondent over Sidi’s death, managed a smile. Nijmeh felt numb but grateful that she had stopped causing pain to those she loved. Still, at the very core, she knew she didn’t love Paul at all. Her heart was now and would always be elsewhere. She had been foolish to think that happiness came so easily. Happiness didn’t come at all.

“You look so morose, Nijmeh. Those lovely eyes are shadowed. The lower lip . . . droops. No joy.” Paul spoke slowly and deliberately, and she couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or sympathetic.

“I’m sorry.” While Delal had felt light and bouncy as a thistle on the wind with Paul at her side, Nijmeh felt sodden, as if she’d drunk too much water or her periods had accumulated and wouldn’t release.

“Why should you be sorry? You feel what you feel. Perhaps you could tell me what it is you do feel.”

He was being sarcastic and this disturbed her. “I feel grateful, of course.”

“Grateful?” That surprised him.

“I expressed it poorly.”

“You expressed it honestly.”

“But Paul, I . . .”

He broke out in a smile. “I love to hear you say my name.”

There. Now his tone seemed nicer. She looked down and saw that she was wearing a dress she’d worn on a day James had packed a picnic lunch and driven south. They’d sat on a plaid blanket in a field of wildflowers, thousands of them as high as their arms. Walls of daisies hid them and the yellow centers cast a golden shadow over his skin. It had been a moment of perfect happiness. “Lie down,” he’d commanded, pretending gruffness.

“No,” she had giggled. “Someone might come.”

“Lie down. No one will see us.”

She’d lain down and he’d stretched out on top of her, but each time the wind blew the flowers would sway and she’d begin giggling again, certain they were visible to passing cars. This dress was tied up with love, with James, with laughter. It made her sad to be wearing it with Paul. It was unfair to blame him for her misery, but she had a lifetime to make it up to him.

“Nijmeh—” Paul bent to be closer to her and spoke seriously. “This stage . . . right now we’re in a very unsettled atmosphere. We’re neither here nor there. But once we get to the States, our life together will be more predictable. We’ll have a chance to get to know each other and . . . you’ll see. I’ll make you happy.” He cupped her face in one of his hands as if to capture it. She stayed perfectly still, lowering her eyes until he forced her to look at him by pressing her jaw. “Is it so difficult to imagine being happy with me?” She remained silent. “Answer this, then. Why are you marrying me? Why have you compromised yourself?”

“It’s not a compromise. I want to marry you. I won’t insult you by telling you I love you now. I respect you and I’m honored that you want me for your wife. I won’t disappoint you, Paul. Just be patient with me.”

He stood and raised her up, pressing himself against her briefly in a loose embrace. “I won’t rush you. It’s enough that I have you.”

She cried herself to sleep that night and all the nights before the wedding. Paul was aware of the daily puffiness around her eyes. He was obsessively aware of everything about her.
A woman cries herself to sleep only over love gone awry
, he thought with bitterness.
She loves someone else.
He experienced the first wrenching pangs of jealousy. Whoever he was, the joke was on him, poor bastard. She was his now and forever.

On her wedding day (they were taking a flight to Beirut that afternoon) she awoke at dawn, thoroughly alarmed and unprepared. Time had just been swallowed up and now there were only a few hours left. She had wanted to take photographs of the farm, of their house, of Aunt Julia and Uncle Peter. Maybe she should have gone out and taken pictures of the orchards and the vineyards. Most precious would have been a picture of the land beyond the cultivated fields. She wanted to have a replica of the bare brown hills with worn ledges and edges banded round and round with the sediment of centuries, some looking like clamshells set down, others made long and sloping by the deluging rains, still others with vaulted halls harboring unreachable, chilling secrets. These somber tones—more poignant than the most beautiful field of flowers—were the colors that pierced and picked apart her heart. Today, this morning, she would have done anything, anything, not to leave.

Unexpectedly, her mother was also up and they met on the path that led to the old tennis court, now overgrown. Nadia remembered that this was the place where Samir had first kissed her. “I didn’t think I’d have to part with you so soon,” she said in a husky, trembling voice. “Perhaps it was inevitable.” She wanted to say,
Perhaps it’s my punishment for stealing you
, but such a catharsis was unthinkable.