I would cringe whenever Philip hinted at something going on between Leila and Saeed, while Leila would only lower her eyes and smile in the kind of hypocritical way my townspeople were so good at. My nerves were frayed. The virus of jealousy took hold of me and I began to experience an unbearable sense of tension as I became the Lady of the Riad, and thus bound to behave decently, especially with clients used to the special messages. Naturally, I stopped giving massages after I trained two new girls to do the job. This act impressed Philip, who took it as an expression of faithfulness.
Faithfulness is a term that has no place in the riad, where the client is king and everyone else a slave. The client gets to live out The Thousand and One Nights in the Scheherazade Riad (I forgot to mention that Philip changed the name of the riad on our wedding night). Saeed’s drug trade started bringing a special kind of client to the riad, and the reception desk became a secret place for all sorts of illegal business behind Philip’s and Leila’s artificial smiles.
Saeed would be evasive whenever I tried to dot the i’s. He would say, “Do not be stupid and spoil everything with your pathological jealousy. Am I jealous when you sleep with Mr. Philip? Of course not, because it’s just a plan to unite later in times of prosperity. This was our choice, together! Don’t be crazy.”
The problem was that I wasn’t sure whether anything happening around me was actually my own choice. I was involved in a mean game, believing that I held all the cards, but the actual winning card remained in Saeed’s hands. He ended up taking a room at the riad after making his presence necessary there, and winning the trust of Mr. Philip, who considered him almost a brother-in-law. And why not? Isn’t he like a brother to me?
I could no longer understand Saeed. Sometimes he would express his impatience to get rid of Philip and I would urge him to wait. I became afraid of my own shadow. Other times I felt he enjoyed his new status and was in no hurry to change anything.
During one dismal week, news of my mother’s death reached us. My sorrow was immense, especially since my brother, who blamed me for her passing, prevented me from attending her funeral. Philip tried his best to mitigate the impact of the shock, but my grief was as deep as my feelings of loneliness. A month after her death, he decided to take me abroad for a change of scenery.
While preparing for the trip to Paris, Saeed handed me an official-looking paper and asked me to make Philip sign it before leaving. “It’s just a proxy for me to be able to purchase supplies for the riad in Philip’s absence,” he explained. “This will also help us plan for our future together.”
“How so? And if he asks me about it, what will I say?” I asked him.
“Serve him a few glasses of champagne and massage him with your magic fingertips. I am sure he will sign anything you put in front of him,” Saeed replied sarcastically. He then stepped forward and hugged me, and I suddenly realized how much I had missed his embrace. Then, he added: “It’s in Arabic, you can translate it any way you want. Do this, my dearest Scheherazade, and soon we will get rid of the ghost of this old man.”
I did as he said. Philip promptly signed the paper, which I presented to him as a certificate of residence, confirming that I officially lived in the riad. I added that my brother needed it.
We departed Marrakech, leaving the riad to the care of Saeed and Leila. Although I had always dreamed of traveling abroad, I could not enjoy my time in Paris. I felt bitter in Philip’s arms. A feeling of dissatisfaction haunted me and a sense of guilt tore me down when I remembered the death of my mother, who had taken her grief for me with her. How strange that now that I had a car, wore expensive clothes, ate food prepared by chefs, and enjoyed sessions of personal massages, misery was creeping into my life. Laughter no longer tasted of joy nor smiles of satisfaction. I felt as if a void was growing larger inside me every day. My dreams had become real, but their color was gray.
Meanwhile, a voice inside me kept whispering that Saeed was lying to me. I could no longer stand Leila’s presence at the riad. I wanted to kick her out, but Saeed was against the idea and kept saying that she was an important piece of the plan, that we had to keep her there until everything was over. I tried to put an end to my suspicions, and I convinced myself that jealousy was the cause of my tragedy, hoping that I would soon get rid of her. For now, I just had to trust Saeed and his secret plan. But things were not so simple.
After my return from Paris, I went to see Aunt Mannana, as I often did when I felt down.
She welcomed me early in the morning in her semidark room on the roof of a decadent building, amid the smoke of incense. She had fear in her eyes, as her henna-dyed fingers arranged the cards on a small table in front of me. “There’s an adder in your home... wriggling under your bed. Beware of the adder, daughter,” she said.
I was terrified as I imagined the snake coiling over my body. Who could it be? It was Leila, no doubt. I could no longer bear her yellow smile as she cast her shadow over me every morning and said in her Marrakech accent: How are you this morning, Lalla Scheherazade? And how is Mr. Philip?
The words of the fortune-teller stoked the flames of doubt in my heart as jealousy ravaged me. And so, during a dawn that was grim with insomnia and longing, I slipped from Philip’s thorny arms and crept on the tips of my fingers and toes down to Saeed’s room, seeking a little love. Overwhelmed with burning desire for the warmth of his body, I opened his door quietly so as not to wake up the servants. To my surprise, he was fast asleep with Leila, who should have been at home in her own bed. I almost fainted as I fled the specter of betrayal and rushed toward the bathroom where I vomited up my bitterness. Philip got up and rushed after me. He carried me back to the bedroom and called a doctor. The doctor said that it was food poisoning. He was correct in his diagnosis, for I had indeed swallowed the venom of the adder and her lover — the traitor.
I spent a week in bed utterly dejected with Philip playing the tender nurse. But tenderness was hard for me to accept as I began to hate men, the world, and myself. I thought a lot during that week about a plan to take revenge on Saeed — the ignoble creature whose trust with Leila polluted the riad and suffocated me. Yet what if I complied with his plan? Made him get rid of Philip alone, so that he could spend the rest of his life in jail while I eliminated Leila and poverty.
Philip was a nice man who really loved me, but he was old and had lived his life and realized all his dreams. As for me, I was still at the beginning of my journey, which would remain forever postponed if I didn’t act quickly. I had only myself to rely on.
I met Saeed in private and questioned him: “What’s your plan? I see you’re no longer in a hurry to get rid of Philip.”
“I prefer to keep the plan to myself so that I don’t implicate you with me, dearest Scheherazade,” he told me. “You’re so sensitive. I’m afraid you might become weak and give away the secret. Let me act on my own. Stay calm and affectionate toward him, and let no one suspect us. Forget about Leila, she is good and loves you.”
How dare he defend her in front of me? How impudent. I was about to tell him what I knew about his affair with Leila, but then I thought better of it. He kissed me passionately and whispered in my ear: “Do not let the devil toy with you, sweetie. You know I wouldn’t do anything without you. You are Philip’s wife and his only heir, and even if I did care only for his money, I’d have to marry you to get it. Besides... what good is money without your love?”
The power of his persuasion equaled my vulnerability before his affection. I tried to calm myself with the idea that Saeed’s relationship with Leila was only sexual, and invented all sorts of arguments for that: she must have been coming onto him, and a virile male in our culture cannot repel a woman who makes such advances. Then I decided to confront her instead — yes, I should threaten her. Tell her that if she didn’t keep away from him, I’d kick her out and take my bread out of her mouth. Maybe that would scare her and prevent her from further shenanigans with Saeed.