“My mother …,” she replied.
The word went off in my ear like a bomb. It was nothing but a single word, but it contained an entire book. And I, stupid as I was, understood what it meant. Perhaps the mother had been facing her with a certain well-known, natural question, and was hearing a single reply that had yet to change: “No … not yet!”
After a long silence my beloved said gently, “She never stops asking me, and I don’t know why she’s so impatient.”
Mortified and furious at the same time, I said calmly, “These things are our business and no one else’s. Isn’t that right?”
“Of course,” she said apologetically. “She just wants to make sure we’re doing all right, that’s all.”
Grieved and distressed, I asked, “What did you say to her?”
“I didn’t say anything at all,” she replied hastily and a bit uneasily. “I just told her there was no reason to be in a hurry.”
“And what did she say?”
She thought for some time as if to weigh her words. Then she said, “She told me that this type of situation isn’t an easy one, especially for a shy young man who’s lived a pure life, and if necessary, we could call on our cook, Sabah.”
“Sabah!” I cried in consternation, my eyes wide with amazement.
Flustered, she nodded in the affirmative.
“And what could Sabah do?” I asked in astonishment.
She hesitated for a moment, then began explaining what had been lost on me in the beginning. I listened to her with rapt attention until I’d understood everything, and little by little I began coming out of my stupor. I have to confess that I was relieved at the mother’s suggestion, since it would remove an obstacle from my path and relieve me of some responsibility, as well as exempt me from the mother’s surveillance. After all, once it was done, I didn’t think she would ask about anything again.
“And how will we tell Sabah?” I asked hesitantly.
“Sabah heard part of the conversation between my mother and me,” she said simply.
Feeling both embarrassed and irritated, I cried, “How on earth could that be?”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” she said with a smile. “She’s my mother, too, and we don’t hide anything from her.”
We exchanged a long, silent look.
Then I asked apprehensively, “Has anyone else learned of this?”
“No one at all,” she said unequivocally.
I was relieved. However, still feeling the need for more assurance, I said meaningfully, “I hope our ‘secrets’ won’t leave this room!”
“Do you really have any doubt about that?” she asked with a reproachful look.
43
But that’s not everything in marriage, I reminded myself. How could it be, when it was a “duty” that Sabah was capable of performing? With laughable naiveté, I wondered what our married life could possibly lack. After all, was such a thing really necessary in this life? Strangely, I hesitated to give a definitive reply to the question. Aren’t we happy? I wondered. We’re living comfortably and contentedly, we love each other with all our hearts, and no one could possibly doubt our happiness. So why am I troubled by illusions? However, human beings are always prone to think about what they lack. In fact, they may be so preoccupied with what they are missing that they forget what they have. I was plagued by obsessive thoughts, and I wasn’t at peace with my life.
Then one night as I lay on my back waiting for sleep to overtake me and as my beloved lay slumbering beside me, my thoughts took me to such faraway places that I forgot what was around me, or nearly so. There came over me a feeling of loneliness that was reinforced by the surrounding darkness. Then, ever so gradually, I felt an energy pulsating in my body, like the energy that used to be stirred up by darkness and loneliness. Beside myself with joy, I nearly shouted out loud. I turned to my slumbering beloved, wakening her with kisses until she opened her eyes with an irritation that soon turned to bewilderment. Several seconds passed before she came to. Then she put her arms around my neck and I drew her to me with passionate longing. However, no sooner had I done so than everything went back to the way it had been before. In less than a second, frigid death had stolen into my body, then taken it over entirely, and I reverted to a state of wordless confusion and humiliation. We exchanged a strange look in the night’s soft glow, and judging from the look on her face, she hadn’t understood a thing.
“Were you dreaming?” she asked.
What a fitting word she’d chosen, however arbitrary the choice. The incident shook me so violently, it put an end forever to the faint hopes I’d occasionally entertained. I experienced similar moments of solitude in the darkness of the night when my beloved was sound asleep and the strange pulsations would come back to me, but I didn’t have the courage to wake her up again. Instead, I found myself descending anew into the abyss from which marriage had extricated me just a month earlier. And without understanding how, I became enslaved once again to the infernal habit that no husband before me had ever known. The confusion and pain I felt were indescribable. How could this happen to me when I worshipped the very ground she walked on? How could it happen, when a single glance at her face was more precious to me than the world and all its consolations? She was my happiness, my world, my very life!
* * *
One day I noticed that she seemed to want to talk about something that was on her mind. My heart began fluttering with anxiety and fear. However, I couldn’t ignore what I saw, and I preferred to meet the danger head-on rather than add something new to the litany of secret worries and obsessive thoughts that were already plaguing me.
“What’s on your mind, sweetheart?”
Looking anguished and hesitant, she made no reply.
More worried than ever, I said fearfully, “Tell me what it is, and don’t hide anything from me.”
Then with a frustrated sigh she said, “My mother.”
What she’d said struck terror in my heart. What was wrong with this woman, who refused to live and let live? How I detested her at that moment.
However, feigning nonchalance, I said, “What about her, Rabab?”
With her eyes glued to her feet she said softly, “She keeps asking me if there’s something ‘on the way.’ ”
Amazingly, I caught on right away to what she meant by the figure of speech. I understood by instinct, or perhaps by virtue of an unspoken fear.
Even so, I asked, “What do you mean, Rabab?”
Pointing to her stomach she whispered, “She means: is there anything new here!”
Unnerved, I looked down, grieved and not knowing what to say. What was the woman really asking about? Perhaps she wanted to know about other things indirectly. Be that as it may, I felt unspeakably bitter toward her. I stole a glance over at Rabab and found her looking somber and pensive. Was she really upset about her mother’s question, or did she have some other motive for telling me about it? Had she come to share her mother’s concern and apprehension? And why would she hide behind her mother? Guile didn’t befit someone with her beauty and purity of heart! Besides, there was no need for her to beat around the bush. And thus it was that fear prevented me from appreciating the position that my poor girl found herself in. I was embarrassed to the point of exhaustion. However, I focused my attention on a single aim, namely, determining how much Madame Nazli knew of our secrets.
“What did you say to her?” I inquired.
“I told her the truth,” she said simply.
“The truth!” I cried fearfully, my heart convulsing sharply.
“What’s wrong?” she asked with a bewildered stare.
“Did you really tell her the truth?!” I shouted.