Three Daughters: A Novel (29 page)

He had definitely liked her in the beginning. He had teased her in a special way. But now he was meticulously polite. What had she done wrong? The raw weather had made the ground too sloshy for treks into the country and for several weeks she spent her time at a desk translating articles from the local press.

After he called her sensual, she had imagined a string of thrilling aftermaths:
I tried not to love you
(uttered in a desperate voice and followed by a troubled kiss).
Stand beside me and don’t say a word, whatever I do
(spoken grimly by a man who had fallen in love against his will). In reality, all he said was “Good morning,” “good night,” and “no need to translate the entire editorial, just give me the gist of it.”

She became accustomed to living with a dull eagerness. Once, out of doors, she was about to step off a curb and he put his hand under her arm protectively. As they walked she moved too slowly and he crashed softly against her. Hadn’t he held her deliberately a few extra seconds?

She didn’t know why he had liked her before and teased her good-humoredly and was now preoccupied and distant.

In late February three things happened. Khalil finally left for America. He was a thirty-year-old bachelor going to seek his fortunes, but Miriam was filled with anxiety. She snapped at everyone. As if that weren’t enough, Grandmother Jamilla caught pneumonia and died so suddenly it left everyone thunderstruck. They hardly noticed the third calamity—Samir’s father, the sheik, had a stroke.

When the weather improved, Victor began holding gymkhana race meetings in the open country behind Jaffa. During these equestrian field days, both Jews and Arabs could enjoy the pageantry and place small bets. Many hours were spent traveling back and forth, and to Nadia’s regret Victor passed the time talking obsessively of England.

“This red soil reminds me of Devonshire,” he said, looking apologetic. They were driving through the rolling downs around Lydda. “I’m sorry. I miss England, although that scoundrel Ramsay MacDonald and his Labour Party are making it intolerable for a thinking person. I must be homesick. This country is beginning to remind me of home.” At various times he remarked that he’d seen cricket played near Ramleh. And was noticing many homes with Georgian fanlights over the doors.

Each remark was a hurtful slap. He wouldn’t think twice about leaving her.

One day they stopped at one of the suqs. When they returned to the car, he mused, “They’re selling cloth by the yard. Just like in England.”

That silly remark made her lose her temper. For a moment she loathed him. “Perhaps they sell goods by the yard because it makes sense and not because it’s done in England. And you might notice that for every house with a fanlight, there are thousands with Mediterranean vaulted ceilings. The new YMCA is designed by an American—he also did the world’s tallest building. We have influences from all over. Look at the onion domes of the Russian compound and the god-awful Rhineland castle the Germans built on the site of the old Hospitallers. The British influence is only the most recent and not necessarily the most lasting.” She was perspiring. Her throat was dry. Her eyes felt as if they were melting in a solution of steaming wax.
Oh, Lord, I’m raving like a lunatic. I’m angry because he’s not paying attention to me.

He pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car. She got out, thinking he meant to leave her there. Then he got out and began to laugh. “Wonderful. You were absolutely splendid.”

“I was rude,” she said icily. “Nothing you said deserved that outburst.”

“Well”—he wiped his eyes—“no hard feelings. Let’s have a late lunch. There’s a Trappist monastery near here at Latroun that serves the best wine in the country. Good food, too.”

She got back in the car without saying a word.

Once inside the dining hall, his good humor disappeared. His shoulders slumped and she was sorry to see him that way. A monk carried in two heaping trays to serve the few diners. “See that fellow?” Victor indicated the brother. “He’s taken the vow of total silence, although they send him in here to keep me company when I’m their only customer. He left the monastery during the war to fight for France and was decorated several times for bravery. Now he’s back, content to be silent after all the excitement.” The monk brought a bottle of wine and while Victor opened it, Nadia looked around. The dining room was small and intimate, with spotless starched napery.

After tasting the wine, Victor poured some in each glass and took another long sip. “Admirable to have so much self-control that you can live without the sound of your own voice.”

“Self-control isn’t everything. He might admire you. He might envy your qualities.”

“What? Riding to hounds? Ridiculous pastime. Grown people led by a pack of overstimulated dogs to chase a fox that seldom gets caught.” Again his shoulders slumped. Perhaps he was sorry they had come here.

“Why do it then?”

“I don’t know. I love it . . . the riding, the people, the silly excitement. The fact that it’s all for naught really appeals to me. Life’s so serious and sometimes so sad. Death . . . war . . . missed chances.”

“Missed chances? You? What missed chances?”

“Mmm-hmm. You see, I never had the gift of suffering.”

“You’ve the gift of graciousness and affability.” She had a quick fear that the word didn’t mean what she thought. She took a sip of her wine and when she looked at him over the rim of the glass, she saw a look in his eyes that melted her bones and left her weak.

“It’s hard for me to say this.” The soft pad of his index finger made a slow circuit of her silky jaw and chin, grazing her lower lip before coming to rest again on the starched tablecloth. “For the last few weeks, I’ve thought of you in ways that would make your parents despondent.”

She looked down. “I don’t understand.”
Oh, yes, I do. I do.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you and have you kiss me back. Too often, I’ve imagined what it would feel like to have you in my arms.” He glanced across the room to where the monk was slapping the crumbs from a vacated table with a snap of a napkin. She, too, glanced nervously in the monk’s direction. “You’re not aware of your own effect on men, Nadia.”

“Margaret said something like that to me once.”

“She did, did she? That girl has the wisdom of a witch.” He reached across the table to hold one of her hands. “I wouldn’t have predicted this,” he said ruefully. “You took up residence in my imagination that first night with Mr. Matthew Arnold’s poem.”

“When you said I had a sensual face, I looked the word up in the dictionary and found a couplet there by Atterbury. It said, ‘No small part of virtue consists in abstaining from that wherein sensual men place their felicity.’ ” She was surprised that she remembered anything.

He smiled and pressed her hand. “Atterbury was a fool. There’s no virtue in abstaining from pleasure. It’s cowardly. And since when has the dictionary delivered a sermon with its definitions?”

The monk brought their food and she snatched her hand away in embarrassment. In this case, she decided, Mr. Atterbury’s warning was merciful. Aloud she said, “How did he know what we wanted to eat?”

“They only serve the dish of the day. I think it’s veal. Is it all right?”

She stared at the plate and nodded. How could she possibly swallow anything when her throat felt so dry and narrow. It was the shock of having him confess his feelings so candidly. She wasn’t prepared for it. “It’s fine.” She took another sip of wine but refused to look at him.

“Why don’t you look at me? Have I made you angry?”

“Oh, no. Not angry.”

“What then? Disappointed? Disgusted?”

She ran her fingernail in the soft nap of the tablecloth, aware that her next words would change her life. “Happy,” she whispered, staring intently at her plate, her eyes no longer focused. “Very happy.”

“Well, now, isn’t that marvelous?” He placed his hand over hers and rubbed his thumb against the palm. “Want to leave right now or finish eating?”

“Finish eating. I couldn’t bear to have the monk think we didn’t like the food.”

“Mmm.”

When they got into the car, she was cold as ice, shivering and filled with anxiety. “There’s something wrong here,” he said. “One shouldn’t plan a kiss. It should be a spontaneous outcome of deep feeling. You’re white as a ghost. I feel self-conscious, don’t you?”

“Yes.” She felt as if she were about to commit a crime. She kept looking at his profile for clues as to his intentions, but he appeared grim and unsettled, with a crease of worry marring his forehead.

“We won’t kiss, then,” he said obstinately. “I want this to be right.”

They drove for about fifteen minutes in the waning light. Then he pulled off the road and turned to her. “How many times have you been kissed?”

She looked down. “Once.”

“That often?” He whistled in mock surprise and she had to laugh. “And was it a kiss you welcomed?”

“No!” she almost shrieked. “Not at all.”

“Well, now . . . that puts a new light on things.” He appeared worried again.

Her experience had made him lose his desire for her. “You don’t want to kiss me now?”

His face softened and she saw a totally new emotion in his eyes. Soft and vulnerable and oh! Uncertain. He took her face in both his hands and held it like a captive bird. “You’re so young. A brand-new heart without any cynicism. A truthful heart without artifice. You see, my dear, quite ingeniously, you’ve put me on my honor.” He rubbed his thumb against her cheek and looked so wistful that she wanted to console him.

“Well, then”—she leaned forward—“I’ll have to kiss you.” An agony of wondering—months of it—was ended. She was clasped in his arms, muffled into his chest, inhaling the sweet clean smell of warm fabric. Her last clear thought was that his lips were softer than she had expected.

For days after that kiss she ached to be touched again. But she was also thrillingly fearful. She just assumed there would be more kisses. He would arrange for them to be alone. But where? In the car? In his apartment? She could not imagine being alone with him in his apartment. She appeared in the office trembling beneath her light challis jacket. A piece of paper felt like lead in her hand. She didn’t feel the desk or the chair.

“Good morning,” he called out exuberantly, but he didn’t come in. He would come in later. They couldn’t be obvious.

She waited and waited for some word, a nod, a wink. He remained aloof. When she finally ventured outside her cubicle, he was all business and she returned to her desk burning with shame. He avoided her for several days and she thought what any young girl would think—he had been curious about kissing her and now he was no longer curious.

One afternoon she was standing with Georgia by a window and saw him walking away from the building with a woman. Georgia turned to her. “The payroll clerk.” Nadia looked distressed. “Well, you knew you had to share him, didn’t you?”

She felt such pain and humiliation that she rushed away, unable to hide her feelings. She felt stupid and used. After work, she stopped at Julia’s, unwilling to go home and face her mother’s probing stares.

Julia was pregnant and too caught up in her impending mother-hood to notice much. Just when Nadia was feeling sorry to be there, almost suffocating with discomfort, Julia asked if anything was wrong, but when Nadia said no, she began to ramble on about Samir. He was traveling all through Great Britain. He knew London as well as Jerusalem. He was really getting an education.

Nadia left feeling more dejected than before. Samir was living a life of achievement and fun while she was squirming inside as if maggots were running loose in her veins because she had made a fool of herself over a man twice her age.

24.

MADE ANY FRIENDS?

I
came to see you, of course, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun with the opposite sex.” Phillips had come from Glasgow for the weekend. He looked around the room, picked up a mandolin and began to strum it.

“You could have that kind of fun in Glasgow.”

“London whores are the best. Cleaner than the French but with worse teeth.”

Samir blinked. “Aren’t there any nice, willing girls in Scotland?”

“It’s not the same with nice girls. I want someone who’s not frightened by it.”

“Going to put up a sign to that effect?”

“I know where to go. Come on, get dressed.” Phillips brushed his hair at the small mirror above a stained sink and pulled at his face. “I’m assuming you’re experienced,” he said cautiously. “I mean, all the way.”

Samir was bent over, lacing his shoes. He looked up from that position. “There’s a place in Jerusalem where wealthy men enroll their sons on their fifteenth birthday.” He was hoping to shock Phillips.

“You’re not serious?” Phillips stared at Samir through the mirror. “You made an appointment as if you were going to take piano lessons?”

“Almost like that. A woman in a spinster’s bun interviews the father and son and then assigns a teacher to you.”

“And . . . ?”

“She shows you how.”

“You mean what goes where?”

“Everyone knows what goes where. She shows you the finer points.”

“My Lord. What a cold-blooded little ritual! She sat there and told you everything?”

Samir grinned. “Not exactly. She made me demonstrate.”

“My Lord!”

“Yes.”

“Did she show you anything . . . unusual?”

“No. Just the usual,” lied Samir. As a matter of fact, the woman had had him in a full tub, almost drowning him in the process.

“Let’s go,” said Phillips, his mouth dry as dust.

In Soho they found the whores looking cold and uncomfortable in their finery. Samir’s partner had chipped front teeth. He didn’t want anything from her, but she was smitten with him and he went through with it. When Phillips wanted to return the next day, Samir urged him to go alone.

“What’s the matter? Are you in love or something?”

“Not in love. I think about someone from home.”

“Really? Anyone I know?”

“We’re making too much of it,” said Samir, annoyed by his friend’s lascivious interest. “It’s just my cousin. You met her at my sister’s engagement party.”

“Uh-oh! Watch out,” said Phillips. “Here it’s called incest. Or almost incest. The kids come out mentals. At best, they don’t win academic prizes.”

“I agree. Besides, she’s not interested so it isn’t an issue. She’s not even pretty.”

“How do you know she’s not interested?”

“I kissed her and she flew into a rage.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm what?”

“If she flew into a rage, she was probably angry with herself for liking it. She probably loved that furtive kiss.” Phillips looked pleased with himself.

“For that kind of loyalty, I’ll keep you company in Soho. Come on.”

As they walked, Phillips had a rare moment of introspection and insight. “You’re melancholy, old boy. Do they treat you badly here?”

“Not really.”

“Made any friends?”

“I’m friendly with a Jew and a Hungarian.”

“What is it, the outcasts’ club?”

“I have my athletic friends. Fair lanky lads. We’ve great camaraderie on the playing fields or sculling, but afterward we part company.”

“Too bad, but you can’t say I didn’t warn you. What about girls? I should think the girls have much more sense. Aren’t they swooning over you?”

“To date all the swooning over me has been done by boys.”

“Uh-oh! The dandies are after you.”

“And they don’t take no for an answer. One was a duke’s son. He took me to his castle for the weekend, crept into my room, and with the eyes and voice of a toddler asked if he could get in my bed.”

“And you screamed and woke the entire castle?”

“I said if he came near my bed I’d knock him out cold. Then he said, ‘What would it take? Money? Social position? My father and mother could launch you.’ The next morning I hitched a ride to the train. And that wasn’t the end of it. He accosted me at school and asked if I’d changed my mind.”

Catharsis didn’t lift his spirits. Late at night, when Phillips’s train pulled into the cavernous King’s Cross Station, Samir felt melancholy.

“This may be good-bye for good,” said his friend, pointing to the locomotive. “This is the famous Flying Scotsman, a cause célèbre in Parliament because of reports that it speeds through the nine-hour run in only seven. But the cars careen and give you hair-raising thrills. So if I don’t see you again, old man, I want to tell you how much your friendship has meant to me.” He was joking, but Samir was touched.

The term had three months to go and it seemed an eternity. Most of what he learned was unlikely to be of use in his real life. Except for one project. They were using one of the new Rothschild vineyards as a case study for profitability. The vineyard, planted several years previously, was about to bottle its first vintage. The project fascinated Samir and he devoted himself to finding out the minutest details of the wine-producing business. He wanted to persuade his father that they should begin growing grapes for wine on part of the property. As it happened, he never finished the project. There was an emergency at home and he had to return right away.

He was in the office. She could hear him walking around. She knew what every sound meant. Now he was hanging up his coat, putting down his briefcase on the desk. Now he was walking to the window and staring out at the city. Now he was perched on the corner of his desk, shuffling through papers. Soon he would come out to stir up his troops. Georgia would give him any memos from the High Commissioner’s Office, Edwina had his calendar events, Nadia had the synopsis of opinions in the local press.

He came in, closed the door slowly and deliberately, and sat in a chair next to her desk as if he were being interviewed for a job. He was silent for a long time but looked straight at her. How could he stare so calmly? The desk was only two feet wide, so they were quite close.

“I have your folder,” she said. “There aren’t any angry denouncements in the press, for a change. There’s a nice review of the open-air concerts.”

He took the folder and put it aside unopened and continued to look at her.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I can’t stop thinking of you.”

“Thinking what about me?”

“Thinking about you. As a person. Your integrity. Your generosity. Your willingness. And behind it all—a lovely feminine dignity. I think that could only come from a core of strength. Where did a young girl like you acquire so much strength? I can’t stop thinking of you. You’re not cynical. You don’t cling. You don’t giggle. You simply wait. Like a beautiful cat that knows it’s a rare species and that eventually everything it wants will come.”

Thank you, Lord, for letting him think that about me. I want to do nothing but cling to him.
“Why have you shut me out?”

“I have no right to ask anything of you. You’re half my age. My God, you’ve only been kissed twice and one of those times it was against your will. I feel I’m taking advantage of you and I feel I have to make you aware of all the consequences.

“I can’t ask you to have an affair with me. I know the standards for women in this country. Whatever I ask of you, I have to think about it seriously. I have to court you properly. I have to think about what we’re going to be to each other. What would you like us to be to each other?”

“I want to be with you, wherever that leads us.”

“All right. We’ll start from there. Let’s go for a drive. We won’t ask any questions or make plans. We’ll see what happens.”

“Nadia, you’re working later and later. I never see you at home. When your father gave permission for you to work, he was thinking it would be a different sort of job. He would never have said yes to this.”

“Did Baba say that? Did he say he would never have said yes?”

“He didn’t say that, but we don’t like you being away from home so much. We’re supposed to guide you, and how can we guide you if you’re never here? I feel something is happening to you.”

“Nothing is happening, Mama. I have to work. That’s all.”

“What is it that you do?”

“A lot of things. It’s a difficult job to define.”

“I don’t like it. Rheema teaches at the kindergarten and she’s home by three thirty. I don’t even like you going back and forth every day. Especially with all the incidents on the buses. You’re still a young girl and we’re still your parents.”

“Mama, nothing’s going to happen to me. Don’t worry.”

“Don’t tell me not to worry. You’re too young to see danger even if it’s right next to you. You don’t know everything about life, even if you think you do.”

“Good night, Mama. I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.”

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said. What did I just say?”

“Of course I heard what you said. You said Baba would not have said yes to this job.”

“That’s not what I just said at all. You see! Something is going on!”

After Miriam spoke, Nadia couldn’t remember what her mother had said or what she had answered. When she wasn’t looking at her mother, she couldn’t even remember what she looked like. There were days she lived at such a high pitch of emotion she couldn’t remember any details. Whole sections of her life were blank. Only his face made an impact. Only his voice reached her ears.

“Nadeem, it’s your right. You can go there and find out what she does. You can speak to this man. You can ask him what her duties are. What hours she’s required to be there. He’ll understand that you’re her father and have a right to know. We can’t just let her continue to do as she pleases. Something is happening. I can feel it. She’s all into herself.” There were many fears regarding her daughter that Miriam couldn’t even put into words—there was a distance, a smug smile that covered a lot of secrets.

“I can’t spy on her. She’s given me no reason. It’s wrong not to trust her. She’s always been used to dealing with her own affairs and now you can’t suddenly start treating her like a child. She’ll be resentful. She’ll turn away from us. I can’t.”

“You mean you won’t. You mean you won’t.” She said it twice, her voice tight with anger. “You’ve always been blind where Nadia is concerned. You’ve always been afraid of her.” She wanted to shout,
Your daughter is doing something wrong! Do something!
But she wasn’t his daughter and the guilt over that kept her silent. Nadia was too much like Max—obstinate and unwilling to look at anyone else’s point of view.

“Baba,” Samir said softly. The air in the room was stale and his stomach felt queasy. The sheik was dozing, but his head was at an odd angle, like a doll left unnaturally arranged by a careless child. Samir had never seen that robust face with its eyes closed and it frightened him. Someone had buttoned his white linen nightshirt all the way, but the neck no longer filled the collar.

His father had suffered a stroke that had paralyzed the right side except for minimal use of his hand. He could barely stand. And there was something else embarrassing—even the gossips didn’t want to discuss it. His beautiful young wife had left him.