The father could not find any way to accept what his daughter, Kaaffa, had done. How could he forgive her for going away, going to the home of another man? True, that other man had done everything properly. He came with his relatives. They spoke long and proudly and well. They drank coffee together. He made his offer of a dowry. And they held a ceremony. But then—what she did. She went away. Or rather, she left him. Him. In his weakness, his need, his tenderness. She left him, this woman who was the closest woman to his heart, the most precious of any to his soul. She left him, and the only reason she left was to go to that other man, that stranger to them, who wanted her so much. Who wanted children by her, and who wanted it to be said, “That man has started a household now.” And so she left him, her own father, a man who had no wants, no great ambitions, who loved her more than he loved his wife or all his sisters, daughters, she-camels, and livestock. She left him voluntarily, happily, finely dressed and adorned, for the other man. The stranger. The man from the village, the man of settled life, the hadari. The man who, before the end of the very summer in which he had rented them the date palms with their yield, came and asked for their daughter. Came and drank coffee, and talked grandly, and paid the dowry that would buy gold bracelets and earrings and sumptuous silks.
In his pain, he groaned, “What is there in gold and silk? I could have sold a few goats and bought her more gold than this, and softer silks. But she didn’t ask for anything. Instead, she took her dowry and she bought what she bought and she went off happily enough, willing to go to another man’s household.”
The father did not tell anyone of the pain in his heart. He did not show how bitterly betrayed he felt. He knew what people would say, if he did. He would hear the same words over and over. “Sunnat al-hayat. Marriage is God’s plan for our lives. It’s the way of the world. It’s written for her. The seeds of her womb—that’s her destiny.” To hell with them all! Surely that plan was not meant to deprive him of the person dearest to his heart? And what was the point of growing seeds if someday they would leave her, as she had left him?
Long sleepless nights elapsed. He could not accept it; how could he forgive her? Even if she wouldn’t be able to see that this stranger-man would not care if her feet poked out of the blanket—he wouldn’t care enough to see that they were tucked in again. And how would the stranger-man know that she always got ill if her feet were allowed to get cold? When Mansour had been no more than a silly young boy, her father was already heating olive oil to rub into her feet every night until they were safely beyond the winter. If these two were to sleep out in the open, for instance while moving from one place to another, how would that town boy know that he must mark out the space around the mat on which she slept, digging a shallow little trench to keep the scorpions from attacking her? Would he examine the place closely enough, looking out for telltale holes in the ground and burrows in the sand before spreading out the mat on which his daughter would sleep? Would he brush protective charms across her forehead and would he know the right incantations? If the cold crept upward from the soles of her feet and she did get sick, what would the stranger-man do? What would he do? He repeated the question to himself and began to heave and sob. His wife figured it was his night ravings again. She shook him awake. He couldn’t help himself, asking her about incantations and spells and getting ill from the cold. His wife was much younger than he was. He always found it hard to take, when she looked at him this way, pitying his old age. And so he would retreat from his odd, insistent questions. But this time she did not show any sympathy, nor even pity. “Do you really think your daughter’s husband is an ignorant old Bedouin shaykh like you are?” she asked him grimly. “This is a civilized boy, from the town, and he knows all the things that you don’t know. And he has a big house and a shop and orchards. So, for a start, he doesn’t need to make the girl sleep out in the open.”
He was silent. He was embarrassed. Very. About the olive oil and the amulets and the trenches in the sand. He kept his questions to himself and he kept himself from weeping. But he didn’t know how he was going to ever forgive his daughter, who had chosen this stranger-man and gone away with him, gone away to his house.