Chapter Seven

Layla began to keep the mailbox under tight surveillance—on her way to school, on her way home, as the usual mail delivery time approached, and also when it was not even close. Her life had come to center on that inconspicuous wooden box. For Mahmud’s letters never failed to send a tremor through her—a prolonged shiver of pride and affection.

He wrote to her twice a week, and sometimes three times. As she read his letters she felt as if he were sitting across from her in his room, recounting everything. In her mind’s eye she could envision his eyes, widening now and then as if they were open onto a new world in which all was beautiful and stunningly impressive—people, events, new experiences, thoughts he had never before had, new friends.

One friend in particular seemed to have bewitched her brother, for he wrote about this companion in every letter. It was as if Husayn Amir was the very piper who had led Mahmud into this enchanting new world with his flute. Now Mahmud strode there, reacting keenly to each new encounter, each fresh idea.

“This morning, for the first time,” he wrote, “I detonated a bomb. The first fire bomb into a British camp. I just stood there, far enough away to be safe, watching the outcome of what I had done. When I saw the fire flare up inside the camp I felt like a lighted firebrand was filling my heart—or perhaps filling all of me.”

In another letter he said: “I have grown up, Layla. I have truly grown up now. I don’t think I was even close to becoming an adult until after I came to the Canal Zone.”

“I’m really living,” came in still another. “I am so alive, Layla—do you understand what I’m saying, my dear? I feel more alive every hour, touched by everything, every hour and minute of my life. When I was back in Cairo, I considered myself alive. But now, after my latest experience, I realize that I was mistaken. Stasis is death, not life. You ask me if I’m not afraid? Of course I was afraid, at first. Fear is what gives the struggle its savor. You go forward, feeling fear, for sure, but also sensing some strength grander than yourself, greater than your fear, a force that pushes you on and makes you do what you have to do. It keeps you steady and precise all of the time. And when it is all over you feel so refreshed, because you realize that you have prevailed over yourself, over your weakness as just one puny person. Time after time, a person is liberated from the selfishness that governs everything in our lives. You feel like you are one in a collective, that your life is significant as long as you are serving this collective, and that if you were to lose your life the world would not stop turning. To the contrary—others will continue the work you start, the work for the sake of which you might lose your life. And at that point one is freed of one’s fear, liberated from one’s concentration on ‘me.’”

“Layla, I’m starting to go mad. I haven’t been able to find a single chance to work things out with you. What’s going on? Aren’t you going to explain anything to me?”

They were standing in Cicurel, between the main door and the elevator, waiting for Gamila and her mother to finish paying at the caisse. It was the first day of the sale, and the swinging glass door did not pause once.

Layla did not answer. Isam spoke again, this time in a whisper. “Layla, what is it? Don’t you love me?”

A heavily made-up elderly lady came through the door. Layla focused her gaze on the glass as it swung behind the woman, the reflection of the neon breaking on it. “I believe you know perfectly well, Isam.”

“I don’t know anything, and frankly, it is driving me mad. Are you angry because I didn’t go with Mahmud?”

Layla studied Isam, loaded down with packages.

“Why would I be angry at you? Did I try to force you to go?”

“Well, then, why have you changed? Why do you act so differently toward me?”

The elevator doors opened wide and a crowd spilled out, moving toward the door that led outside. Layla watched them. “I haven’t changed at all.”

“Not true. You’re not your usual self.”

Layla faced him. “What do you want me to do? Sing? Dance? When my brother is off fighting?” Her voice was rough.

“You don’t love me,” said Isam dejectedly. “You don’t love me even the tiniest bit.”

Layla opened her mouth to say something, but people thrust themselves between the two of them and the crush forced Isam to step back; it was all he could do to maintain his balance as he clutched the purchases that weighed him down. A man in a gray suit spoke to his wife, who was setting a hat with a large feather in it on her head. “They cheated us! That isn’t the real thing, that cloth—it’s just a cheap imitation.” Two women hugging their new belongings to themselves, expressions of triumph sketched on their faces, pushed him from his path.

“It’s just a cheap imitation,” the gray-suited man muttered again, his voice swallowed in the welter of other voices.

“What a buy! It’s the chance of a lifetime!” This was a woman in a black gown. “What about that woman in pink who wanted to snatch it from you!” another voice answered. The woman in black laughed. “I would have killed her.”

“Just not the real thing, that cloth. Cheap imitation.” His wife was straightening the feathered hat on her head. “Shh, don’t make such a fuss,” she said. “I saw the label with my own eyes, it’s the real thing, from England.”

“Oof, I felt like I was going to suffocate,” a young woman with a swan neck and arched eyebrows grumbled to another young woman who was with her. “This is no sale, dear, this is war! We’re the real guerillas in the struggle!”

Her companion laughed. Layla jumped when her aunt came up suddenly from behind, clapped her hand on Layla’s shoulder, and spoke. “Fess up, Layla—don’t you think we did well with all of these bargains?”

As his mother and Gamila finished their shopping, Isam did not drop his glance from Layla once. In fact, his eyes were fixed on her as if pulled that way by an invisible cord. Layla noticed the accusing look in his eyes, the mutely wounded expression. What had happened to Isam? Had he really gone mad? Where had all of that calm reason and self-possession gone? Didn’t he understand that his mother was with them, and so was Gamila?

Samira flagged down a taxi for the trip home. She sat in back with Gamila, heaps of purchases between them. In the wide car’s front seat sat Layla and Isam. Isam shifted closer to Layla; now his thigh was pressed against hers. His breaths slapped her cheek, heavy and fast, and he put out his hand to hold hers gently. She tried to pull her hand from his grasp but his hold grew fiercer. She tried to draw her hand out slowly and his hold became stronger still. She bit back a yelp of pain. Tears came to Isam’s eyes and his grip loosened. He took a pen and pad of paper from his pocket. He scrawled some words and let the bit of paper fall into the pocket of her overcoat.

He stood paying the fare. Layla said goodbye to her aunt and rushed in bewilderment into her family’s apartment. In the living room she read what Isam had written.

“I beg you, my love, don’t leave me. I beg you not to leave me.”

Her hand shook as she returned the paper to her pocket. Her hand was still shaking when she pressed it on the doorbell to Isam’s apartment.

*

Gamila opened the door.

“Oh good, here’s Layla. Come in, ya sitti, come and help us solve this problem.” Layla followed Gamila to her mother’s room. On the bed sat Samira Hanim. Lengths of cloth were spread out before her, a spattered sea of bright and clashing colors. Hardly did Layla’s eyes settle on one hue before they were pulled to another. Her eyesight was overpowered.

“I am so glad that you came up, my dear,” said her aunt. As Layla came nearer, Samira Hanim pointed to the patterns arranged along the edge of the bed.

“Here is the cloth. There are the patterns. Now you decide what goes with what.”

“I think the red lace does best for this draped dress,” said Gamila. “What do you think, Layla?” But Samira Hanim gave Layla no chance to speak. “No, Gamila. The red lace absolutely has to be sewn up into a simple gown. Drapee in lace? No, that needs chiffon. Or what do you say we do the drapee in that chiffon?”

“What chiffon?”

“That one—the color of a pistachio nut when you break it open.”

Gamila scampered over to her mother, her mouth puckered. “Mama, you are so incredible! It’ll be out of this world!”

Layla threw an anxious glance at the door. Gamila’s face fell, and she straightened, facing her mother and pointing. “But on one condition, Mama. Not for the engagement party.”

“But it will be absolutely beautiful, sweetheart. Real chiffon—superb!”

Gamila’s shoulders jerked upward. She looked as though she would burst into sobs, and indeed she sounded tearful. “No, Mama! How can you? I told you I want Gibere lace for the engagement!”

“Honey, I’ll get the Gibere for you! But that’s for when we write the marriage contract, for that party, not the engagement.”

The tears coursed down Gamila’s cheeks now. She could barely speak, her voice choked by sobs. “Fine, okay. Okay, Mama. I don’t want to get married anyway. That’s it.” She dragged herself to the door. Her mother got up and hurried after her, her arms wide open.

“Honey! Why upset yourself so? Okay, then, I’ll get whatever you want. What color do you want the lace to be?”

Still sniffling, Gamila said, “simone.”

“And the shoes?”

Gamila wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. “Satin, same color as the dress.”

“So that’s it. Tomorrow morning I’ll go out and get the lace and order the shoes. But come tell me what you think about this now so we can finish up. Time is going fast and we only have a week until the engagement.” Samira Hanim dragged Gamila by the hand, her gaze distant as if dreaming as she spoke. “Anyway, after the engagement you’ll really need all of these dresses. One day at the Auberge, one day at the Mena House, and then the Hilmiya Palace . . . .”

Gamila giggled. “Mama, that’s enough. But I just don’t want that gray. It’s a dead bore.”

Dropping into the armchair, her eyes steadily on the door, Layla spoke. “No, Gamila, it’s just the opposite. It’s a restful color, and very attractive.”

Her aunt perched on the edge of the bed. “Not only restful, Gamila, that gray shows off a woman’s shape really well. It’s not the color the man’ll look at—he won’t even notice that. What he will notice is the body—your figure.”

Layla tried to keep from smiling, while Gamila laughed. “Mama, you see everything, don’t you? You are so au courant!”

Samira Hanim chuckled and gave her daughter, sitting across from her, a little slap on the thigh. “So where is Isam?” she exclaimed. “He has very good taste in dresses. Go call him, Gamila. No, wait, help me roll up the cloth so it won’t wrinkle, and Layla can call him.”

Layla stood up.

“You’ll find him in his study, Layla,” said her aunt.

As she closed the study door behind her she felt a swell of aching affection surge over her. Isam was at his desk, head buried in his hands. Layla paused, observing him, then tiptoed closer. She patted his shoulder gently but, as if he were submerged in a deep sleep, he did not react. She bent over him and whispered. “Isam.”

The voice startled him; he twitched and raised his head. Layla shot up, alarmed, but he seized her arms with both fists before she could step back. His face seemed different, as if its outlines had partly dissolved: the nose seemed broader and flatter, the cheeks sagged. His chin was slack, his mouth loose; his eyes were vacant, as if he were not wholly conscious. He seemed to lift his body ponderously; his tight grasp fixed her to the floor. Now his features began to sharpen, to gain both strength and harshness, while his blank gaze settled and gradually took focus, but with an expression of threat and determination; she wondered if he was going to slap her. His hands were tight on her upper arms, his body towering over her, his clouded face touching her face, his lips falling heavily on to hers. Layla threw her head back and let out a choked scream. “Isam—”

He gave no indication of having heard her. His face did not relax; his eyes remained hard. Layla backed away—one step, another—but Isam followed her step for step. She glanced over her shoulder and tried to alter the direction she was moving, but Isam held her arms more tightly and directed her toward the empty space between the chair and the wall, forcing her against the wall.

“Let go, Isam. Let go!”

He still seemed not to hear anything. He lowered his hands slowly, still on her arms, and seized her hands. He brought his body close to hers. Layla jerked her head as far back as she could, to the wall. A cold shiver ran through her limbs and her lips trembled. “Isam, I’m going to scream. I’ll scream, I will, Isam.”

Isam crushed her body with his and brought his parted lips down over her eyes. He stroked her cheek slowly, then suddenly moved his lips to her mouth. Her lips froze; Isam’s tears wetted her cheeks. He fell into the chair, jammed his elbows onto his thighs, supported his face in his hands, and broke into sobs. His sobbing rose gradually as Layla stood rooted to the spot, her body and mind vacant, desolate, as if she had just awakened from a dream, her mind blank. Isam’s crying, loud in her ears, reverberated with the terror and embarrassment that overwhelmed her. Had she committed some awful deed, entered a sacred place where she had no right to be, seen something inviolable that she had no right to see? She longed to be away from this place; she yearned to escape. Isam’s wailing filled her ears. She reached out a shaking hand that stopped, hesitant, in midair and then came down gently on Isam’s shoulder. He spoke, his voice interrupted by sobs.

“You despise me, don’t you?”

“Shh, Isam,” Layla whispered. “Shh, quiet down. Please. That’s enough.”

Isam pushed her hand from his shoulder and looked at her in loathing. When he spoke his voice had grown steady. “Go away. Leave me alone. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to see you at all.”

Layla pressed her lips together and ran out of the room.

She sat in her bedroom, busy with a jacket she was knitting. Her father was out; her mother was upstairs, visiting her sister. The maid came in. “Mr. Isam is outside, ya sitti.”

Layla’s face grew hard. She dropped her knitting, walking toward the window, her back to the maid as she spoke. “Tell Isam that Mama is not at home.”

“I told him that, madame; he said he wants to see you.”

“Tell him I’m asleep, Fatima.”

“Careful, Fatima,” said Isam, pushing the young girl gently away from the doorway as he entered. Layla did not move. She held her head straight and absolutely still, her back to Isam. After a moment’s silence, she spoke coldly. “What do you want, Isam?”

“I—” She could hear him come nearer. “I’m sorry, Layla, about everything that happened.”

Layla turned around slowly. Isam’s pale skin was blotchy and sallow, and deep black circles shadowed his eyes as if he were recovering from a long illness.

“Okay, Isam. Consider the subject closed.” Her voice was flat.

Isam’s nostrils trembled. “What subject?”

She did not answer. She sat down on the edge of the bed and put out one trembling hand to her knitting. She slipped the needle into the stitch, brought the yarn round it and pulled the new stitch over the old. She slipped the old stitch from the needle and began again. Isam came nearer.

“What do you mean, Layla?” His voice was gentler now. Layla pulled the yarn so hard that it broke. She threw the knitting down on the bed, irritated.

“The relationship between us. Consider it ended.”

Isam narrowed his eyes on the knitting. He leaned down and started to pick it up with both hands, but his grip loosened and he let it fall back onto the bed. He turned and shuffled, his shoulders slumped, to a small table. He leaned his palms heavily on it and spoke faintly, as if talking to himself. “I knew you wouldn’t forgive me if I didn’t go with Mahmud.”

Layla yanked the piece of knitting back onto her lap and nervously slipped it off the needle. To reattach the broken yarn she began to undo part of what she had knitted, her right hand jerking from left to right repeatedly. Then she discovered that she had unraveled more than she had intended and she dropped her hands into her lap, folded motionless over the piece of knitting.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Her voice was bitter.

Isam was silent, motionless, his back still to her.

“So, you have nothing to say?”

Isam turned to face her; his skin seemed even paler. “If you could only imagine.” His voice got fainter until it was barely audible. “If you could only imagine how much I love you.” Tears glistened in Layla’s eyes. She averted her gaze and tried to speak, her voice choked. “You don’t love me. If you loved me you wouldn’t have done what you did upstairs.” Layla got up, the knitting falling from her lap to the floor. She faced Isam.

“Why?” Her voice was sharp, threatening. “Why did you do that?”

“Because I love you.”

Layla’s laugh came out more like a moan. She walked to the window and pressed her forehead against the pane until it hurt. “Do you know, Isam, what I was feeling, the whole time? I felt like you wanted to hit me.” She turned to him but stayed close to the window. “No, Isam, that isn’t love. Call it anything you want, but not love.”

Isam sat down on the armchair across from her bed. “You’re still too young to understand anything.”

“I’m not too young,” said Layla, stalking toward him. “And I do understand. Everything. And I still say it isn’t love.”

Isam raised his head. “What do you understand?” His voice was quiet and bitter. “That love is this thing you read about in novels? That I can’t sleep, can’t study, can’t live? D’you understand the agony I feel when you’re next to me and I can’t even look at you, can’t touch you?” Again his voice grew fainter and fainter, and he bent over, his eyes on the floor. “And when I’m away from you, I tell myself, Layla was with me but I didn’t see her, not enough, and then I feel like I’m going mad, I feel like someone shut up in his cell. So then I come back, and what happened before happens again.” He raised his watery eyes. “You know, Layla, what it’s like? Like you’re in the desert, digging just so you can find a single drop of water, and you go on digging, and then you say, now, now I’m there. No—just a bit more, and I’ll be there. Next time. And the further down you get, the more imprisoned you become in the hole you have dug, and you never do get there. And the water never appears. It just never does.” Isam struck the chair with his fist. He jumped up to face Layla, still speaking, his voice full of anger and sarcasm. “Can you possibly understand those feelings?”

Layla fixed her eyes on the floor. She caught sight of the knitting, fallen there. She went over, bent slowly and picked it up, straightened slowly, and put it on the bed.

“Isam,” she said calmly. “You did kiss me one time before, didn’t you? Can you tell me why I wasn’t afraid that day?”

“Because that day you loved me. Today, you don’t.”

Layla made a gesture of disavowal. “Nonsense. My feelings about you haven’t changed. Do you want to know why I wasn’t afraid that day, Isam?”

Isam compressed his lips and sat down again. Layla was pacing the room.

“That day there was something. Something in your hands, in your face and eyes and movements. Something that made whatever you did okay—and not just okay. Okay and very nice.” She stopped right in front of Isam. “That day, there was love. But today—today you were looking at me as if I was your enemy, as if you wanted to win some victory over me. Why? Why, Isam?”

Isam covered his face in his hands and did not respond.

“Why did you treat me like that?” Layla asked, her voice unsteady.

Isam got up and walked toward the window. Her outcry seemed to exhaust Layla, and she collapsed onto the edge of the bed, repeating in a faint voice, “Why? Why?”

Isam turned and walked over to her. He leaned over and rubbed her shoulder gently and whispered. “I’m afraid, Layla. Afraid. Since the day Mahmud left, I’ve been afraid. From the moment you closed the door in my face, afraid, afraid you’d slip away, afraid I’d lose you. That fear has been driving me insane. It puts me in a state where I have no control over my actions.”

Layla averted her face again but he went on doggedly. “You can be sure that if I’d been in my right mind I never would have gotten that near to you. You can’t imagine how hurt I am by what happened.” He paused. “Maybe if you knew that from the day we began to love each other, my conscience has been tormenting me, and all the time I feel like I’m doing something wrong, that I’m betraying a trust people have put in me—maybe if you realize that, you can imagine how awful I feel now.”

Things began to fall into place. Isam’s behavior had so bewildered her at the time, but now she realized why his face would go red whenever her father came into the room where they were, or Mahmud, or her mother. He considered her their property, and so he felt embarrassed, ashamed, as if he were wronging them by loving her. The feelings that had filled her with pride and happy expectation and a new desire for life—with a belief in herself—filled him with a sense of guilt. Her face darkened. “If you feel like you are wrong because you didn’t go to the Canal, then why don’t you go now, Isam?”

Her question startled him. He quickly raised his hand from her shoulder and straightened up, his demeanor angry. “I’m not wrong. You know perfectly well the circumstances that prevented me from going.”

Layla cut him off coldly. “Mahmud had circumstances, too, yet he went.”

“So that’s what you’ve been wanting to say to me all along, isn’t it?”

“Me?—” Isam interrupted her. “Tell me. Talk. Say that you have stopped loving me because I’m not a hero like your brother.”

“I didn’t say anything stupid like that.”

But Isam was now so angry that he could hear only his own voice. “Who do you think you are, to be able to insult me like that? Who do you think you are, to despise me like this? I’m not your slave and I’m not your brother, either. I’m free, do you understand? If it was because I love you—because I did love you, then consider the subject closed. Totally closed.” Isam stood up, trying to regain his breath. “I’m sick of this. I want to love a regular girl, who thinks like girls think, and feels like they do. I’m sick of you, and of your philosophizing, and your moods.”

Layla bent over and hid her face between her hands. “Fine, Isam. It is all over. You can go now.”

“Of course I’m going. What do you think? That I can’t live without you?”

Layla pulled her hands from her face and stood up, her color gone. “Go.”

Isam looked at her, hesitated a moment, then went out and slammed the door behind him.

Her face set, Layla sat down again on the edge of the bed and pulled her knitting over. She tried to jab the needle into the undone stitches but her hand was shaking so hard that they kept slipping out. Stubbornly, she tried again, defiantly, as if her whole self was concentrated in this single attempt.

The door opened. Isam stood in the doorway rubbing his chin for a moment before he spoke in a faint voice. “There’s just one thing I want to know, and I think it is my right to know. It is my right to know exactly where I stand at the moment.”

Layla didn’t answer; her eyes remained fixed on the piece of knitting, her hands busy trying to put the stitches back on the needle, as if she had not even heard him. Isam stepped inside the room.

“There is one question I want you to answer. And if the answer is no, I promise you you’ll never see my face ever again.”

Still, Layla said nothing. Isam walked forward until he was directly facing her.

“Layla, do you love me or not?” He seemed to choke on the words, and turned his face away. Layla pressed her lips together and tears blurred her vision. She set the knitting down on her lap. Isam bent over her and put a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry Layla. I’m sorry about everything. I really can’t do without you. I can’t live without you. Please, please reassure me.”

Layla closed her eyes and the tears spilled out.

“Just one word, Layla, I don’t want any more than that. Did your feelings about me change because I didn’t go?”

Lips pressed even harder together, eyes still closed, Layla shook her head hard.

“It’s just like it was before? Just like before, Layla?” Isam’s voice shook.

Layla nodded, without saying a word. Isam’s face cleared and he bent over until his face was close to hers. “Just as much? As much as I love you, darling?”

Layla smiled and opened her eyes. Isam looked at her for a moment, tenderness shining in his eyes, and then he brushed her hair with his lips.