Chapter Fifteen

A stern face confronted Layla. Her lips pressed together, Adila dragged her by the hand to an empty niche under the stairs.

“What was the letter that came for you?”

Layla stared at her in astonishment.

“I could have beaten Miss Eyebrows to a pulp. I go into the room, asking if anyone has seen you, and she says—in front of twenty girls—she says, ‘Your friend got a letter in a blue envelope, and ran out in a complete tizzy.’”

Layla swung her face away with a little gasp, as if she had just been slapped in the face. She noticed Sanaa crossing the garden, coming toward them.

“There’s no reason to make such a big fuss about it, Adila.”

“If you had seen all the laughing and winking, you’d know I wasn’t exaggerating.”

Sanaa had joined them without Adila noticing. “What’s the matter? Why so grim?” No one answered her. “C’mon, why so grim?”

Layla’s voice was faint, her shoulders slumped. What came out was, “A letter came,” but she might as well have said, “The worst disaster came.” Sanaa burst out laughing. Adila threw her a dark look.

“It was a blue letter, my dear,” said Adila emphatically; this was too serious for laughter.

Sanaa’s eyes sparkled. She was still laughing as she spoke. “You’re kidding, shaykha.” Her hand shot out to grasp Layla’s. “Good going! Shake my hand—” But her hand, stretched out for a knowing handshake, hung in the air. Adila looked at her suspiciously, and Layla pinched her side in warning.

“What’s the story?” asked Sanaa. “Explain what’s going on! All this grief about a blue letter?”

Layla directed her words at Adila. “By the way, all the letters that come from Germany are blue, not just that one.”

Sanaa’s face lit up and she threw her arms around Layla. “From Husayn? Was it from Husayn, Layla?” A genuine delight shone in her eyes, as if she had received a letter from her beloved. “What does he have to say? Layla, what did he say in the letter?”

Adila gazed at Layla, waiting for an answer. Curiosity, for the moment, erased the scandal she had sketched out in her mind. Layla blushed. No—Adila would not see Husayn’s letter. Nor would Sanaa, nor anyone; what that letter said was a secret between her and Husayn. No one else knew about it, and no one else ever would. It would embarrass her to have Sanaa read the letter, or Adila; she would feel as if she had undressed before them. She closed her lips firmly; and Adila understood that she would not speak.

“Anyway, what would he have to say?” remarked Adila. “It’s the same old thing. I love you, I’m crazy about you, I have nothing but you—then you find him mooning over every German girl he meets.”

Layla’s lips got white.

“Shame on you, shaykha,” said Sanaa. “You think the world’s that bad? That there’s no such thing as loyalty any more?”

Adila laughed mockingly. “Sure, Madame Sanaa, sure there is—in those novels you read. You tell me: if Mr. Husayn loves Layla, why didn’t he go to her family and ask for her?”

“That’s enough, both of you,” said Layla, her voice low. “I don’t want to hear any more of this.” But the argument between Adila and Sanaa had flared too strongly to be easily extinguished.

“How could he marry her, just like that?” demanded Sanaa. “Is she a parcel you buy? Now if Layla was the shrinking violet type . . . so he says, ‘I love you,’ and she says, ‘But I don’t love you,’ then what is he supposed to do? Buy her? The guy is waiting for—”

Layla felt like screaming, but she just steamed, “Enough!” It pained her that Adila and Sanaa could discuss such a personal subject, right in front of her, as if she were not even there, or as if she were some useless, lifeless object, a pebble under their feet or the like. But Adila paid no heed to Layla’s protest as she countered Sanaa in her most sarcastic voice. “Poor, wretched Husayn? Fasting, I suppose, like it’s Ramadan? And the guy is just waiting for the cannon to go off, telling him it’s finally time to break his fast? Right—oh well, I guess you can’t break a fast with blonde hair and blue eyes.”

Layla’s lips were trembling. “Anyway, it makes no difference to me. Blonde hair, tarand pitch. The subject of Husayn doesn’t interest me in the least, and I don’t want anyone to talk about it.”

Sanaa’s sidelong glance at Layla brimmed with regret. She gave a disconsolate shrug and trudged off. Adila was not so easy to fend off. Her mind was busily joining all the threads as she rapidly considered the practical measures that Layla must take to tackle this state of affairs.

Late that afternoon Adila visited Layla at home. Layla received her with noticeable reserve. She knew quite well that Adila would do her utmost to pull the noose tight by forcing her to take an immediate, practical step. And she could not handle practical steps at the moment. Adila narrowed her eyes on Layla.

“So what are you going to do about this?”

Layla averted her gaze. Adila went on and on. Her duty as a friend forced her to warn Layla of how dangerous the situation really was, she declared. As a friend, she must remind Layla that there was only one solution, and no alternative could be considered. Layla must write to Husayn, asking him please to stop writing to her, because to receive his letters subjected her to gossip that ruined her reputation in the college. Layla jumped to her feet. But Adila just went on talking in the same calm tone. Indeed, it would be even better if she—Adila—were to write the letter, in her own handwriting, and then to sign it on behalf of Layla. That way it could not possibly be used as a weapon to threaten Layla’s stability in the future, at the point when she decided to become engaged or married. How many, many homes had been brought down that way, sighed Adila.

Layla was appalled, and her face showed it. Her voice was faint. “Impossible. Impossible, Adila. You don’t know Husayn at all.”

But Adila brushed off Layla’s words with a wave of her hand. All men were alike, she said. Husayn was no better or worse than any other. And extreme caution had never harmed anyone. Layla collapsed back into her seat. Adila went on. Was there any other solution? she asked. She did not stop to consider that Layla might desire a relationship with Husayn, might want to correspond with him. After all, she was not one of those cheap girls who had disdained principle. All that those girls won in the end was a man’s scorn, anyway. So what could the answer be? There was no alternative to the solution she had proposed, which would settle things quickly and decisively. And if Layla did not answer Husayn at all, he would take this as encouragement to write again. Then, instead of writing once he would write again and again, and the scandal would widen in the college, day after day, until Layla’s name was fodder for every tongue. Was she really prepared to sacrifice her good name? To give up the most precious of a young woman’s possessions?

Adila paused after this presentation and observed Layla narrowly. “Well?”

Layla leaned her head back against the chair and closed her eyes. “I can’t . . . I just can’t, Adila.”

“Why not?” Adila’s voice was harsh. “Are you in love with him?”

Layla shook her head in despair. “No, it’s not like that. It’s not.”

“So what is it then?”

Layla opened her eyes and sat up straight, leaning toward Adila, palms open as if she lacked the words to explain things. When she finally spoke she could barely keep back the sobs. “What can I say? You won’t understand.”

Adila stood up. “Because I’m a donkey, right? Anyway, I’ve done my duty. And you’re free to do what you want. It’s your life.” She stalked out.

For a week, Layla was too bewildered to do anything but cry. On the tram, in the street, at home, wherever she could be alone, she tried to think it over, but thinking just led to more thoughts, and more tears. She could not give in to Adila’s point of view, but she could not dismiss it either.

She was still giving it thought as she sat between Adila and Sanaa in Dr. Ramzi’s lecture, the professor’s voice reaching her as if from very far away. Adila’s arguments were clear and persuasive, but she could not throw Husayn’s love back into his face. She could not stab him so, when he had opened his heart and his life to her. She could not strike the hand he had extended to her, or cut off the single ray of light that shone into her life. For this would be the end. It would mean she would remain forever in that vicious circle, inside the dark room.

Vicious circle? Dark room? It was all such nonsense! The vicious circle was the one in which Isam had imprisoned her, and in which Husayn would enclose her, too, one day. It was that mocking smile with which Nawal met her when she greeted her in the corridor; it was Adila’s coldness and the denial etched on her face. This was the closed circle from whose confines she must exit.

But she could not do it. She could not cause Husayn pain. Layla’s whole body throbbed with affection as she envisioned Husayn’s strong features softening into his beautiful smile, his face transformed almost into that of a suckling infant. No one, ever, would treat her with the same tenderness, and no one would know her, really know her, as he did, know her as if the curtain of separate selves had vanished between them, as if he could see into her depths. “Believe me, my love, we were created for each other.” No, she could not cause him pain, even . . .

Layla came out of her reverie abruptly as Sanaa poked her arm. “Miss Layla Sulayman—” It was Dr. Ramzi, calling out her name. She realized immediately that he had directed a question to her. She had not even heard it. She jumped to her feet. “Please repeat the question.” She tried to keep her voice calm.

He repeated it. He stood waiting, his eyes drawing the noose tighter to elicit her confession. She spoke in a faint voice. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t following the lecture.”

“Of course not. You were daydreaming.” Laughter rose from the room, and the professor directed the same question to a young man on the other side of the lecture hall. Nawal leaned over to Suzy and said something. Suzy laughed and turned to look at Layla, sitting in a row behind her. “Whoever has stolen your mind away should be congratulated,” she whispered with a grin. But her smile faded quickly as Adila, staring at her, hissed, “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll straighten up. Stop talking nonsense.”

Suzy turned. Layla looked out of the corner of her eye at Adila, but her friend had turned her head away in anger.

Some days later, Layla was walking along the big vestibule that fronted the college with Adila and Sanaa when Nawal stopped them. In her insinuating voice, she said, “Layla, there’s a letter for you in the girls’ lounge.” Adila smiled bitterly, triumphantly, as if saying to Layla, “I told you so.”

When Layla went to pick up Husayn’s letter, she found the room full of students. She walked to the board with some unease and extended a shaking hand to the letter. It seemed to her that all the eyes in the room were leveled on her, and she felt the letter burning into her hand. She stuffed it into her bag and turned, making sure not to meet anyone’s eyes. On the way to the door she bumped into the table, lost her balance, and fell. She heard laughter, some of it loud and open, some of it suppressed, but imperfectly. Her eyesight blurred as she collected the scattered contents of her bag, feeling the ground with both hands as if she were blind.

Late that afternoon Layla dropped in on Adila unannounced. She sat waiting in the living room, her body rigid, her face unmoving. After the usual greetings she pressed a folded slip of white paper into her friend’s hand.

“What’s this?”

“Husayn’s address.” And so Adila knew that Layla had accepted her solution, and she knew as well that this was costing her profound emotional pain. Sadness came into her eyes as she said, her voice unsteady, “I’m doing this for your own good, Layla.”

“I know that.”

“Would you like to be the one who writes, Layla? At home, by yourself?” Layla shook her head. She had already tried. Adila proposed that she write the letter later, when Layla was not there with her.

“Now,” said Layla, her voice muffled.

Only after she began to write did Adila understand Layla’s insistence on facing the painful situation immediately. Layla did not agree to the first draft, nor to the second.

“Something gentler. It has to be gentle, Adila.”

Adila’s natural inclination was to respond sarcastically, “You won’t be happy, Layla, unless I write a love letter to Husayn. Even if it is me doing the writing.” But the words stopped on her lips. Layla’s emotions seemed stretched so tautly that she would need only the slightest poke with a needle to pop. So Adila merely asked, “Gentle like what, Layla?”

“Thank him.”

“Me?”

“Aren’t you writing the letter in my name? So I’m the one thanking him.”

“For what?”

“For everything, all the things he has done. Write that.”

In the end, Layla dictated the letter to Adila. The tears stood in her eyes as she said, “I thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you have done for me. For everything you have done.” This turn of phrase did not please Adila, but she was afraid to protest. She was aware that the slightest opposition might cause Layla to reverse her decision, to cancel the whole idea of the letter once and for all. So Adila thanked Husayn.

When Layla reached the street she sighed with relief, as if she had just left a battle that had exhausted her forces. She felt like someone who had finally faced a long-awaited disaster and realized that the worst was over.