Sabri’s mother shook her head. “My son left a letter for his father in which he told him that he was returning to England to further his medical studies. He wrote that he did not wish to marry the bride his father had chosen for him. But he did not mention another bride.”
“Our lord is very angry about this letter,” the first wife interjected with a hint of triumph in her voice. “It was extremely humiliating for him to tell the qaid. Our lord managed to postpone the wedding, but he had to increase the mahr for the bride by several dirham.”
“Sabri is already married. The wedding to the qaid’s daughter will not take place,” Sibylla countered firmly. “Do you agree with me, Sayyida Almaz?”
“The opinion of the Abyssinian concubine means nothing. The master of this house will decide!” the old woman croaked.
“Then I will never see my daughter again, and you, Sayyida Almaz, will never again see your son. My daughter has written that she and Sabri will return to Morocco only if Haji Abdul accepts their union.” Sibylla signaled Nadira. She gave her Emily’s letter, which she read from aloud.
There was silence when she finished, then Almaz sobbed loudly. Sabri’s sisters sat frozen in their seats. Only the baby gurgled, unperturbed by the general tension, and reached for his mother’s dangling earrings.
Sibylla said emphatically, “Our children love each other, and if we do not show them that we love them too, they will leave us!”
“Love! Such a big word,” the first wife snarled. “But honor is a big word as well. And the honor of the qaid’s own daughter has been besmirched by these two unfortunates!”
“Please, Sayyida Almaz,” Sibylla urged, suddenly fearing that Sabri’s mother might surrender to the first wife. “You want to see your son again, and I don’t want to lose my daughter. Please let us write to our children to assure them that they will always be welcome in their parents’ homes!”
“We do not wish to lose our dear brother,” the eldest sister declared and the other two nodded emphatically.
Almaz wiped her eyes with the corner of her veil. “You’re right, Sayyida Sibylla,” she managed to say at last. “I want to see my son again. We will write this letter at once.”
“The wedding of our son, Sabri, with the daughter of the qaid will not take place, my husband. But there will be another wedding,” Almaz announced that evening. She was heeding Sibylla’s advice to simply present him with facts and doing her best to sound resolute.
Haji Abdul, wearing only a long white shirt, reclined on a cushion-covered bed and smoked shisha, watching appreciatively as his wife undressed.
Now, however, a deep furrow of irritation developed between his eyebrows. “Has God robbed you of your senses, woman? What are you saying?”
He did not wish to think about his son right now. Sabri’s flight had hurt him badly and caused a lot of unpleasantness. In the souk, the hamam, the mosque, no matter where he went, other men gave him contemptuous looks. He had the impression they were whispering behind his back and, in the tearoom on Friday, after the last prayers of the day, the qaid had let it be known that another bridegroom might be more suitable for his daughter.
He had a nerve to say that, considering I doubled the mahr for his daughter, thought Haji Abdul as he sucked grimly on his pipe. And now Almaz was talking nonsense!
“Be silent, woman, and come to me!” he demanded and patted the bed invitingly with his free hand.
But Almaz, his gentle, favorite wife, would have none of it. The flickering light of the candle made her beautiful face appear like a mask of stone. “I had a visit today from Sayyida Sibylla. We spoke about our children and decided that, as soon as they are back from Lisbon, there will be a big wedding celebration.”
“Excuse me?” Haji Abdul was confused. “Who is celebrating a wedding? And why Lisbon? Sabri is in London.”
“Your son and the English girl Emily are going to marry.”
“Stop!” Haji raised his hand. “What are you saying? Are you feverish?”
Almaz crossed her arms. “Sabri and Emily have eloped. They saw no alternative because some fathers are more willful than a mule and more stubborn than a camel. Now they are waiting in Lisbon until they are allowed to return to the bosom of their families.”
Haji Abdul gasped. Not only had his only son taken an infidel for a wife, he was also threatening to live abroad forever. The thought almost broke his heart. At the same time, he was furious to learn that every single member of his household was apparently acting without regard for propriety and morals.
“Never!” he screamed when Almaz informed him that the women, his own mother included, were conspiring with the infidel merchant’s wife to host a wedding celebration. “I will never permit this madness!”
“According to the law of the infidels, they’re married already. And Sayyida Sibylla and I do not want to lose our children. We have written a letter in which we ask them to return and celebrate a real wedding in Mogador according to our customs and with their parents’ blessing. The honorable first wife has already summoned an astrologer to determine the best date, and your daughters are going to the souk tomorrow to choose material for their dresses. Surely you cannot have any doubts now!”
“Doubts?!” Haji Abdul bellowed. “Our son has a bride! I just had to double the mahr to make sure she’ll still have him!”
“But she won’t have him, my lord,” Almaz told him quietly. “You’ll have to go to the qaid and speak with him. If he announces that his daughter is breaking the engagement because she has found a better husband, her honor will not be blemished.”
The first wife had thought of this solution. Once everyone had assimilated the outrageous news of the elopement, Sabri’s sisters had announced that their brother and his wife must celebrate a real Arab wedding. Everyone had liked the idea, even the first wife and Sabri’s grandmother. A wedding would bring welcome distraction from their monotonous, circumscribed lives. By the time Sibylla left that afternoon, the planning was well underway.
Almaz had accepted the terrible task of informing the man of the house. But now that she saw him before her, confused, angry, and hurt, she felt sorry for him. Her lord was not a bad husband. He had always provided for her and had never beaten her, not even when she was still his slave, and he was a tender and considerate lover. If only he could bring himself to understand and seize this opportunity to regain their beloved son.
But on the contrary, Haji Abdul snorted angrily, “You women are like cats that lie in wait for their prey just for the pleasure of playing with it. If you think that I’m going back to the qaid to make a fool of myself, you’re all sadly mistaken!”