“Yes, quite right.” John furrowed his brow. “But what about the possibility that it was the same man who broke in here and frightened Firyal?”
Sibylla stared at him. Goose bumps rose on her skin as she thought of that night when she had stood in front of the dug-up dirt around the foundation of the sundial.
Carefully, as though afraid of being followed, the man looked over his shoulder. Then he gently pushed down the handle of the blue wooden door leading to the Hopkins family’s kitchen, but, of course, he found it firmly locked so late in the evening. The man pulled the hood of his djellaba even tighter over his face, stood close to the wall of the house, and waited.
A few minutes passed. Then he heard a soft sound. Metal scratched on wood, a heavy latch was pushed aside, the door was cracked open, and Emily stuck out her head. “Sabri? Are you there?”
“Yes,” he whispered and moved away from the wall.
“Oh, I’m so glad!” She threw herself into his arms and covered his face with kisses. He pulled her close, nestled his face in the warm crook of her neck, and inhaled the sweet scent of her skin.
“You’re all right! Thanks be to God!”
He had been worried since a messenger had delivered a letter from Emily that afternoon with news of the burglary. Had she not written that she would meet him after evening prayers by the back entrance of the house, he would have come earlier to see for himself that she was unharmed.
She set pillows on the threshold and they sat next to each other. Emily snuggled up to Sabri’s shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re here. The atmosphere in the house is horrid. Everyone is so nervous.”
“Of course. I am too.” Sabri looked at Emily. “You look very pretty.”
All she wore was a long nightgown, slippers, and a shawl around her shoulders to ward off the cool air. During their embrace, he had felt her body through the thin cloth as though she were naked and the thought aroused him.
“Really? Shall I try to seduce you?” She coyly lifted the hem of her nightgown a little.
“Oh, stop it!” he countered throatily. “You’re making me all muddled.”
She smiled and let the hem fall. “Have you spoken to your family about us?” Her large dark-blue eyes looked at him, full of anticipation.
“Yes.”
“And? What did they say?”
He stared at the ground and stayed silent.
“Oh,” she mumbled. “It must not have gone very well.”
“What do you expect? I don’t imagine that a Muslim and Christian in Morocco have ever before wanted to get married!”
“Might not we hope to become the first?” Emily sounded disheartened.
He placed his arm around her shoulder. “If I didn’t have hope, life would lose its meaning.”
Sabri was grateful Emily hadn’t pressed him for details.
“Marry for love? You deplorable fool!” his father had raged. “That is for stories and infidels! The woman is the man’s seedbed—so it is written. She must obey you and bear sons to be your heirs and daughters to care for you in your old age. This infidel, this daughter of sin, has robbed you of your senses! I forbid you to mention her name in this house ever again!”
Sabri had pointed out that the Koran permitted marriage between a man who was a true believer and a woman of the People of the Book. After all, his father had married a Christian woman—Sabri’s own mother, a native of Abyssinia.
At that, his father had turned red with rage. “You insolent boy! You dare oppose me? Your mother was a slave. It was my duty to marry her because it is written: marry the unmarried women among you as well as the righteous slaves. But now God is punishing me for allowing my only son to study among the infidels! Oh, Lord, smite me down, so that I no longer have to suffer the indignity of watching him besmirch the honor of his family!”
The fracas had attracted Sabri’s mother and grandmother, his unmarried aunts and sisters, as well as his father’s chief wife. As soon as they heard about the outrageous wish of the only son in the family, they began wailing. Sabri’s mother shed bitter tears of shame, his aunts insisted he be punished, his unmarried sisters lamented the fact that no honorable man would marry them now, and the chief wife looked daggers at the Abyssinian woman and claimed to have seen this catastrophe coming.
It had taken all of Sabri’s moral and intellectual strength to withstand this onslaught, but he had maintained his position: he was going to marry Emily and not some child he had never even seen before, even if she was the immaculate daughter of the qaid!
Once Haji Abdul had seen that his rage was having no effect, he became deathly calm. “Tomorrow morning, I will call on the qaid and have a marriage contract drawn up. You will be married by the end of the month. Should you dare to defy me,” he had announced with an ominous flash in his eyes, “you will no longer be my son!”
Sabri felt like he was swallowing knives each time he recalled his father’s words. He loved his family. He loved being in their company, eating, singing, telling stories, sharing tales of sorrow and success with them, and he wanted them to love Emily as he did. He could not possibly tell her of their horror and shame.
But she had already noticed how downcast he was. “They want nothing to do with me, don’t they?” She sadly rested her head on his shoulder.
Gray clouds in the night sky began to obscure the moon, and Emily shivered at the thought of all the obstacles in their way. “Are you going to leave me?” she asked anxiously.
“Never! I would never think of doing that!” He kissed her passionately.
“I am so relieved,” she whispered. “But what shall we do?”
He forced a smile. “I could abduct you. We have that custom. If the couples’ families don’t agree, the bridegroom abducts the bride and they marry in secret.”
“So they elope,” Emily replied. Suddenly, she sat up and grabbed Sabri’s arm. “That’s it! You’ll abduct me. We’ll run away together, we can marry, and then no one can keep us apart anymore.”
Sabri’s eyes grew large. “That is one option—not the best, but—”
“—but we don’t have any choice!” Emily finished.
They talked for a while about where to go. Qasr el Bahia was out of the question because it would be the first place they would be sought. They dared not go to the mountains as long as the men who had assaulted the estate were still at large. Finally, Sabri suggested Cairo. “The mother of all cities is so large that they would never find us. And there is plenty of work for a physician.”
But Emily had a better idea. “What do you think of London? Mother wants to send me there anyway. And I happen to know that one of our ships, the Queen Charlotte, is about to set sail.”
Sabri thought about that idea. After his experience at Qasr el Bahia, he had toyed with the idea of returning to Charing Cross Hospital to study the medical art of surgery and better learn to treat bone fractures.
“London is good,” he finally agreed. “But you do realize that we may never be able to return here?”
Emily swallowed hard. “Yes.”