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“An egg?” I repeat, not sure this makes any sense.
He carefully takes the gift from my hands. “It symbolises new life – the life we are to start together, two people becoming one.” He reaches for my finger, running it around the diameter slowly. “This is the journey we are to take – all marriages are a circle. A beginning, and an end, but much experienced in between.” I feel as though something sharp is pressing to my side. Pain lances me. I understand it intrinsically. It’s the pain of knowing these words mean nothing to him; the gift is hollow, meaningless. A tradition someone on his staff thought he should abide by. They would have organised the egg, not him.
“An egg is beautiful and full of promise, but it is also fragile. In Qabid, we believe marriages must be nurtured, cared for, our partners respected, or cracks will develop and the marriage will break.”
An egg as a metaphor for marriage shouldn’t be romantic and mystical yet hearing this description from Zahir stirs something deep in my soul.
I ignore it as best as I can. “Well, thank you. I’ll bear that in mind.” I smile tightly and turn away, not sure I want to see the egg again – it’s just a reminder of what our marriage isn’t, rather than a lesson in what we should aspire to. Our marriage is already cracked beyond repair – it’s better to be realistic from the beginning.
Zahir
Asleep, she is so different to the woman I’ve seen these past two days. In sleep, there is no hardness or defensiveness about her, no anger or impatience. In sleep, she is gentle and soft, her breathing almost silent, everything about her rhythmic and peaceful. I watch her with a scowl on my face, a crystal glass in my hand filled with a generous measure of Kathani, a drink made in Qabid that best compares to scotch.
Her eyelashes form two perfect fans against her creamy cheeks, her blonde hair is a halo against the bright pillow. It’s a warm night and a few minutes ago, she pushed the coverings off her body. She’s wearing shorts and a singlet top. Nothing particularly seductive or glamorous, but the hint of her cleavage, the gentle curve of her breasts and hips, the smoothness of her legs, makes me ache to reach for her, to touch her, to hear her moan softly as she did when I kissed her after our wedding.
Her body’s response galvanised something within me. I’d had to fight every instinct I possessed not to throw her over my shoulder and drag her to my bedroom right then, to make love to her hard and fast, then slowly, oh so slowly, taking all night to pleasure her, to find the parts of her body she most liked having touched and kissed and torment her with her sensuality.
If I went to her now and kissed her, I know she’d stir with sensual need, her arms lifting and wrapping around my neck. No matter how she wants to fight with me, there is something between us, a chemistry or spark, that renders our hatred obsolete. Temporarily, but emphatically.
I want – things I can’t have.
It isn’t right to use her body’s desires against her.
She might be the daughter of a man I hate with all my soul, but that doesn’t mean I can treat her with less respect than I would any other woman.
She shifts, turning onto her back, lifting one arm above her head so her singlet separates a little, revealing an inch of tanned, flat midriff. My eyes roam her flesh then I stand abruptly, moving to the opening of the tent and stepping through it.
There are many things I love about the desert. The ancient sands beneath my feet, worn down over millennia to form this landscape, the stark heat that demands a type of strength our people are renowned for. I love the night sky viewed from this vantage point, the blackness of the backdrop to stars that shimmer as though hyper-charged with electricity. They are ancient too, like these sands, and in the midst of this I feel as though my life is a small reverberation in the cosmic fabric of time. Whatever worries I carry seem more manageable here, the burdens of leadership ebbing away as I am reminded, vigorously, of much greater forces and questions. Or perhaps I am reminded, here in the desert, of all the Sheikhs who’ve come before me, who’ve travelled to this oasis and sought counsel from its serenity. I walk to its edges now, bending down to run my fingers through the water. It is cool to the touch.
Without second guessing myself, I strip down and, naked, walk across the shore and into the lagoon, moving deeper, until the water brushes my hips.
She defends her father as though he is the epitome of honour and at the same time, hands me evidence that he is not. The emails she casually referred to him sending should have been impossible – our government agencies have sought to prevent any communication between him and his troublemaking followers. That he managed to circumvent those efforts is further proof of his ongoing intent to stir trouble.
Is it possible my plan here will backfire? No. Not so long as I have Amy as collateral.
My lips are grim, her instinct to speak highly of her father understandable, given their relationship. Before she travelled here, I was convinced she would know everything. I thought her father might have told her of his intentions, of the plot to have me murdered so that he could assume my place, and of his part in the death of my own father. I thought her father might have brought her in on that plot, or at least poisoned her mind with a hatred of me.
She does hate me, but only for the wrong she perceives I’ve done her father.
If she knew there was incontrovertible proof that I had, in fact, given him a kindness he never intended to give me? I could have had him put to death for his treason, but I didn’t, and now I realise how much Amy was a part of my consideration. For Malik Hassan had a young daughter at the time his plan was discovered and to rob a child of a parent was something I couldn’t do. I knew the distinct, pervasive pain of that; I’d felt the absence of my parents for many long years. I would never inflict that on another person.
And so I’d exiled him. Painful, yes, but far less so than the alternative.
I grind my teeth, running my fingertips through the water as I step deeper, pausing only when it’s halfway up my abdomen.
There is evidence of her father’s plans, evidence I could show to her. Why don’t I? It would be the easiest way to make her understand me, and yet instinctively I shy away from doing that to her. She clearly idolises the man. Is there any need to ruin that for her? He’s seventy nine years old and in poor health – one of the only reasons I contemplated this union. Oh, he still has the ability to make mischief, but far less so than before. His networks have been broken up, those with whom he plotted imprisoned or exiled. While there is a small band of dissidents who might seek to act in his name, to appoint a Hassan to the throne, I believe my marriage to his daughter will have quelled their need for civil unrest.
Amy is my wife.
This isn’t the marriage I had planned. Her ignorance of her father’s dealings changes things. I can’t hate her the way I expected to. A marriage I had thought would be purely political – a necessary connection resulting in the obligatory heir – has the potential to be something different now.
But what?
Amy
I wake alone and my first thought is one of disappointment. I reach for him without meaning to, my arm outstretched with the full expectation of connecting with flesh. Even the impulse is strange. I’ve had boyfriends, a lover, but I’ve never lived with one. I’ve never even spent the night with one. Sharing a bed is not in my realm of experience, so how strange that my first thought on stirring is to reach for Zahir.
And Zahir, of all people!
