Forbidden Love (13 page)

“Don’t you want tea?” I asked.

“We’re going to wash the pickup,” Mohammed said and they left.

“Girls, please make some lemonade and take it out to Nasar and Mohammed,” Dalia’s mother asked at the next commercial.

They were busy cleaning the truck in the driveway, both with their heads buried inside the pickup, scrubbing the upholstery and chatting. As we got nearer, we heard bits of their conversation.

“There are only two places in Amman where you find this,” Mohammed was saying.

“It’s probably one of your friends. You’re always lugging them around town.”

We held the glasses out towards them and Mohammed walked round the car to take his lemonade. As he stepped up he threw a small fistful of pine needles to the ground, at my feet, and I felt another charge of fear. Dalia saw them too. The park. Our picnic. Needles must have clung to our blankets -or shoes, work bags Oh God, oh God. But we didn’t react. We gave them their drinks and hurried back into the kitchen.

“Oh my God, Norma. Did you see that?” Dalia said in a panic.

“Yes. But did you hear what Nasar was saying that one of

Mohammed’s friends probably left them. I’m sure he believed that, so don’t worry,” I said, trying to calm myself as well.

“Norma, what do you mean don’t worry? Oh my God, this is horrible, horrible.”

“It’s not good, but it’s not that bad either. Mohammed is always driving his friends around, he’ll probably just forget about it.”

We sat nervously for the next hour until Nasar and Diane left, waiting for Mohammed to bring up the pine needles. He didn’t.

Later, in Dalia’s room, we laughed about the incident and moved on to more important things: Michael.

“He said that he thinks he can probably get us visas for London or Greece. He has friends in both those countries who will put us up until we get settled,” she announced.

“That’s wonderful. Then you can get married. You know how much I’ll miss you, but you have to do this,” I said, trying to be positive.

“No, you don’t understand. He’s going to try to get visas for all three of us.”

“What? Are you sure? Did he say that? Oh my God, I can come with you? Dalia, no, that would be too much. What would his friends say? I can understand the two of you staying with them, but me too?”

“He’s talked to his friends and they’re fine with it. You have to come. I don’t want to go without you. Please say you’ll come. We’ll all be free. We have some money saved, and so does he, so we’ll be fine.”

“Dalia, you make it sound so simple. You’re talking about moving to a foreign country, with a new language, new customs, and new people. Finding new jobs.”

“Come on, Norma, nothing you want badly enough is

ever simple, you know that. We can do this, you’ll see.”

I was caught up in her optimism. Suddenly I was laughing as it sank in. Freedom!

“I can’t think of anything I’d like better than being homeless and penniless with you and Michael in a foreign country. OK, let’s do it!”

“You mean it?”

“Yes!” I looked into the eyes of my best friend and hugged her. “You think I’d let you go alone? I was so worried that you’d leave and that I’d never see you again. Now we can leave together! This is the best news of my whole life.”

We pushed the pine needles to the back of our minds, where they couldn’t dampen the euphoric sense of hope we were feeling as we talked through the details. We were so close to Greece or London that I could almost see the tickets and visas in our hands. By the time my father arrived to pick me up, we were confident that it was all going to work, and appeared completely calm, though inside I was vibrating with possibilities.

Towards the end of September, Dalia went to Zai National park with Michael for one more picnic. There she told him that I’d agreed to join them and they shared another kiss. She was ecstatic for days.

We began to work out what we had to do in order to leave with Michael and found that it was more difficult than we’d originally thought. There were hundreds of details to consider and logistical snags we hadn’t expected. We spent three sleepless nights thinking up plans and filled our days discussing our ideas. It was further complicated by the onset of Ramadan. While Ramadan is not a public holiday, most businesses are either closed or have shorter hours during the month-long holiday.

The problems we were facing, however, had little to do with the rules of Ramadan; they were caused by the erratic hours most of the government offices kept during this month. Michael had lots of contacts in the embassies and government offices we had to go to in order to get our visas. We decided to gather all our paperwork and have him try to process the papers through his friends, hoping he could get them without either of us being there. This was when we came across our biggest stumbling block. It was something so obvious that we should have thought about it the moment we started talking about leaving Jordan. Dalia and I needed passports. Since we’d never been outside Jordan, we didn’t have them. Before Michael could get us visas, we had to have passports. Before we could buy airplane tickets, we had to have passports. Passports became our new nightmare. And it can be hard to get a passport in Jordan if you don’t want your family to know about it. Since we were women, we had to produce three pieces of paper to get one issued: a birth certificate, a photo identification card, and our family book. In Jordan, the male head of a family, in our cases our fathers, is issued with a family book. It looks a bit like a passport but is actually a family record that details genealogy, with references to the family book in which a person was previously listed. It enables the government to keep a record of all families and it ensures that no woman can travel without her parents’ consent. Men need only a birth certificate and identification cards; the problem was the family book. We realized that we would have to find a way to get them without our fathers’ knowledge and pray that the passport office wouldn’t call our parents when we appeared. In the meantime, Michael searched for some way to obtain passports without using our family books.

It was during this time that Dalia’s behaviour began to change. Over several days, her excitement vanished, replaced by fear and anxiety. At first I thought it was just nerves, though she insisted it wasn’t. Since the pine needles, she’d been on the alert, watching Mohammed for signs. Now she was sure that we’d been discovered. I was so focused

on trying to arrange our escape that I didn’t pay much attention to Dalia’s growing suspicions.

“Norma, I’m positive Mohammed knows something. He hasn’t been himself lately, not towards me, at least. I’m really anxious,” she said.

“Dalia, that’s impossible. You’re just worried that we won’t be able to pull this off and it’s getting to you,” I replied.

“Of course I’m worried about pulling this off, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Mohammed is acting very different; he even looks at me differently.”

I went over everything we had planned since she’d met Michael, in an attempt to convince her that no one suspected anything, but the more I talked, the more nervous she became. I tried to tell myself that she was just feeling emotionally vulnerable because her relationship with Michael had become so much more serious. Maybe she was having second thoughts, or feeling guilty because she’d kissed him, and that was making her paranoid. But the more I tried to persuade her that her fears were unfounded, the more she insisted that I was wrong.

We stopped planning our escape to try to calm her down, but nothing seemed to work. Within a few days, she had turned, quite literally, into a nervous wreck. She wasn’t sleeping or eating properly-I had never seen her like this. I searched for ways to ease her anxiety, but found nothing. She was obsessed with the pine needles Mohammed had found in his truck, and insisted that he’d suspected something ever since, although he’d never said a word to either of us. I tried to believe her but couldn’t get past the idea that if he suspected us he’d have said something. His behaviour towards us in the salon had not changed, but I knew that this didn’t entirely disprove Dalia’s theory, since Mohammed was unlikely to change his public behaviour, regardless of what he thought in private.

I continued to believe that Dalia’s transformation was due to nerves over the seriousness of what we were about to do, while Dalia remained convinced that her relationship with Michael had been discovered.

Dalia’s mood worsened as the days went by, aggravated by lack of sleep. In all the years I’d known her, she’d always been able to compose herself, betraying none of the emotional turmoil she was experiencing, but this time it was clear that she was losing control. I grew even more worried when she refused to come to my home one Sunday afternoon and my anxiety peaked the following day as we walked to the salon.

“Dalia, you look really tired. Have you slept at all?” I asked.

“No, I can’t sleep. Something is really wrong at home, Norma. I’m so worried that I can’t think straight any more,” she replied.

“I think you’re worrying about nothing. I don’t know what I need to do to convince you that you’re wrong about this,” I said as I unlocked the door to the salon and went in. She followed me into the break room and, as I began brewing coffee, flung herself on the couch.

\020”Norma, I’m not wrong. Do you know what Mohammed did yesterday?” she said, sitting up. “When I was about to walk to your house, he insisted on taking me. He wouldn’t let me out of the house alone. Also, he kept asking me about this week’s appointments at the salon. He wanted to know the exact times of the appointments and which clients were scheduled to come in. That’s why I didn’t come over.”

“Dalia, he’s probably trying to organize something with his friends and wants to find a way to fit it in. I think you’re reading way too much into this.” I poured the coffee and joined her on the couch.

She held a cigarette with shaky fingers, brought it up to her lips and inhaled as though it would give her the ability to go on.

“No, you’re wrong. He’s never asked for such specific information before. And I’ve been walking to your house on Sundays for how many years?” she said tensely. “No

he insists that he has to drive me. Why? I know why-he knows.”

“Relax. Calm down. I’m sure there’s some other reason. He was probably going out and planned to pass my house, so he decided to drop you off. You’ve been so worried that you’re seeing everything differently. You really need to relax. Why don’t you stay back here and try to get some rest today? Sleep a little; I’ll take your appointments or reschedule them for you.”

“No, I can’t. I have to find a way to discover what he knows. I have to know or I’ll go nuts. I haven’t been able to think of anything else for days. We have to figure out a way,” she said and lit her second cigarette.

“Dalia, please, stay back here today and get some rest. Then we’ll figure out a way to get some answers. I promise.”

I left the break room to set up the salon for our first appointment. All morning, I thought about Dalia in the break room.

Her mood had changed so dramatically in just a few short days. There had to be a way to bring her happiness back.

Every so often Dalia would wander out of the break room. She would circle the salon disorientated, as if the room was totally unfamiliar to her. Each time she appeared, I took her by the arm and gently led her back to the couch, all the while praying that Mohammed wouldn’t show up and see her like this. If he did, then he would definitely

start asking questions, which would push her over the edge. \020I cancelled most of our appointments that day, hoping to have more time to talk her out of this paranoid depression. I could see her being swept by her fears into a sea of suffering, as I stood powerless on the shore. With each day, her phobia was drawing her further and further out of my reach. She was so caught up in her terror that I couldn’t get through to her. She had locked me out. For the first time in over twenty years, I felt distanced from her and it really scared me.

I did what I could to comfort her until Mohammed showed up to close the salon. I’d repeatedly begged her to stay quiet on the way home, so Mohammed wouldn’t notice her nervousness. I kept assuring her that we would find out if he knew anything, and realized that in order to save her sanity I would have to find a way to convince her that he didn’t.

But I did wonder what if she was right? She knew Mohammed; they share the same house. She’d never shown anything like this disabling paranoia in her life. But then she had never before put her life on the line for a forbidden romance. I didn’t dare tell her, but a shadow of fear was beginning to fall over me, too.

After months of feeling trapped in an airless oven with daily temperatures well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, I woke up in the pre-dawn hours of that Tuesday to the eerie echo of the muezzins’ call upon the faithful to pray. “La ill aha ilia Allah Mohammed rasul Allah’ was being broadcast from the loudspeakers of the many mosques throughout Amman and its surrounding suburbs.

I’d spent most of the night wrestling with both my thoughts and the sheets, and so I welcomed the cool winds of early morning. It was a sure sign that the heat wave was finally loosening its grip on the city. The short, cool bursts of air blowing in through my partially opened bedroom window, along with the memory of my phone conversation with Dalia the previous night, made me shiver.

As I thought about the hours and months we’d spent planning and scheming in order to make Dalia’s relationship with Michael a reality, a sudden panic rose from deep inside me, trapping my breath in my throat. Maybe her suspicions

weren’t paranoid or based on guilt. Maybe the only reason I didn’t want to acknowledge her fears was that I knew how grave the consequences would be if her family found out. Suddenly I was desperate to talk to her. Our phone conversation the previous night had taken on a whole new dimension. I started analysing every phrase and struggled to recall the tone of her voice.