The Hakawati (68 page)

I lay back down and had a close encounter with her white-stockinged feet. I scrunched my nose. She wiggled her toes. “I can’t believe you’re here,” she said. “And I’m so happy that you’re not asking me stupid questions.”

“There are too many. I didn’t know where to begin. Where are you going to live?”

“Don’t start,” she said.

“I’m not asking why, I’m just being practical. I’m not asking if you love him or anything like that. Where are you going to live? You can’t go to the barracks, or wherever he’s holed up these days. He certainly can’t live here with you as long as he’s fighting.”

“We’ll buy a place when the war is over. Until then, we’ll keep going like this. It won’t be for long. We’ll make do.”

“How will he support you? You quit school. Why? You’re the smartest person I know.”

“I’ll finish later. Look, I’ll make it work. Shut up. I’m resting.”

Ma
rouf and his men could not find any bandits or brigands. He inquired at every village along the way whether anyone knew of a band of scoundrels who had waylaid an innocent merchant. Soon he began to guess at the merchant’s mendacity. Ma
rouf returned to Deir ash-Shakeef to discover his wife gone. “I am a vain and daft man,” he declared.

He sent out parties to search for the deceitful villain. One party followed
Arbusto’s trail to the city of Jaffa, where it was discovered that he had sailed on a ship bound for Genoa. Ma
rouf called his men. “I will set sail and retrieve my wife and butcher everyone involved in this perfidy. Return to the Fort of Marqab, and perform my duties until I return.”

In Genoa, Ma
rouf set forth toward the king’s palace. He unsheathed his sword and prepared to attack the gate, but a fork-tailed swallow circled his weapon twice and flew before him. Ma
rouf followed the swallow’s flight and reached one of the palace’s towers, which was covered with a blooming canary vine. He heard faint weeping, which pinched his heart, for he recognized the sounds of his beloved. “I hear you,” he called.

He climbed the vine, clinging to nooks and fissures in the stones, until he reached the topmost window. Inside, he saw his wife sitting before a still loom.

“Who goes there?” Maria asked.

“I am Ma
rouf, your husband.”

Maria whimpered and mewled. “You, Ma
rouf, search for me, but you will not find me yet. I am as alive as this wrecked loom, and as empty as this dispirited yarn. Without my son, I do not exist, and without your son, you are not a man. He is on an island called Tabish. Bring me my son or I will not leave this mausoleum.”

Ma
rouf joined his wife in weeping. He climbed down the tower, returned to the port, and sailed for Tabish. He searched the island. He scaled its hills, unseated its rocks, uprooted its trees. He tore up its monastery brick by brick, log by log. He could not find his son. Ma
rouf knelt before the uncompromising sea and cried again, bemoaning the capriciousness of fate. “By the life of my father, and his father before him, and his father before all, I swear upon their blood that pulses through my veins, I will find my son, my blood, my life.”

“It’s almost time,” my mother said. She made Lina stand up and display herself. My mother, Aunt Samia, and the girls made sure that nothing was left to chance. No one seemed satisfied with the dress. It wasn’t store-bought, but it was definitely designer-rushed.

“You’re so beautiful,” Aunt Samia said. “You make us proud.” Lina looked perplexed, as if she weren’t sure the conversation was about her.
“Look at her,” Aunt Samia told Mona. “Look how she carries herself. This is how a bride should be on her wedding night.” What I had never thought I would see, a blushing Lina, manifested itself before my eyes. “Learn from her, my daughter. Her head always high, beaming, full of confidence. If only my mother could see you now. She would be proud, just as I am.”