“A rare place, by Allah!--full to the brim of education and refinement.
It is there that one acquires the latest mode and learns to view all
creatures with fastidious eyes. In Paris people would be angered at the
ignorance which prevails even among our greatest learned men. Thou too
shouldst go to Paris, O my dear!”
Thus Hâfiz Bey at Alexandria, to a relative who came on board to
welcome him. Barakah was much amused to overhear him, as also Yûsuf
vaunting Paris to Ghandûr; who, weeping all the time and sighing
“Praise to Allah!” heard not a word of what his lord was pleased to
say. Great was the joy of seeing Egypt once again. Even for the girls,
it wiped out all unpleasantness, making a plaintive tone impossible.
Shrouded once more in habbarah and face-veil, they stood and watched
the crowd of buildings faint with sunshine, seeming diaphanous between
the sapphire sky and a blue sea that looked opaque as lapis lazuli.
A gaily coloured people thronged the quays and crossed the harbour
in innumerable little boats. A din as rousing as a clarion call,
composed of many simple noises, filled the sunlight. The girls,
exhilarated, danced on tiptoe as they waited for the word to go ashore.
They chattered like small birds, inconsequently, and every minute
interjected “Praise to Allah!” Barakah inclined to silence, though she
shared their rapture.
The face-veil, which she had not worn for many weeks, seemed strange
at first. It gave the sense of prying and slight mischief one has
in peeping over a forbidden wall. Her eyes above it seemed more
penetrating. She turned them from the crowd on shore to follow Yûsuf’s
movements. He was now himself again, correct and dignified, commanding
as of right, entirely rehabilitated in her good opinion. It seemed to
her that the contempt she had so lately felt for him was undeserved.
Sinking in a strange element, he had lost his head and for a moment
clung to her. The case had been her own at first in Egypt. A minute
previous she had said good-bye to Hâfiz, Izz-ud-dîn, and Saïd. It was
curious to know that though they would be dwelling near her in the
city, meeting Yûsuf daily, she would very likely never see them in this
world again. But the prospect did not sadden her at all. Shade and
seclusion seemed just then the highest good.
Having spoken their polite farewells, Yûsuf and his companions took no
further notice of the group of veiled ones. Ghandûr had been deputed
to look after them. He ushered them on shore, and sat beside the driver
of the carriage which conveyed them to the railway station, praising
Allah all the while and weeping tears of joy. In Barakah’s absence, he
declared repeatedly, there had been no breeze in Egypt nor any spot of
shade for man’s repose. He found them their reserved compartment in the
train, and supplied their many needs, procuring sweets, chickpease,
pistachio nuts, and hard-boiled eggs from venders on the platform, as
well as two large porous jars of drinking-water. The girls asked Allah
to take note how good he was, and called him brother.
The dazzle and intoxication of great light remained with them even
when the door was shut and they were in warm shade. The sunlight
here was not like that of Paris, a thing to stare at, but a blinding
glory. It danced in flakes of all the colours of the rainbow, making
the buildings and the people pale and ghostlike. The very heat which
soon reigned in their moving box, the very dust which drifted through
its shutters, were welcome, being heat and dust of Egypt; and at the
stations, when familiar cries were heard, the speech of true believers
built upon the name of Allah, the girls could not contain their
sentiments, but bounced upon the seats and shrieked for joy.
“Hear what I am going to do, by Allah’s leave,” cried Bedr.
“Immediately on my arrival at the palace, before seeing any one,
I shall go to the hammâm and make our old bellânah scrub and knead
me till every vestige of the dust of Paris is abolished. Then she
shall dye my hands and feet with henna and shall kohl my eyes and
eyebrows,--if we had not been forbidden to take kohl to Paris, our men
would not have left us as they did,--and then I shall stretch myself
like a sleek cat and looking at my pretty hennaed toes, shall say, ‘I
seek refuge in Allah from the abomination of the infidels.’ That done,
and being dressed in my most splendid robes, I shall present myself
before my ladies, and shall lie to them; declaring that I was most
happy there in Paris, that Hâfiz Bey refused to leave me for a single
instant. The ladies will not doubt me, seeing my great beauty, and
Hâfiz Bey, you may be sure, will not deny my story. Thus shall I gain
more favour in his eyes, and make his wife--the proud one!--wish that
she had gone instead of me. What say you?”
“By Allah, we will do the same in all respects!” her companions cried
delightedly. “But what of Barakah? Promise, O Barakah, to hide the
truth from the harîm!”
Barakah promised; when they made her swear to love them always, though
they were but slave-girls and she a dignified and noble lady, for the
sake of the misfortunes they had borne together. They all clung round
her when the train reached Cairo. The door of their compartment was
flung open by Sawwâb in person, grinning welcome, with other eunuchs
close behind him on the platform.
Sawwâb conducted Barakah with honour to the harîm carriage, entering
which she was hugged breathless by the lady Fitnah, while Leylah Khânum
and her daughters started chattering, telling her all the news at once
and in a single breath.
Gulbeyzah had been married a whole month. She was absent in the
country with her lord’s whole house, but would return, it was
expected, in a week or two. Had Barakah heard in Europe--no doubt she
had--that the Sea Canal was to be opened in the coming year, with
great festivities?--the King and Queen of France were coming, it was
rumoured. Murjânah Khânum had been far from well. That was why she had
not come to welcome Barakah, to whom she sent her warmest salutations.
Barakah was not going to the garden-house this time, but to the Pasha’s
palace, to remain with them, the praise to Allah! Fitnah herself had
seen the rooms cleaned out and perfumed. One of the blacks, Zamurrudah,
was dead, the Lord have mercy on her! The old striped cat had kittens,
lucky one! The Pasha’s nieces were quite positive about the fact,
though no one had been able to find out their hiding-place.
As Barakah, caressed by all of them, received this outpour, her feeling
of home-coming was complete. And when she came to her own gilded
salon--the same where she had sipped the poison which seemed now a
dream--there was a slave-girl of Murjânah Khânum’s waiting to conduct
her to the bath, with a present of rare flowers and fruit, and a robe
of honour which she was to don, when she had rested, for supper in
Murjânah Khânum’s rooms, where all the ladies were invited to meet her.
The ladies, having voided their own news, desired a full account of
Paris and her doings. “In sh´Allah, thou wast happy there!” they all
exclaimed. When she replied, “My happiness is here with you,” the
answer gave unbounded satisfaction. From their remarks she learnt, to
her no small amazement, that Hâfiz Bey was the son of her old friend
Aminâh Khânum.
“Thou didst not know?” they cried. “How can that be? And
Bedr-ul-Budûr--surely thou hast heard of her--the slave whose beauty
the Princess was always vaunting? It is very strange!”
The placid gossip and the shaded calm existence were delightful
after months of agitation. Barakah fell into the harîm habits with
enthusiasm, devouring sweetstuff at all hours, enjoying cigarettes
and the narghileh. The best part of her morning was spent at the
bath, where the ladies met for gossip and for healthful exercise; her
afternoon in seeing visitors or paying visits. Gulbeyzah came to see
her, radiating gladness, extolling not her husband but her fellow-wives.
“We spend such merry days together,” she informed her friend. “Oh, how
much better than to be an only wife!”
When Barakah returned the visit, she was received by the four durrahs
with one voice of welcome. The four together formed a charming small
society, quite independent of the husband’s humours and the outside
world. All their possessions they enjoyed in common, even children.
Barakah was begged to come and see them often, and to love them all.
She would have been completely happy in those days but for
embarrassment arising from a secret which she longed yet feared to
tell. She was with child. Suspicion grew to certainty and still she put
off the announcement, dreading the outcry of these candid women and the
harîm ceremonies. It slipped from her by accident, one afternoon, and
the fuss they made proved even worse than expectation.
Amînah Khânum brought Bedr-ul-Budûr to see her, saying:
“This girl of mine has news to tell you.”
The old Princess herself proclaimed the news with praise to Allah. A
flush suffused the listener from head to foot.
“I too----” she murmured, and then stopped in great confusion. Amînah
Khânum pounced on her with eager questions. Bedr-ul-Budûr knelt down
before her in an ecstasy.
“Thou, too, art blest? And thou hast kept it secret all this while?”
the Princess cried. “O Bedr, go and beg the lady Fitnah to come hither
instantly!”
“No, no!” entreated Barakah, distraught with shame.
“Yes, yes!” replied the other, scoffing at her. “Is this the famed
false modesty of England? Praise God Most High that thou art fruitful,
praise Him loudly!”
The joy of Fitnah Khânum passed all bounds. She sent a messenger at
once to Yûsuf, another to the Pasha, with the tidings. The Pasha came
at once to pay his compliments to Barakah. Yûsuf came later, having
thought it necessary to circulate the happy news among his friends.
Ghandûr, who, as the water-carrier of the apartment, sat always in the
alley, underneath the lady’s lattice, was heard intoning a loud song of
triumph, three parts prayer, of which each verse concluded with: “Twin
boys, in sh´Allah!”
Joy-shrieks resounded; the whole household smiled; her friends
thronged round her, informed of her good luck as if by miracle, for
black-shrouded newsbearers were ever flitting by shadowed walls, along
the edge of crowded markets, linking the great harîms in one society,
and what was done in one was known in all. And Barakah alone saw any
call for shame or reticence.
From that day forth she was the idol of her little world, her every
want forestalled by warm solicitude. Murjânah Khânum talked to her in
a religious strain; Fitnah, more homely, prepared dainties for her;
the Pasha’s sister came and told her stories. The very children talked
aloud of her condition, and hailed it as a blessing to the house.
She had a good excuse for shunning the festivities which took place on
the arrival of the Emperor of the French in Cairo; though her husband
was employed in the reception, and all the ladies were agog to see the
Empress. She wished to be entirely Oriental. Frankish talk disgusted
her. Any reminder that the Europeans still existed was annoying; how
much more to hear them vaunted by her Eastern friends. Yûsuf himself
made fun of her fanaticism. The women humoured her conceit with knowing
smiles.
Gulbeyzah and Bedr-ul-Budûr, both in the same condition, were her
constant visitors. Amînah Khânum gave advice in her brusque way, and as
the Englishwoman’s time drew near, did more for her protection than she
knew of in her illness; impressing on Muhammad Pasha through Murjânah
the necessity of calling in a Frankish doctor, and herself procuring
from the Mufti the religious judgment which stilled the angry outcry of
the harîm midwives.
The hour of trial came at length--an anguish worse than death,
succeeded by a happiness as calm as heaven. From the cries of
jubilation filling all the house, from the blessings showered on her
within the chamber, she knew that she had borne a son. She saw the blue
of evening at the lattice, heard the murmur of the tired city like a
voice of waters, and, lulled by vast contentment, fell asleep.