Forbidden Love (12 page)

But I wasn’t sure we could stop it. Or that we wanted to.

The next few weeks and months raced by as Dalia and I continued to live our double lives. By the end of the summer we’d been to virtually every chic restaurant in Amman, or at least every one we were confident none of our family members went to. Now we decided it was time to venture past the borders of the city. We wanted to go for a picnic together and started looking for a place that was comfortable, private, and scenic. It was August and Jordan was like an inferno, so anywhere we picked had to shade us from the scorching midday sun.

Jordan has neither wide areas of lush greenery nor much wildlife. The country’s dominant physical feature is the fertile valley of the Jordan River. Forming part of the Great Rift Valley of Africa, it rises just over the Lebanese border and continues along the entire length of Jordan from the Syrian border in the north to Aqaba and the Red Sea in the south. It is fed by the Sea of Galilee (Lake Tiberias), the Yarmouk River, and

the valley streams of the high plateaux to the east and west. The Jordan now lies stagnant, and the fertile areas surrounding it are in danger. Jordan’s biggest natural problem is the eternal one of deserts and the concomitant lack of water, which is worsened now by the country’s growing population, rising living standards in the cities, heavy exploitation for agriculture and, of course, waste. Jordan has lost millions of fertile hectares to desertification over the centuries and with them has lost a stable environment for wildlife, birds and flora.

Our candidate for the picnic was one of the six nature reserves maintained by Jordan’s major environmental agency, the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature. There were two nature reserves near Amman, and my first choice for our picnic was Zai National Park, a small, dense pine forest, closest of the two to Amman, but Dalia and Jehan had their hearts set on Dibeen National Park, one of the last pine forests in Jordan and home to the endangered Persian squirrel. It also has great views and restaurants. So Dibeen it would be.

It was easy enough to come up with the plan, but it was much more complicated to put it in place. Our resourcefulness now knew no bounds. Jehan asked an old school friend to pose as a bride who wanted Dalia and me to style her wedding party, with a special request. Would we give a demonstration and consultation at her home prior to her wedding day? Our job was to make sure that Mohammed believed the farce, and dropped us off at her house for four hours. We thought it would be easy enough to convince Mohammed, but we worried about involving a fifth person in our conspiracy. We called Jehan every day to make sure she’d taken care of all the details. Each time, she told us the same thing: “Calm down, don’t worry. I’ve taken care of it, it’s all set.”

On the afternoon of our picnic, we parked ourselves in

Mohammed’s pickup, hugging work bags packed with snacks and drinks. We’d made sure that Mohammed had other plans and so would not want to sit around and wait for us. But we were worried about what we would find when we got to Jehan’s friend’s house. We prayed that she would open the door if Mohammed decided to walk us up to the entrance, as he usually did. We didn’t want to think about what would happen if her parents answered the door and we had to tell them, in front of Mohammed, that we were there for a wedding consultation with their daughter, who was not even engaged.

As Mohammed parked the car in front of a big, new apartment block, Dalia and I looked nervously at one another as we got out of the pickup and Mohammed followed us to the unit on the first floor. To our relief, a young woman answered the door and escorted us into her home, while Mohammed left. We embraced Jehan, waiting inside, and celebrated the success of our plan so far.

“Sit down, relax, and have some tea,” Jehan said. “Michael should be here in about twenty minutes or so. This is Hanan, my best friend from school. Don’t worry about anything, her mother passed away two years ago and her dad’s at work so we’re all alone.”

We sat in Hanan’s drawing room, drank some mint tea, ate pastries, and talked while we waited for Michael. Soon he arrived, full of excitement.

“Is everyone ready to go? Dalia, I have a surprise for you,” he said as he led us to the car.

Dalia sat decorously in the back seat with Jehan and me.

Suddenly the car was vibrating with the sound of Amir Diab’s “Habbibi’ song, Dalia’s favourite.

“Oh my God, you got it. I can’t believe you got it. Thank you,” she yelled.

I found it at the Music Box in Fuheis,” he told her.

Amir Diab’s album had soared to the top of the charts shortly after its release. Everyone had raced out to buy it in the first few weeks, and now it was completely sold out. Dalia had been trying to get her hands on a copy for a while.

“How did you remember that I liked this song? I only told you it was my favourite once,” she said.

“I remember everything you tell me,” he replied.

I was impressed.

We arrived at Dibeen National Park, and chatted and giggled as we hiked through the pine forest, springing along the trails on a spongy carpet of pine needles, looking for the ideal picnic spot. We saw no one else on the trails. The park was ours.

We chose to sit in a small clearing that had an enchanted mix of shade and sunlight, circled by an aromatic ring of pine trees. We spread our blankets on the ground and sat down, losing ourselves in conversation and feasting for the next few hours. At three, reluctantly, we left the park and went back to Hanan’s house, and waited for Mohammed to pick us up.

Growing bolder, we planned the next picnic at Zai National Park, but this time Dalia and Michael would go by themselves. It took Jehan weeks to arrange.

But Dalia’s face when I saw her the next day was worth it. We sat in the break room and she told me that for the first time since meeting Michael, she had kissed him.

“Oh Norma, I can’t even begin to tell you how it felt. It was so incredible; I’ve never felt anything like that before. I felt as if a spark of electricity was shooting through every inch of my body. It was just… magic.” She had been afraid, she said, “But it wasn’t awkward. It felt so natural. I really wanted to kiss him. I know

that maybe I shouldn’t have, since he’s not my

husband, but Norma, I love him so totally and completely. It embarrasses me to say this, but he’s the husband of my heart and mind, and that’s what counts.”

“You know, Dalia, we need to figure out exactly what you and Michael are going to do about this. Have you two talked

about it?”

“Well, of course we have. He’s told me that he loves me and I’ve told him that I love him. If it weren’t for our religious differences, he’d ask my father for permission to marry me right now. But Michael could never convert to Islam; it would destroy his family, and a thousand laws would come down on my head if I tried to convert to Catholicism.”

“But if you went to live in a different country, a non-Muslim country, you could be married.”

“I know. But we’re living in Jordan, so we’re stuck.”

“Only if you stay here, but maybe you could go somewhere else. Michael went to school in London and he’s travelled a lot, maybe he can find a way to get you out.”

“Norma, do you realize what you’re saying? If he could do something like that, and I went through with it, then you and I might never see each other again.”

“Dalia, I know exactly what I’m saying. But think about it, you’d be free to marry the man you love. You could live the way you want, and have children, and raise them the way you want to. You can have daughters who would have rights, more rights than women here ever dream of having.”

“I’d love to spend the rest of my life with him and I want to have his

children, but I don’t want to be without you.” \020”Who knows what tomorrow holds, right? For all you know, I might leave Jordan myself one day. But you can’t think of me. I’ll always love you, and you can’t run away from your destiny for me. If you two love each other the way I

know you do and you can find a way to be together, then you should go.”

“I don’t see why we can’t all go together.”

“We’ll talk to Michael and see what he can do, if anything. If it’s possible for both of us to escape, then I’ll come too. But even if I can’t get out, you have to go. It’s where you belong.”

“Norma, if you come that’s one thing, but I don’t know if I could leave without you.”

“Dalia, even if I don’t come now, we’ll find ways to stay in touch. Eventually you’ll probably find some way for me to join you. But right now, this is about you and Michael, not about you and me.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. “I do love him and I know he feels the same way. I’ll talk to him and see if he can find a way to get us out of here He will, I know he will.”

For days she was lost in her own romantic universe. She revelled in her emotions, and thought only about the man she loved. I believed that if paradise could exist on earth, she’d found it. She was in a world I couldn’t share, but could only hope to experience one day.

How could we have known that a fistful of pine needles would plant the first seeds of serious doubt in our minds that our conspiracy would be anything but successful? We’d been nervous at first, but with every new success our confidence had grown. The doubt, when it came, would shock Dalia out of the dream world she inhabited, and push aside the unsettling new emotions I’d been struggling with since I’d realized that she and Michael really would move away and be married. It had never occurred to me, ever, that Dalia’s relationship with Michael could cause us to be separated forever. I was ecstatic for her, but I also envied her. I tried to persuade myself that it wasn’t Dalia herself I envied, but what she had discovered. I’d always loved Dalia as if she was my sister and I truly believed that nothing could or would ever change that. Now I realized that my jealousy was driven by both a need to understand what she felt and a feeling that I didn’t want to share her with Michael. I didn’t doubt Michael’s affection for her or his integrity. I knew that if I lost her to Michael, she’d be in safe hands. But

that didn’t make me feel much better, and it didn’t help me forget the fact that I might never see her again. More than anything, I truly did want her to be happy, and I knew that without Michael she wouldn’t be and that they needed to leave Jordan in order to be together. As she blissfully sailed through the days and weeks that followed, swept by the power of these new emotions, I worked to hide mine. I was worried that if she knew what I was feeling, she’d never agree to go away and I

didn’t want to stand in her way. \020Either I was doing an excellent job or Dalia was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she never sensed my conflict. One Thursday, a few weeks after Dalia’s declaration of love, we were planning to get together to bake and talk as usual. Our sihra was to be at Dalia’s house, and I had permission to go directly there after closing the salon. We’d decided to make kunafay because it was her brother Nasar’s favourite and he and his wife were coming for a visit. We didn’t particularly enjoy Nasar’s company, but we wanted to encourage him to visit more often for his wife Diane’s sake, since he usually kept her locked up at home.

Dalia had spent that whole week talking to Michael about leaving Jordan and, as I arrived, I could tell that she had something urgent to report. As we prepared the kunafay in her kitchen, she was clearly bursting to talk. But she insisted that we finish baking so that she could spill it out later, uninterrupted, in my room. Michael must have found a way to get them out of Jordan, I guessed. I didn’t want to start sobbing and dissuade her from leaving when she told me but I hadn’t found a way, yet, to stay strong. I prayed the baking would drag on. But the kunafay was ready in record time.

Then Nasar and Diane walked in. I thanked God for their arrival, as it postponed our conversation a little longer. We

could not leave them and lock ourselves in Dalia’s room, or expect Dalia’s mother to serve them alone.

Dalia began brewing the coffee and I poured the syrup over the kunafay. The living room filled with Dalia’s family, all watching TV. Her four brothers, her mother, her father, and Diane seemed mesmerized by a Spanish series that had been translated into Arabic. Jordanian television only has four channels and all of them go off the air by midnight. Most don’t broadcast films, and so any programme that was not news or a Muslim religious show usually had a captivated following. We served the coffee and kunafay and sat down on the love seat next to Diane. Everyone kept their eyes on the television while shovelling bite-sized pieces of kunafay into their mouths. No one spoke until the first commercial break, and then Mohammed, as usual began to tease us about our cooking. Since women were not allowed to indulge in banter with any man outside their families, I enjoyed this weekly sparring which was only permitted because of my friendship with Dalia had turned her family into an extension of my own and vice versa.

“Well, their cooking has definitely improved since they decided to practise every Thursday, although they’ve made some strange things. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear it was a conspiracy to hospitalize us all,” Mohammed joked.

The word ‘conspiracy’ jolted me. My shoulders stiffened.

“You, maybe, but what could we possibly have against everyone else?” I teased back, nervous that there was an edge to his comment.

“Oh, I’m sure if I took the time to think about it I could come up with some reason you two would want to hurt me, reasons that would probably even be believable,” he shot back.

I froze. This didn’t feel like innocent teasing any more.

Dalia’s father chimed in before I had to respond.

“Yaba, go make some tea,” he said. And with that, Dalia and I collected the plates and went into the kitchen.

“How long do you think they’re going to stay?” I whispered to Dalia.

She shrugged and carried the tea tray out to the living room. Everyone was again glued to the Spanish soap opera. Mohammed and Nasar quickly stood to leave.