been here.”
Frances went into the kitchen to make the coffee. Shabana did not follow her, as one of her own friends would have done; instead she took an armchair, and was sitting, her plump hands in her lap, when Frances returned. “I am worried about Yasmin,” she said at once. “She speaks of you as her friend, and that is why I thought we might talk.”
“I’m worried about her too.”
“I have known her for quite a while now. These days she seems, so … uncharacteristic … I don’t know.”
“She’s miserable. It’s her mother-in-law. She came weeks ago and she doesn’t show any signs of going.”
“This is part of it, no doubt.”
“She’s run off her feet.” Frances found herself indignant. It is a false indignation, her heart warned her, grafted on to graver circumstances more deserving of it; but it seemed real, it sounded real, it was partly real. “She’s exhausted from pandering to that old woman’s whims. She’s worried about Selim. The mother-in-law, she’s put it into her head that there’s something wrong with him.”
“Yes, but you must understand,” Shabana said delicately, “that we cannot interfere. This is the way things are. One day she will do it to her own daughter-in-law.”
Shabana spooned sugar into her coffee; she poured in cream. “When I was first a bride,” she said, “I cried every night for a month. Mohammad had been chosen for me, he was everything my family desired, but somehow, you know, I was romantic, and he is not a handsome man, he did not meet my expectations. My head was full of film stars, you see. I thought he should bring me flowers and perfume, and talk to me,” she gave a little laugh, “of love. When he did not, I thought he was a monster of cruelty and neglect. I complained to my mother about my unhappiness. But she said, When I was a bride, I cried every night for a year.”
That is an improving fable, Frances thought. “And are you happy now?”
“Oh, I have accommodated. Yasmin, I think, was always more down-to-earth.”
“I don’t think, though, that she is happy with Raji.”
“They seem at odds.” Shabana put down her cup, and sat twisting one of her heavy gold rings around her finger. “Has she told you why?”
“My neighbor, Samira, says she prays too much. But I can hardly think that is the reason.”
“Has she spoken to you about the veil?”
“Yes. I’m afraid I wasn’t very sympathetic.”
“The idea is repugnant to you.” Shabana sighed. “Yes, I am glad we are having this talk. I shouldn’t like you to make things worse for her, by lack of understanding.”
“You don’t think, do you,” Frances said, “you have never thought, have you … that Yasmin might be involved with another man?”
“God forbid!” Shabana said. “You have no evidence of that, surely?”
“No. Only that one day she seemed to be waiting for someone … I did think it at one time. But I had no evidence. And I don’t think it now. I imagine she was waiting for the person … for some other reason.”
“Her troubles are not of that nature, thank heaven.”
“Would it be the worst thing in the world?”
“You know the law here,” Shabana said drily. “Westerners are always very well informed about it.”
“Okay,” Frances said. “I’m sorry. It’s a red herring.”
Politely, Shabana raised her eyebrows. “A false clue,” Frances said. “I thought she had a guilty secret, and we usually think those are to do with sex. But there are other kinds.”
She leaned forward and refilled Shabana’s cup. The movement seemed dreamlike, endlessly repeatable. She had done it for Yasmin, for Samira; six months of it. Pouring coffee, she thought, and passing it through the bars of our respective cages.
“I am not sure she has guilt,” Shabana said. “It is rather the other way. You see, our religion is not a religion of excess, Mrs. Shore … may I call you Frances? It is a religion for practical men and women. Muhammad, after all, was a soldier and a ruler, as well as a man of God. But in some cases, let us say, in Raji’s case, one may become a little too practical. Raji is a businessman at heart. He flies here and he flies there. He spends time in London. He takes trips to New York. He prays and fasts, and Allah really hasn’t asked us to do any more—but when he is not in the Kingdom, who knows? He is a sociable fellow. And the Minister, his boss, he is just another of the same type.”
“I gather from what Andrew says that the Minister isn’t liked by everyone in the royal family.”
“That would be correct. He is a man who is fond of compromises. So is Raji, too. That is why Yasmin suspects he is not a very moral creature.”
Raji drinks and eyes up other women, Frances thought. Who am I to shop him to his wife’s friend? Shabana, quite possibly, is Yasmin’s spy.
The next moment she thought, that is ridiculous. I am far gone. I am paranoid. It has set in with me—Phase Three—just as the Indian psychiatrist said it would. She said, “When I came here I had some talks with Yasmin about Islam. She was quite relaxed about it. I thought she was a liberal. But she was only sugaring the pill for me. She is really a fundamentalist. Would that be the word?”
Shabana hesitated. She smoothed the black folds of her
