“I know that they were very much in love before,” she said. “I also know that the family has gone to many lengths to separate them.”
“He seems to believe that despite your good offices, your late husband’s family will never accept Amina,” he said as he poured the tea. Mrs. Ali accepted a cup of tea, her fingertips meeting his on the edge of the saucer. The Major felt a skip in his veins that could only be happiness. She seemed anxious at his question and hesitated, drinking some tea and carefully placing her cup back on the tea tray before answering.
“I am afraid that I have been very selfish,” she said.
“I cannot allow you to suggest such a thing,” said the Major.
“It is true,” she said. “I have told Abdul Wahid that I have written to the family—and I have written.” Here she paused again. She wrapped her arms around her chest and gazed out at the vista. She did not look at the Major as she continued. “But each day I have been somehow too busy to post the letter.” She fumbled in a small handbag and withdrew a thin envelope, very creased and folded. Turning to him, she held it out. The Major took it gently from her fingers.
“A letter unposted is a heavy burden,” he said.
“Each day that passes I feel heavier,” she said. “I feel the weight of knowing things cannot go on as they are. But at the same time, each day I feel a lightness I had almost forgotten.” She gazed at George, who was crouched on the grass, talking to the boy with the puppy while the puppy jumped at both their knees.
“How long can you continue to postpone the necessary conversation?”
“I was hoping you might reassure me that I can postpone it forever,” she said. “I am afraid that the letter will undo all.” She turned to him, a wistful smile hovering on her lips.
“My dear Mrs. Ali…”
“I am afraid everything will be taken from me,” she said in a quiet voice. The Major felt a desire to throw the offending letter into the nearby rubbish bin along with the paper plates and sticky ice cream wrappers.
“If only it were possible to ignore them entirely,” he said.
“That will not do,” said Mrs. Ali. “I know my nephew, who has his own doubts to overcome, will not be able to proceed without his father’s blessing.” She took the envelope back and pushed it into her handbag again. “Perhaps we will see a postbox on our way home.”
“I hope your letter will meet with a more friendly reaction than you imagine,” said the Major.
“My faith does permit the occasional miracle,” said Mrs. Ali. “My hope is that they will see they have been unjust. Of course, if that fails to work, I am prepared to bargain on a more temporal level.”
“One really shouldn’t have to bargain with one’s family like a used-car salesman.” The Major sighed. With acknowledged cowardice, he had ignored two phone calls from Marjorie, finally finding a use for the incoming number display on his phone. He felt that he could no more hold off an inevitable confrontation about the guns than frail Mrs. Ali could hope to hold back the fury of her family.
“Someone must stand up for George,” she said. “It is not permitted in Islam to let a child carry the weight of a parent’s shame on his shoulders. He had to witness his grandmother’s funeral shunned by all but a handful of people. It was a great dishonor.”
“Terrible,” said the Major.
“I am afraid my husband’s family may have increased the shame by spreading certain untruths,” said Mrs. Ali. “I know Abdul Wahid understands this, and I believe it will help him decide to put things right.”
“He does seem fond of her and the boy,” said the Major.
“I am glad that you say that,” said Mrs. Ali. “I was hoping you might talk to him for me. I think he needs a man’s perspective on this.”
“It’s not really my place,” began the Major, horrified at the thought of talking about such intimate matters. He would not have been able to broach such a subject with his own son, let alone the stubborn and reticent young man currently using his guest room.
“With your military background, you understand better than most men the concept of honor and pride,” said Mrs. Ali. “In the end, I am a woman and I would throw away every shred of pride to keep this little boy with me. Abdul Wahid knows this and therefore mistrusts my ability to see his point of view.”
“I’m not an expert on the faith behind his sense of duty,” said the Major. “I could not instruct him.” Yet he felt his opposition melting under the warm satisfaction of hearing Mrs. Ali’s compliment.
“I ask you only to talk to him as one honorable man to another,” said Mrs. Ali. “Abdul Wahid is still exploring his relationship to his faith. We all pick and choose and make our religion our own, do we not?”
“I can’t imagine the various ayatollahs or the Archbishop of Canterbury agreeing with you,” said the Major. “I believe you are being unorthodox.”
“I am being realistic,” said Mrs. Ali.
“I had no idea shopkeepers were so heretical,” said the Major. “I am quite astonished.”
“Will you talk to him for me?” she asked, her brown eyes unwavering.
“I will do anything you ask,” he said. He read gratitude in her face. He wondered if he might also be seeing some happiness. He turned away and made himself busy poking at a large weed with the tip of his stick as he added, “You must know that I am entirely yours to command.”
“I see chivalry lives on,” she said.
“As long as there’s no jousting involved, I’m your knight,” he said.
Just as the Major was thinking that he could not remember, in recent years, a more satisfying Sunday afternoon, a woman walked across the grass below them and pulled the small boy and his puppy away from George. They moved off toward the car park as if to leave, but a couple of hundred feet away she stopped and shook the boy by the arm, her angry face close to his as she spoke to him. The boy was then released again to run with his dog. George, who had stood up and watched as they walked away, now came slowly back to the table with his shoulders hunched.
“What happened, George?” said Mrs. Ali. “Was that woman rude to you?” George shrugged.
“Speak up, now,” said the Major, trying to keep his voice from being too gruff. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” said George. He sighed. “His mum just said he wasn’t allowed to play with me.”
“The ignorance of some people,” said the Major, half-rising from his seat. He saw now that it was the woman who had been screaming earlier, the mother of Eddie. He would have bounded after her only she was very large and, though a slow and lumbering woman, was likely to be belligerent.
“I’m sorry, George,” said Mrs. Ali. She placed a hand on the Major’s arm as if to restrain him and the Major sank back onto his seat.
“Back home no one plays with me, either.”
“Surely you must have many friends,” said the Major. “Fine young men just like you?”
George gave him a pitying glance, as if he himself were the old man, and the Major an ignorant child. “If you have a mum but not a dad, they don’t play with you,” he explained. “Can I have another bun?” The Major was so stunned he passed the plate without thinking. It was only as George sank his face into the icing that the Major remembered how he had never allowed his own son more than a single treat at tea and had sometimes, at suitably random intervals, made him do with no treats at all in order to avoid spoiling him. In this case, another cake seemed the only remedy to hand.
“Oh, George, your mother and your aunt Noreen love you so much, and your nanni loved you very much,” said Mrs. Ali, running around the table and falling to her knees on the slightly dirty concrete to wrap her arms around the boy. “And I love you very much as well.” She kissed his face and stroked his hair while George squirmed and tried to keep the bun from tangling in her long hair. “You mustn’t lose sight of that when people are cruel.”
“You seem like a very intelligent little chap,” said the Major as Mrs. Ali released George from her hugs. The boy looked with some suspicion at the Major, who decided not to offer the “sticks and stones” advice he had intended but instead reached toward George’s dirty, sticky hand and said, “I would be honored if you would consider counting me as a friend.”
“Okay,” said George, shaking hands. “But what else can you play besides kites?” Mrs. Ali laughed while the Major did his best to maintain a grave and thoughtful expression.
“Have you ever played chess?” he asked. “I could teach you, I suppose.”
On the way home, George slept in the backseat, tired from all the running and filled with cake. The Major
