There were some young girls in the harem who could not have been more than ten years old and women who must have been close on thirty. It was a strange life these girls lived, and I discovered later that some of them had been there since childhood . trained to give pleasure to some rich man.
There was little for them to do all day. I had to have my daily baths and to be massaged with ointments. It was a world remote from reality.
The air was heavy with the scent of musk, sandalwood, patchouli and attar of roses. The girls would sit by the fountains, talking idly; sometimes I would hear the tinkle of a musical instrument. They picked the flowers; they entwined them in their hair; they studied their faces in little hand mirrors; they gazed at their reflections in the pools; sometimes they played games; they would chatter together, giggle, tell fortunes.
They slept in a large and airy room on divans; there were beautiful clothes for them to wear. It was an extraordinary life to while away the days, thinking of nothing but how to beautify themselves, how to idle through the day hoping that that evening they might be selected to share the Pasha’s bed.
There was a great deal of rivalry for this honour. I soon sensed that.
I attracted a great deal of attention. I was so different from them and I supposed it was almost a certainty that, when I was considered worthy, I should be chosen for my very strangeness, if for nothing else.
Meanwhile the attempts to wipe out the results of the hardships I had suffered went on. I felt like a goose being fattened up for Christmas.
I found it difficult to eat the highly spiced food. It was a little game, trying to dispose of it without Rani’s knowing what I was doing.
It was an exciting day when I found out that one of the more mature women and I think one of the most beautiful was French. Her name was Nicole and I noticed from the first that she was different from the others. She also seemed to be the most important, under Rani, of course.
One day I was sitting by the fountain when she came up and sat beside me, She asked me in French if I spoke the language.
Communication at last! It was wonderful. My French was not very adequate but at least it existed and we were able to talk.
“You are English?” she asked.
I told her I was.
“And how did you come here?”
In halting French I told her of the shipwreck and how we had been picked up.
She replied that she had been in the harem for seven years. She was Creole and had come from Martinique to go to school in France. On the way she, too, had been shipwrecked and taken by corsairs, brought here and sold, just as I had been.
“You have been here all those years?” I said.
“How have you endured it?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“At first,” she said, ‘there is great fear. I was only sixteen years old. I hated the convent. It was easy here. I liked the clothes . the idle life, I suppose. And . I was different. as you are. The Pasha liked me. “
“You were the favourite of the harem, I believe,” I said.
She nodded.
“Because,” she said, “I have Samir.”
I had seen Samir a beautiful child of about four years old. He was made much of by the women. He was the eldest of the harem children.
There was one other Feisal, who was about a year younger and also a very attractive boy. I had seen him with a woman, a few years younger, I imagined, than Nicole. Her name was Fatima.
Fatima was a voluptuous beauty with masses of black hair and languid dark eyes. She was self-indulgent in the extreme, indolent and vain.
She would sit by the pool for hours, eating sweetmeats and feeding them to one of the little King Charles spaniels who were her constant companions Fatima cared passionately for four beings herself, Feisal and her two little dogs.
Both the boys were taken away at times and there was a great deal of preparation then. They went to see the Pasha. There were two other little boys in the harem but they were as yet only babies. There were no girls. At first I wondered why it was that all the Pasha’s children were boys.
Nicole was very informative. She told me that if a woman gave birth to a girl child she went away, to her family perhaps. The Pasha was not interested in daughters, only sons; and if a woman gave birth to a son who was beautiful and intelligent such as Samir she was in high favour.
Samir, being the eldest, would be the Pasha’s heir. That was why the other women were jealous of her. She had first been set above them by the Pasha’s preference but that could be fleeting whereas Samir was always there, a reminder to the Pasha that he could beget fine boys; and he favoured the women who helped him prove this.
She told me that she had secretly taught Samir French and when the Pasha had discovered this she had been terrified of what he would do.
But she had heard through the Chief Eunuch that he was pleased that the boy should learn as much as he could and she might continue teaching him.
It surprised me that a woman of the Western world could so adjust herself to this way of life and that she could be proud of her position and intensely hate anyone who tried to snatch it from her.
But how pleased I was to be able to talk to her and discover something of those around me.
I learned of the tremendous rivalry between her and Fatima who had great ambitions for her son Feisal.
“You see,” said Nicole, ‘but for Samir, Feisal would be the Pasha’s heir and she would be First Lady. She wants very much to take my place. “
“She will never do that. You are more beautiful and much cleverer.
Moreover, Samir is a wonderful boy. “
“Feisal is not bad,” she admitted.
“And if I were to die …”
“Why should you die?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Fatima is a very jealous woman. Once, long ago, one of the women poisoned another. It would not be difficult.”
“She would not dare.”
“One woman dared.”
“But she was discovered.”
“It was long ago. Before the Pasha’s day, but they still talk about it. They took her out. They buried her up to her neck in the grounds out there. They left her in the sun … to die. It was her punishment.”
I shivered.
“I would wish the same for Fatima if she harmed my son.”
“You must make sure that she does not.”
“It is what I intend to do.”
Life was easier now that I had made contact with Nicole.
There were our beautiful clothes, our scents, our unguents, our sweetmeats, our lazy days; we were like birds of paradise in cages.
After the hardships I had suffered this was a strange life to come to.
I wondered how long it would go on.
The Pasha was away-news which delighted me.
A lethargy fell upon the harem. They lay about, dreamily admiring themselves in hand mirrors which they carried in the pockets of their capacious trousers, nibbling their sweetmeats, singing or playing their little musical instruments, quarrelling together.
Two of them quarrelled very fiercely, rolling on the mosaic floor, tugging at each other’s hair and kicking wildly until Rani came and beat them both, sent them off in disgrace and said they would not have a chance with the Pasha for three months. That soon sobered them.
