When she told Gulbeyzah of the case as of a kind of miracle, the Circassian answered:
“I perceive no cause for wonder. The bridegroom had not thought of her before in that relation, had not truly known her—that is all. Love is a blessing that brings gratitude as surely as the Nile makes plants to grow.”
Gulbeyzah and Bedr-ul-Budûr—nay, all her friends—viewed love, apart from any individual man, as a material boon. Bred up to it and ripened for it cunningly, they were ready to adore the man who gave it, however unattractive from a European standpoint. This view of love, when realized, explained to Barakah the happiness which every girl of her acquaintance seemed to find in marriage, even where, as in Gulbeyzah’s case, the husband was a greybeard thrice her age. Those who possessed it were content and virtuous. In those who had it not, or were deprived of it, all amorous crime was reckoned pardonable.
Gulbeyzah and Bedr-ul-Budûr explained all this to Barakah in thrilling tones, as if they uttered truths divine.
“Behold the wisdom of our Faith,” they said, “which grants to every woman this delight in secret. Women can never truly be the friends of men; their soul is different. If thrown with men for long, they feel fatigue. They ask of men one thing—the gift of love. Here we consort with women, true companions, all day long; and in the night the bridegroom comes, and we are blest. Is not this better than the way of Europe, which sets at nought apparent truths—as that most men love more than one of us, whereas most women need but love itself, the hope of children?”
That was one of the occasions when Barakah would have given anything to have an Englishwoman present, and to watch her face. Another came a few days later when she called upon Gulbeyzah. Alighting from her carriage at the palace door, she saw a baby’s coffin being carried out, and thought at once of turning home again. But already smiling eunuchs stood before her bidding welcome, beseeching her to deign to follow them to the haremlik. Gulbeyzah met her with a kiss on either cheek.
“Come, help us to console Nasîbah,” she exclaimed. “Her baby died this night. She is distracted.”
She drew her friend into a chamber where the childless mother lay, face downward, moaning, while the others tried to soothe her.
“It is no matter,” was the burden of their consolations. “It is not as if thou wert left altogether desolate. Are we not one, we four? Thou hast two children left, since ours are thine, and in a day or two Gulbeyzah will present thee with a third, inshallah!”
“Inshallah!” cried Gulbeyzah. “And it shall be thine entirely. Directly it is born it shall be sent to thee to nurse. I will forget it. And when it is thy turn again, thou wilt repay me. Is not that a good idea?”
Oh that English people, who regard polygamy as something dreadful, could have witnessed that small scene! The wish, escaping Barakah at unawares, begot a heartache, as she realized that all she saw and heard for their instruction was thwarted of its natural vent for evermore.
She told herself that she was happy in this life; and so she was upon the surface, where she kept her thoughts, not daring to pry down into the depths. In the early days she had desired more knowledge of the Muslim faith, and a woman learned in religion had been hired to teach her. But the fury of that faith, the scathing nature of its truths, appalled her, awaking recollections of a creed more sentimental, with distressing doubts. She very soon gave up her lessons, closed the eyes of her intelligence, and resolutely sought her pleasure in the passing hour.
Still there were moments when vague fears oppressed her. When, in the third year of her marriage, she brought forth a stillborn child, frightful abysses seemed to yawn around her, and for days she was afflicted with a kind of nightmare of misgiving, derived from recollection of the “zâr” and other horrors.
The Eastern ladies were so calm and strong compared with her; they flinched at nothing except impropriety. The slaughter of a thousand sheep at Curban Bairam, turning the kitchen court into a shambles, caused them no disgust. It was ordained of God, they told her, and it fed the poor. They had no horror of disease or death or filthy persons, and, though most cleanly, looked on vermin philosophically. The Turks and the Circassians, with their grand ideals, appeared more dreadful than the Africans, whose faith was childlike. Barakah preferred the latter. Her pleasure was in feasts and little outings, in storytellers, dancers, and musicians who beguile the time; her only rapture was in adoration of her small Muhammad.
Her hidden yearnings and beliefs clung round the boy. She dwelt in longing for the days when he should be her friend. He was her hope, the product of both parts of her divided life; giving it sense and sequence, and, in the end perhaps, if Allah willed, consistency. She dreamt of a great future for him, to astonish Europe. But in the meanwhile, being sometimes dull, she felt the need of an intelligent, discreet companion.
XXII
On the recurrence of certain anniversaries, at the two Bairams and in the month of Ragab, all Muslim Cairo left the city of the living for the cities of the dead adjoining it upon the east and south. Mothers of sorrow like Murjânah Khânum, whose heart was with her children in the grave, inhabited the mausoleums for a week or more; but the majority performed a one-day visit.
Blue night alive with stars was at her lattice when Barakah was softly roused by her attendants and arrayed in proper garb. She found Leylah Khânum and her daughters waiting for her by the mabeyn screen, where the eunuch had a heap of roses and of
