Chapter 43
“It seems like you want to ask me something but don’t know how, Madeline,” says Kamal’s sister, Nawra. Of the three sisters, she has become the closest to me, perhaps because she’s also pregnant.
“I do, but I don’t know how to do it without feeling like I’m intruding.”
We are on the terrace of the main hall. We just had dinner a little while ago, and the rest of the family, except for Zarif and Kamal, is chatting animatedly.
My fiancé’s mood seems to have improved since our private chat, but I haven’t seen him approach Zarif yet.
“It’s about my brother, the Sheikh?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Let me guess: you want to know why he and Zarif are at each other’s throats every time they meet.”
“That too, but first, I’d like to ask about Kamal’s ex-fiancée.”
She looks at me, sounding surprised. “Hiba? He told you about her?”
“Not much. He just mentioned that she . . . uh . . . took her own life.”
“Yes, she did, but I’m not sure if we should talk about it.”
I feel a bit embarrassed. “That’s alright.”
I start to leave, but she stops me.
“No, wait a moment, Madeline. You have every right to be curious. It’s just that I don’t know if I should speak ill of the dead.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t like her.”
“Oh! May I ask why?”
“It’s hard to explain. Our energies didn’t match. I found her insincere. She wouldn’t look people in the eye. Evasive. But be careful about mentioning the deceased around Iesha. They were friends.”
“I don’t intend on stepping on anyone’s toes. I just wanted to know . . .”
“If he loved her? The answer is no. It was an arranged marriage. A deal between our families.”
“What went wrong?”
“We’ll never know for sure. But she looked much happier with Zarif than with her fiancé.”
“So that’s why they hate each other?”
“I’m not sure if they hate each other. They just act like they do.”
“I don’t see the difference.”
“My brother, our beloved Sheikh, never loved Hiba, but I think he was a bit bothered by how close she was to Zarif. Male pride, if I may say so.”
“Do you think Zarif loved her?”
“You’ve met him. Would you say he’s capable of loving someone?”
“How could I be sure? We’ve barely exchanged a few words, and he’s always so . . .”
“Flirty?”
“Yes.”
“Well, if you want my opinion, I don’t know whether Zarif loved her or just fed her feelings to annoy Kamal. The fact is, the closer Hiba and my younger brother became, the more irritated the Sheikh was.”
“And then?”
“Shortly before the wedding, she took her own life. No one knows why or the details, but I suspect Kamal does. Even so, he allowed her burial to follow almost all the rites.”
“Almost all?”
“Suicide is generally not accepted in our religion, but in Sintarah, we are even more intolerant about it.”
“What do you think happened?”
“I think she cheated on him and when my brother found out, he told her he would end their engagement. To avoid the humiliation of being rejected by the Sheikh, she killed herself.”
I listen to her attentively, unable to believe that a woman who could spend the rest of her life with Kamal would choose to cheat on him instead. “Why do you believe she cheated on him?”
“My brother is an honorable man, Madeline, and he wouldn’t have broken off the engagement unless something very serious had happened. I overheard him talking to our ab that there would be no wedding.”
I look at her but can’t gather the words to ask the next question, but I think Nawra can guess what I’m thinking.
“I don’t know if it was with Zarif that Hiba cheated on the Sheikh.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“But that’s what you think.”
“Yes. I’m trying to connect the dots.”
“Honestly, I hope it isn’t true. If I find out that Zarif acted so vilely, sleeping with our brother’s fiancée, I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive him.”
Hours later
“You look deep in thought.”
It’s almost dawn. It’s the day our engagement will be announced to the world.
I relax in my Sheikh’s arms, unable to hold in a sigh of pure bliss.
After everyone left, Kamal picked me up and brought me straight to his quarters. He undressed me, kissed and touched every inch of me. Then he made love to me multiple times, as if the time we’d spent apart had built up his need for me.
He took me to heaven so many times, teaching me, making me delirious, that now I feel lazy but calm, a feeling derived from satisfaction taking over my body.
I lift my head from his chest to look up at him. “Will we keep secrets from each other?”
“What’s the reason for your question, Madeline?”
“You know everything about my past, even how many boyfriends I’ve had, but you’ve never told me about your ex-fiancée, other than the fact that she committed suicide.”
“And cheated on me,” he says, confirming Nawra’s speculation.
“Was that why she killed herself? Because she felt embarrassed? Because she knew you would end things with her?”
“Do you want to talk about this now, on the morning of our engagement?”
“The party is just a validation, my Sheikh—my love for you sealed our commitment—but I would like to know what happened in your past.”
He lays me down on the bed, then sits up, feet planted on the floor, with his back to me.
“When they gave me the news of her suicide, I thought that was the reason Hiba took her own life: shame of rejection. I was going to end our engagement. Later, I found out that it wasn’t the reason she took such a drastic step. ”
“No? I don’t think I get it.”
“She was pregnant. She wasn’t ashamed because I was leaving her—it wasn’t that that drove Hiba to suicide. It was because she wouldn’t be able to lie, claiming the child was mine.”
I try to hide my shock, but I can’t. “You never . . .”
“No. Our union, for me, was merely an arrangement. I wasn’t attracted to her, nor did I love her. We’d been alone together very few times.”
As much as it makes me a horrible human being, I’m relieved to know that if Kamal doesn’t love me, at least he hasn’t loved another either.
“Never be disloyal to me, Madeline. In my world, there’s no forgiveness for that.”
The tone of his voice is nothing like the passionate lover from moments ago, the man who whispered words in his own language into my ear, which I could guess were affectionate.
He heads to the bathroom. I don’t move, thinking about what Amapola told me: that Kamal had reasons to be distrustful.
Yes, if Kamal was cheated on by his fiancée and his brother, he has every reason to be skeptical about love and loyalty.
However, I love him, and I’m more than willing to change that. I will never give up on us.