had so much in common. Their ideas, political principles and religious views were identical. As a third party looking in, I could see clearly that her fears refused to allow her to acknowledge her passion fully. Although Dalia repeatedly talked about the depth of her feelings for Michael, I realized that she was still trying to
understand her emotions. Knowing Dalia and our culture, this wasn’t surprising; it was expected. I loved watching her twist out of admitting that she was in love. I always knew that Dalia would only use the word ‘love’ when and if she became convinced that it was the only word that could explain what she was feeling. She was too analytical to do anything else; it was one of the things I cherished about her.
But if she ever used the word, there would be no turning back from the inevitable next step. I didn’t dare think about it. How remarkable romance is in an Islamic country, it occurred to me. All this endless analysis of the depth and destiny of the relationship, and they’d never kissed. Never even held hands.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The name “Aqaba’ rings with the romance of Lawrence of Arabia, as he sweeps into Jordan’s strategic (and only) port and, in flowing desert robes, riding his camel, seizes it from the Turks, winning the day for the British and their Arab allies, and writing legends for himself.
For Dalia and me Aqaba rang with very different meaning. For us, it was the symbol of the battle we lost for our childhoods, a battle that was all over by the time we were nine or ten. Too young to know what was happening, we’d been passive observers to the capture of the free-running freedom we’d known. The victors were our fathers and brothers, and the ancient codes.
It was now May in Amman. The mildest, and often most beautiful, month in Jordan. And Aqaba beckoned as it had every spring since I was a child-the place where my and Dalia’s families had always gone, and still went, to enjoy Jordan’s only seaside resort. Oh, how Dalia and I had loved Aqaba. We believed that the sea held mystical powers and,
each year, we’d beg our families to take us there. This year, as Dalia and I searched for a way to avoid joining them, I felt, for a moment, a flash of memory for the freedoms we’d known there when we were small, when we were still little princesses That was the brief snatch of time when everything we did was sweet and everyone wanted to play with us. How idyllic it looked from the distance of twenty years the time when my father was affectionate, when we rough-and-tumbled with our brothers, when we splashed and laughed in the waves at Aqaba, wore a swimsuit or whatever we wished and felt the sun on our sandy young bodies.
It was before the distance grew between me and the father who’d hugged me and held my hand as we hunted for shells. Before my brothers stopped being friends, and turned into guard dogs. From the time I turned about nine, the affection and playfulness stopped. I was then, according to them, turning into a young woman, and young women were expected to dress and act a certain way. With Dalia it was the same, though as a Muslim she had had even stricter rules to live by. Suddenly, we were no longer allowed to run outside the neighbourhood with other children; the friendly streets were no longer our playground. We were no longer allowed to wear whatever we wished.
It became our job at that time to start serving any guests that came over, and to clean and cook with our mothers. Our training and preening to become mothers and housewives ourselves had begun. And as we were taught the domestic skills, we learned, too, the responsibilities and limitations that all women must accept. Our mothers and aunts were teaching us to know the primary boundary of our lives: the house. By the time we were eighteen, the emotional distance between us and the males of our families had grown to an insurmountable gulf
that we didn’t love our brothers and fathers, but we
understand her emotions. Knowing Dalia and our culture, this wasn’t surprising; it was expected. I loved watching her twist out of admitting that she was in love. I always knew that Dalia would only use the word ‘love’ when and if she became convinced that it was the only word that could explain what she was feeling. She was too analytical to do anything else; it was one of the things I cherished about her.
But if she ever used the word, there would be no turning back from the inevitable next step. I didn’t dare think about it. How remarkable romance is in an Islamic country, it occurred to me. All this endless analysis of the depth and destiny of the relationship, and they’d never kissed. Never even held hands.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The name “Aqaba’ rings with the romance of Lawrence of Arabia, as he sweeps into Jordan’s strategic (and only) port and, in flowing desert robes, riding his camel, seizes it from the Turks, winning the day for the British and their Arab allies, and writing legends for himself.
For Dalia and me Aqaba rang with very different meaning. For us, it was the symbol of the battle we lost for our childhoods, a battle that was all over by the time we were nine or ten. Too young to know what was happening, we’d been passive observers to the capture of the free-running freedom we’d known. The victors were our fathers and brothers, and the ancient codes.
It was now May in Amman. The mildest, and often most beautiful, month in Jordan. And Aqaba beckoned as it had every spring since I was a child-the place where my and Dalia’s families had always gone, and still went, to enjoy Jordan’s only seaside resort. Oh, how Dalia and I had loved Aqaba. We believed that the sea held mystical powers and,
each year, we’d beg our families to take us there. This year, as Dalia and I searched for a way to avoid joining them, I felt, for a moment, a flash of memory for the freedoms we’d known there when we were small, when we were still little princesses That was the brief snatch of time when everything we did was sweet and everyone wanted to play with us. How idyllic it looked from the distance of twenty years the time when my father was affectionate, when we rough-and-tumbled with our brothers, when we splashed and laughed in the waves at Aqaba, wore a swimsuit or whatever we wished and felt the sun on our sandy young bodies.
It was before the distance grew between me and the father who’d hugged me and held my hand as we hunted for shells. Before my brothers stopped being friends, and turned into guard dogs. From the time I turned about nine, the affection and playfulness stopped. I was then, according to them, turning into a young woman, and young women were expected to dress and act a certain way. With Dalia it was the same, though as a Muslim she had had even stricter rules to live by. Suddenly, we were no longer allowed to run outside the neighbourhood with other children; the friendly streets were no longer our playground. We were no longer allowed to wear whatever we wished.
It became our job at that time to start serving any guests that came over, and to clean and cook with our mothers. Our training and preening to become mothers and housewives ourselves had begun. And as we were taught the domestic skills, we learned, too, the responsibilities and limitations that all women must accept. Our mothers and aunts were teaching us to know the primary boundary of our lives: the house. By the time we were eighteen, the emotional distance between us and the males of our families had grown to an insurmountable gulf
that we didn’t love our brothers and fathers, but we
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