Marni sipped at her tea, wanting to know more—about Shara, about Ablezia, about—
‘You speak such good English,’ she said. ‘Did you learn it at school?’
‘At school and at college too, and I listen to recordings at home as well. I am training to work in hotels, you see. We are building many hotels now in our country and they will all need staff. One day, I would like to manage one, but first I must learn the basics of housekeeping, then I must learn how to run a kitchen, not to cook but to understand what goes on, then—oh, there is so much to learn.’
She flashed a bright smile at Marni, who smiled back as she said, ‘You’ll go far, I’m sure.’
‘Not if I don’t get a breakfast order from you,’ Shara said, still smiling. ‘The chef will have my head. What would you like?’
What would she like?
‘What do you have for breakfast?’ she asked.
‘You would like to try a local breakfast?’ Shara asked, obviously delighted.
‘As long as it doesn’t take too long to prepare. I have to be at the hospital at ten.’
Shara disappeared, returning with a round brass tray on which nestled six small bowls. In the middle of the tray round flatbread was folded into cones, the whole thing like some wonderful display made for a picture in a food magazine.
‘Here,’ Shara said, as she set it on the small table by an arched window. She pulled a plate out from under the bread and a napkin from beneath that again, and waited for Marni to sit. She then pointed to each dish in turn.
‘This is labneh, our cheese, a bit tangy but soft, and dahl, you know dahl from lentils, and these are eggs mixed up and cooked with spices, some olives, some hummus, and here is honey, and jam, apricot, I think, and halwa—you know the sweet halwa?’
‘It looks fantastic but I can’t possibly eat it all,’ Marni protested, and Shara laughed.
‘You just eat a little of whatever you want. you use the bread to scoop it up or there is cutlery on the plate if you prefer to use that. Now, we would drink tea but tea you have had, so perhaps coffee?’
Marni agreed that she’d like coffee and as Shara disappeared once more, Marni began to eat, scooping bits of one dish, then another, trying them alone, then together, settling on the spicy eggs and labneh as her main choices and eating far more than she normally would for breakfast.
Coffee and dates finished the meal, and as she was thanking Shara, Tasnim burst into the room.
‘I’ve come to make plans,’ she announced, but before she could continue Marni explained she was meeting Jawa—and soon.
‘Oh!’ Tasnim was deflated but not for long. ‘That is good. I send you with a driver in the car to the hospital and when you are finished with your friend he will bring you to the Plaza Hotel. The shops there are discreet and we can enjoy shopping without a crowd.’
‘The Plaza?’ Marni echoed faintly, thinking of the enormous, palace-like hotel she’d seen but had never visited.
‘Definitely the Plaza, it is the only place,’ Tasnim insisted, before whirling out of the room to make arrangements for a driver.
‘You will like the Plaza,’ Shara said, her voice so full of awe Marni felt even more uncertain.
‘Have you been there?’ she asked the girl.
‘Oh, no, but I hear it is very beautiful and the boutiques there—well, they are for the very rich.’
Which you obviously are not. Marni felt she could hear Shara’s thoughts. She’d know that from unpacking her suitcase.
Marni ignored the questions she’d heard in Shara’s voice. She grabbed a scarf to wrap around her hair, found her handbag, then asked Shara to take her to wherever the driver would be waiting with the car.
‘I daren’t walk out of the room for fear of getting lost,’ she told the girl, who smiled but was still treating her with more reserve than she had originally.
Treating her like someone who shopped at the Plaza!
Hell’s teeth, Marni thought. Does money really change things so much?
She was early when she arrived at the hospital, so her feet took her automatically to Safi’s room. The little boy was sleeping, but she’d barely registered that when her body told her who else was visiting him, although the second person had been in the bathroom, washing his hands, as she’d come in.
He was in full prince gear, so—pathetically—her breath caught in her lungs and her heart stopped beating.
‘You look beautiful,’ Gaz—no, he was definitely Ghazi—said, crossing the room towards her and taking her hands. ‘You slept well? Tasnim is looking after you?’
He raised her hands to his lips and kissed each knuckle in turn, making it impossible for her to answer him.