‘Ah, but the old ones know,’ Meena said. ‘My marriage was arranged but when I met my husband I knew my father had been right for there was no one else in the world I could love as much.’
Intrigued by a culture so different from her own, Marni couldn’t help asking, ‘Were all your marriages arranged?’
The question was probably too personal but Meena didn’t seem to mind.
‘Not really, although when Alima was about eight she decided she was going to marry Nimr, so then our father and our uncle betrothed them. Ismah met her husband at university in America. He is from a neighbouring country and will one day rule it so our father couldn’t object to him. Tasnim, of course, just told our father she was going to marry Yusef and no one could ever argue with Tasnim.’
‘I can understand that,’ Marni put in, but if Meena heard her she didn’t show it, continuing on down or up the family tree.
‘Our other sisters, well, you’ll meet them eventually, but Zahrah is married to a Westerner, the son of one of our father’s old friends and advisors, Maryam is married to her work, she is a doctor like Ghazi, and Rukan is married to another of our cousins. They were both betrothed to others but ran away to get married and our father forgave them both because they were obviously meant for each other.’
Just as Marni decided it would be impossible to remember even the sisters’ names, Alima rescued her, taking her off to meet other guests, including Ismah, a slight, plump woman with such beautiful eyes Marni could barely stop staring at her.
‘She is beautiful, yes?’ the man beside Ismah said, and Marni could only nod and smile.
‘As are you,’ Ismah said quietly, and Marni shook her head. Among these exotically beautiful women she faded into oblivion.
Gaz returned to lead her into dinner, explaining on the way that although all those present were family, the women would still sit together at one end of the table and the men at the other.
Marni smiled at him.
‘Sounds like an Aussie barbeque,’ she said. ‘The men in one group the women in another.’
‘Here it makes sense as most of the women live with their husbands, so at gatherings like this they enjoy gossiping with the other women, and the men enjoy catching up on politics or, more likely, the latest football scores and transfers.’
‘Most of the women live with their husbands?’
His turn to smile.
‘As against the old days when they would all have lived in the harem, visiting their husband in his tent, or later his palace, when invited.’
The teasing glint in his eyes made Marni’s insides flutter. What had she got herself into, and where was this going?
Had he read the questions in her eyes that he gave her hand, where it rested on his arm, a slight squeeze before abandoning her to his sisters at the women’s end of the table?
To Marni’s great relief the meal was not a banquet in the true sense of the word, with endless plates of food laid out in the middle of the table. Instead, light-footed serving women offered plates of this and that, placing small or large spoonfuls of each dish directly onto the guests’ plates.
And contrary to her impression that personal conversation was off limits in this country, she was peppered with questions about herself, her home and her family.
‘We all remember that visit to the beautiful hotel,’ Ismah told her. ‘Alima and Rukan were betrothed already, but Maryam and Meena flirted shamelessly with the young man who worked on the concierge desk, flashing their eyes at him and teasing him so he blushed whenever one of us came near, because he couldn’t really tell us apart.’
‘You flirted too,’ Meena reminded her. ‘And remember the day Zahrah went out without her abaya, in Western jeans and a T-shirt and her hair in a ponytail for everyone to see.’
The sisters laughed.
‘Oh, I remember that,’ Alima said. ‘She went to Sea World to ride on the big roller-coaster and she was so sick she had to ring the hotel and ask them to send a car to take her back there.’
‘And Father said she’d shamed the family and would never get a husband.’
‘That’s probably why he sent her to America,’ Meena said, and the women laughed, as if that had been a good thing, not a punishment.
The talk turned to other holidays, other places all the women had stayed at one time or another, London and Berlin apparently favourites with them all. Sitting listening to them, Marni realised how at ease with each other they all were, even the women married to Nimr’s brothers.
Was this normal in all families?
Not having one—not an extended one—she couldn’t judge, but their obvious closeness once again reminded her that her position was a false one, and the niggle of disquiet that rarely left her these days began to make itself felt more persistently.