“Christians, Jews, and Muslims are like those travelers. While they quarrel about the outer form, the Sufi is after the essence,” Shams said, giving me a smile that conveyed such excitement that it was hard not to be carried away by it.
“What I am trying to say is, there is no reason for you to miss Mother Mary, because you don’t need to abandon her in the first place. As a Muslim woman, you can still feel attached to her.”
“I … I don’t think that would be right,” I stammered.
“I don’t see why not. Religions are like rivers: They all flow to the same sea. Mother Mary stands for compassion, mercy, affection, and unconditional love. She is both personal and universal. As a Muslim woman, you can keep liking her and even name your daughter Mary.”
“I don’t have a daughter,” I said.
“You will have one.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
I felt excited to hear such words, but before long the excitement was washed away by another feeling: solidarity. Sharing an unusual moment of serenity and harmony, we looked at the figure of Mother Mary together. My heart warmed to Shams, and for the first time since he’d come to our house, I was able to see what Rumi saw in him: a man with a big heart.
Still, I doubted he would make a good husband for Kimya.
Ella
BOSTON, JUNE 29, 2008
By the time Ella got to the hotel, she was so tense she couldn’t think properly. There was a group of Japanese tourists in the lobby, all of whom appeared to be in their seventies and sported the same haircut. She crossed the lobby, scanning the paintings on the walls, so as not to have to look in the eyes of the people around her. But it didn’t take long for her curiosity to defeat her timidity. And the moment her gaze slid toward the meeting area, she saw him, watching her.
He was wearing a khaki button-down shirt and dark corduroy trousers, and had a two-day stubble that she thought made him quite attractive. His curly chestnut hair fell over his green eyes, giving him an air of confidence and mischief all at once. Wiry and thin, light and lithe, he was very different from David in his expensive tailor-made suits. He spoke with a Scottish brogue, which she found charming, and smiled with an ease of manner, looking genuinely happy and excited to see her. And Ella couldn’t help asking herself what harm there could be in having a cup of coffee with him.
Later on, she would not be able to remember how one cup of coffee became several cups, or how the conversation took on an increasingly intimate tone, or how at some point he planted a kiss on her fingertip, just as she would not be able to explain why she didn’t do anything to stop him. After a while nothing seemed to matter as long as he kept talking and she could let her gaze linger on the small dimple at the corner of his mouth, wondering what it would be like to kiss him there. It was half past eleven o’clock in the evening. She was in a hotel with a man she didn’t know anything about, aside from some e-mails and phone calls and the novel he’d written.
“So you’re here for Smithsonian magazine?” Ella asked.
“Actually, I’m here for you,” Aziz answered. “After reading your letter, I wanted to come and see you.”
Still, there were possible exit routes off this fast-moving highway. Up to a certain moment, it remained possible to pretend that everything was just on friendly terms—the e-mails, the phone calls, even the glances. A bit flirtatious and playful, perhaps, but nothing more than that. She could have drawn a line. That is, until he asked, “Ella, would you like to come to my room?”
If this was a game they were both playing, that was when it got serious. His question made everything far too real, as if a mantle had been lifted and the truth, the naked truth that had been there all along, now looked them squarely in the face. Ella felt something stir in her stomach, a bubbling discomfort that she recognized as panic, but she did not turn him down. This was the most impulsive decision she had made in her life, and yet at the same time it felt as if the decision had already been made for her. All she needed to do was to accept it.
Room 608 was pleasantly decorated in hues of black, red, gray, and beige. It was warm and spacious. She tried to remember the last time she’d stayed in a hotel. A trip to Montreal with her husband and children a long time ago popped into her mind. After that, they had spent all their vacations at their house in Rhode Island, and she’d had no reason to stay in a place where the towels were changed daily and breakfast was prepared by others. Being in a hotel room felt like being in a different country. And perhaps she was. Already she could feel the frivolous freedom one could enjoy only in a city where everyone was a complete stranger.