The Lioness of Morocco(48)

“Good-bye, and, John—”

“Yes?” He turned around, his hand already on the door handle.

“I’m staying here not just for Selwyn’s sake, but also for yours.”

“Really, dear? You are so good to me.” He waved absentmindedly. Seconds later, the door was closed.

Victoria followed him with her eyes, a crooked smile plastered on her face. The ticking of the grandfather clock she had brought from England was more audible in the stillness. It was almost twelve o’clock. This afternoon, her neighbor Sara Willshire was hosting her weekly ladies’ tea for wives of expatriate merchants and consuls. Her mother-in-law never attended these get-togethers, which, according to her, were no more than a pretext for exchanging the latest gossip. If Sibylla did go to tea, it was in the harem with the qaid’s wives and, even then, she managed to do business. She had repeatedly invited Victoria along, but she had steadfastly refused. It was bad enough that the cook, the gatekeeper, and the gardener in this house were all Arabs, but to socialize with them was really going too far.

She could hear Charlotte’s and Selwyn’s muffled laughter through the closed door. Victoria felt a longing to be with the children. I shall take them to the beach, she decided. They could hunt for shells there.

The muezzin’s midday call to prayer blared from the nearby mosque. Victoria would never have thought she would miss the ringing of church bells so much.

Charlotte was sitting on a blanket on the ground next to Nadira. The sun created magical little sparkles in her blonde curls. She was rocking her doll in her arms, trilling a little song with her squeaky voice. She beamed with happiness when she saw her mother.

Victoria kissed her and looked around for Selwyn. He was sitting on the swing that John had hung from a solid branch on the gnarly old olive tree. Sibylla was gently pushing him and he squealed with pleasure. Gone was the pale, coughing little boy. Selwyn had grown, his cheeks were round and rosy, and he was stronger and more self-assured with each passing day.

Although Victoria knew well that she ought to be happy that her little boy was thriving, she was jealous. Why did her son smile so at Sibylla and not her, his mother?

She pulled him from the swing more roughly than she had intended, and he promptly began to cry.

“No!” he squealed and kicked furiously.

Tears flooded Victoria’s eyes and all her disappointment erupted in Sibylla’s direction. “Why do you have to push him so high? He could have fallen off and hurt himself!”

“I’ll see that that doesn’t happen,” Sibylla answered calmly. “Let him have his fun.”

“Don’t tell me what’s right or wrong for my children!” Victoria held Selwyn even more tightly. But he pressed both his fists against her shoulders, leaned back, and bawled so loudly that she had no choice but to put him down. He ran to Sibylla and buried his face in her legs.

“Just look at him!” Victoria screamed. “You have stolen him from me!” She ran into the house, sobbing.



Maristan was written in beautiful Arabic calligraphy and Hospital underneath in English over the entrance to the two-story riad. Drs. Thomas Hopkins and Sabri bin Abdul’s practice was located behind the mosque in the same neighborhood as the zaouia. The hospital had stood here since the city’s founding, but the building had been vacant and run-down for years until Thomas and Sabri brought it back to life.

Emily stepped through the door and was pleased to see the freshly painted white walls and the newly glazed tiles on the roof. The interior courtyard was paved, the fountain was splashing, and several palms provided shade. A colonnade ringed the courtyard. Benches had been set up for the patients on opposite sides. Thomas’s patients, the expatriates, usually waited on the left, but his clinic hours were past right now. On the right, there was a throng of people. Old and young, men and women, children and crying infants were sitting on the benches or the floor. They were barefoot and draped in filthy rags. They had stringy hair and many of the men had matted beards. Emily saw open wounds and festering sores. Some people were missing an arm or a leg. A withered old man was drinking thirstily from the fountain while a one-eyed man draped in a tattered blanket used the water to clean his hands and feet in preparation for seeing the doctor.

“Assalamu alaikum!” Emily said.

The patients knew her and waived congenially. Most of them came every Friday afternoon, when Hakim bin Abdul saw poor patients free of charge.

Instantly, a dozen scrawny children encircled her. She took a stack of freshly baked flatbread from her basket and passed it around.

“Enjoy!” she called out and ran up the stairs, elated at the prospect of seeing Sabri. The second floor was where Thomas and Sabri had set up one treatment room each, as well as a small ward. Thomas’s living quarters were on the third floor. Some of the rooms were still empty, but the two friends were planning a European-style operating room.

Emily walked over to the door with the Arabic for the word “Surgery.” An old woman draped in black sat on a bench in front and gave her a broad, toothless smile.

“Assalamu alaikum, Fatma,” Emily said. “Are you feeling better?” The old woman had been suffering from painful plantar warts that Sabri had excised.

Fatma lifted her cloak and proudly showed off her bandaged foot. “The young hakim is a good doctor. His knife did more to get rid of the pain in my foot than Sidi Hicham’s prayers.”

Sidi Hicham belonged to the Regraga Brotherhood, a mystical order, who were believed to have healing and sometimes even magical powers. Many of Mogador’s inhabitants had greater faith in Sidi Hicham’s songs and prayers than in the medicines and salves of a hakim who had studied among infidels.

“Dr. bin Abdul will be very happy that you are doing better.” Emily knocked on the door.

Fatma winked shrewdly. “Yes, Miss Emily. But he will be even happier to see you!”

Emily blushed. She quickly opened the door and entered. Sabri’s office had plain whitewashed walls and was sparsely furnished. On a rack, there were medicine bottles as well as baskets with scalpels, scissors, glass syringes, and bandages. One whole shelf was reserved for medical reference books, beginning with the five-volume Canon of Medicine by Ibn Sina, the greatest physician of Eastern medicine, and continuing with Hippocrates and Paracelsus, then onward to books about modern nursing, wound care, and obstetrics, which Sabri had brought back with him from England. Under a small window on the front wall stood a washstand with a water jug, soap, and a stack of towels. A small desk with a few chairs sat in the middle of the room. When Emily entered, Sabri was sitting at the desk, working on something. On the wall behind him hung his English diploma, next to a photograph of him and Thomas in white coats standing in front of Charing Cross Hospital in London.

“Assalamu alaikum, Miss Hopkins! How are you?”

“Wa-alaikum salam, Dr. bin Abdul!” She grinned and placed her basket on the table in front of him. “I hope you are hungry. Our cook has prepared stuffed eggplant with harissa. And for dessert, I have brought you fresh figs.”

“Wonderful!” He smiled at her and pushed his work aside. His dark eyes flashed behind the round glasses he wore for reading or when treating his patients. He was dressed in the traditional Eastern physician’s garb: white pants and a long white shirt with a black vest and a turban on his head.

Emily spread a napkin on the table and placed tableware and silverware on it. She was about to remove the wrapped tagine when he preempted her. “Let me do this, Miss Hopkins!”

“Oh, thank you. But be careful, it’s very hot.”

His arm brushed against her shoulder when he moved forward. She relished the brief touch and leaned against him a little more. He turned his head and smiled. “I hope you’ll be joining me, Miss Hopkins?”

“I already had lunch with Mother. Had I known you would invite me, I would have waited, of course, but . . .” She hesitated and began rummaging in the basket. “. . . I have brought you something else, Doctor.” She held out a rolled-up piece of paper.

He unfurled it and looked silently for a long time.

Emily waited nervously for a reaction to her sketch of him treating patients in the maristan’s courtyard. “Do you not like it? Is it not good?”

“Oh yes.” Sabir nodded slowly. “It is very good. And I didn’t even notice when you did it. What do you think, should I hang it next to the diploma?” He held the drawing up against the wall.

“It looks quite nice there,” she replied happily.

He cleared his throat. “Would you mind calling me Sabri? Of course, only when there is no one else around.”

She beamed. “Not at all, Dr. bin—I mean Sabri! But then you have to call me Emily.”

“If we were in London, I would invite you out to a fancy dinner to thank you for this picture,” he said, and his voice sounded a little hoarse.

“I would very much like to accompany you, Sabri,” Emily said softly.

Encouraged, he continued, “There may not be any such restaurants here, but what would you say if I—”

“Do I have to wait until my food is cold before I may eat?” Thomas stuck his head around the door. “Fatma told me you were here.”