“This crocus gathering is obviously your favorite kind of work, Sister.” Malika brought Emily back to reality. “Just wait until Baba’s new field has been cleared. You won’t know how to climb into bed at night, you’ll be so sore.”
In appreciation of André’s translation of a military text into Arabic last year, Sultan Sidi Mohammed had given him another piece of land bordering the east side of the estate. He planned another saffron field there. But for now, the Ait Zelten men were busy clearing the underbrush and digging out the rootstock.
“You just wait yourself! All that bending will make you as hunched over as old Tamra and then I’ll paint you like that!” Emily threatened.
Malika laughed. She was aware of her own beauty. “I have a better idea. But you have to promise not to tell anyone about it.” She looked around for her mother, but Aynur was busy admonishing Christian for daydreaming instead of tending to the mule.
Emily nodded. “What is it?”
Malika quickly moved next to her. “You’ll paint me lying on my bed in my room,” she whispered mysteriously.
“All right, but why are you whispering?”
“I don’t want it to be an ordinary painting . . .”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know!” Malika looked over at her mother again. Then she whispered, “The only thing I would be wearing is a shawl.”
“Oh, you mean a nude. Why didn’t you say so?”
Aynur turned around to check on the girls.
“What is a nude?” Malika whispered as soon as Aynur bent over the furrows again.
“It’s a painting or drawing of a naked person,” Emily explained in a patronizing tone. “It’s common in European art.” While she had never seen a nude, let alone drawn one, she had read about them in an art history book Uncle Oscar had sent her from England.
“Then you’ll do it?” Malika urged her. “And I can keep it?”
Emily frowned. “I have rarely given away any of my work. I need it for the portfolio I’m going to submit to my teacher at the art academy in London.”
She stopped abruptly, remembering that she had forfeited her studies as a result of her quarrel with her mother. The thought hit her in the pit of her stomach.
“Are you planning to give the picture to someone?” she asked. “Perhaps a young man?”
Malika shook her head. “I want it just for me so I can look at it one day when I’m old and fat. I also want it as a memento for when you become a famous artist. And you won’t be doing it for free. I’m going to pay you.”
“Oh?” As far as Emily knew, Malika had no money of her own any more than she did.
“I’m going to read your palm.”
“Oh.” Emily was disappointed. “You know I don’t believe you can see my future in my palm. That’s hocus-pocus.”
“You can’t be serious! Your life, every twist of fate, is written in the lines of your palm. You just have to know how to decipher them. So, what do you say?”
Emily turned her hands over to examine them, but try as she might, she could see only lines, some long, some short, some more deeply furrowed than others.
“Let me have a look!” Malika demanded. “I’ll prove to you how good I am. Tamra taught me palm reading, and she knows everything about it.”
Before Emily could stop her, Malika took her by the arm and led her to the edge of the field.
“Sit!” When Emily hesitated, Malika gave her a little shove. “Oh, come on! I know you want to find out about the man that fate has chosen for you.”
Emily immediately thought of Sabri. Was there a future for them even though his parents had already chosen a bride? She took a deep breath, then stretched out her hands. “Here we go!”
Malika took her left hand and looked at it seriously. Emily smiled shyly when the young Berber woman sitting near them and nursing her child nodded encouragingly.
“What? What is it?” she asked nervously after Malika had stared at her hand for what seemed a very long time.
Malika looked up with a tiny smile. “Well, well, little sister! Who would have thought?”
“Who would have thought what? Don’t make me beg you for every little word!”
“You’ve already found him, Sister, and yet you have not breathed a word. Aren’t you ashamed?” Malika sounded very pleased with herself.
Emily wrenched her hand from Malika and hid it under her tunic. “You couldn’t possibly know that from a few lines on my palm.”
“Yes, I could, and it’s as sure as the next sunrise. And even if I could not, you have betrayed yourself by now. Now give me back your hand. I’m going to tell you exactly what I am seeing.” Malika took Emily’s left hand, opened it, and stroked gently with her fingers.
“This is the heart line. It tells me about your fate in love.” Using her index finger, she pointed to the upper of two thin horizontal furrows on Emily’s palm. “Your line begins near the fourth finger. This means that you will be jealously vigilant that your man does not desire other women. But the line is also close to the third finger and that tells me you derive great pleasure from feeling your man’s body. And in that, you are much like me.”
“I have never felt a man’s body!” Emily yelped. Her face was deeply flushed.
“Really?” Malika was astounded. “I have.”
“Excuse me?” Emily thought she had misheard. “Does Father know?”
Malika dreamily stretched out her hand toward a lizard sunning itself nearby. “Of course. I was married and celebrated my wedding at a tribal meeting of the Glaoua three years ago. Together with twenty other couples, a young Glaoua man and I were married by the qadi.”
“What? Where is your husband now?”
Malika poked the lizard gently with her forefinger and it darted away. “The qadi dissolved our union a year later. In Father’s language, it is called divorce. Now I am free to choose a new husband whenever I want.”
“Did you not love your husband?” Emily marveled.
“Of course I did. For almost an entire year.” Malika was indignant.
“Did you . . . ahem . . . marry again after that?” Emily felt a bit envious of her sister for having had such experiences already.
“No. I don’t like Arab men, and I don’t like Berber men either. I don’t like their scruffy beards and how they dress, those long tunics.” She shook her head. “I would like to marry a foreigner, from my father’s country, but foreigners don’t come to Qasr el Bahia. So I would have to leave, and I don’t want to do that.”
Come with me when I go to the art academy in London, Emily wanted to cry. But then, for the second time, she remembered that she had given up her place at the academy and that it was unlikely she would ever travel there. She bit her lips and stretched out her left hand. “Come on, let’s get back to work.”
Malika pointed to a spot below Emily’s forefinger. “Two lines make a cross here. That means you already know your great and eternal love. The heart line is long, clear, and red. You will always be true to your chosen one and you will love him wholeheartedly and passionately.” She lifted her head and smiled at Emily. “Who has captured your heart, Sister?”
Emily could feel her pulse in her throat. She instinctively looked around, but no one was paying any attention to them. Not even the young woman, who was humming softly to her baby.
“You don’t know him, he lives in Mogador,” she whispered to Malika. “He is the hakim in the city.”
Malika whistled softly. “An Arab man!”
Emily nodded. “But he has been in England and studied medicine there.”
Sabri’s image appeared before her mind’s eye, the way he had looked that day when he spoke of taking her out. She had often wondered what else he might have said had not Thomas burst in. Her brother had spoiled everything, not only the wonderful moment with Sabri but all of her happiness!
Emily drew a quick breath. “Do the lines say that we have a future together?”
“You will have problems,” Malika answered with a serious look. “There will be disappointments, but if you stay strong—”
A shadow fell over the two girls. “So this is where you are—startled like thieves caught in the night! Well, I hope that is because of your guilty conscience for shirking your work!” André stood before them, his hands on his hips, but his eyes were twinkling.
“Father!” Emily quickly withdrew her hand from Malika. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to ask you if you felt like coming with me. We are going to take lunch to the men who are clearing the field and then we’re going to ride out.”
“I’d love to!” Emily jumped up.
The new field lay on a sunlit plateau bordering Aynur’s vegetable garden and an orange grove with scattered beehives. Behind it, the slopes of the Atlas rose to bluish, snowcapped peaks. The men had burned off the brush, but now they had to painstakingly hoe the roots out of the soil. Emily saw the large heap of roots lying by the side of the field. Bleating goats were jumping around on the area strewn with charred branches, rocks, and deep holes, with André Jr. and his playmates supervising. Emily thought about how much time and sweat it would take the men to transform this cratered landscape into a tillable field. And then there were irrigation ditches and retaining walls still to be constructed.