The Sheikh’s Bargain Bride(42)
He raised his face to the rain, willing it to wash away the torment that had been growing in him since the first sight of Abduallah’s friend James, so obviously from a world about which Zahir knew nothing: a world in which James had been intimate with Abduallah, a world from which Zahir had been excluded. Two worlds: poles apart and Abduallah had believed he couldn’t belong to both. If only Zahir had known. But of course he had known—deep down—he just hadn’t wanted to think about it. It didn’t fit into one of his neat boxes.
He closed his eyes and slumped against a tree trunk that edged the boulevard, oblivious to curious onlookers. The wet, slippery, yet coarsely textured bark dug into his spine and he relished the discomfort. At least he could feel something other than the pain of having let his dearest brother down.
He’d failed him.
He’d killed him. Anna hadn’t, her family hadn’t. He had.
And he would have to live with that knowledge every day of his life.
“No,” the word came out like a low moan. Zahir moved away from the tree and walked towards the Pont Neuf. He gripped the damp stone as if his life depended on it watched the Seine flow slickly under the bridge, its rain-pitted surface a grey-green under the lowering sky. And he thought of his brother: his pain, his suffering and his love. He felt the cold ache of pain fill him and he hoped it would never leave.
Anna waited as darkness gathered in the empty house. It wasn’t often she was alone and she felt the weightiness of the silence around her, allowing it to settle and to give her the time and peace to think.
She was afraid. How would Zahir take the discovery that Abduallah was gay? How would that affect the treasured memory Zahir had of him? Was he really as entrenched in machismo as Abduallah had believed? And what, above all else, would Zahir think of her? Married to a gay man—albeit only for a few weeks. Would he think she’d married him knowing this and wanting to be married to be part of Abduallah’s wealthy family? She had no idea. All she knew was that the revelation had shaken Zahir to the core and it would have a ripple effect on everything else. She just had to wait.
She must have dozed off because when she awoke, a misty, rain-washed moon cast its weak light over her as she lay on the chaise langue before the French windows. It was late. The long dusk had faded into a dense, misty indigo light. She shifted, rubbed her eyes and wondered what had awoken her. The door closed softly and Zahir entered the room, switching on a dim lamp.
He looked exhausted, grim. He stood over her, his hair ruffled, his clothes soaking, water pooling onto the wooden floor, the drips from his sleeve forming expanding drops of darkness on the throw that covered her. She shivered and instinctively moved away. She was looking at a stranger.
“You tried to tell me didn’t you?”
Even his voice sounded strange to her ears: rough, unused. She nodded but he didn’t see; he turned around and repeated the question.
“You tried to tell me didn’t you?”
“Yes, I tried.”
“You could have tried harder, Anna.”
She shook her head, injustice giving her the strength to face this stranger. “That’s not fair. I did try but you made it clear that you didn’t want to hear what I had to say.”
“A gay bar. A gay man. Was this man, James, my brother’s lover?”
The hoarse, tortured tone in which he uttered the last few words tore at her heart. She’d never heard that tone of vulnerability in him before. It revealed a side to Zahir that had long lain hidden, she knew, even from himself and it broke down their separation. He was no longer a stranger.
“I don’t think so. Closest confidante, more like. To my knowledge Abduallah was celibate. He didn’t like being gay.”
“Oh.”
Despite the soft patter of rain that now fell, temporarily hiding the moonlight, Anna could hear a wealth of meaning in the cracked one-syllable word.
“He thought you’d be ashamed of him.”
“Well I’m not. I could never be ashamed of him.”
She rose and came over to him and put a hand onto Zahir’s arm. “Then what made him think you would be?”
Zahir shrugged. “Me, I suppose. The person I am: the fighter, the business-man, always tough, always black and white.”
“Abduallah didn’t know you and I don’t think you even know you. That’s not the person you are. Not deep down.”
“And then there is our culture, our society. It is strong, but not unyielding.”
“Abduallah’s difficulty lay in accepting who he was, himself. He felt you wouldn’t approve, he felt he wouldn’t fit in, but more than that he couldn’t accept his own nature. He hated himself.”