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CHAPTER TWO

MARRAKECH, MOROCCO 1892

THE LITTLE GIRL GAZED OUT OF the carriage window at streets teeming with filth and life and noise and stench and poverty and laughter, and felt sure of one thing: she would die in this place.

She had been sent here to die.

She had grown up in luxury, in privilege and above all in peace, in a sprawling palace in the desert. The only daughter of a nobleman and his most favored wife, she had been named Miriam, after the mother of the great prophet, and Bahia, which meant “most fair,” and from her earliest infancy had known nothing but praise and love. She slept in a room with gold leaf on the walls, in a bed of intricately carved ivory. She wore silks woven in Ouarzazate and dyed in Essaouira with ocher and indigo and madder, shipped in at great expense from the Near East. She had servants to dress her, to bathe her, to feed her, and more servants to educate her in the Koran and in music and poetry, the ancient poetry of her desert ancestors. She was beautiful inside and out, as sweet-faced and sweet-tempered a child as any noble father could wish for, a jewel prized above all the rubies and amethysts and emeralds that adorned the necks and wrists of all four of her father’s wives.

The palace, with its cool, shady courtyards, its fountains and birdsong, its plates of sugared almonds and silver pots of sugary mint tea, was Miriam’s whole world. It was a place of pleasure and peace, where she played with her siblings, sheltered from the punishing desert sun and all the other dangers of life beyond its thick stone walls. Had it not been for one terrible, unexpected event, Miriam would no doubt have lived out the rest of her days in this blissfully gilded prison. As it was, at the age of ten, her idyllic childhood ground to an abrupt and final halt. Miriam’s mother, Leila Bahia, left her father for another man, riding off into the desert one night never to return.

Miriam’s father, Abdullah, was a good and honorable man, but Leila’s betrayal broke him. As Abdullah withdrew increasingly from life and the day-to-day business of running his household, the other wives stepped in. Always jealous of the younger, more beautiful Leila and the favoritism Abdullah showed to their child, the wives began a campaign to get rid of Miriam. Led by Rima, Abdullah’s ambitious first wife, they prevailed on their husband to send the child away.

She will grow into a serpent, like her mother, and bring ruin on us all.

She looks just like her.

I’ve already seen her making eyes at the servant boys, and even at Kasim, her own brother!

In the end, too weak to resist, and too heartbroken to look his favorite daughter in the face—it was true, Miriam did look exactly like Leila, right down to the soft curve of her eyelashes—Abdullah acquiesced to Rima’s demands. Miriam would be sent to live with one of his brothers, Sulaiman, a wealthy cloth merchant in Marrakech.

The child wept as the carriage clattered through the palace gates and she left the only home she had ever known for the first, and last, time. Ahead, the desert sands stretched out before her, apparently endless, a bleak but beautiful canvas of oranges and yellows, modulating from deep rust to the palest buttermilk. It was a three-day ride to the city, and until the walls of the ancient battlements loomed into view, they passed nothing but a few nomads’ huts and the occasional merchant caravan weaving its weary way across the emptiness. Miriam had started to wonder if perhaps there was no city. If it was all a wicked plan by her stepmothers to throw her out into the wilderness, like they did to criminals in the poems Mama used to read her. But then, suddenly, she was here, inside this anthill of humanity, this wild mishmash of beauty and ugliness, of minarets and slums, of luxury and destitution, of lords and lepers.

This is it, thought the terrified child, deafened by the noise of the clamoring hands banging on the carriage as they passed, trying to sell her dates or cumin or ugly little wooden dolls. The apocalypse. The mob. They’re going to kill me.

BUT MIRIAM WASN’T KILLED. INSTEAD, NOT twenty minutes later, she found herself sitting in one of the many ornate waiting parlors in her uncle’s riad close to the souk, sipping the same sweet mint tea that she was used to at home and having her hands and feet bathed in rosewater.

Presently a small, round man with the deepest, loudest voice Miriam had ever heard waddled into the room. Smiling, he swooped her up into his arms and began covering her with kisses. “Welcome, welcome, dearest child!” he boomed. “Abdullah’s daughter, well, well, well. Welcome, desert rose. Welcome, and may you prosper and flourish evermore in my humble home.”

In reality, Uncle Sulaiman’s riad was anything but humble. Smaller in scale than her father’s palace, it was nevertheless an Aladdin’s cave of sumptuous wealth, beauty, and refinement, all paid for with the proceeds of the younger brother’s thriving textile business. And Miriam did flourish there. Unmarried and childless, her uncle Sulaiman came to love her as his own daughter. For the rest of his life Sulaiman remained grateful to his brother, Abdullah, for bestowing on him so great and priceless a gift. If it were possible, he loved Miriam more than her natural parents had done, but Sulaiman’s love took a different form. Where Abdullah and Leila had protected their daughter from the dangers of the outside world, Sulaiman encouraged Miriam to savor and explore its delights. Of course, she never left the riad unaccompanied. Guards went with her everywhere. But under their watchful eyes she was free to roam through the vibrant buzzing alleyways of the souk. Here were sights and sounds and smells that she had read about in storybooks brought phantasmagorically to life. Marrakech was a delicious assault on every sense, a living, breathing, pulsing city that filled Miriam’s tranquil soul with excitement and curiosity and hunger. As she grew into her teens, more beautiful with each passing day, her love affair with the city intensified to the point where even a proposed vacation to the coast caused her to feel irritated and impatient.

“But why do we have to go, Uncle?”

Sulaiman laughed his booming, indulgent laugh. “You make it sound like a punishment, dearest. Essaouira is quite beautiful, and besides, no one wants to stay in Marrakech in high summer.”

“I do.”

“Nonsense. The heat’s unbearable.”

“I can bear it. Don’t make me leave, Uncle, I beg you. I’ll devote twice as much time to my studies if you let me stay.”

Sulaiman laughed even louder. “Twice nothing is nothing, dearest!” But, as always when Miriam really wanted something, he gave in. He would go to the coast for two weeks alone. Miriam could stay home with her guards and her governess.

LATER, JIBRIL WOULD REMEMBER IT AS the moment his life began.

And the moment it ended.

The sixteen-year-old son of Sulaiman’s chief factor, Jibril was a happy, outgoing child, seemingly without a problem in the world. Pleasant-looking, with curly brown hair and a ready smile, he was also bright academically, with a particular aptitude for mathematics. His father harbored secret hopes of Jibril one day founding a business empire of his own. And why not? Morocco was becoming more cosmopolitan, its inhabitants more socially mobile than they had ever been. Not like it had been in his day. The boy could have the world at his feet if he wished it, as bright and glittering a future as he chose.

Unbeknownst to his father, Jibril had secret hopes of his own.

None of them revolved around business.

They revolved around the incandescent, radiant, utterly lovely form of Sulaiman’s niece, Mistress Miriam.

Jibril first met Miriam the day she arrived at the riad as a frightened ten-year-old. Then thirteen and a kind boy, sensitive to others’ pain, Jibril had taken Miriam under his wing. The two of them quickly became friends and playmates, spending endless happy hours roaming the souk and squares of the city together while Jibril’s father and Miriam’s uncle worked long hours in the company offices.

Jibril couldn’t say exactly when it was that his feelings toward Miriam had changed. Possibly the early arrival of her breasts, shortly after her twelfth birthday, had something to do with it. Or possibly there was some other, nobler reason. In any event, at some point during his fifteenth year, Jibril fell deeply, hopelessly, obsessively in love with his childhood playmate. Which would have been as wonderful a thing as could have happened, had it not been for one small, but undeniable, problem: Miriam was not in love with Jibril.

Tentative allusions to his feelings were met with peals of laughter on Miriam’s part. “Don’t be ridiculous!” she would tease him, pulling him by the hand in a way that made Jibril want to melt with longing. “You’re my brother. Besides, I’m never getting married.” Memories of her mother’s flight and her father’s despair still haunted her. Uncle Sulaiman’s happy independence seemed a far safer, more sensible option.

Jibril wept with frustration and despair. Why had he ever behaved like a brother toward her? Why had he not seen before what a goddess she was? How would he ever be able to undo the damage?

Then one day, it happened. It was during the weeks that Miriam’s uncle Sulaiman was away on vacation in Essaouira. Jibril returned to the riad after his morning’s studies to find smoke pouring out of the windows. You could feel the heat from a hundred yards away.

“What’s going on?”

Jibril’s father, his face and hands blackened with soot, coughed out an answer. “It started in the kitchens. I’ve never seen flames spread so fast. It’s a miracle we got everybody out of there.”

Huddled around them was a throng of frightened household staff, some burned and weeping, others coughing violently. They’d been joined by numerous neighbors and passersby. Soon the crowd was so big that it was difficult for the men with water buckets to fight their way through.

Jibril’s heart tightened in panic. “Where’s Miriam?”

“Don’t worry,” said his father. “She left early this morning to go to the baths. There’s nobody in the house.” But just as he spoke, a figure appeared at an upper window, arms flailing wildly. It was hard to make out who it was through the thick, acrid clouds of smoke. But Jibril knew instantly.

Before his father or anyone could stop him, he darted into the building. The heat hit him like a punch. Black smoke filled his lungs. It was like inhaling razor blades. Jibril fell to his knees, blinded, utterly disoriented. I have to get up. I have to find her. Help me, Allah.

And God did help him. In later years, Jibril described the feeling as some unseen person taking him by the hand and physically pulling him toward the stone stairwell. He had no idea how, in that hell, he fought his way to Miriam, how he lifted her in his arms like a rag doll and carried her downstairs through the flames and into the street. It was a miracle. There was no other word for it. Allah saved us because He wills us to be together. It is our destiny.

When Miriam opened her eyes, and looked into the eyes of her rescuer, Jibril’s prayers were answered.

She loved him. He was a brother no more.

WHEN SULAIMAN RETURNED HOME TO HIS gutted riad, his only thought was for his beloved Miriam and how close he had come to losing her. He summoned Jibril to his study.

“My boy, I owe you my life. Tell me how I can repay you. What gift can I give in gratitude for your heroism? Money? Jewels? A house of your own? Name it. Name it and it is yours.”

“I want no money from you, sir,” said Jibril humbly. “I ask only for your blessing. I intend to marry your niece.”

He smiled, and Sulaiman could see the love light up his eyes. Poor boy.

“I’m sorry, Jibril. Truly, I am. But that is not possible.”

Jibril’s smile crumpled. “Why not?”

“Miriam is of noble birth,” Sulaiman explained kindly. “When her father entrusted her to my care, it was on the understanding that she would one day make an alliance befitting her class and status in life. I have already chosen the gentleman. He’s older than Miriam, but he is well respected, kind—”

“NO!” Jibril couldn’t contain himself. “You can’t! Miriam loves me. She … she won’t do it.”

Sulaiman’s expression hardened. “Miriam will do as I ask her.”

Jibril looked so forlorn that the old man relented. “Look. I said I am sorry, and I meant it. These are the ways of the world, Jibril. We are all prisoners, in our different ways. But you must forget about my niece. Ask me for something else. Anything.”

Jibril did not ask. How could he? There was nothing else he wanted. He tried to tell himself that he still had time to persuade Sulaiman. The older man might change his mind. Miriam might indeed refuse to wed the man to whom she had been unknowingly betrothed, though he knew in his heart that this was a vain hope. Miriam loved Sulaiman like a father, and would never bring dishonor on herself or her family by disobeying him, especially not in so grave a matter as marriage.

Not even Jibril’s own father could help him.

“You must forget the girl, son. Trust me, there will be scores of others. You have a bright future ahead of you, backed by Sulaiman’s money, if only you’d take it. You’ll be able to afford a house full of wives!”

Jibril thought darkly, Nobody understands. And though Miriam tried to comfort him, assuring him that she would always love him no matter whom she married, it was cold comfort for the boy, who burned for her body with all the fiery intensity of a volcano.

At last the day came when all Jibril’s hopes died. Miriam was married to a sheikh, Mahmoud Basta, a paunchy, bald man old enough to be her father. If she was distraught, she hid it well, maintaining a serene grace throughout the ceremony, and afterward, when she bid good-bye to her second, much beloved home.

The newlyweds lived close to the city, in the Basta family palace at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, and Miriam was able to visit her uncle Sulaiman’s house often. On these visits, she would sometimes see the hollow-eyed Jibril staring at her from across a room, pain etched on his face like a mask. At these times she felt pity and great sorrow. But the emotions were for Jibril, not for herself. Mahmoud was a kind husband, loving, indulgent and decent. When Miriam gave him a son at the end of their first year of marriage, he wept for joy. Over the next five years, she gave him three more boys and a girl, Leila. Over time, Miriam’s children came to fill the void that had been left by her doomed love for Jibril. Watching them play while their doting father looked on, she sometimes felt guilty that she was so happy, while Jibril, she knew, remained broken and lost. She had heard through friends that he drank heavily, and spent his days in the hookah bars and whorehouses of the souk, squandering all the money her uncle had given him.

The last time Miriam saw Jibril was at her husband’s funeral. Mahmoud, who had never reined in his fondness for baklava and sweet Moroccan wine, died of a heart attack at the age of sixty-two. Miriam was forty, with a fan of fine lines around her eyes and a comfortable layer of fat around her hips, but she was still a beautiful woman. Jibril, on the other hand, had aged terribly. Shrunken and stooped, with the broken veins and yellow eyes of a heavy drinker, he looked twenty years older than he was, and was as sad and embittered as Mahmoud had been happy and generous-spirited.

He staggered over to Miriam, who was standing with her eldest son, Rafik. She realized immediately that he was drunk.

“So,” Jibril slurred, “the old bashtard’s gone at lasht, is he? When can I come to you, Miriam? Tell me. When?”

Miriam blushed scarlet. She had never felt such shame. How could he do this? To me, and to himself? Today of all days.

Rafik stepped forward. “My mother is grieving. We all are. You need to leave.”

Jibril snarled. “Get out of my way!”

“You’re drunk. Nobody wants you here.”

“Your mother wants me. Your mother loves me. She’s always loved me. Tell him, Miriam.”

Miriam turned to him and said sadly, “Today I have buried two of my loves. My husband. And the boy you once were. Good-bye, Jibril.”

THAT NIGHT, JIBRIL HANGED HIMSELF FROM a tree in the Menara Gardens. He left a one-word note:

Betrayed.

THE YOUNG GIRL PUT THE BOOK down, tears welling in her eyes. She had read the story hundreds of times before, but she never grew tired of it and it never failed to move her. Sure, she lived in 1983, not 1892; and she was reading the book in a grim, freezing-cold children’s home in New York City, not some Moroccan palace. But Miriam and Jibril’s tragic love still spoke to her across the ages.

The girl knew what it felt like to be powerless. To be abandoned by one’s mother. To be treated like an object by men, a prize to be won. To be shoved through life like a lamb to the slaughter, with no say whatsoever in her own destiny.

“Are you okay, Sofia?”

The boy put a protective, brotherly arm around her. He was the only one she’d told about the book, the only one who understood her. The other kids in the home didn’t understand. They mocked her and her old, dog-eared love story. But he didn’t.

“They’re jealous,” he told her. “Because you have a family history and they don’t. You have royal blood in your veins, Sofia. That’s what makes you different. Special. They hate you for that.”

It was true. Sofia identified with Miriam’s story on another level, too. A blood level. Miriam was Sofia’s great-grandmother. Somewhere inside of her, Miriam’s genes lived on. The book Sofia held in her hands, her most prized possession, was not some fairy tale. It was true. It was her history.

“I’m fine,” she told the boy, hugging him back as she pulled the thin rayon blanket up over both of them. Even here, pressed against the radiator in the recreation room, it was bitterly cold.

I am not nobody, she told herself, breathing in the warmth of her friend’s body. I am from a noble family with a romantic, tragic history. I am Sofia Basta.

One day, far away from here, I will fulfill my destiny.