Forbidden Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

she meant herself and Michael. I didn’t want to show my disappointment, but I knew I had an answer I was looking for. She clearly lived with Michael. She must be his wife. All I wanted to do was
    finish her hair and get them both out of the salon before Dalia
     
    saw them. \020I thought of Dalia, who was just a wall away in the break room. How was I supposed to tell her that he was here? That he was married? That Jehan was a sweet, attractive, pleasant girl, someone we might have been friends with under different circumstances. As I suppressed my desire to mangle Jehan’s mane (it wasn’t her fault, after all), I wished I could get my hands on what little was left of Michael’s hair.
    I heard Mohammed’s pick-up thundering up the street just as I steered Jehan to the front of the salon. “Well, Michael, what do you think?” she asked as she twirled her head and ran her fingers through her hair.
    “It looks great,” he replied, then stopped cold as he saw Dalia walk slowly up to the front counter. Jehan turned to see what he was staring at. Dalia looked confused, but before I could speak, Mohammed burst through the front door.
    He found the four of us standing motionless and staring silently at one another. The tension was so sharp and the room so silent that all I could hear was the sound of my heart beating. Mohammed sliced through the stillness. “Are you ready to close up?”
    Michael and Jehan took that as their cue to escape. As they walked out, Dalia looked at me with a mixture of anguish, ecstasy, and sheer bewilderment. I dreaded our lunch tomorrow, the first opportunity we’d have to talk.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Two weeks later, we still hadn’t found a moment to be alone. To our dismay, Mohammed’s social calendar had been blank for the last three weeks, and he’d spent all of his time with us, taking up residence in our break room. So I set out for Dalia’s at five thirty one morning, praying that we would find some time to talk before heading to the salon. I had to tell Dalia that I thought Michael was married.
    My father and brothers had left the night before to visit my grandfather, my mother’s father, who lived in the farmhouse near Irbid. So, that morning I was free from my regular chores. I raced to Dalia’s house, planning to get there after her morning prayers but before she had to begin her chores.
    I arrived at the house and stood for a moment, catching my breath, before knocking. The door opened and her mother appeared with a pail of grimy water. Obviously not expecting anyone to be standing there, she jumped back, startled, when she saw me.
    “Bism il la (Oh my God),” she exclaimed. “Sabah al khair
    (good morning). What are you doing here so early?”
    “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. Sabah al floor, Urn Suhal, I
    came to see Dalia.” \020”Of course you did. Where’s my mind? Go on in, if she’s not in the kitchen she should be in her room.”
    “Thank you, Um Suhal. But can I help with that first?”
    “No, no, you go on in.”
    For as long as I could remember, Dalia’s mum had been called Um Suhal, which means ‘mother of Suhal’. With the birth of a woman’s first son she loses her own identity and is referred to as ‘mother of…” Fathers, however, are valued both before and after their child’s arrival. They are recognized for having created such a worthwhile child-a son by being give the title “Abu’, and they continue to use their own name.
    Um Suhal, whose given name was Rania, was a very fragile-looking creature, the opposite of my more stocky mother. She was tall and slender, with a yellowish-white complexion that must have been like fresh rose petals once but had now lost its youthful lustre. Her small, emerald-green eyes were also marked by time. Whatever fires they had contained had burned out years ago, leaving them gloomy and dim. She was one of a small cluster of Arabs whose looks testify to their ancient Greco-Roman genes, a rare group