The first months of Jamileh’s married life passed like a day of spring whose sky never saw a cloud at all, whose air and trees and flowers and grasses and rivers and creeping things and insects were all drunk with the wine of life and the delight of renewal, as though at a great festival. And Jamileh, in her new home — between her father-in-law Abu Aziz, her mother-in-law Umm Aziz, and her life’s partner Aziz — was the axis of their daily life. Around her their thoughts revolved and on her their hopes were hung; for her sake they toiled and for her sake they lived. If she laughed they laughed, and if she frowned they frowned, as though she were the wellspring of their life and the source of all their joys and sorrows.

When the season of congratula-tions after the wedding was over, Umm Aziz proposed to her son that he take his wife to Beirut or Damascus “for a change of air.” The proposal met with everyone’s approval, and the couple visited Damascus, Zahle, and Beirut. When they returned, Umm Aziz rushed to Jamileh, embracing her, kissing her, pressing her to her breast, crying out with eagerness: “My darling, how long you were away! My darling, my heart burned without you!” Then she cast a glance at her daughter-in-law’s hands and saw some new rings on her fingers, gold bracelets on her wrists, and a new watch hanging by a precious chain on her breast, and she nearly flew for joy.

As for Aziz, his love for his wife during those first months was renewed every day. Every day was for him a wedding day. When he went in the morning to his shop he took a kiss from her for the road; and when he came back at evening he found her waiting for him at the door, and he would take her in his arms and press her to his breast, bending over her face, then ask her, kissing her two rosy lips: “How is my qarqoura today?” And she would answer, happiness lighting her eyes and reflected in every muscle of her face: “How is my qarqour today?”

“Qarqoura” and “qarqour”

became, in the dictionary of their daily life, proper names that took the place of “Jamileh” and “Aziz.” And Jamileh loved her new name until she nearly forgot her original one; and so did Aziz. Both of them disliked visitors — not for any material reason, nor from shirking the duties of Syrian hospitality, but because visitors took a portion of their precious time, which they wished to spend together; and above all because in the presence of strangers they were obliged to go back to “Aziz” and “Jamileh” instead of qarqour and qarqoura.

Jamileh disliked visitors for another reason, which she did not disclose to her husband. Every visitor counted it among the duties of courtesy and amiability

to say to her, whenever she offered him a cigarette or a cup of coffee or a narghile or the like: “God willing, we shall rejoice with you over a bridegroom!” These constant petitions and wishes were like drops of poison in the cup of her brimming happiness. Aziz’s love, Aziz’s nearness, Aziz’s kisses — these were her happiness and the fullness of her life; why then all these wishes, as though her life were not complete without a “bridegroom”?

Once, after the guests had gone and she was alone with Aziz in her chamber, she came up to him gently and took the tip of his left mustache in her right hand to kiss it, then said:

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