Story of the Month

Between them lies the hand of fate: one of them is an only child, and the other has brothers..

Wadad sat on the balcony of her house, absorbed in embroidering the dress she would wear on the day of her friend Asma's wedding. She was alone in the house now, for her mother had gone to visit Asma's mother and find out the news of the coming bridegroom, true to her habit of abundant curiosity. It was as if advancing age had only made her more curious and fonder of visits, in which she found an outlet for her feelings and a means of quenching her thirst for news of other people.

Wadad cast a glance at Asma's house, which stood only a little way from her own. Asma — her kinswoman and her friend since childhood, her companion at school and outside it, with whom she had spent most of her hours and to whom she had confided her joys and her sorrows. Before long Asma would leave her to marry her fiancé Wafiq, after an engagement that had lasted several years.

Wadad sat diligently embroidering the gown, picturing the wedding day to herself: Asma would look beautiful that day — perhaps for the first time in her life, for joy makes the face more radiant, and the lovely dress sewn in Beirut was bound to have its effect. And yet... who could doubt that Wadad, standing beside her, would be more beautiful beyond all measure. She knew this and assured herself of it, for people never once spoke of Wadad without calling her the beautiful one, and she never once walked beside Asma without the difference between the two girls showing: she was tall, fair, and fine-featured, while her companion was short, dark-complexioned, and thick-lipped. But no wonder that Asma should marry before her, for her friend was two years or more her senior. And besides, she had a fortune to inherit from her father — unlike Wadad...

Chance had willed that Asma be her parents' only child and their heiress, whereas Wadad had brothers on whom her parents spent all their income, so that no hope remained for the girl of a dowry or a trousseau or money to attract suitors... Perhaps some poor young men had thought of asking for her hand, but she had a stubborn mother who would not marry her to a poor man; and so she had resolved to be patient, to go along with her mother, and to wait for deliverance to come to her in the form of a rich suitor who would satisfy her parents' pride and fulfill her own desire for a life of luxury.

How strange... how fortunes differ between two companions close in age, alike in so many ways, for one slight difference it had traced.

Yet Asma — despite the singular position she occu-

pied, and despite the young men racing to seek her hand — had not attained her wish easily. Had Wadad been in her place, she would have married long ago. Asma's father had died young, and the girl had lived in the shadow of a difficult mother who never ceased complaining and grumbling. Her suitors had multi-plied from the time she turned sixteen, but whoever pleased Asma did not please her mother, and the other way around. The mother wanted a son-in-law of distinguished social position and — beyond that — pleasant in company and easy to live with, one with whom she could dwell under a single roof. Asma, for her part, was a romantic girl who wanted an ideal young man resembling the heroes of novels in his manliness and the nobility of his character; whether he was rich or poor did not matter to her.

It happened once that a rich young man of little learning named Ramez sought Asma's hand. Asma did not care for him, but he pleased the mother with his fine looks, his cheerful face, and his gentle manner, and she resolved to make him her son-in-law. After much give-and-take, and quarrels that broke out between her and her daughter, the mother's will prevailed, and Asma consented to marry the rich man in deference to her mother's wish. But then something happened that no one had reckoned with. A relative of the fiancé came to the village and pointed him toward a girl in a neighboring village who surpassed Asma in wealth; whereupon Ramez went off in haste to the neighboring village, and once satisfied that his kinsman's word was true, contracted marriage with the new girl between one night and the next morning, heedless of the fury and indignation he stirred up in Asma's mother, and the aversion and disgust in her daughter.

After this incident Asma's mother resolved not to interfere in her daughter's marriage and to let her choose whom she wished. And because of her revulsion at her first fiancé, Asma resolved to marry a young man of poor circumstances, seasoned by hard times, on whose faithfulness she could rely and in whom she could place her trust. Her choice fell on a young man named Wafiq al-Mu'addab, whose father had gone bankrupt in trade, so that the boy had not been able to finish his studies at the university. Asma urged him on to continue his studies and gave him money enough to enable him to meet his expenses. When he obtained his degree he began taking on important cases; he was in complete accord with his bride, and their marriage would soon be contracted.

These images followed one another in Wadad's head