How did I ever live without him, Amira asked herself as she suckled her baby. She would never tire of looking at her Karim, of touching his silken skin, inhaling his sweet baby fragrance. She wanted so much to take him home, to rock him in her arms, to sing him to sleep, and to wake with his beautiful face near hers. But Ali insisted that they both stay in the hospital for a week. “The doctor tells me that the first few days of an infant’s life are the most fragile,” he explained, “and the most likely period for complications. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to him. Or to you,” he added hastily.

To ease the boredom of her hospital stay, Ali brought in a big-screen tele- vision and a collection of videotapes, along with all her textbooks. He filled the room with flowers the morning after Karim’s birth. And on the following day, he presented Amira with a small velvet box inscribed with the name of a well- known London jeweler. Inside, against a cushion of white silk, was an antique pendant, an enormous pigeon-blood ruby. Amira had never seen a stone of such size, such richness of color.

“It once belonged to Marie Antoinette,” Ali said. “A queen of France.” But such an unhappy one, she recalled—and then quickly banished the thought. The pendant was a magnificent gift, and she thanked her husband graciously.

“It’s scarcely worthy of you. You’ve given me my first son. Nothing, no one, can compare with that.”

The ruby was but the first of a shower of gifts. Visitors laden with beautifully wrapped boxes trooped in and out of Amira’s room all day long, and she was soon glad of the opportunity to rest. Munira brought an antique engraved cup of heavy English silver and a handful of turquoise beads, to hang on the baby’s cradle and his clothes, as protection from the evil eye.

Malik flew in from Paris with an entire carload of handmade toys. He was sleeker, more poised, better dressed—and Amira couldn’t resist teasing him. “You’re looking very prosperous, Brother. Have you really become the hardworking and brilliant businessman Father imagines you to be?”

“I am prosperous, nushkorallah, thanks be to God. And I do work hard. But as for brilliance, well, my old friend, Onassis, insists that making money takes no particular talent. When I told him I was striking out on my own, he said, ‘My young friend, I have just one piece of advice for you. To be successful, you must always have a tan and you must always pay your hotel bills.’ I have tried to follow this advice—though my tan, of course, is permanent.”

“Silly,” she said, pushing him playfully. Then she lowered her voice.

“Tell me … how is Laila?”