Leave the bedroom out of it; look at the way Ali treated her everywhere else. He never complained when she buried herself in her books. He not only tolerated her work (the first time she thought of it as that), he encouraged her to do more!

In fact, they complemented each other. As minister of culture, Ali had a certain image to maintain, especially among foreigners. So, it was a thing of great worth to him to have the best of both worlds—an obedient Arab wife, yet one who was accomplished, educated, who could converse about matters more substantial than the latest fashions or servant problems.

And yet, and yet, even as she tried to catalog Ali’s virtues, she remembered Philippe Rochon and knew instinctively that he would never treat a woman as she had been treated, not even in a darkened room where no one else could see.

From the nursery, she heard a beloved cry, and her breasts wept milk in response. Taking her baby to her, she consoled herself with the thought that even if there were nothing else, there would be Karim and her, and that would be enough.

16. Philippe

Philippe

Paris

Wrapping her white mohair spring coat around her, Amira stepped out of the George V. lobby. Shaking her head at the driver who sprang to attention when she appeared, she turned left and walked towards the Champs Elysees.

This was the third time Amira had been to the city, and she had come to love it more than any of the other places to which Ali’s duties had taken them. She loved walking the broad boulevards and picturesque streets. She adored all the typical tourist pleasures, the glittering shops on the Avenue Montaigne, the fabled restaurant atop the Eiffel Tower, the bateau mouche on the Seine. But more than that, the sense of freedom, the pure pleasure in living—it was overpowering.

The styles the women wore, and the style with which they wore them; the smell and taste of the food; the play of light along the river; and most of all, for Amira, the fireworks display of ideas she could witness in any one of a hundred cafes and bistros on the Left Bank around the Sorbonne.

Here were young men and women scarcely older than herself laughing, shouting, whispering conspiratorially, arguing and expounding on every possible subject from communism to the Kama Sutra, from atheism to the Albigensian heresies, from black holes in space to the Black Panthers in California.

This is paradise, Amira sometimes thought. I could stay here forever. She had to remind herself that she couldn’t.

Since they’d arrived yesterday morning, the hours had flown by. A new haircut at Alexandre’s. A whirlwind shopping trip at Dior. Lunch at the Tour d’Argent. A party at the Remali embassy in Ali’s honor.