To Amira, in their dark, cheerless clothes, they resembled the witches in the illustrated Macbeth she had stayed up most of the night to finish. Sometimes she felt sorry for her aunts—living here, in her father’s house, this was all they would ever have or hope to have. But did they have to make her life so uncomfortable—spying, prying, telling tales on her just to curry favor with him?

Bending over the marble bathroom sink, she brushed her teeth and scrubbed her face vigorously with the perfumed French soap Malik had sent—a fragrant reminder of the wonderful world that existed outside al- Remal.

“Yallah, yallah, hurry, hurry, Amira,” Aunt Najla called out. “All the best cuts of meat will be sold by the time you rouse yourself—and we’ll have nothing left but gristle.”

Amira hurried. If she did everything her aunt asked now, perhaps she would be left in peace later, so she might study with Miss Vanderbeek, who now acted as her personal tutor. The time they shared was like a magic carpet that transported Amira to other places and other times. To eighteenth-century Russia, where a great queen named Catherine ruled with as much power and ferocity as any man. To nineteenth-century France, where a woman took the name of George Sand, wrote provocative novels, and lived openly with the composer Chopin—a man who was not her husband. To England, where Jane Austen, who had been almost as cloistered as Amira, exquisitely dissected the society she lived in.

“Never have I had a more eager student,” Miss Vanderbeek said approvingly. Yet now that the coveted diploma was within reach, Amira felt a growing sadness. What meaning would a piece of paper have to someone like her? She could dream about Paris, but the only journeys she could make were to the souk.

Or to the homes of other cloistered women.

These were the boundaries of her life. She thought of Malik, wondering what his day would be like, trying to imagine a life as rich and varied as hers was limited.

She slipped on a favorite cream-colored linen dress, then tried on her new gold earrings, a gift from Um Yusef on Amira’s sixteenth birthday. But who of any consequence would see—or care—whether she looked pretty or not? With everyone she loved dead or far away, it seemed as if all the warmth and pleasure had gone from this house. Now there was just fussy Aunt Najla and picky Aunt Shams.

A few minutes later, wrapped in identical black abeyya and veils, Amira and her aunt climbed into Omar’s black Bentley, one of a collection of expensiveforeign cars that afforded him both pleasure and prestige.