Amira nodded. She understood very well what a husband expected. Hadn’t she seen the example of her own father after her mother’s death? After a mere few weeks of mournful demeanor, his life went on as usual. To Amira, the heart had gone out of their home. Yet, Omar seemed scarcely to notice, inspecting his freshly trimmed beard each morning in the same self-satisfied way, enjoying his evening meal to the fullest, rolling the last bit of pita to mop his plate, just as he always did.

“Are we going home now?” Amira asked, hoping perhaps to salvage some of this day.

“Certainly not,” Aunt Najla replied brusquely. “I promised Shaikha Nazli I would stop by. She hasn’t been feeling well—this last pregnancy, you know—and I promised I would give her some of the salts my mother used to make, to reduce swelling in the legs.”

Amira groaned inwardly. She had nothing against Shaikha Nazli, a statuesque redhead born in Lebanon and married now to al-Remal’s oil minister. But a visit to her large and elaborate palace was never brief. Today would be no exception.

“Ahlan wa sahlan,” the Shaikha enthused as the two women were escorted into her marble drawing room by a Pakistani servant. “Please, make your- selves comfortable. My home is yours.”

Comfort was out of the question, Amira reflected, for the room, like the Shaikha herself, was clad entirely in ornate French reproductions, heavily gilded and designed more to impress than to enjoy. Still, Amira smiled politely and perched dutifully at the edge of a Louis something-or-other chair.

Minutes later, a pair of servants in livery—the only servants in al-Remal so clad—entered the room. They offered coffee, tea, cold fruit drinks, and pastry, followed by a smoking brazier that burned sandalwood. Amira took a fruit juice because to refuse would have been impolite. And when the brazier was passed to her, she wafted the scented smoke under her arms and around her body, to refresh and deodorize, as was the custom of the desert.

“I brought the salts for your legs, dear Nazli,” Aunt Najla said, proffering a large glass jar. “But I do hope you’re feeling better.”

“I am, indeed, Allah be praised. And my dear husband has been so kind, so thoughtful. When he was in London last week—an important conference, you know—he brought back such beautiful gifts, I actually wept. And do you know what he said? He said that all his wealth could not begin to provide the gifts I deserved.”

“Thanks be to Allah for such devotion,” Aunt Najla intoned.

“Would you like to see my gifts?” the Shaikha asked hopefully, much as a child would.

“Certainly, dear. We rejoice in your pleasure—don’t we, Amira?” “Yes, yes, of course.” Amira sat up at attention, knowing she would pay later for any lapse in manners.