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Sadeem’s return to Firas, or her acceptance of his return to her, wasn’t something that had been carefully considered and worked out. There were no documents containing clauses of agreement or compensation stipulations, not even a prenup. This was not one of Sadeem’s clever schemes. It was simply the insane, bell-pealing spontaneity of love. The rapture that held the two of them in thrall after their return to each other was epic, and it was more powerful than the sting of guilt he felt from time to time, or the sting to her dignity that she experienced whenever she thought about what he had done.

But Sadeem’s happiness did not stretch so far as to include forgetting and forgiving the past. Hers was a joy whose brittle edges had become curled from cruelty, a sweetness masking a bitter core. Feelings of pain and abandonment still haunted her, lurking deep inside, ready to leap out and announce their presence at any moment. By allowing Firas to come back to her, Sadeem was conceding a large part of her honor and self-respect. But, like so many women before her, she did it because she loved him.

Neither Sadeem nor Firas wanted to spend whatever time there was left before his wedding apart from each other. It was as if they had been told he had a fatal disease, with only a few more days to live, and they were determined to live their final moments in pleasure. They decided that they would remain together until the date of the wedding, which would take place in less than two months. It was a strange agreement, but they clung to it.

His love for her, which had not subsided in the least, was what compelled him to call her the moment he finished speaking to his fiancée on the telephone. Her love for him was what allowed her to wait until after he was done flirting with his fiancée on the telephone every night, so that he would be free to flirt with her.

He refused to talk about his fiancée in front of her. He refused even to mention her name or to give any hints about her personality, just as he refused to inform Sadeem exactly what the date of the wedding was. Every time it came up she would blow up at him, quieting down after he soothed and calmed and comforted her—a job he was becoming very skilled at performing.

Every few days—during his milkah period—he would visit his fiancée, who was already his legal wife, since the contract had been signed. Sadeem would discover these visits despite his attempts to hide them from her, and then her last remaining shreds of dignity would fall from her, permanently, it seemed.

Sadeem’s jealousy of Firas’s unknown wife grew deeper and stronger. Firas, who used to be able to melt her with his sweet words, now made her neck burn as if slapped with his coarse and insolent comments. “What’s the matter with you? Why are you in such a bad temper all the time? Must be that time of month!” Firas, who used to moan in pain at seeing a single tear drop from the eye of his Sadeem, began listening unmoved every night as she hemorrhaged her wounded pride in tears that dripped into the phone. “Ma shaa Allah, Sadeem!” he said to her one night, his voice rough and derisive. “Those tears of yours never quit, do they? They’re always ready, at any minute and at any word!”

How had he come to speak to her in such a way? Once she had returned to him, once she had accepted the tainted relationship he offered, did he suddenly see her as third-rate goods? And how had she gotten to such a low point that she had accepted this situation in the first place? How had she come to accept Firas’s love when he was bound to another woman?

One night he told her smugly that his mind was completely at rest about the wife his family had chosen for him. She had all the qualifications he required. The only thing she lacked, Firas said, was that he didn’t love her as he loved Sadeem. But that love, he went on, might show up after marriage; after all, that’s what had happened to all of the men whose advice he had sought. They had all counseled him to drop Sadeem despite his feelings for her and take the more rational, prudent road. He told her he forgave her for not understanding his predicament, for after all, she was a woman, and women think with their hearts, not their minds, in such matters. He kept telling her the advice he received from various relatives and friends who were devoid of compassion and understanding of what prompts a human being to love. She asked herself, if someone doesn’t believe in love, can you expect that person to grasp other high virtues such as nobility and responsibility toward others and loyalty to someone who spent years waiting to marry the person she loves?

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