“I have no wife,” Yussuf repeated obstinately.
“Then it’s time you did,” said Owen. “Either take Fatima back or find yourself another woman.”
Yussuf was silent.
“Fatima has faults,” Owen pursued. “No woman is without faults. Nor no man either. You yourself, Yussuf, are not without blame. Fatima has been a good wife to you. For the sake of that, take her back.”
Yussuf stared straight in front of him. He gave no sign of having heard.
“You have shown her you are a strong man, one who must be obeyed. If she didn’t know that before, she will know it now. She has learned her lesson. Be just as well as strong, O Yussuf.”
Owen had fallen into the familiar rhetorical style of the Arab. It was partly the language itself that suggested it. When he had first come to Egypt Garvin had insisted that he stay with an Arab family perfecting his Arabic. Owen had a facility for languages and had learned his lessons well. He spoke Arabic now without strain and from the inside, not needing to translate, thinking in the Arabic mode.
Yussuf stirred, responding, possibly, to the familiar patterns.
“She has done wrong,” he said.
“Indeed she has,” Owen agreed hastily. “But now she knows better.”
“She should acknowledge her fault.”
“And probably wishes to,” said Owen, hoping that Yussuf’s wife was not as formidable as his sister.
“She has not said so.”
“Well,” said Owen, “you can hardly expect her to.”
“She will have to say so before I take her back.”
“Do not be too hard,” Owen counselled. “The wise man is merciful as well as just.”
“If she acknowledges her fault,” said Yussuf, with the air of one making a great concession, “then I will take her back.”
Owen praised Yussuf’s justness and mercifulness, wondering, however, whether such an acknowledgement could be secured.
“There will have to be someone to go between you,” he said.
Yussuf was prepared to accept that.
“Though not Soraya,” he added darkly.
“Who is Soraya?”
“My sister.”
Owen thought that rather a pity as she had seemed very competent, quite capable of sorting out both Yussuf and his wife. However, this was a point Yussuf stuck on, so in the end it was agreed that they would ask Leila, the wife of the senior bearer. Privately Owen intended to make sure that she was given a very strong briefing beforehand. For the moment, however, it looked as if the matter was on its way to being resolved.
“Fatima will know,” he said to Yussuf, “that she has a husband who is just as well as strong, merciful as well as just.”
“She is a fortunate woman,” Yussuf agreed.
“And you will take her back.”
Yussuf hesitated.
“It-it may not be so simple, effendi.”
“Why not?”
“Effendi-”
“Yes?”
“I have already pronounced the divorce,” said Yussuf with a rush.
Under Islamic law it was possible to divorce by simple declaration. The husband merely had to say, in the presence of witnesses, “I divorce thee.”
“Did anyone hear you?”
Yussuf hung his head.
“Yes, effendi.”
It transpired that the whole street had been summoned to hear the declaration.
“That is a pity. However, you can revoke your word and take her back.”
It was allowable under the law for a husband who changed his mind to receive his wife back without ceremony. Twice.
Yussuf’s head dropped even lower.
“Effendi-”
“Yes?”
“It was the triple vow.”
If the words were spoken once, or even twice, the woman could be taken back. When the words were spoken for the third time, however, the divorce was irrevocable. And that applied whether the words were spoken on separate occasions or all together. Thus if a particularly irate husband pronounced the words three times in the heat of the moment the divorce was permanent and could not be reversed.
“You said it three times?”
“Yes, effendi,” said Yussuf unhappily.
“That’s all right,” said Zeinab, “it happens all the time.”
“They say it three times?”
“Yes. And afterwards they’re sorry. It’s too late then, of course.”
“He’ll have to marry someone else.”
Zeinab curled her legs up under her on the divan. “Why?”
“Because we can’t go on like this. It’s affecting everybody.”
“I didn’t mean that. I mean, why does he have to marry someone else? I would have thought it mightn’t be too easy. You say he’s got a bit of a reputation as a skinflint.”
“I didn’t say that. His sister did.”
“Well, she should know. If it’s true, he might find it difficult to get anyone to agree. Mothers are not going to let their daughters go to someone who’s mean with money. A bit of beating is all right, you can put up with that, but if a man is tight with his money there’s always trouble in the house. Besides, there’s nothing in it for the family.”
“I would have thought a family would have been only too glad to get an unmarried daughter off its hands.”
“Not if they’re going to come back again immediately because their husband is forever divorcing them.”
“Yussuf’s not like that.”
“It’s the money, you see,” explained Zeinab, who tended to take a very practical view of these things. “A lot of families will say that as soon as he’s got the dowry you’ll get the girl back. And then you’ll be worse off than when you started. You’ve still got the girl but you haven’t got the money.”
“Perhaps he’d be willing to take someone without a dowry. In the circumstances, I mean.”
“Him? Yussuf? Not if what his sister says is true.”
“If I leaned on him.”
“That might help,” Zeinab conceded.
“I could even pay the dowry.”
“I’d watch that if I were you. Otherwise they’ll all be doing it.”
“There are lots of poor families.”
“If you were prepared to pay the dowry-”
“It might be worth it.”
“What I can’t see, though,” said Zeinab, “is why bother with all this? Wouldn’t it be simpler just for him to marry Fatima again?”
“He can’t. That’s the whole point. He’s used the triple vow.”
“But that’s no problem. I’ve told you. People are always doing it.”
“But-”
“There’s a way round.”
“There is?”
“Yes. It’s simple. What you’ve got to do is to get her to marry again. You go to a friend, or if you haven’t got one there are people who specialize in it, and then you get them to marry her on condition that they divorce her immediately afterwards. Once that has happened you’re free to marry her again.”
“The triple vow doesn’t apply?”
“Not anymore.”
Seeing that Owen was having difficulties in getting used to the idea, she took him by the hand and pulled him down beside her on the divan.
“It’s all right,” she said. “In fact, it’s quite common. Men are always divorcing their wives and feeling sorry afterwards. So there’s got to be some way round it.”
“It happens all the time?”
“Sure,” said Zeinab, snuggling down. “All the time.”
And then the trouble started.
The first sign was slogans daubed on the wall of a kuttub, a religious school where small children went for their first instruction in the Koran. The slogans were in ill-formed, illiterate script and Owen at first put it down as the work of children; not the children who went to the kuttub, who were infants, but older youths.
“It’s the youths,” he said to the Moslems who complained. “I don’t know what things are coming to. Children have no respect for their elders nowadays.”