Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(33)
SAHLAH WAS ALLOWED to be part of the discussion because, after all, it was her fiancé whose life had been taken. Otherwise, she'd not have been included, and she knew it. It wasn't the way of the Muslim men of her acquaintance to give merit to what a woman had to say, and although her father was a gentle man whose tenderness often showed itself only in the soft pressure of his knuckles against her cheek as he was passing by, when it came to convention, he was Muslim to the core. He devoutly prayed five times each day; he was on his third reading of the Holy Qur'aan; he made certain that a portion of the profits from his business went to the poor; and twice already he'd paced in the footsteps of millions of Muslims who had walked the perimeter of the Ka'bā.
Thus on this night, while Sahlah herself was permitted to listen to the men's discussion, her mother merely served the purpose of bringing food and drink from the kitchen to the front room, while Sahlah's sister-in-law made herself scarce. Yumn did this for two reasons, naturally. One was a bow to haya: Muhannad insisted upon the traditional interpretation of feminine modesty, so he would allow no man save his father ever to look upon his wife. And one was her nature: Had she remained downstairs, her mother-in-law might have ordered her to help with the cooking, and Yumn was the laziest cow on earth. So she'd greeted Muhannad in her usual fashion, fawning over him as if her dearest desire were that he might wipe his boots on the seat of her drawstring trousers, and then she'd disappeared upstairs. Her excuse was the need to be vigilant should Anas have another one of his terrible nightmares. The truth was that she'd be entertaining herself by flipping through magazines which displayed the Western fashions that Muhannad never allowed her to wear.
Sahlah sat well away from the men, and in deference to their sex, she neither ate nor drank. She wasn't the least bit hungry anyway, although she felt a craving for the lassi that her mother served to the others. In the heat, the yoghurt drink would be a source of blessed refreshment.
As was his custom, Akram Malik thanked his wife courteously as she set plates and glasses before their guest and their son. She touched his shoulder briefly, saying, “Be well, Akram,” and left the room. Sahlah often wondered how her mother could defer to her father in all things, as if she had no will of her own. But when asked, Wardah always explained simply, saying, “I don't defer, Sahlah. There's no necessity. Your father is my life as I am his.”
There was a bond between her parents that Sahlah had always admired although she'd never completely understood it. It seemed to rise from an ineffable mutual sadness that neither of them spoke of, and it manifested itself in the sensitivity with which they treated and spoke to each other. Akram Malik never raised his voice. But then, he never had to. His word was law to his wife, and it was supposed to be law to his children as well.
But Muhannad, as a teenager, had sneeringly called Akram “old fart” behind his back. And in the pear orchard beyond their house, he would hurl stones at the wall and viciously kick the mosaic-barked trunks of the trees to rid himself of the fury he felt whenever his father thwarted his wishes. He was careful never to let Akram see his rage, however. To him, Muhannad was silent and obedient. Sahlah's brother had spent his adolescence biding his time, doing his father's bidding, and knowing that as long as he put his obligations to the family first, the family business and fortune would be his in the end. It was his word that would then be law. Sahlah knew that Muhannad longed for that day.
But at the moment he was faced with his father's unspoken outrage. In addition to the turmoil he'd roused in town that day, he had brought Taymullah Azhar not only into Balford but into their home. This constituted the gravest act of defiance against their family. For although he was the oldest son of Akram's brother, Sahlah knew that Taymullah Azhar had been cast out of his family, and to be cast out meant that he was dead to everyone. Including to his uncle's family.
Akram had not been at home when Muhannad arrived with Taymullah Azhar, disregarding Wardah's quiet but urgent “You must not, my son,” spoken with a warning hand on his arm. Muhannad had said, “We need him. We need someone with his experience. If we don't start getting the message out that we won't let Haytham's murder be swept under the rug, we can expect business as usual from this town.”
Wardah had looked worried but said nothing more. After the first moment of startled recognition, she didn't even look at Taymullah Azhar. She merely nodded—the deference towards her husband translating automatically into deference towards her only son—and she retreated to the kitchen with Sahlah, awaiting the moment when Akram returned home from arranging for Haytham's replacement at the mustard factory.
“Ammī,” Sahlah had asked in a low voice as her mother began assembling a meal, “who is that man?”
“He is no one,” Wardah had replied firmly. “He does not exist.”
But clearly, Taymullah Azhar did exist, and Sahlah first heard his name—and immediately realised who he was from the past ten years of family gossip among the younger cousins—when her father came into the kitchen upon his return home and Wardah intercepted him, telling him about the visitor who had arrived with their son. They exchanged hushed words. Akram's eyes displayed his only reaction to the visitor's identity. Behind his glasses, they narrowed quickly.
He said, “Why?”
His wife replied, “Because of Haytham.” She glanced at Sahlah with compassion in her eyes, as if in the belief that her daughter had actually come to love the man she'd been told to marry. And why not? Sahlah realised. Under identical circumstances, Wardah had learned to love Akram Malik. “Muhannad says that your brother's son has experience in these matters, Akram.”