The Rebel

Amina-6

“But… that means,” I look at the sheet again, lost.

“It means you’re not only a princess of the Emirates, but an English countess,” he says, with a strange sharpness to his voice.

“Oh God, Hamid! This is madness.” I get up and pressing the sheet against my chest, begin to walk up and down. “This means my mother is some English noble person, who, according to father, has never got along with her snobbish parents, instead she just wandered the world like a… you know, a…”

“A hippie,” he interferes with resignation.

“Yes, that,” I point towards him. “And, lo and behold, the English countess who rebelled against her family’s conservative traditions, fell in love with none other than a prince from the Emirates.”

“We don’t know what happened between them. You can’t call that relationship love.”

“But it was. It was!” I shout with such vehemence that I’m surprised about it. I don’t know why, but it fills me with a bad feeling that he degrades the relationship between our father and my birth mother. Of course, I can’t know what my mother, Jacqueline felt for my dad, but it’s for certain that our father loved her. After all, he even admitted that to me.

“Dad loved her, I’m sure about that,” I say, upset. But as I see the pain run through Hamid’s lovely face, I suddenly come to my senses. How stupid I am! Nasirah is Hamid’s birth mother. Who would appreciate hearing that his father fell in love with another woman while living in marriage with his own mother? When will I learn to think before I speak? “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it like that,” I say regretfully, although we both know I meant it exactly like that. Hamid himself was present when our father gave a heated account of his relationship. I’m sure he can also feel it meant more to father than just a light affair. I throw the sheet onto my bed and walk up to him. I hug his waist and put my head on his chest, without waiting to see if he is happy about my gesture. I don’t even want to give him a chance to pull away from me. “Thank you, Hamid. Thanks for all you’ve done for me.”

Tears are rolling down my cheeks. I’m probably soaking his shirt. For a while, he allows me to hold him with a stiff posture, but he can’t take it too long. He lifts his hand to my shoulder and gives me a squeeze, then begins to stroke my hair, in his usual, fatherly way. It feels unspeakably good that I feel he loves me too, and things are all right between us, regardless of what has come to light about my identity.

“And now, what? What do you want to do, Amina?”

He pushes me away and looks painfully into my eyes. I raise my shoulders and heave a deep sigh.

“I don’t know it yet myself. For now, I have to think it all through. It was a bit too much, out of the blue,” I sniff, wiping my eyes.

Hamid takes out a tissue and puts it in my hand. I give him a grateful smile. I love this caring nature of his, that manifests again and again, even though he tries to act like the king of coolness.

“Will you seek her out? I mean… now that you know her name?” he continues uncertainly.

I walk up to my bed and take the sheet in my hands again.

“Maybe. I’m not sure,” I shrug my shoulders. “Whatever my mother’s name is, it’s a fact that she gave me up when I was an infant. She wasn’t a poor beggar, a street person, from whom the rich Arabian prince took her baby by force. She’s also a member of an influential family. If she had wanted me to be with her, she could have fought for me, but she didn’t.

“You don’t know what was all behind it all,” he says, as if now he was trying to comfort me.

“Indeed, I don’t. But I didn’t have the feeling as though father had lied about her. Did you?”

He puts both his hands in his pockets, raises his shoulders, looking truly clueless.

“Nor did I. It’s a fact, though, that he kept her person a secret from you for years, and even now, the issue didn’t come to light because he wanted to tell you,” he remarks, and he’s right. If it had been up to my father, I would live my whole life without ever knowing Nasirah wasn’t the one had given birth to me. And this is not the only thing that bothers me. Also, Saud sheikh and the wedding. I have to come up with something, and really quick.

I collapse on the edge of the bed, burying my face into my hands and massage my pulsing temples.

“Hide the paper, Amina. If anyone finds it, we’ll be in big trouble.”

I look up at him, and then at the sheet next to me. It’s sweet the way he says we will be in big trouble. The truth is, I would be in damn big trouble, he would get away with something better, but I choose not to mention that.

“Sure. I will put it away,” I nod, and slip the folded sheet into my pocket. “Thank you, Hamid.”

“Okay,” he says, breathing deeply. “I have to go now, but—"

“Hamid.”

“Yes?”

“Are you still my brother?” I ask a little clumsily, but I couldn’t keep this question inside.

“What?” he asks, pulling his face and rolling his eyes, but I know he knows what I mean.

Just before, when we hugged, he already told me without words that nothing has changed between us, but I must hear it from him. More and more dour thoughts are coming over me as I try to find a way out of this forced marriage, and now I simply need him to say it.

“I would like to hear it, Hamid. Do you still consider me your sister? Exactly like before?”

He starts towards the door, but after a few footsteps he pauses and turns around. He bursts into laughter, and seeing his smile, I can’t hold it back any longer either. I laugh back at him.

“Of course, you are my sister. Stop kidding with me, princess!” he says, then, purposely accentuating the word, he adds: “Countess.”

“Your favourite sister?” I tilt my head expectantly, because we often joke about this. He also keeps asking me whether he’s my favourite brother or not. I call it a joke, but actually it’s not. Hamid is much closer to me than Rafa, not to mention Kareem.

“My favourite and my best,” he answers half-jokingly, half seriously, and with that, he leaves my room.

Chapter 6