Longing For Paradise | ONC 2022 |

Chapter 6

I cry to the One in the skies above to answer me.
I cry for your forgiveness and mine.
I cry for your soft embrace and for your strong gaze.
I cry for your eyes that bewitched me and bewitchment is wrong.
I cry against all that is wrong but everything about you is right.
I cry for your destination and mine be the same.
I cry to the One in the skies above: Reunite us in this world and in the next.

- Ghalbani bid Dhar

He couldn't help but laugh along. Who is this girl? He wondered.

"What's your name?" She asked.

"A man never reveals his name." Noor raised an eyebrow.

"Isn't it 'a man never asks for a lady's name'?"

"Ferdous," he smiled. "My name is Ferdous."

"Where's your family from?" Ferdous shrugged.

"Are we going to get to know each other while hiding away from soldiers?"

"Might as well."

"Even when they're gone?" Noor looked out onto the empty street, listening for a moment.

"I guess this is goodbye then?" Her smile was sincere, it wasn't one of longing or of goodbye.

"Wait," he hesitated. "I don't have a place to stay." He mumbled, looking down. Noor's smile never left her face.

"You can stay with my family."

Ferdous didn't know what he expected when she said that. As they made their way back through twists and shortcuts in the deafening silence of the night, only occasional footsteps interrupting them, Ferdous thought of all sorts of things.

He was a man, he had nothing to worry about. Yet the confidence of the girl in front of him unnerved him. Her smoothness caused uneasiness in his gut, he should guarded, yet he found himself at ease with words. He wondered if she was one of the women his grandmother told him about, mysterious, almost unreal women who would take you on adventures at night and steal your soul by the day. But those were stories his grandmother told him at night when he wouldn't sleep, and they were definitely not real. The girl in front of him was very real.

He thought back to when she called him pretty, and was glad it was dark for her to see any funny expression creep onto his face. He compared her to people he knew. She was beautiful in all sense, she had a smooth forehead, a small chin and full lips. However, unlike other pretty girls, she had dark eyes, something Ferdous only noticed because he stared at them while she was talking. Her eyes twinkled with mischief and expression, they were beckoning like a friend telling you a juicy secret. He wondered what her eyes looked like when she actually told secrets.

"Here, we've reached." Noor pointed at the gate with high walls surrounding it.

"You must be well-off."

"My father is," Noor shrugged. "Now remember, if they ask you how we met, you tell them you saved me and wanted to make sure I reached home safe. And after that when they ask you if you want anything, tell them if they could do you a favour and give you a place to rest tonight."

"I don't understand, why not just tell them the truth?"

"Because it is much more believable that a man saved my life than it is I saved a man's life. Nobody would believe I saved anyone's life. Kindness isn't exactly my strong suit. Plus, then they'll ask you why I saved you when you clearly look like you can save yourself and then we'll have to tell them about the soldiers and if we do that I will never be able to step out of the house. So, for the sake my of my future and the good of humanity, just tell them you saved me from falling into a ditch, okay?"

"You look very pretty when you're making up lies."

"And please refrain from ever calling me pretty or anything of the sort, okay? If my parents ever get a whiff of that nonsense, they'll try to get you married to me."

"You seem tense."

"I was supposed to be home before dusk but clearly I couldn't and now I might never be able to go out again. You'd be tense too if you were me."

"Never happened to me." Noor looked at a smiling Ferdous and shook her head before alerting the front door guard to her presence.

It was her groggy-faced brother who greeted her, as the butler ushered them in towards the main drawing room. 

"Noor," her father hugged her before his eyes fell on her companion. A frown took shape.

"Dad, this is Ferdous. He saved me from falling into a ditch." Noor introduced him as her mother joined them.

"He, saved you?" Her mother asked. Noor nodded with a smile. Mrs. Al Ansari narrowed her eyes before letting it go and thanked Ferdous, pushing her husband to do the same. Reluctantly, Mr. Al Ansari obliged. 

"It is no consequence, however, I might have to trouble you. See, I'm a passing traveler and I don't have a place to stay tonight." Ferdous began. For a while no one said anything.

"You can stay," Noor told him. Pulled out of their thoughts, her parents responded with nods and smiles; they didn't have much to say in a situation they couldn't say no to. 

With the matter settled as well as their guest, the house seemed to be back in the reverie it was in; its inhabitants slipping under their covers and half-asleep.

At least, most of them were. Ferdous couldn't sleep. Nobody could in a new house, in a new bed, in a new place, but he had so many thoughts swimming in his mind, even if he was tired he wanted to think them out before he forgot them.

His mind kept going back to Noor. He wondered what she exactly she was afraid of, why she had prepared him beforehand when her parents didn't seem bothered at all. Her mother didn't seem scheming to marry her off and her father didn't look at her with shame. But perhaps it was too early in their meeting and too late in the night that they couldn't think properly.

Except they could. Fatima tossed around on her bed, gazing at the moon high up on the sky as it spied on her through the window. The gentle breeze played with the curtains as she wondered of their guest. He seemed like a gentleman, a scholar perhaps, and Noor seemed comfortable with him. Did Noor finally decide to get married? She would've told her if she did though, right? Then who was this man? A bitter thought ran through her mind. What if he was her lover whom she didn't intend on marrying? What if she followed in the footsteps of the other women poets and thought her independence more important than marriage but couldn't let love go? No, her Noor wasn't like that. She didn't publish love poems like those women and she published under her own name so everyone would know and point out if she did anything. Her neighbours would gleefully bring it up. So who was this man and what exactly was his relationship with her daughter?

Noor herself couldn't answer. She had no idea why she called him pretty like that, though he was, or why she so blatantly flirted with him. It was no secret he was handsome, but she blushed at her own behaviour. What if he think she's some 'loose' woman? So what if he think she's like that? Who's he to her? It's not like she did something wrong. She was just saving him. So what if she called him pretty? She was simply appreciating his beauty. That's not a crime, nor is it immoral. But he was pretty.

He couldn't forget her calling him pretty either.