The Butterfly Mosque by G. Willow Wilson Read Free Book Online Page B

be scandal. For a moment Omar looked startled. Recovering, he agreed in an identical tone. Only his eyes betrayed anxiety, and, I thought, hope. For the rest of the day he kept me within sight, if not within arm’s reach, though we did not speak to each other again.
    After work, when Jo left to make posters with her co-teacher, Omar came over to the apartment. There was a moment of awkwardness when he stepped through the door—though we had gone all over the city together we had never been alone in private. The simple intimacy of standing with him in a closed room was almost frightening. I was used to having Cairo as a chaperone.
    â€œI love you,” I said in a rush. “And I know what that is going to mean. I mean, I know that’s not a small thing to say, especially since—” I ran out of air and swallowed. “But I had to say something. I’m sorry.” I grimaced. This wasn’t meant to come out in such a graceless, forward mess.
    A smile played over Omar’s face and disappeared, then returned, like the sun between patches of cloud. “Give me your hand,” he said, reaching out with his. This was a proposal. In Egypt, acknowledged love and an offer of marriage are the same thing, so for us, marriage came like love; an emotion and not a decision. Until the day we made it official, we would ask each other “Will you marry me?” almost whenever there was a lull in conversation but the real proposal was put forth and accepted that afternoon when he put out his hand and I took it. We had never been on a real date. We had never kissed. We had known each other for just over a month.
    â€œThere’s another thing,” I said, hesitating. Omar looked at me expectantly. I forced the words to arrange themselves on my tongue. “I’m a Muslim,” I said.
    Omar slumped forward with an expression of profound relief. “Thank God,” he said. “Thank God. That makes so many things easier.”
    â€œYou’re not that surprised,” I said, laughing.
    â€œYou’re right.” Omar sat up and grinned at me. “I guess it’s because I’ve never become this spiritually close to a non-Muslim. There has always been a, similarity, between us, in that way. No, I’m not surprised.” He put his arm around my shoulders and folded me against him. “I’m just very, very happy.”
    The texture of the shirt and the warmth of the shoulder I lay against unknotted my anxiety. Once you discover that the world rewards reckless faith, no lesser world is worth contemplating. Omar touched my hair, laughed, and said he had no word for its color. He wound a strand around his finger and kissed it. There were so many things, he said, so many things he had been waiting to tell me since before he had seen my face or knew my name.
    Omar lived with his divorced mother and younger brother on the border of Tura, an industrial district just south of Maadi. Jo and I had been to their apartment once, briefly, and said quick hellos to his mother Sohair, a striking woman in her fifties with eyes rimmed in heavy kohl. I was surprised that Omar still lived with his family at twenty-eight. In Egypt, though, this is normal—most Egyptians stay with their parents until marriage. Interdependence is valued over independence; living alone and hoarding one’s resources is seen as antisocial. Until I learned that all of my unmarried colleagues and friends still lived with their families, it was difficult for me to process.
    The fact that Omar disappeared every day to visit anAmerican girl had not gone unnoticed. The evening after we got engaged, Omar called to tell me that he had announced our intentions to his family. His tone was matter-of-fact, as if we were discussing plans for a dinner or a day trip to the pyramids.
    â€œYou just told them? Just like that?” I bit my nails.
    â€œJust like that,” he said. His voice was firm and