Читать книгу Deadline Yemen (The Elizabeth Darcy Series) - Peggy Hanson - Страница 11

CHAPTER 7

“We don’t have to show the world what Islam is any more,” Zafran declared. “We have to show people what true Islam is.”

Victoria Clark, Yemen, Dancing on the Heads of Snakes

Halima rolled over as moonlight hit her face, faint red, blue, green through the colored glass arch above one of the windows in the mufraj. For a moment, her natural optimism tried to emulate the moon.

Then hellish reality hit her again. Ali. Dear, mischievous, naïve Ali. What had he done? Why had he brought the family to this dreadful pass?

Halima pulled the handspun cotton cover over herself. The early morning chill had penetrated her aching body. From the kitchen below, smells of baking bread floated up. For women in the household, work was hardly nine to five. The call to prayer started gradually from the Great Mosque near her house and spread quickly to the minarets of both the Old City and the new until the air was full of the familiar tremulous calls, interrupting and overlapping each other. She had nearly slept through it.

Her cousin, Zuheyla, who had slept on a thin mufraj mattress near her, must have let her sleep. She was gone now. It had been a sleepless night for both of them.

Had Elizabeth arrived last night? What a terrible breach of hospitality to not meet her, or even send a driver out with her name on a card. It broke Halima’s heart.

But her family was now watched by the President’s own security forces. If connections with Elizabeth were known, she would be unable to help. She might even be endangered, herself. Could anyone help, honestly? It felt like the end of the world.

She rose, did the ritual ablutions, brought out her prayer rug, and appealed to the Divine.