Excerpt

"We have come to request that the marriage between your son Hassan and my niece Mariana be terminated."

"Terminated?" Mariana could almost hear the Shaikhís eyebrows rise.

Where was Saboor? Surely this was not the end. Surely she would see him again, if only to say goodbye...

"May I know," the Shaikh inquired, "the reason for this request?"

Uncle Adrian cleared his throat. "My niece is English. Her life and expectations are those of an Englishwoman. She entered this marriage hastily two years ago, without consulting us, and she now faces the prospect of living as a native lady, in a style that is quite foreign to her. I am certain that your family must have had similar feelings." He paused. "Surely you would prefer your son to marry a lady from among his own people." Having accomplished this part of his speech, Uncle Adrian relaxed his grip on the arms of his upright chair.

Qamar Haveli was indeed foreign, Mariana thought, with its strange food, strange languages, no riding and no picnics, but none of that mattered to her now...

A sound came from outside. Silhouetted against the light, a small figure peered into the room. "An-nah?" he called.

She was halfway out of her chair before her uncle's fingers closed firmly on her wrist.

"My niece is not suited to the life of the zenana," Uncle Adrian continued, "We believe it is in the interest of your family as well as ours to allow her to leave quietly and without hindrance."

The Shaikh turned his gaze on Mariana. "And what," he inquired, "does the lady Mariam have to say? Does she, too, wish to dissolve her marriage to my son?"

Mariana blinked, hearing his version of her name. The Shaikh's gaze, deep and knowing, brought back their first encounter two years earlier, when she had wanted to stay beside him forever in that dark, shadowed courtyard. He had read her thoughts so easily that night...

She would never see him again after her divorce, nor would she see his twin sister, the philosopher-poet whose presence had attracted her so strongly two years earlier, and whom she had longed to embrace during her last moments in this house. Never, she realized, had she been so powerfully drawn to anyone as she had to these two. They had fired her imagination and beckoned to her heart as the flame beckons to the moth. Yet once she was divorced, Qamar Haveli and everyone in it would be as inaccessible to her as Heaven itself. Her beloved Saboor and his stranger father, the Shaikh and his sister would all disappear from her life, and with them the elusive something that had called to her, siren-like, throughout her stay in Calcutta.

Your path lies to the northwest, the man had told her at the Charak Puja nine months ago. You must return there to find your destiny.

Uncle Adrian nodded encouragingly.

"Speak, Bibi," commanded the Shaikh.

Mariana swallowed. "I do not know, Shaikh Sahib," she whispered, unable to help herself. "I do not know."