15. The Shortest Way

For three weeks people chattered over the affair of Khalīl ʿAssāf: he had abducted Murād al-Basīṭ’s daughter. During the first week, the girl’s family kept telegraph and telephone wires busy searching for their daughter, but learned nothing of her or her abductor.

After that week, Murād’s relatives began blaming him for refusing to let his daughter Mary marry Khalīl in the ordinary way. Had he consented, they said, she would not have submitted to her lover’s will and fled her father’s house, making the family name a morsel in people’s mouths.

Murād received his relatives’ reproaches with remarkable patience. In vain he tried to persuade them that he had never rejected Khalīl and had been inclined toward accepting him as a son-in-law. Not once had he shown unwillingness. The most he said, at the very end, was that Khalīl should economize, work with perfect diligence, and have patience for at least a year or two until he had saved enough for wedding expenses. Had Murād known the end would take this form, he would have accepted him and not exposed his daughter to abduction. But what could be done?

After three weeks, Khalīl returned to New York with his bride, who had been wed to him in a Pennsylvania village. On reaching the city, they agreed to take a room in a New York hotel. The bride feared appearing before the father whose will she had broken and dreaded the consequences. The groom, too, feared rushing into his father-in-law’s presence and imagined the family still blazing with fury at both husband and wife.

That day the newlyweds disputed over who would deliver the news. Love and playfulness ran through the disagreement. The bride absolutely refused to go to her father’s house; she did not know whether he would accept her and pardon an act that had turned his life upside down and kept him home for three weeks while crowds came and went as though he had lost his daughter instead of bestowing marriage upon her.

The groom said that her father was not his father, so he cared nothing whether the man approved. If his bride insisted on reconciliation, the matter belonged to her.

At last they agreed to draw lots for the role of messenger. The first lot fell upon the bride. She refused to submit and proposed a second drawing. The husband reluctantly agreed—and the second lot fell upon him.

At first he hesitated and tried to escape the difficult mission. But a look from Mary brought a stratagem near. He sprang up, took the telephone, asked for his father-in-law, and said:

“This is Khalīl. I have returned to New York and learned that you are angry with me. I understand that I was wrong. I told Mary to return to your house, but she paid no attention. At last I did what duty required. I am leaving your daughter at the Grand Hotel. Come and take her. I am traveling to my brother in Texas on the three o’clock train this afternoon.”

He said this and hung up. Then he looked at Mary with such solemnity that her heart broke. She lowered her head upon his breast and asked, her chest filled with a sob:

“Will you truly leave me, Khalīl? My foot with yours—I shall not leave you until death.”

A tear was ready to descend from her eye, but Khalīl stopped it with a long laugh followed by a strong kiss upon both eyes.

Suddenly alert, he said, “The hour is near. Your father and the whole family must arrive soon. What shall we do?”

After a little hesitation, they agreed to complete the play upon which Khalīl had raised the curtain. When she heard her family’s footsteps near the door, she would cling tightly to his clothing.

And so it happened. The father entered, followed by his wife and elder daughter. They all saw Mary gripping Khalīl and threatening him:

“You cannot take one step from this room until my family comes and sees you.”

Murād heard what his daughter said to her abductor but uttered nothing. He hurried to the scene, pulled her away from Khalīl, pushed her aside, and said, “You—keep away from him.”

Then he took Khalīl by the hand and addressed him in a sharp voice broken by the sobs planted along the road from lungs to throat.

“What do you intend now—your life, or my honor? You played this scene upon us, and now you mean to finish it at my expense? What did we ever hope for from you, Khalīl?”

Murād’s wife approached Khalīl with a flashing sword of anger between her eyes. Her husband moved her back and signaled her to lower her voice, lest the hotel residents arrive with the police and the final error prove worse than the first.

Khalīl stood with his eyes upon the floor.

“Do not be angry or foolish. I did not intend to provoke you. I thought you wanted your daughter, so I told you where to find her. But since you want me with her, that is everything I wished and hoped.”

The party did not leave the room until anger had changed to joy, each side believing itself victorious over the other. They all went to Murād al-Basīṭ’s house, where relatives and acquaintances gathered. The next day rumor cried throughout the city that Murād had accepted his daughter and son-in-law and that the couple had rented the upper floor of his building so Mary might remain close to her parents.

Khalīl ʿAssāf had been passionately in love with Mary al-Basīṭ, and her father knew it. Only Khalīl’s lack of money made him hold back. Marriage, as everyone knows, entails heavy expense. Murād postponed their hope for a year or two, during which the young man might save enough.

Neither Khalīl nor Mary liked the delay, though both knew the costs perfectly well, foremost among them the price of a diamond ring. After discussing the matter repeatedly, Mary herself suggested that they run away. They would escape the expenses and obtain their desire without meaningless burdens. Thus they eloped without anyone’s knowledge and without knowing for certain whether, at the final hour, the father would have objected at all.

Khalīl and his wife lived happily, and people forgot the manner of their wedding. Two years later their firstborn arrived. They named him William. In his beauty, he appeared a gift from God’s angels.

Khalīl prospered after marriage. He bought a beautiful home and placed upon his wife’s ring finger a two-thousand-dollar ring. Her closets held luxurious clothing that many brides envied.

One night, Khalīl’s father-in-law visited Mary’s home. William crawled on the floor at his grandfather’s feet, supporting himself against the old man’s legs with one hand and using the other to strike his foot, laughing with both tiny cheeks. The grandfather pulled back his foot, pretending fear of the child’s blows, then thrust it forward and withdrew it again. He played with his angelic grandson until his heart overflowed with love. He swept the child from the floor, held him to his breast, kissed and smelled him, while William laughed and filled the house with joy and every heart with delight.

The grandfather’s eye fell upon the ring on Mary’s hand. She was winking at her child to encourage his play, her heart dancing at every movement.

“Is that the ring your mother told me about? Bring it close and let me see.”

Mary removed the ring and offered it to her father. He contemplated it for a minute, inclining the child away with one arm while examining the ring in his other hand. Then he sighed and, for the first time, addressed his daughter seriously.

“My daughter, how lovely it would have been had you waited until now to marry Khalīl! We would have given you a wedding the like of which never was and never will be. The people would have seen this ring on your finger while you were a bride.”

“Father, every nail on William’s fingers and toes is worth all the diamonds in the world. Had I waited until today, when Khalīl could buy this ring, this angel would not exist.”

The grandfather looked at the child again. William had put his hand into his mouth and was chewing it. His smile had vanished when his grandfather turned from him to the ring. At once the old man pulled him to his breast and nearly devoured one cheek with a kiss. When the kiss ended, the child returned to his deep laugh and waved his hands to resume the game.

Mary joined child and grandfather. To take part in their performance, she gave the ring to William, thinking its diamond might captivate him. He took it, looked, flung it violently to the floor, and resumed playing with his grandfather.

Mother and father watched what the child had done. When their eyes met, Murād said to his daughter:

“He is right.”
