Free Forbidden Love by Norma Khouri Page A

an open flame while still in their soft shells and attached to the stem.
    By June, the wedding season is in full swing. This year, as for the past five years, Dalia and I were run off our feet, and refused most of our regular appointments to focus on wedding
    parties, for a salon hairstyle on the wedding day is a ritual for all the women in a bridal party. Arab wedding ceremonies are very colourful and noisy affairs. The celebrating begins the night before, when all the men drive or march down the streets in a convoy, singing and dancing, while the women, dressed in their best clothes, go to the bride’s home for a night of their own singing and dancing.
    That evening the women are allowed to remove their veils, since no men are present. It is one of the only times in a woman’s life when she feels comfort, ease, and freedom.
    On the morning of the wedding day, the men again gather and begin their noisy procession to the bride’s home to escort her to the mosque or, if the couple are Christian, church. This is where the similarities between Christian and Muslim weddings end. At a Muslim wedding, men and women are separated during the wedding reception. The groom is allowed to join the women long enough to dance with his bride once, after which he must return to the room designated for men. At Christian receptions, men and women celebrate together.
    On her wedding day, the bride-to-be chooses a salon to go to with all the women in her bridal party, including the flower girl. They have their hair styled and their make-up applied. Most often, wedding parties would come to our salon, but sometimes we were asked to go to the bride’s home. As a result, our schedule was often very hectic. The bridal party usually consisted of at least ten women and we had to style all of them in a three-to four-hour period. Our calendar was booked for the next three months so, since we truly needed Jehan’s help, her arrival at the salon didn’t raise any suspicions. Phase one of our communication network was now successfully in place.
    Through Jehan, Dalia and Michael were able to exchange
    letters and have short conversations on the phone. Dalia and Michael’s letters slowly progressed from one-page “I just met you and don’t want to reveal too much of me yet’ notes to ten-page “I’m pouring my heart and soul out on paper’ missives discussing their opinions, beliefs, likes, dislikes. I believed that if this friendship lasted, they would soon know more about each other than most Jordanian couples who had spent their lives together.
     
    Jehan quickly became a good friend and the three of us discovered that we had a lot in common. It turned out that Jehan wasn’t as quiet as I’d originally thought. She chattered on and on, hopping from one subject to another without taking time to draw a breath. Dalia and I loved her. It was wonderful to meet another woman who shared our beliefs, hopes and opinions about women’s positions and rights. But it would still be months before Mohammed trusted Jehan enough to leave the three of us unaccompanied outside the salon. It would be weeks before Dalia could see Michael again. For now, though, she survived on the letters and sporadic calls.
    To implement phase two of our plot we had to find a way to get Mohammed interested in joining a gym so that he would be out of the salon more often. This was not easy; we had to be very careful or Mohammed would suspect that we were up to something and we spent several weeks working to arouse his interest. Our concentrated efforts kept our minds a little off our fear of being caught, but it was always there.
    First, Jehan asked Michael to buy magazines and books about exercise and weight training. We left them lying around the salon in places we knew Mohammed would see them. Once we saw him reading the magazines and books, Dalia and I started talking, in Mohammed’s presence, about the exercises we’d supposedly begun doing and mentioned that