Free Sofia by Ann Chamberlin

I don’t know,” Husayn said, trying to cover his grin in a thoughtful purse of lips. “But if so, then that loathing is twin sister to your love.”
    “Did she tell you this?” I asked, violent with jealousy at their confidences shared on the other side of the ship.
    “No, no, my young friend. We only speak of the weather and of Venice, nothing more. But I can tell, as I can tell with you.”
    “My friend,”—I laughed and brushed all his comments away with a wave of my hand—“you come from a land where no self-respecting woman ever shows her face in public. You can’t read women’s thoughts; you have no practice. If you had been paying any attention at all, you would have seen how studiously she’s been avoiding me the past week. I’ll bet you a solid-gold ducat that even now she’s over there, hanging over the port side for no other reason than that I am over here on the starboard.”
    “Keep your ducat, my friend,” Husayn said. “I am sure you are right. She does avoid you like the plague.”
    I was glad for his refusal, for a quick perusal of the figures across the oarsmen from us revealed only men lounging there. She must have gone to her cabin early tonight, I thought, convinced I had spent so much time watching her figure from afar that I could recognize it even in the weakening light. I said nothing, but let Husayn continue.
    “You two are like a pair of cats which must hiss and scratch and yowl before you mate,” he said. “Personally, I prefer a business match. The father gives you his daughter in exchange for trading privileges. Much easier on the purse and on the heart. One lives longer.”
    “And you, Husayn, have as many wives as you have trading connections. One in Aleppo, one in Constantinople, one in Venice...”
    “Praised be the Prophet who allows me such blessings. Even with twenty wives, I would outlive you, my friend, with your scratch-and-bite romance.”
    “What do you propose I do, Husayn? Present myself to Governor Baffo? ‘At your service, sir. Do not marry your daughter to your Corfiot nobleman. Why should you want to stabilize factions on this island when you can have me for a son-in-law? I—a shiftless sailor. Of a good Venetian family, perhaps, but one that has seen better days. A godless man who drinks and swears, a man who will be gone nine months out often, leaving your daughter alone in Venice...’“
    “Venice is where she wants to be,” Husayn counseled.
    “By God, I wouldn’t leave that girl untended in Venice with money and freedom to spend it if it were the last place on earth.”
    “No, that would be rather unwise,” my friend agreed, visions of the lattices of his harem before his eyes.
    “And how could I, Giorgio Veniero, settle down to life in Venice as a stodgy old merchant with nothing to do all day but sit in my warehouse and count ducats? I am married to the sea.”
    “And she is a harsh mistress,” Husayn said with a smile.
    “Husayn, my friend. I think I prefer you Arabs’ image of the sea as a man.”
    “A master lets you go home at the end of the day. A mistress is more jealous and greets you at the door with your slippers—and more demands.”
    “What should I do, Husayn?”
    “That is one matter in which—for all my costumes and my perfect Italian—I shall never be a Venetian. You like our images of the sea. Perhaps other images will serve you as well. You Venetians always wonder, ‘What should I do, what should I do?’ As if there were power in your hands to change the world. Nay, as if the whole responsibility for worldwide good rested on your vain but nonetheless narrow shoulders. My friend, it is in Allah’s hands, for all that we little ants can do. ‘ Inshallah ,’ we Muslims say. ‘May it be as Allah wills.’
    A sudden noise startled us from our philosophy. A stack of wood just on our left tumbled to the deck with a clatter. As my companion and I turned toward the sound, we saw a figure fleeing from it, a figure