Free The Dark Side of Love by Rafik Schami

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    However, there was another reason for him not to breathe a word about his love. Rana had sworn him to silence, for if the secret of their love came to light she feared for her life. And Farid knew from the evidence of his own eyes that her fears were not exaggerated. The previous summer young Ayesha had indeed paid with her life for love. She was a butcher’s daughter, and the whole village was talking about her relationship with the bus driver Bassam, whose family were at daggers drawn with Ayesha’s parents. Both families were Muslims, part of a small minority in the otherwise Christian village of Mala. Their dispute, which began over a large consignment of smuggled cigarettes, had led to three dead and over ten injured on both sides within the space of five years. The original cause of it, the cigarettes, retreated entirely into the background. The blood that had been shed now lay between the two families.

    Ayesha’s parents, relations, and friends urged her to leave Bassam, but he was the only man she wanted. In the end they wrote a letter to her brother, who was earning his living as a labourer in Saudi Arabia, and he came back in a hurry. He offered her immediate marriage to his school friend Hassan, who was in the police, but Ayesha wouldn’t hear of it, and met Bassam secretly to tell him about her brother’s threats. She hoped they would induce her lover to flee abroad with her until tempers had calmed down again, but she didn’t guess that her brother was in the barber’s on the village square at that very moment, keeping watch on her. Bassam drove out of the village with his lover. It was afternoon, and he had an hour’s break before the next journey to Damascus. Where he took Ayesha no one knew, but an hour later they came back in the bus.
    Farid was standing on the balcony drinking tea when Ayesha climbed out of the bus in the village square. Her brother marched out of the barber’s shop opposite the bus stop, crying, “Treacherous woman, you have let an enemy of our family defile you!”
    He fired three shots. Farid’s glass fell from his hand. The bus driver, realizing his danger, stepped on the gas and saved his own life. Ayesha uttered a loud and terrified scream. “Mother, help me!” Then she died, there in the middle of the square.

14. Atonement
    The fire wasn’t extinguished until midday. Then the crowd came home exhausted and dirty. Many of them, without naming names, were cursing “the boys”, meaning Farid and his friends.
    Farid’s father wouldn’t say a word to him for two hours. Elias showered, dressed, and then went to the café in the village square, where the men discussed the matter until early evening. It was more the shock than any material loss that upset most of the farmers. Some of them were merely amused to think that one of the Mushtaks’ own offspring had spoiled their Easter for them, others thought none of it worth mentioning. But the Shahins were triumphant.

    Elias Mushtak didn’t come back from the café until it was time for the evening meal. His face was grey and set. He muttered something to Claire, and she guessed that he had already come to a decision.
    â€œAfter the summer vacation you’re going into the monastery of St. Sebastian,” he shouted at his son. “And you can be glad I don’t murder you on the spot. You’re the first Mushtak ever to burn down a sacred tree. You’ve dragged the name of the Mushtaks through the mud, and you must atone for it. And when you’re a priest later, saying your prayers, I hope you’ll remember that you owe the village something.”
    â€œBut I don’t want to go into a monastery,” said Farid, looking his father straight in the eye. Elias slapped his face. He fell over on his back, hitting his head on the floor.
    â€œStop it!” cried the horrified Claire. She began crying, ran to her son and helped