Chapter Twenty-nine

If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,

Like this.

-- Rumi

That night, Nadia and Sayid stood up before the rest of the camp. Sayid said to her, "I pledge in honesty and sincerity to be for you a faithful and helpful husband." He slid the ring upon her finger.

She replied, placing the ring upon his, "I offer you myself in marriage. I pledge to be your faithful wife."

The crowd was a little taken aback by the brevity of it all, but they cheered the couple, and then they began to eat and sing and talk. Sayid was relieved by their support and acceptance; Nadia was warmed by it.

The couple knew that there might always linger at the back of their consciences a regret for the way they had come together, but Sayid was sure that the future they would forge together, the loyalty they would show one another, and the love they would share would nevertheless usher in a lasting happiness. They accepted the congratulations of their friends, and then they stole off together to their tent.

During his seven years of searching, Sayid had inevitably thought about what it might be like to make love to Nadia. He had envisioned that his movements would be fluid, elegant, he himself the master of his senses and his actions. He had thought Nadia would respond with passion (he could not imagine Nadia as anything less than passionate), but it would be a regulated passion, graceful and channeled, and he would love her slowly, concentrating on her pleasure.

The reality was nothing like the fantasy.

Instead he possessed her like a starving man who, having just had a vast banquet set before him, abandons all pretense of self-control. And when he lay beside her, still shuddering from the effects of their combined passion, he took her hand nervously and murmured, "I am sorry. I was not a very considerate lover."

She squeezed his hand. "Nor was I," she replied. "We have waited nearly eight years." She turned and slid an arm about his chest, nestling her head against his shoulder. "Next time," she whispered against his flesh.

He smiled. He had almost forgotten there would be a next time…and a next…and a next. They had countless nights to perfect their lovemaking.

-----

Later that night he awoke to the feel of Nadia shaking him. "What is it?" he asked.

"You were having a nightmare," she said. "You were groaning in your sleep."

Hazily he recalled the dream—or at least part of it. His mind had been replaying the old scene with Essam, when his friend had said, "Well then, Sayid, I hope she makes you whole again," just before he shot himself.

Nadia was smoothing her hand across Sayid's brow, drying the sweat that had beaded there. "What did you dream?" she asked.

"Nothing," he murmured. "Nothing."

She lay her head down on his chest and snuggled close to him. "Freidrich Nietzche was a godless man, but he said a lot of profound things."

Sayid placed an arm around her and pulled the blanket up to her shoulders. "It is the middle of the night, Nadia. Do you really want to discuss German philosophy?"

He was stirred by the low, seductive sound of her laughter, the feel of her breath against his skin. "Nietzche once said," she continued, "that it is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages."

"I assume there is a point to this?"

Nadia kissed him, just below the shoulder. "I want to be a friend to you, Sayid. I want to share your burdens. Do not keep them from me to protect me. Tell me your dream."

He did. He felt her shudder, and he drew her closer.

"What do you think it means?" she asked.

"Perhaps that I still feel guilty about…about everything that has led to this moment."

"I hope," she said quietly, "that you do not allow that guilt to mar our happiness."

He slid his hand slowly down her back, and then back up again. "Nothing could mar the happiness you bring me."

"But you are, and always will be, a man of conscience. It is one of the many reasons I love you." She shifted slightly against him. "And do I make you whole again?" she asked.

"I could have endured without you," he answered.

She pulled away and rolled onto her back beside him, but she laughed. "That is just the sort of romantic avowal a woman likes to hear on her wedding night."

He rolled to his side, propping himself up on his elbow to look down at her. "I only mean…I was happy with Shannon. I think I could even, eventually, have been content alone. But when you came here…yes, I loved you again, with an intensity that was even greater than the first time. And I am so very grateful to have you now. It is merely that, after Shannon died, I came to realize that there was yet another, greater void in me that no woman could fill."

"Only Allah could."

Sayid nodded. "You understand me."

He rested his forehead against hers and kissed her softly. Then he let his free hand cup her breast; he brushed a thumb across her nipple and watched her body respond.

"Sayid," she murmured, "it is the middle of the night."

"Yes," he said, drawing her on top of himself, "a much better time for lovemaking than philosophizing."

"What if I were to say I was too tired?" she asked, but she had already begun to move against him.

"I would say," he answered, sliding his hand downward across her flesh, "that you were lying."

This time they made love languidly, no rush, all tenderness. They did not speak to one another until their pleasure overcame them, and then she cried his name, while he whispered, "My wife, my friend, my love."

Afterwards, he drew her backwards against himself and laced his fingers through hers. She lay with her head tucked beneath his chin. "I love you," she murmured, and they were the last words he heard before a peaceful, dreamless sleep overtook him.