“Oh, no,” she said decidedly. “You can’t be a man. You’re quite the wrong shape. Men are twice as thick as you all over, and their stomachs come out in a fat bit that’s called a belly. And they have gray hair all over their faces and nothing but shiny skin on their heads. You’ve got hair on your head like me and almost none on your face.” Then, as Abdullah put his hand rather indignantly to the six hairs on his upper lip, she asked, “Or have you got bare skin under your hat?”
“Certainly not,” said Abdullah, who was proud of his thick, wavy hair. He put his hand to his head and removed what turned out to be his nightcap. “Look,” he said.
“Ah,” she said. Her lovely face was puzzled. “You have hair that’s almost as nice as mine. I don’t understand.”
“I’m not sure I do, either,” said Abdullah. “Could it be that you have not seen very many men?”
“Of course not,” she said. “Don’t be silly. I’ve only seen my father! But I’ve seen quite a lot of him, so I do know.”
“But don’t you ever go out at all?” Abdullah asked helplessly.
She laughed. “Yes, I’m out now. This is my night garden. My father had it made so that I wouldn’t ruin my looks going out in the sun.”
“I mean, out into the town, to see all the people,” Abdullah explained.
“Well, no, not yet,” she admitted. As if that bothered her a little, she twirled away from him and went to sit on the edge of the fountain. Turning to look up at him, she said, “My father tells me I might be able to go ou
t and see the town sometimes after I’m married—if my husband allows me to—but it won’t be this town. My father’s arranging for me to marry a prince from Ochinstan. Until then I have to stay inside these walls, of course.”
Abdullah had heard that some of the very rich people in Zanzib kept their daughters—and even their wives, too—almost like prisoners inside their grand houses. He had many times wished someone would keep his father’s first wife’s sister, Fatima, that way. But now, in this dream, it seemed to him that this custom was entirely unreasonable and not fair to this lovely girl at all. Fancy not knowing what a normal young man looked like!
“Pardon my asking, but is the Prince from Ochinstan perhaps old and a little ugly?” he said.
“Well,” she said, evidently not quite sure, “my father says he’s in his prime, just as my father is himself. But I believe the problem lies in the brutal nature of men. If another man saw me before the Prince did, my father says he would instantly fall in love with me and carry me off, which would ruin all my father’s plans, naturally. He says most men are great beasts. Are you a beast?”
“Not in the least,” said Abdullah.
“I thought not,” she said, and looked up at him with great concern. “You do not seem to me to be a beast. This makes me quite sure that you can’t really be a man.” Evidently she was one of those people who like to cling to a theory once they have made it. After considering a moment, she asked, “Could your family, perhaps, for reasons of their own, have brought you up to believe a falsehood?”
Abdullah would have liked to say that the boot was on the other foot, but since that struck him as impolite, he simply shook his head and thought how generous of her it was to be so worried about him and how the worry on her face only made it more beautiful—not to speak of the way her eyes shone compassionately in the gold and silver light reflecting from the fountain.
“Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that you are from a distant country,” she said, and patted the edge of the fountain beside her. “Sit down and tell me all about it.”
“Tell me your name first,” said Abdullah.
“It’s rather a silly name,” she said nervously. “I’m called Flower-in-the-Night.”
It was the perfect name for the girl of his dreams, Abdullah thought. He gazed down at her admiringly. “My name is Abdullah,” he said.
“They even gave you a man’s name!” Flower-in-the-Night exclaimed indignantly. “Do sit down and tell me.”
Abdullah sat on the marble curb beside her and thought that this was a very real dream. The stone was cold. Splashes from the fountain soaked into his nightshirt while the sweet smell of rose water from Flower-in-the-Night mingled most realistically with scents from the flowers in the garden. But since it was a dream, it followed that his daydreams were true here, too. So Abdullah told her all about the palace he had lived in as a prince and how he was kidnapped by Kabul Aqba and escaped into the desert, where the carpet merchant found him.
Flower-in-the-Night listened with complete sympathy. “How terrifying! How exhausting!” she said. “Could it be that your foster father was in league with the bandits to deceive you?”
Abdullah had a growing feeling, despite the fact that he was only dreaming, that he was getting her sympathy on false pretenses. He agreed that his father could have been in the pay of Kabul Aqba and then changed the subject. “Let us get back to your father and his plans,” he said. “It seems to me a little awkward that you should marry this Prince from Ochinstan without having seen any other men to compare him with. How are you going to know whether you love him or not?”
“You have a point,” she said. “This worries me, too, sometimes.”
“Then I tell you what,” Abdullah said. “Suppose I come back tomorrow night and bring you pictures of as many men as I can find? That should give you some standard to compare the Prince with.” Dream or not, Abdullah had absolutely no doubt that he would be back tomorrow. This would give him a proper excuse.
Flower-in-the-Night considered this offer, swaying dubiously back and forth with her hands clasped around her knees. Abdullah could almost see rows of fat, bald men with gray beards passing in front of her mind’s eye.
“I assure you,” he said, “that men come in every sort of size and shape.”
“Then that would be very instructive,” she agreed. “At least it would give me an excuse to see you again. You’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.”
This made Abdullah even more determined to come back tomorrow. He told himself it would be unfair to leave her in such a state of ignorance. “And I think the same about you,” he said shyly.