Princess: Stepping Out of the Shadows, стр. 67
‘You are alive, my darlings! Alive,’ I whispered. Then I smiled, despite the fact I was still in a state of shock to find myself living on earth. The most wonderful news of all had not yet sunk in – my two little granddaughters were alive, Zain was alive, indeed there had been a miracle that all of us lived through the physical and emotional turmoil of that terrifying evening, of which I only remembered a few vague details.
Kareem crept back into the room, now determined not to awaken the babies, who were surprisingly still, sleeping soundly after all the racket my husband had made. Two nurses wearing nightgowns and robes followed him. He started berating them in a whisper, if such a thing is possible. ‘Now tell me, how did my wife leave her room, come into the nursery, collect these babies and no one saw her?’
‘Sorry, sir. It was not our shift,’ one of the nurses explained. ‘There are two other American nurses who took over after our shift, but it seems that they have disappeared – we do not know where.’
One of the nurses in the room was a Filipina, the other was British. I have always felt safe in the professional care of the nurses we have hired over the years and was more than surprised that the two Americans had disappeared from their shift. Such a thing was not normal for those who worked in the kingdom’s healthcare field.
For a moment, I wondered if they had been kidnapped, but I kept that thought to myself as Kareem was already looking at me as though he feared I might mentally snap at any moment. I had no wish to alarm him further. His face had turned so red in anger that I thought he might have his own nervous breakdown. Thankfully, he quickly grasped the fact that the two nurses he had awakened were innocent.
‘All right. I am sorry to have to ask you to do this, but I will need you both to work a double shift tonight. You will receive a big bonus, I assure you. Tomorrow those two Americans will be discharged and sent out of the kingdom – they do not take responsibility seriously! I will find someone else to take their positions.’
He glanced at the furnishings in the room. ‘There are two reclining chairs in this room. Do take turns sleeping – one sleeps, one watches the babies.’
‘Do we need to put on our nursing uniforms, sir?’ the Filipina asked.
‘No. No, do not worry. Just stay in your night clothes. Be comfortable.’
I knew no one’s name, but did not ask at this time – tomorrow would be soon enough for me to discover all that was going on in my home.
That’s when the British nurse smiled at me and said, ‘Princess, we will each take one of the babies and return them to their bassinets. We promise that we shall not leave them for one second.’
I did not want to give the babies up, but I knew that I could not sit in the rocking chair and hold on to them for ever. Reluctantly, I allowed the nurses to remove the babies from my arms.
‘Yes, of course.’
Kareem smiled at me and held out his hand. ‘Welcome back, darling. I missed you.’
I could not believe that for weeks I had been unaware of all that was happening. I felt so good now; it was difficult to imagine how my mental capacity had deteriorated when told that the twins were not going to live!
Kareem and I walked arm in arm to my quarters. ‘I will be staying with you the remainder of this night, Sultana.’
‘I am sorry, husband – sorry that I was not well enough to help you through such a crisis.’
‘Do not worry. Maha is home. Little Sultana is out of school. I have a full staff helping those two to keep order.’ He leaned in and whispered, ‘I would not want to work for Maha! She is strict and puts up with no foolishness.’
I raised my eyebrows, hoping that Maha was not mean to anyone.
‘Thank you, Kareem,’ I said. Suddenly I was so tired I knew that I would sleep many hours without the assistance of any sedatives. It would be a sleep of pure contentment, but before sleeping I said a prayer of thanks that the babies and I were still living the human life on earth. What fun I was going to have with two new grandchildren!
* * *
Three days later I was so well that I felt I had never been incapacitated. Zain had been very ill and was still unable to care for her children alone, although she and Abdullah spent hours in the nursery holding their daughters and delighting in their cute little ways.
Little Sultana was as happy as I have ever seen her – her lovely attitude made me so glad that she had not been stricken with the jealous gene that had contaminated my two girls, most particularly Amani.
Little Prince Feisal was staying with Zain’s mother and was being royally spoiled. Zain’s entire family has always loved Feisal more than Little Sultana – this stuck like a dagger into all our hearts. They were so set on the sexist theme that boys are good and girls are bad that we had to work doubly hard to reassure Little Sultana, but also balance out Feisal’s life, so that he did not become a vain and arrogant man like so many of our royal princes. There were too many men like Dalal’s egotistic husband, who would probably never keep a wife happy. I believed that many divorces were in his future, a man so insufferable that no woman would live with him very long. I did not wish that kind of future on my precious little grandson, who was still