Mariyah's Blog

After Alexandra and Ghassan hung up the phone with Frau Hanauer they looked at each other in stunned silence. Alexandra’s mind was spinning. Everything was overwhelming her and it felt completely wrong. She had thought after talking to Frau Hanauer, she would feel more at ease, but it was quite the opposite. She felt as though her life was being spun out of control, as though she were in a centrifuge and someone had pushed the on-switch. It was almost as if she and Ghassan were merely puppets acting out someone else’s plan. She suddenly had the urge to grab onto something to stop the spinning, to stop the show. But what was solid enough to hold?

Alexandra looked into Ghassan’s eyes. There was a wildness there as if he too was feeling the same way as she – very unsteady. She grabbed his hand and held it firmly in hers.

“Is this what you want?” Ghassan asked, his brow furrowed.

“Yes.” Alexandra shook her head. “I mean, yes, I want to marry you. But all of this isn’t…right.”

“I don’t want it to happen like this either.” The wildness in Ghassan’s eyes turned from confusion to determination in an instant; the intensity that made him so compelling had returned. “Enough of this farce, I am going to speak to your father! I do want to marry you, but not like this. Not like this at all. Marrying in secret and hurry only implies we are doing something wrong…clandestine almost. And it is not wrong that we love one another and I love you very much.”

“I love you too!”, Alexandra’s heart melted. It was the first time he had ever directly spoken those words to her. “But we need to face my father together, Ghassan. We need to do this together.” As her own words echoed in her head, she felt a strong resolve throughout – particularly in her heart. She was still terrified of her father but if she could hold Ghassan’s hand, she felt that maybe she could face anything.

Ghassan held her face in his hands? “Are you sure?”

Alexandra nodded. She had rarely been sure of anything in her life or cared to be sure of anything. Almost all was looked after for her or decided for her. But today she felt that she needed to be sure of the course her life would take – at least the part of it that she could control.

Ghassan must have seen something in her eyes that spoke of her resolve. “Alright. Yes. Let’s do it together! I’ll call a taxi.”

“Wait, Ghassan!” Alexandra marveled at his decisiveness but she needed to plan. She needed to decide upon and to rehearse ahead of time what to say to her father. She was getting pretty good at predicting his responses to any particular statement and she needed to know what to expect from Ghassan. She needed to warn him if he would be wading into murky waters by his comments. “What will we say?”

“What do mean, Alexandra?” Ghassan immediately looked perplexed. “I’ll tell him that I shall marry you, that I shall look after you.”

“Come. Let’s sit down and plan this.” She tugged gently on his hand that she still held, urging him toward the salon. “I think you know that my father is a very rigid man and there are certain ways to act and not to act with him.”

Ghassan pulled back, drawing her close to him, he held her firmly but not roughly. “I have dealt with men far more rigid than your father. With all due respect to you, there is no planning required. I shall simply tell him what I am going to do, what we are going to do.”

Alexandra cringed, “Ghassan, with all due respect to you, he will laugh in your face. You have no power over him. He holds all of the cards. If he takes away my money, my student Visa, I’ll have no choice but to return home with him.”

As Alexandra looked into Ghassan’s face she was startled to see his dark eyes had gotten even darker. “Your father does not hold all of the cards. He does not hold you. You are with me. He cannot force you on a plane and he cannot take away your Visa. That is your Visa.”

“But he said…” Alexandra started.

“He told you that to keep you under his control, Alexandra.” Ghassan put his hand behind her neck and drew her in even closer. “But in reality, the only control he has over you is in your head. Push him out, Alexandra! Take away the power he has over you and be with me.”

Suddenly, as though a curtain had been lifted, Alexandra felt as if she was finally seeing everything more clearly than she ever had. The centrifuge had stopped and everything previously obscured was now separated out in plain view. She had always been her father’s puppet but Ghassan had shown her the strings so that she could cut them. She wasn’t sure yet how sharp her scissors would be, but she did feel she had the strength to wield them. After taking a deep breath, she squeezed Ghassan’s hand tightly. “Alright, Ghassan. I’m ready. Let’s go.”