1.

My husband looks out from the ninth-story window of his office building. A telecom boom brings him to this oil-rich monarchy, and I am his bride, here to be with him. The gulf looks blue, but when the sun hits the water through a break in the clouds, a swath of lighter color appears. Green, my husband says.

"When you saw how blue the water was, did you think of me?" I ask.

He nods without looking my way.

As with the gulf waters, we can't agree on the color of the hotel windows by the shore. I say green; he says blue. We can't agree.


2.

I want to take you diving for pearls. I want to drink of you, and have you drink of me. But now, you do one thing I want: you leave the car and sit beside me, though not close, on the seawall, both of us confused after our fight.

I hadn't been able to sleep. I woke you at dawn by pounding you with my fists, working down from your neck until you cupped the softness between your legs, your arm staving off my blows. My fists unclenched and I screamed that I was sorry, but you didn't hear. After you got dressed and left for work, I threw your Dunhills out the window. Your blue plastic lighter fell—pop—onto the cement below. I am jealous of your nicotine. You should come to me to calm your nerves.

When you came home for dinner you wouldn't talk to me, so I flung my date pits across the table. I ran out of the apartment, toward the stairs. You motioned for me to return, telling me later you were afraid I was going to throw my plate at your head.

It's not your fault. I expected something different. I didn't know I'd miss working, or that I'd be unable to call my friends and family in America, or yours in Pakistan, whenever I wanted, because of the time difference. Where did I leave my things, in your country or mine? I spend all day in this apartment, populating it with memories of people I never had time to think of before. I live for when you return, so you can drive away the ghosts. But you sit on the sofa, drowning me out with television, and I wish the satellite would fall out of orbit and the TV would flash blue, so we could stare into nothing together.

I sought an escape. You still wouldn't talk to me, so I took four tablets of Panadol, the painkiller with the soothing blue circle on the package. I didn't take enough to kill me, but enough to get out of this arranged marriage for a while. Enough to calm down and not yell at you.

You asked me why I was upset, but I'd fallen asleep. When I woke up, I stumbled against the dresser and swore, angry at returning to the same situation. So I did what I could. I went to the balcony with my little laundry and sachet of blue detergent, and declared to the people below that I hate Kuwait. This piece of desert, this edge of empires. The cost of international calls, the kids who make faces out of car windows, the men on four-wheelers, the mall girls with Old Hollywood makeup. Please tell me your contract has expired so we can leave. I want to go home and I hate this life. I will never say I hate you, though, because I love you with a love that is more than love.

You beckoned me off the balcony with a finger over your lips. Apparently I had been screaming. You told me you'd call our mothers about me, but you never reached for your phone. My little pile of laundry made you fear I was packing up and leaving you, and you weren't sure it would be such a bad thing.


3.

This morning, I swing my legs on the seawall, kicking the rocks below. I remember our wedding night. You prayed that God would grant you the good in your new wife, and protect you from her evil.

That offended me. Me? Evil? Your concept of evil is your discomfort with the unfamiliar, nothing else. Some people fear the sea may spew up something terrible—a storm, a bloated body, monsters from the deep—which it sometimes does. But when waves ripple on the gulf, tiny fish kiss the water's surface near the rocks, where fishermen catch them. Pearls lie beneath as well. People skim by in yachts. Once I came to the corniche alone and a man stopped his jet ski to shout Habibti! Hayati! up at me. My lover, my life! I could walk into the sea for a man like that.

Why does saltwater fall from my eyes when you hold me? You smell so wonderful I can't bear it. You don't realize: women are more good than evil. You may never understand every part of them, even as you may find their company rewarding. The first year will be hard, as might every year after. But come to me; sit with me. I'll be good for you. I'll take care of you, if you'll let me.


4.

The sea is dark on our evening walks along the water. Together the sky and sea look like a great, black veil pinned in the middle with lights from a faraway island. I feel as if we were the first—and only—man and woman on earth, not born but created.

I whisper, I'm scared. You don't ask me why. Instead, you tell me I have no reason to fear, because my husband will protect me.

Soon, the heat will relent, the wind blowing off Iran's mountains will make us shiver, and we'll draw closer. I'll hold your hand and blow warm air into our double-fist—twice as strong as mine alone—to comfort you.


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