Although we were in early September, the weather was still hellishly hot,
Or at least this was what I tried to think about when we finally left the dinning hall and went to the guests hall, the weather.
While absently observing the sun rays brightly reflecting on the tree leafs and on the surface of the pool out in the garden I inevitably recalled the old summers I spent in my hometown, where the temperature was above 40°c for most of summer and we still had to manage staying alive through them without air conditioner because Nana thought it was a waste of money and unhealthy, where we literally boiled under our clothes when we dared walk in the streets midday, although these memories were obviously filled with heat I still felt this unexplainable coldness when recalling them, and this deep void inside me I failed to fill.
_"Are you alright Noursine?" Eliyas whispered in my ear while sitting beside me.
When I looked at him, his eyes were full of concern, I'm sure he didn't expect Nadir to announce such news about my mother to me, he probably was even regretting inviting him to the villa in the first place.
I didn't want him to unnecessarily feel worried about me, so I smiled then replied:
_"I'm perfectly fine."
Eliyas didn't look very convinced after hearing my words though, which is quite reasonable given the fact that I, the not so emotional creature, was so heartbroken after my last meeting with my mother to the point of having eating and sleeping problems, the thing is that I wasn't even concerned about my deteriorating state at the time, So it was actually only him who felt pained and desperate seeing his wife withering in front of his eyes.
While Eliyas was busy inspecting my face, our guest, namely Nadir, suddenly asked Ines:
_"Miss Filladi, I heard you recently graduated from college, are you planning to join the filladi next?"
I felt quite surprised with his unexpected curiosity about Ines's plans in life, but I ended up attributing this weird behavior to the nature of his work, he's a lawyer after all, he must have gotten used to randomly asking people about their private lives so it was only natural for him to inquire about the person he knew the least in that room, my sister in law Ines.
_" I'm not planning to join Filladi." She replied carelessly, then continued:
_"I was delayed for 2 years in college, I hardly made it at the finance department, business is clearly not my thing."
You see, Ines was never your typical straight A student, or what we call in Algeria: "Qaria", which by the way literally means : "someone who can read" as if the rest of the students who rank worst are a bunch of illiterates, I always found it quite offensive, anyways, the poor Ines did her best in school but her scores never reflected her effort.
She hardly made it through high school, then when she thought she could finally breathe and enjoy her youth she was then forced to study finance which only made things even worst for her.
Now that her long nightmare is finally over, why would she even think of torturing her self for the rest of her life by working at filladi??
_"then what will you do instead?" He persistently asked.
She calmly looked at him, then replied:
_" I've been modeling occasionally in college, Did some photography as well, probably I'll see if I can start from these since I finally fulfilled my parents wish of getting a finance diplomat."
_"I see, then it will indeed be more convenient for you to live in France, you'll probably have better opportunities there." Nadir commented to our total surprise.
Is Ines moving to France?!
I definitely had no idea.
At first I thought only I wasn't informed about Ines's plans of moving to France, which is very typical and expected, surprisingly though, it wasn't the case at all! when I turned to glare at Ines I noticed the total confusion on her face as well, needless to even ask, she definitely had not a single idea about "her" own moving to France! Her situation was obviously by loads far worst compared to mine.
Thankfully Nadir soon noticed our clear confusion, so he asked Eliyas:
_" Mr Filladi, I suppose you already informed your sister about my living conditions, I'm afraid when she will be my wife, she will have to accompany me there."
What!!
His wife? Ines?
Oh my god!!!
You see, I was so surprised with what i heard that I unintentionally flexed my neck to look at Eliyas with bulging eyes, I did this so fast that I heard a loud crack, in fact, I was so freaking surprised that the phobic me didn't even think I might have broken my neck! I didn't care at all!
I was just in a state where my face looked like a fish and my head was empty.
Nadir is marrying Ines! What!!
_" I haven't spoken with my sister yet Mr Ghemmari, I was going to discuss your marriage proposal with her after this meeting." Eliyas finally replied with a very annoyed tone.
Actually, this explanation only made me feel stupid and cheated, there I was preparing my self for hours and painting my face in order to look decent for our guest, only to find out my whole presence was unnecessary in the first place.
If I had a hint this was going to happen, I would have at least made my self useful and sent Akrem away to spare him the pain of this occasion.
Speaking about the poor Akrem, I didn't even dare look at him at this point.
Nadir with an angry tone soon commented:
_" If this was the case Mr Filladi, you should have at least informed me about your plans, I caused your sister an unnecessary inconvenience."
Eliyas only smiled hearing this, and yes ladies and gentleman, he smiled genuinely from ear to ear! Then weirdly said:
_" I always appreciate your honesty with me, If Ines had prior knowledge about the reason of your coming she would have been very nervous and wouldn't act like her self, then you wouldn't have met the real her, I'm speaking from my personal experience."
Then this oblivious husband of mine looked at me with hearts flying out of his eyes, totally misreading the atmosphere around him.
No one found this "out of personal experience" decision of his convenient or even helpful:
_ I was still looking at him with an open mouth and unblinking eyes.
_ Nadir still looked very angry.
_ Ines seemed shocked and disappointed.
_ Nana was in a denial phase, since she has a very poor opinion of the Ghemmaris, so this marriage proposal was definitely the last thing she wanted to hear about in this lifetime.
_ Akrem was.. I still don't dare to look at him but he must be very angry.
Anyways the only person who was in a joyful mood was Eliyas.
Ines soon reached the edge of her tolerance, so she simply stood up and walked out of the guests hall slamming the door behind her and leaving us all behind.
It was at this point that I finally gathered my courage and I looked at Akrem to see if he was doing fine.
He was just looking absently at the ground to be honest, If I wasn't aware of his hidden feelings, I would have simply assumed he was admiring the beauty of the carpet at the very wrong time. Since it's not the case, meaning that I well know how hurt he must be feeling, this calm and peaceful scenery hit quite differently, it was rather painful to see.
There are rare moments in my life when I stop being selfish and I feel the others, that was one of them, Akrem's silence was very loud, as if it wasn't already painful to love a girl he couldn't reach, he had to be a witness to her being linked with another, while being absolutely incapable of doing anything to stop that.
Being the righteous person that I am, I decided to put an end to my neutral and "it's not of my business" attitude, therefore, intervene and actually do something I won't regret.
I soon left the room as well trying to catch Ines and see how she was doing, while doing that I remembered to call one of the servants, then I asked her to go inform Akrem that the guards team leader is asking to speak with him urgently about an important matter, which is a big lie from beginning to end of course, I only wanted the Poor him to leave that room, thus sparing him from any additional torture.
I finally reached Ines's room, while standing behind the locked door I hesitated for long moments before I finally knocked and said:
_"Ines, can I come in?"
To be honest, until this point I was still not sure of what I exactly was doing, just a reminder to explain my uncertainty : Ines and I were always enemies!
It was even more confusing to me when she actually made the effort to personally open the door for me and say:
_" please come in."
Needless to say it, I hesitated with every step I made while following her back to her bed, once we sat down, I felt very uneasy that I simply remained silent, only looking at the bed sheets to avoid her gaze.
Ines must have thought: " is this woman here to speak to me or to admire my taste in furniture ??"
_"Did you know about this? I mean Nadir." Ines finally asked me.
I shook my head, then replied:
_" No, I would have advised Eliyas to treat this matter differently if I knew."
While I was speaking, we heard the roar of a strong car engine driving out of the villa, to be precise, it was undoubtedly Akrem's car leaving, since it was the only vehicle in the villa which I couldn't tell from a motorcycle whenever i heard its sound.
Apparently Ines shared this same thought, since she calmly commented:
_"Akrem must have left."
I nodded my head in understanding.
Well obviously I'm the worst person on planet earth in giving support to others, I failed miserably in finding any proper words to say, since this was the case, I preferred to remain silent and wait for a reasonable amount of time, once that is accomplished, I would leave the room swiftly.
Ines had no intention in following this plan of mine though, she suddenly asked:
_" Should I accept Nadir?"
The usual me would say "I don't think you should take my opinion in this matter, marrying someone is not like randomly picking a dress!"
But like I said earlier, my heart was unusually stirred with emotions, therefore I willfully replied instead:
_" Do you love him? Or at least will you be able to love him in the future? If it is the case then you should accept with confidence, If no then don't repeat the mistake I made, You know how much your brother and I suffered because we had no mutual feelings, If things didn't change, If we still failed in understanding each other, I would have still insisted on getting my divorce to free us both, So Ines, ask your self this question, can you live with this man without regrets?"
Ines looked very pensive after hearing my words, she finally said:
_" i'll think about it."
Hearing this, i assumed my role was over, so i decided to withdraw my self from the scene.
When I was doing this though, meaning sneakily walking out of the room while Ines absently looking at the window, she suddenly asked:
_" when you married my brother, were you still in love with Azziz?"
You see, this is why I hate acting nice with some people, there I was turning a blind eye on all the not so great things she ever did to me and trying to comfort her, still this ungrateful woman reminds me of Azziz in the first chance she gets!
_"No, of course not." I replied with an annoyed tone.
She nodded weirdly, then didn't say anything more.
Consequently, I finally left her room without achieving anything really.
Or so I thought!
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Author's note:
Hi everyone, thank you so much for 50k reads! and all your votes and comments â¤â¤ I sincerely appreciate them ⤠thank you again !
I never expected my story to achieve this to be honest, when writing it I always hoped I can get as close as possible to Noursine's character which isn't perfect at all and by far very different from mine, and to make you understand her and see her world through her judgmental eyes, I pray I was successful in doing so.
I hope you'll enjoy the next episodes â¤