The party Jamil and Layla :

Abdul and Hassan moved to izmir while Jamil remained in salonik , some of their Turkish colleagues moved with them to , Ali the trainee from Iraq graduated and had become an officer , he moved too to izmir , Hassan and Abdul were still not graduate and their were considered as vice officers and their were promised to be named as officer after one year , the marines base was not far from the city , the whole city was almost in the coast lines with some hills overlooking the city center,Hassan house was about ten miles far from their new base , that made them easily move to spend time in his house when times were free , the orders were to put the new comers under an intensive training or in other words a check up to evaluate their availability or suitability to various jobs , the new jobs were to be on the frigates of the ottomans marines force . The new base was more comfortable than the training one in salonik , Hassan father with his uncle, the admiral, paid several visit to the Saray to check the situation and the conversed with the commander there regarding Hassan and his friend, the two friends were supplied with a lot of leisure tools , good beds and linens or cover, easy permissions to leave in their free times to visit house or make tours in izmir , the delicious food supplies was easy to come and to enter to their room . The trainings started , new lectures and revisions for the previous trainings to check was was still needed and necessary to add , new exercises to use and check well the marines maps and to study the weather and winds movements with additional info about the new frigates the ottomans were ordering from the Germans to join the navy. The field of the coming battles was not far, jut less than one hundreds miles , the Greeks islands were laying with English or Italian or French marines with their frigates or boats ready to war , the Turkish navy was in general out of date and most of the presents pieces were in urgent need to be refurbished and supplied with new canons and artillery , the Germans were trying to help, but the needs were more than their ability to repair and refurbish all in short time , part of the training was to join in some tours on board of some training boats or some times real fighters to be adapted with the marines life and duties , in some of these tours the training boats sometimes met with the enemy , but orders were very strict to avoid any contacts and to retreat fast because the boats were nor supplied seriously with real tools for a serious battle . Hassan through his daily contact with the commander , could build a type of friendship with him and he could take a promise from him to keep the three friends, Hassan , Abdul , Ali , together in any next serious battle,before the ending of the training sessions, Jamil paid a visit to his friends in izmir, he guaranteed a three days permission to visit them , he was afraid that battles start and would not be able to meet them easily , the admiral in salonik guaranteed to him that permission. The three friends went out before the sunset , Hassan brought his cart from home , he drove the car to the marine cornice of izmir to watch the sunset with his friends then they made a long tour in all over izmir, they were enjoying their time like children , joking laughing , talking about various issues then Hassan directed the cart to his family house for supper . After the delicious supper they sat in the garden for caffe , abdul smiling to Hassan : what did happen with your promise? Hassan understood well what Abdul meant , but he pretended not, Hassan : which promise? Abdul smiling again your promise to Jamil ، Hassan smiling : do you mean the groom? Abdul always smiling: sure what else ? Jamil was smiling too , but tense ,Hassan: it seems that the wing is blowing to our favor these days, tomorrow we have a party in one of my father s friends and luckily I'm invited with friends if I like , the host has a wonderful girl , a friend of my sister , that could be a rare chance to Jamil to try his charms, the party will be held in the palace garden and there is a chance for Jamil to sneak out to the girls side to try his chance , I talked already with my sister , she guaranteed to me to arrange a meeting that looks like accident to meet with the girl, my sister will pretend that there is something important to tel me and the girl should be with her, we will give Jamil to meet the girl there, Jamil smiling: you are an officer in strategic planing, but this time in marriage arrangements, the three friends laughed , suddenly Abdul stopped laughing and his thoughts went far to home and his sweetheart, he closed his eyes imagining her face and his parents , their last meeting and her confession of her love to him for the first time , his friends noticed the expressions on his face , there were sadness and agony very clear on his face, when he opened his eyes , the two friends fast diverted their eyes pretending to look behind him while drinking their caffe , Hassan : how did you find this arrangement? Abdul : but how will you divert attentions of the curious eyes? Hassan: we will pretend to take a tour in the vast garden, then we direct our steps to where my sister stands with her company , Jamil : I hope that you don't get into troubles for my sake! Hassan : don't worry everything is arranged to be an accidentally meeting even the girl is not aware of our intention , all that you do that you see the girl. Chat a little bit with her then you leave and you tel me about your first impression and my sister will do the same with the girl and later we will see , Jamil: but you know , I'm Arabic Syrian and the girl is Turkish , will her family accept me? Hassan: the father of the girl is a Turkish , her mum is an arabic Syrian from Aleppo , you road is easy not hard my friend. Abdul: didn't you know what the poet says: l love her, she loves me and my camel loves her she camel too , the friends laughed, Jamil what do you mean? Abdul: if her father loves dearly her mum , he will love you for sure being of her family tribe, Hassan : as I know the mother is a great woman and the father is too much attached to her , it was a long story of love , Jamil : as the Syrians say: for one eye we welcome the full eyes , they laughed again, Hassan to Abdul: I see that you memorize a lot of poems and you write too , please tel us some could be suitable for this occasion Abdul : the matter that you don't know that our family, Al Saifa , are famous in writing and memorizing poems , the most famous poet was Hussain the son of the great Pasha Yousef Saifa , but unfortunately most of his poems are lost , Hassan : ok , tel us something of yours please , Abdul : I'll tel you some verses I remember, unfortunately , I don't remember all of my poems and he started: do you think that after your love I may forget? And your love is a pyramid unbeatable with the days, you owned my heart with your tender you had beaten me,and now I'm a slave in your hands, if in my minds look for another one, my heart will rise up swearing with great regret , I don't own my heart neither my mind, all are now a follower or a servant, you are only among the women , my queen , you obsessed my heart that is burning in your love . The two friends clapped their hands a long time then Hassan said : you say that you are not an expert !if you are not , who is the expert then ? Abdul smiled: these are only accidentally written , not all verses are the same , Jamil : you were hiding your talent for long , I swear that you are in love, Abdul smiling: it is not necessary to write poems until you have a sweetheart! Jamil: you are stubborn like your town rocks , you don't want to confess only , Hassan : forget about Abdul now , let's concentrate on your case first and tomorrow s ,plan , jamil I'm ready, are you ready too ? Hassan laughing : yes sir , we are ready , they all laughed. The party was held in a castle over a hill overlooking the city , the panoramic view was wonderful, watching the open sea or the sun rise or sunset was a wonder from there , the three friends arrived there in the late afternoon , not too much before sunset to get a chance before most of the guests arrive , to try to , meet the girl , tables were already arranged, they took a table as far as possible from the others to make them move easily without attracting attention, few people had been arrived and new comers were coming , the three too their caffe then moved pretending to watch the sunset , Hassan noticed his sister standing not far with some of her ladies friends , all the women were with veils on their heads , some girls were covering their faces too , but these face covers were so thin that the faces could be seen from far , Hassan s sister waved to like she wants to talk something important, he and she moved to a side under some trees to talk , they chatted for a while , a pretty looking girl was standing not far, looking like waiting for her , our friends advanced a little bit pretending to take a better view then his sister saluted them and she approached her waiting friend introducing her to her brother and his friends , Abdul asked them permission to leave to do something he said, Hassan and Jamil remained standing , Jamil was taken by the prettiness of the girl in front of him forgetting the existence of Hassan and his sister , Hassan moved a little bit with his sister to show her something as he said , the girl smiled with some shy on her face and said: mum is Arabic like you from Syria , Aleppo , Jamil finding a little courage with the girl introduction ,he said:I'm from Tripoli and my mother is from Aleppo too , I have aunties and uncles there , the girl said: I'm Layla by the way and I see that we are relatives,Jamil was not moving his eyes from that pretty face in front of him and the Layla noticed that, she turned her eyes shyly , Jamil responded: it is a great honor to be relatives and he looked away, Hassan was not far watching with his sister the two young's , he said from his position to Jamil : I see that you are absent minded , what are you thinking of? I was busy with my sister love, Layla : you don't have your own girl to pour your loving words in her ears instead of your sisters? Hassan , no other girl could replace my sister in my heart , Jamil : who knows , all depends on that girl impression on you , some men sell their own mothers for a woman, Hassan : some not all , Hassan sister: my brother is too much attached to mum , Hassan : my mother will remain for ever my most precious woman, Hassan sister murmured in his ear then he said : I ask your permission , my sister has something to say and they both moved a little far, Jamil and Layla kept standing in there place silently watching the sunset, then Jamil broke the silence : I don't know if the sun may sets in this loveliness in my city, Layla: the beauty of the sunset increases with the loveliness of the moment , sometimes it looks to be sad if the one who is watching is sad too, Jamil: do you watch the sunset when you are sad , and are you sad now? Layla: I'm not now, but when I feel lonely , I like to watch it , I feel like I'm watching a lover leaving away , Jamil: your expressions are touchy and poetics , Layla : I told you , it depends on the moment, she looked at him and added: it depends too on the atmosphere and the surrounding or the types of company we share with , in case we have, in case we are alone , sometimes, spirits of people we love share with us, Jamil noticed that some tears were gathering in the girl s eyes , he retorted : I'm sorry if I brought to you some sad memories , the girl smiled among her tears and said: don't apologize please , the moment and the loveliness of sunset are the reason , in that moment Abdul appeared and Hassan returned with his sister , the sun was totally set and it was time to join the party , Jamil to Layla softly : your meeting was a great surprise and honor to me , I hope that we could meet again , Layla shyly: mine too , thanks for this meeting with sunset presence , I hope for another soon and they all left to take their places. things went as expected, I was here waiting for you to come, waisting my time with tasting these wonderful chocolates and fruits, Hassan laughing: I hope you didn't fill your stomach, there is a wonderful table waiting for us after not long time , if you won't eat you'll regret it for a longtime , Abdul and Hassan were chatting while Jamil was silent flying over the clouds with his thoughts , when they noticed their dreaming friend, Abdul cried: hello man , where are you? Or you seriously fallen from the first stoke of lovely eyes? Jamil like awaken from a lovely dream: no , I'm thinking about things , Hassan : I think Jamil soon will make a petition to transfer to izmir, the sunset of izmir had charmed him and made him fall in his love, Abdul: and the girls of izmir too, Jamil like really charmed : this girl is very lovely and pretty and more important , she is poetic and passionate, Hassan : Allah Allah , our friend fell faster than we expected, Jamil : first , I thought she could be a normal girl , she surprised me truly with her words and thoughts , Abdul: I'm now sure that we will see you soon in izmir , Hassan : izmir , sunset of izmir , beauty of izmir and the girl of izmir too , Jamil: you are my best friends, nothing will keep me busy from you , Abdul winking: let's see if we are your best and didn't find another best . The friends returned to their Saray and Hassan took a permission to keep Jamil in their room for one night, the commander agreed after checking Jamil I d . The next day Jamil left to salonik , the two friends resumed their trainings as usual , when the evening came and all officers and trainees turned to their bedrooms , Abdul and Hassan sat down taking their tea after their supper and prayer, Abdul : I see that you are managing for Jamil forgetting yourself? don't you have a yours in your life? Don't you want to complete your religion as they say . Hassan looking down at the ground like thinking then he started to play with his finger with the floor for minutes silent then he looked at his friend and said with a deep sigh that emerged from his chest:there is an impossible love story , it is my first love and maybe the last the war separated us and we are now like strangers, Abdul: will you open your heart to me as I did with you to remove the heavy weight from your chest ? Hassan: the story had started Igor four years ago , it was just an accident, I was in a drugstore that sells herbs, Arabic medicines and perfume , the owner was my friend and I was used to sit a long times with him chatting about many things including herbs and Arabic medicine, what is good, what proved, what is harmful when Christina came , a lovely girl with half oh her hair uncovered like the costumes of the Christian girls , her body was all covered and she looked conservative, she started to ask about medicines and perfumes , we talked and chatted for longtime , in that time my friend , the owner of the place was absent and I took his place til he comes back , she thought that I'm the owner or a partner, when I told her that I'm not she was surprised and laughed asking how I could know all these info if I'm not the owner , I smiled and I told her that I'm very interested in this subject and that I'm a big reader about this topic besides that my friend was a big informant that added more to my knowledge, then we talked about other things and I introduced myself and she did too and boldly asked me if we could meet another time in another place , I was surprised of her boldness , but I agreed without delay telling her that we may meet on condition that we don't meet in private alone and that my sister will be there with us and from there we started to meet regularly, she told me that is an orphan, raised by her aunty and that her Christian family comes from the remaining of the bizantin romans who didn't leave Constantinople after Mohammad al fateh took the city and transformed to Istanbul, her family was of the biggest Christian family in the city having good relationships with the High Door and the sultans , her parents were dead in a very strange accident on the road between Istanbul and Sofia in Bulgaria, and nobody knew till that date what was the truth behind that tragedy , their parents were found killed with all the fortune with them disappeared and all their companions too . When our meetings became like daily in my sister present with us , my heart started to beat when that girl came late or remained absent then gradually signs of deep love started to be clear on my face and my words and attitude, my sister talked to mum and mum called me since we are close friends and asked me about that girl and she was for me , I was very open with mum and I told her about my true feelings towards that girl , informing her that her being a Christian stopped me from opening my heart with her , afraid that relationship could not continue or becomes a real marriage . We were chatting about so many topics then I intentionally started to divert our conversations about Islam and religions , wishing that she could be convinced and then covert to Islam , she surprised me with her wide knowledge about Islam and Koran , she was memorizing a lot of our prophet recommendations , she knew well about his life, his marriages , his wives, his battles and victories and a lot about the ottomans history , then she told me that she was willing to be a nun then in the last moment she changed her mind , deciding to take her time before taking her final decision , her aunty as she said was mad with upon that choice, her aunty wanted her to get married and to make her a dozen of children to play in her yard , she said that was used to read about the whole sects of Christians comparing each sect with others , a lot of reading about Islam and Judaism , confessing that she kept in her heart a great respect and admiration to our prophet , but all that didn't lead her to a final decision to keep with her family orthodox faith or to change to another for many reasons , her family , her society, and a specially her aunty, she was afraid to lose the only person who loved her and raised her , her loving aunty, she was sure that this step could break everything between her and her aunty and her whole family too . We continued to meet and my mum invited her to our house to know her closely, mum was astonished with her loving and charming personality and was very sorry when she heard her story and her parents tragic death when she was still a small girl in her five years old, , our meetings started to increase more and more mostly in our library when I put in my head to transform her to a full Muslim girl praying Allah to help me in that mission, using the books to convince her of my points of view , she was not minding most of what I mentioned, confessing that she know well about the church dirty role in diverting a lot of thoughts and ideas or beliefs to the church and it's clergymen benefits, the massacres the church caused in the crusades and the inner wars between Christians or the horrible atrocity against the Muslims in Andalusia, , but when I was talking about Christ she would prefer to be silent , I was seeing her loving looks towards me , but we both kept our hearts closed or silent , that period took almost a year and Christina never uttered a word about me to her aunty fearing that would become mad and angry with her , knowing her Christian standards and values that would make her for sure refuse the marriage of her girl from a Muslim . another year came and we were in our close friendship that could not turn to become a confessed love,me thinking too hard how to reach a happy end with her to become a Muslim, Abdul: but we were you insisted to convert her to Islam when you know that could marry her in her present condition , Hassan : I'm not that type who like that type of marriage even though it is halal , I want always an integral family in everything , the mother and the mother having the same belief that could not have a bad effects on their children in the future , I want my loving wife to be my partner in this world and the the next world in eternity together with our children ,Abdul : I agree with you regarding that , when true love extends from this life to the other true eternal life in paradise , hassan that was the main reason that prevented me from have a confession of love, and I don't know her reasons , she became like one of our family , a lot of time she was sharing us our dinners and suppers as if she found in my family the real family she has lost , the brothers and sisters she didn't have , that later worried my mother especially when refused for many times to introduce her aunty excusing things that could not convince mum , my mum was worried that this relationship could become an obsession then suddenly breaks out that could hurts both of us , my mum really loved this girl and was also afraid to lose her wishing in her heart to become her future daughter in law , she talked to me , but I was always stubborn and adamant ,I was insisting that conversion to Islam should come first then love confessing comes later , Christina felt embarrassed too much of delaying of introducing her aunty , but she at last surrendered and told her aunty about her friendship with my family without mentioning anything about our mutual feelings or hidden love, her aunty came to our house and she and mum exchanged visits . Hassan : days passed and I decided to join the marines , I had three month in front of me to join , we concentrated our meeting always praying Allah to guide her to cooperate with me and convert then at last I confessed to her my heart and I told her in her face" I love you " and her deep wish to become a Muslim , she cried loudly for a long time then she confessed to me that she liked me first then after not a long time she started to feel her heart beats whenever I looked at her or talked to her , she spent long nights thinking about me and about our possibility to become a husband and a wife , she said she never felt that feelings before to any man before me and she was sure it was a pure deep love , explaining that my words of her converting brought to her heart a big fear to lose all her family and especially her aunty that turned her sleeps to nightmares afraid to lose me and on the other side afraid to lose her beloved people , Abdul and what did you do then? Hassan : what do I do ? I felt helpless and a big fear and hopelessness filled my heart , the time we made our confessions , my sister was in the kitchen , upon her back , she was surprised to find us both in tears , with me holding her hands, it was the first time I touched her hands , swearing to her that I'll do the impossible to make her happy , but she remained silent , my sister understood everything and didn't utter a word. Hassan eyes became full of tears , but he continued : our meetings didn't stop and we continued to talk , but I stopped opening that topic , I tried to convince myself that we could marry in that condition and she will convert later , but joining the school and the possibility of a coming war and my possible death were reasons that prevented me to take that step afraid that her heard could be broken if anything happened to me. Abdul: waw, this is a great love story, can't be compared with my simple love story and agony , ,Hassan : you are lucky to have a sweetheart sharing you everything including faith and belief , my problem is really these things .Abdul: did you check with girl about her true faith, I mean was she accepting Islam as a faith but refusing to declare it fearing her family and society ? Hassan : I did asked her that , but she remained silent that convinced me later that our story is called the impossible love, then the time was due to join the school and took that as an excuse to be away from her , your story touched me very deeply I wish you'll find later your happy ending