Chapter nine:

Abdul: you took a long time , I hope 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 just 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 . Chapter ten : Salim woke up