“The Maronite Christian women in Manaus could not tolerate the notion of Zana marrying a Muslim. A mere tinker, a peddler, a roughneck, a Muslim from the mountains of Southern Lebanon, they’d say. Ah, these passions in the provinces. It’s like being onstage, listening to the audience booing two actors playing two lovers. The more they booed, the more perfume I put on the marriage sheets. It was a greedy and vengeful kiss, I silenced those rattling tongues…and all of Abbas’s ghazals were in that kiss.”
Book:Two Brothers