Qabihah Says Step Into My Oleander Garden

Dear Readers,

You haven't met me yet, but I live in the Arab Quarter of Cairo in a quaint old house with an elaborate garden. You can smell your way to it. The sweet scent smells like perfume and pervades the alleyways of Old Cairo. Ask and everyone you meet will direct you to my house. They have probably visited it themselves seeking their dreams.

Follow the aroma to the land of the dark pink blossoms. Dwarf petite pink oleanders, or  nerium to use the Latin word, with their long, narrow green leaves and multiple blooms give character to the hedges of my garden. The blooms form in clusters at the end of each branch. You will see the bushes growing eight feet high along every wall of my garden and in every nook and cranny.

I also raise honey bees in hives along the back wall of the garden. I harvest the honey and make a dessert like the Greek dish, baklava. I also prepare candies and sell them in the Cairo bazaar fpr a good price. Why do I charge so much? My candies have special properties unlike any others sold in the city and probably the country and the world as well. You need only to make a wish and it will come true if you serve someone you love with one of my honey treats.

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah
P.S. If you want to find out more about me, you should read the writings of Dora Benley, now called Lady Ware. I appear in Hitler's Daughter, the last volume of her memoirs.