Singing in the Wilderness

by Isobel Chace

  She nodded, feeling more than a little foolish. She cast him a speculative glance, wondering what it would be like to be kissed properly by him. She thought she might like it very much. Then he raised his eyebrows at her and she averted her gaze to the embroidered motif on her wrap.

  ‘Do you like it?’ she asked. ‘I made it myself.’

  ‘Very pretty!’ he drawled. ‘Just like its owner!’ He turned her face up to his with a masterful hand. ‘Do you want me to kiss you, Stephanie?’

  ‘Of course not!’ she gasped.

  ‘Liar! I think you’re as much tempted as I am.’ He fondled her cheek, letting her go with an abruptness that made her stumble over her own feet. ‘We’d better go! I’m spending the night at the Shah Abbas and I thought we might eat there. I’ll leave it to you what we do afterwards.’

  Now what did he mean by that? Should she make it clear once and for all that she wasn’t given to amorous adventures? It would be quite impossible for her to bring the subject up of her own volition, so it was now or never. She took a deep breath and rushed into agitated speech:

  ‘Cas, I’m a very ordinary sort of person. We hardly know each other at all. Perhaps I’m more reserved because I’m English, but I don’t go round kissing people on such a short acquaintance.’ She felt quite weak at the knees and, rather belatedly, she became aware that she was clutching his hand as though her life depended on it. ‘I’m not—’

  ‘Very experienced?’

  She nodded her head, not daring to look at him.

  ‘My dear girl, what kind of a man do you think I am? No, don’t answer that! I can guess! What do you want me to do? I can’t alter the fact that I’ve known a great many women in my time, but I can’t help thinking you wouldn’t like me half so much if I were an inexperienced boy without any idea as to what he was about?’

  ‘It isn’t that!’ she protested. ‘It’s nothing to do with you at all! Not directly anyway. It’s just that I think you ought to know that I don’t want to have an affair with anyone, and certainly not with my employer. So if that’s why you asked me to have dinner with you I’m not coming. I’d rather—rather not go out with you on those terms!’

  ‘What makes you think I want to seduce you?’ he demanded with a wry smile. ‘Aren’t you afraid of putting the idea into my head?’

  ‘I think it was there already,’ she said seriously.

  ‘But you don’t like me enough?’

  She lifted her chin a little. ‘It isn’t a question of liking. I like you very much—what I know of you—but—oh well, let’s just say I’m old-fashioned about these things.’ She managed to look at him then. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘No, I don’t think I do.’ His eyes were bright with amusement and, with something else that set her heart beating like a mad thing within her. ‘I can wait!’

  She was inclined to be indignant. ‘I shan’t change my mind!’ she declared with a violence that betrayed to her, if not to him, that she wasn’t nearly as sure of herself as she would have liked to have been.

  ‘Circumstances may change it for you,’ he retorted. ‘And I? Do I have no say in the matter?’

  She shook her head silently, determined to make him see that her moral values were not a whim that she held by today and forgot all about next week. Nothing would make her change her mind!

  ‘We’ll see!’ he mocked her. ‘As I said before, I can wait!’

  She devoutly hoped that he was wrong. ‘You’ll have to wait a long, long time!’ she told him.

  He smiled at that. ‘Not so very long,’ he said, ‘not for what I want. I always get what I want in the end, one way or another, and so I warn you!’

  She ought to have been shocked. At the very least she ought to have been afraid that he might be right. But she was neither of those things. All she felt was a wild, exultant glow of happiness that he still meant to take her out to dinner. After all, she told herself, he wasn’t to know how seldom she had been asked out by a man before, and she wasn’t entirely averse to the spice of danger that he had added to the occasion. Far from it! She could have hugged herself with glee that he should actually want to kiss her!

  She looked up at him and grinned, laughter lighting her eyes. ‘You’ll have to marry me first!’ she teased him. ‘And so I warn you!’

  There was no answering smile on Cas’s face. ‘I’ve already thought of that,’ he said.

  ‘Isfahan is half the world,’ Stephanie quoted, looking round the fabulously ornate dining room of the Shall Abbas Hotel.

  Cas nodded. ‘I suspect there’s been some European influence brought to bear here, though,’ he remarked. ‘It’s too symmetrical—too perfect to be wholly Persian.’ Stephanie eyed him across the table, liking him very much. ‘You’ll love the Friday Mosque,’ she told him. ‘There must be hundreds of arches there, all the same, but all a little bit different. I defy anyone to get bored with looking at it. One day we must go there.’

  ‘We will!’

  Something in his tone of voice reminded her of their final exchange in the apartment. She had been trying not to think about it because it did funny things to her inside, almost as though she were housing a wild animal in there. She felt very strange and not at all like herself.

  ‘They say,’ she said with a touch of desperation, ‘that Isfahan is the meaning of the world; “World” is the word and “Isfahan” the meaning.’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I read it somewhere.’ She abandoned her attempt to make conversation after that. She allowed her eyes to wander over the decorated panels that decorated the walls of the room, and upwards to the balcony overhead. Persian paintings fascinated her at the best of times, especially the older ones. Strongly influenced by both China and India, or was it the other way round, they obeyed few of the known rules of perspective, and yet were easy to interpret, the horses thundering over the ground, the carpet canopies swaying with motion, and the rich and successful easy to tell from the poor and captive.

  Most of the dishes on the menu were of the usual international kind, but Stephanie was delighted to see one or two which were really Persian and after some consideration chose to have a dish of rice with chicken and a pomegranate sauce. She had already discovered that the long, curly-grained Iranian rice was one of the most delicious varieties she had ever eaten, and she was curious to discover if their sauces, which she knew they favoured eating with huge piles of rice, were equally good.

  When she had finished her discussion with the waiter, she was embarrassed to find that Cas had been watching her throughout the time it had taken to make up her mind and she wondered if he resented her speaking directly to the waiter without waiting to make her choice through him.

  ‘It seems to be called Khoreshe Fesenjan. Khoreshe must mean sauce. What are you having?’

  Cas smiled at the note of apology in her voice. ‘I’ll have the same. And a good local wine, if there is one?’

  The waiter explained the Iranian system of calling all their wines by numbers, recommending a light claret type wine that was produced by the Armenians who had been brought to Persia many centuries before.

  ‘I didn’t know there were Armenians in Iran,’ Cas said when the waiter had gone. ‘I thought they had been dispossessed of their lands, first in Armenia itself, and then in Turkey. They haven’t any homeland of their own now, have they?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Stephanie replied. ‘But they have their own church and their own customs. They’re very much a distinct people still. Shah Abbas brought them to Isfahan from Julfa, which is now in the Soviet Union. They live across the river in a suburb called New Julfa, safe from persecution. The Persians have always been tolerant of other people. You remember it was Cyrus who allowed the Jews to return to the Holy Land from Babylon? And the Armenians have certainly returned the hospitality they received then and now. They are some of the best craftsmen around—and some of the most astute businessmen!’

  Cas smiled slowl
y. ‘You like it here, don’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I do.’ She didn’t try to explain the passionate liking she had for Isfahan. It had come as a surprise to her when, after she and her father had more or less settled into the apartment the company had hired for them, she had found herself feeling more at home in this foreign city than she ever had in her parents’ home in Surrey. ‘Perhaps what they say is right,’ she said shyly. ‘Perhaps that’s the meaning of the world that we find here. Beautiful buildings, paintings, tree-lined streets, and a pride in living, are better values than our technology gives us. It would be a pity if it were all to change now.’

  ‘Don’t you approve of better communications?’ he asked her.

  ‘In their place. I don’t think they should be confused with civilisation—to me they’re quite different!’

  His eyes narrowed as he watched her closely. ‘You think we can have one without the other?’

  She was unused to having her ideas taken seriously and for one blank, rather frightening moment she wondered exactly what she did think about it.

  ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘One has to have technology before one can have any civilisation that’s worthy of the name, but technology is the servant and has to remain so if the all-important human dimension of life is to be kept. As soon as it becomes the master, mankind loses something of itself.’

  ‘Like your mother’s computed music?’ he suggested.

  She was glad he had understood her meaning so quickly. ‘It’s only my personal opinion,’ she said. ‘I don’t expect you to agree with me, though. Technology must mean a lot to you.’

  ‘A lot, but not everything.’

  He changed the subject when their food came, amused by the careful way she tasted the dish she had chosen and smiling at her pleased expression when she found she liked it.

  ‘What are you thinking about now?’ he asked her.

  ‘I was tasting to see what’s in it,’ she confessed. ‘It would be nice to be able to make it myself. I like trying new, exotic dishes.’ She sat back, defeated. ‘It’s too complicated to distinguish all the ingredients,’ she said, disappointed. ‘Bother!’

  ‘Does it mean so much to you?’ Cas teased her.

  ‘I suppose it does. I find it interesting, like you do digital coding or something like that. I enjoy cooking.’

  Cas flicked his fingers to the waiter and pointed to his plate. ‘Find out from the chef how he made this, will you,’ he ordered him. ‘Miss Black wants to know. Oh, and tell him that we find it delicious, so delicious we want to be able to make it for ourselves.’

  A little pink, Stephanie cast him a reproving look, but the waiter was all smiles as he hurried away on his mission. When he came back, he was carrying a piece of paper in his hand with the recipe written in both Persian and English which he handed to Stephanie with a triumphant flourish.

  ‘The chef, he says you must put all these things in for the sauce to be correct,’ he told her. ‘Chicken, shortening, tomato sauce, onion, walnuts, cinnamon, lemon juice and, most important of all, the pomegranate juice and the seasonings. You see, he has written all the quantities you will need down the side. Good fortune when you make it for yourself and the gentleman!’

  ‘Oh! I don’t know that Mr. Ruddock—’

  ‘I shall expect it to taste just like this,’ Cas cut her off lazily, and he turned and thanked the waiter, putting a couple of bank notes into his hand for himself and the chef.

  ‘You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble,’ Stephanie reproved him.

  ‘Why not? I’d go to just as much trouble to understand the advantages of digital coding and how it works, I assure you.’

  ‘But that’s your work! Cooking is just a hobby with me!’

  He grinned. ‘Is it? I’ll believe that when I see you looking equally enthusiastic over typing one of my reports,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t often understand them,’ she said on a sigh. She blinked, hiding her eyes behind her lashes. ‘I’m not looking forward to tomorrow,’ she confided. ‘I’m afraid you’ll expect too much.’

  ‘Don’t think about it,’ he advised. ‘I’ll give you a fair trial—I can’t say fairer than that, can I?’

  ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘Only I don’t want to get all hurt and upset, and I know I will if I can’t do what you ask!’

  He smiled across the table at her. ‘Women! They always take everything so darned personally. You’ll have to learn to separate your work from your personal life, honey. We all have to, sooner or later.’

  ‘But what if I can’t?’

  ‘We’ll have to think of something else for you to do.’ He put his hand over hers. ‘Don’t look like that, my dear. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t manage very well, is there? You must have learned something, working for your father, and I’m told I’m fairly easy to work for.’

  ‘I hope so,’ she said.

  ‘Does it matter so much to you?’

  She nodded. ‘I expect it seems silly to you, but working for one’s father isn’t much of a test of what one can really do. I mean, he would never have told me to go—he’d more likely have got in someone to help me. I want to be a success in my own right.’

  ‘That’s up to you, my sweet. If you want it enough, I daresay you’ll make your mark. But you’ll have to do it on your own. I can’t help you. I shall expect exactly the same from you as I would from any other girl I had working for me. It doesn’t do to play favourites in an office.’

  ‘I wouldn’t ask you to,’ she replied proudly. ‘That’s the last thing I’d ask! I want to do it all on my own. Father made enough of a mess without my adding to things.’ She hesitated, beginning to worry again. ‘It wasn’t his fault! The equipment he was expecting didn’t arrive and the men began to take advantage. The spring was late in coming this year and one of the teams ran into a pack of wolves. They kept one man up a post for days, threatening him every time he made to come down, and everybody thought Father should have done something about that too. But what could he have done?’

  Cas didn’t answer directly. ‘He’ll be happier back in England,’ he said.

  ‘Will he?’ She was remembering her father’s dejected frame as he had departed up the steps into the aeroplane. ‘He won’t know what to do with himself unless they find him a proper job to do, and it’s so long since he had to tackle anything by himself.’

  ‘He has your mother to support him,’ Cas pointed out with a cheerfulness that Stephanie thought was quite uncalled for. ‘He doesn’t need you to hold his hand as well.’ He gave her hand a sharp tap before taking back his own. ‘You have your own problems to worry about! When you’ve finished your coffee, we’ll go for a stroll down by the river and look at the bridges I’ve heard so much about. You’ll have your hands more than full to keep me from kissing you in the moonlight beside the Khajou Bridge, if it’s as romantic as it looks in the picture in my bedroom.’

  She looked down her nose and pretended she hadn’t heard him. ‘They used to dam the river there and hold water sports and spectaculars in the lake they made. But the Zayanderud is only a trickle nowadays and there’s nothing to dam. Farmers have planted crops in the river bed and they sometimes even play football there. One day they may dam the river again, but it will be near the Shahrestan Bridge if they do.’

  ‘Is the Khajou the best of the Safavid bridges?’ Cas encouraged her.

  ‘I think so. I think it’s one of the most impressive of the Safavid monuments. But you’ll see it for yourself. It’s hard to believe it was built as long ago as 1660.’ She felt a great deal safer discussing the bridge and went on to tell him about the two tiers of arches which spanned the river; forty-eight on the upper tier and twenty-four on the lower. In the middle is a hexagonal pavilion, with two mosaic-decorated iwans facing outwards. In the days when people had picnicked in the arches, worshipped in the chapel, and bought and sold their goods under the arches, the bridge must have been a hive of industry. It was still incredibly
, heart-stoppingly beautiful.

  ‘I look forward to our visit,’ Cas said, his eyes snapping with laughter. ‘It sounds every bit as romantic as I had hoped!’

  Well, so it was, but Stephanie didn’t know that she wanted to accompany him there. ‘How will we get there?’ she asked. ‘It’s too far to walk.’

  ‘We’ll do it properly and go in the hotel’s horse-drawn carriage,’ he retorted, unperturbed. ‘Shall we go?’

  It was silly to be afraid and she refused to be anything so lacking in spirit. But she took the precaution of sitting as far away from him as she could in the carriage, taking a deep interest in the crowded streets they passed through, a little annoyed that he wasn’t in the least put out by her cautious attitude.

  Indeed, he hardly touched her fingers as he helped her down to the ground when they arrived at the bridge and he dismissed her with a lack of interest that was very nearly insulting as he walked as close to the bridge as he could get, his hands in his pockets, apparently completely absorbed in the ancient bridge.

  She walked after him, plucking at the sleeve of his coat. ‘Look,’ she pointed out, ‘you can see the twenty-four slabs of masonry on which the whole bridge stands down there. Those narrow channels formed the dam—Oh! Cas!’ But she was too late. His hand shot out and she was lifted bodily against his huge frame, her feet several inches off the ground. ‘Cas, you can’t! Not here!’

  She could feel his laughter and she marvelled that he could hold her so easily. ‘Why not here?’ he murmured against her lips. ‘Nobody can see us in the shadow of the bridge. Don’t kick, my little love. It won’t make any difference and you know it. I’ve been wanting to do this ever since I first saw you!’

  She had wanted it too. His lips ignited a flame within her and in an instant she was surrounded by a dazzling, warm delight that went off inside her like the finale of a fireworks display.

  ‘Oh, Cas!’ she whispered.

  But his only answer was to kiss her all over again.

  CHAPTER III

  Stephanie hardly slept at all that night. If she wasn’t very careful, she told herself, she would lose her sense of proportion altogether. Such a swift, unexpected embrace should not be built up into a world-shattering event, the most important thing that had ever happened to her in her whole life. So what if he had kissed her? She, and how many others?