Zimmer opened the car door to the gendarme. “Officer, might I have a word with you? . . .”
As soon as Lili’s name was mentioned, the officer’s face lit up and the crowd doubled as if by magic. Within minutes six passersby had tugged and lifted the crumpled car away from the lamppost and Lili, now smiling like an angel, had scribbled autographs for all of them. She then drove off slowly as snow began to fall, having given the policeman an extra autograph for his mother.
“Bloody lucky that cop recognised you or we’d still be at the police station,” Zimmer grumbled.
“I can live without such fame!” Lili said sourly.
The little red car limped through a pair of huge green doors and into the courtyard beyond. Zimmer and Lili dashed through the snow-flakes to the door of the apartment building as lace curtains twitched at the concierge ’s window.
As they waited for the old-fashioned elevator cage, Lili shook the snowflakes from her silver fox cloak and Zimmer said, “Maybe you think you don’t like fame but you’d miss it if it disappeared. Those people weren’t threatening, they only wanted to know what you’re like, Lili.”
“I want to know what I’m like, Zimmer.” Lili shrugged off her fur cape and threw it on a chair. “I want to know who I really am. I want to meet the real me!”
She kicked off a maroon-leather boot, hopping on one foot as she struggled with the other boot.
Zimmer chuckled. “I had to conceal the real me for years or I’d have been arrested. We all have to come to terms with what we are, as opposed to what we wish we were. In the end, we all have to settle for what we’ve got—and you’ve got so much, Lili!”
“Yes, except what everyone else has—a family. I really don’t know who I am.”
“So what! Who does know who they are? Don’t you think that perhaps you use your lack of a family as a convenient excuse for whatever’s going wrong in your life?”
Lili didn’t hear Zimmer’s last remark as she padded on stockinged feet into the dining room, poured neat whiskey into a cut-glass tumbler and brought it out to him. Zimmer, who was throwing more logs on the blazing fire, straightened up, took his drink, turned toward the mantelpiece and blinked in astonishment. “What’s this?”
He picked up a large white envelope covered with exotic stamps that had been propped against the gilt carriage clock. Turning it over, he peered at the ornate crest and started to laugh. “Oh, my dear, now how do you feel about your fame?”
He handed her the envelope. Quickly, Lili tore it open, pulled out a large gilt-edged card and read, “’I am commanded by His Majesty, King Abdullah . . .’ Why, it’s an invitation to Sydon, to celebrate the anniversary of his reign. But I don’t know the man!”
“Ah, but he knows you! That’s fame!” cried Zimmer, already planning what to tell his publicity department. “It will be wonderful publicity for you! Now you can’t say you don’t care about fame!”
Lili turned around to face him. “Do you know how much this means to me?” She waved the invitation in his face. “Nothing! One minute Serge is telling me to shake my tits to camera, the next minute some king is inviting me halfway around the world. Who the hell do they think I am? I really would like to know. There’s a part of me that’s missing and I don’t even know what part it is. I just know that I feel the emptiness inside me, and high-powered invitations aren’t important compared to that feeling.”
“High-powered invitations are always important, Lili. Especially when you stop receiving them!” Zimmer put his drink on the mantelpiece and looked amused, which further enraged Lili.
“Do you know how much this means to me?” Lili waved the card at him again, then threw it into the burning logs.
“Oh, Lili,” exclaimed Zimmer, “don’t you know how much you mean to me?”
He thrust his bare hand into the flames and plucked out the invitation.
56
A THRILL OF TRUMPETS rang out as the double doors at the far end of the Grand Hall were thrown open. Men bowed and women curtsied as His Majesty King Abdullah III slowly strode over the crimson carpet toward the golden throne of state, pausing en route to greet his guests. Lili thought the King looked more alive than in his official photographs, which always showed him in combat clothes or ceremonial uniforms.
Tonight, knowing that many women would be wearing formal white dresses and diamond tiaras, Lili had picked a halter-neck, backless, sea-silver-green chiffon dress embroidered with art nouveau lilies. As Abdullah reached her, Lili bent her head—a permed, gypsy-like cloud of dark curls—and sank into a curtsy. She lifted her eyes and gazed up into his, and Abdullah’s sensual, heavy-lidded stare met another of equal power. He forgot his formal few words of greeting and stopped as they both stood and stared at each other in silence, both feeling an electric tension between them.
During the three years since his family had been killed, Abdullah had rarely appeared in public. Racked with grief and guilt, he had been unable to discuss his feelings with anyone. For weeks after the helicopter crash, Abdullah had spoken to no one and nobody dared speak to him. Occasionally he rode alone into the desert, where the silence of the sand soothed his grief but could not eradicate his memories. In his heart, Abdullah knew he would have other sons, but no other child would ever replace Mustapha—the only person Abdullah had ever loved.
As his royal master grew increasingly irritable and morose, Suliman racked his brains for schemes to divert Abdullah and had his head bitten off for his trouble. Abdullah seemed unable to concentrate on his hitherto cherished irrigation schemes or the desert reclamation and reforestation projects that had been his main interest before the fatal crash. A scheme to drill for underground water lay on his desk for weeks. He was listless, unable to work, without his former concentration and energy. Abruptly he cancelled all plans for the 1973 festivities to celebrate the twentieth year of his reign. Instead of rising at dawn, he got up late, slumped through the day and spent his evenings watching old movies before retiring early and alone.
Then, one evening, he suddenly sat up, watched the movie with alert concentration and immediately commanded the projectionist to run it again. “I feel I already know that woman,” he puzzled, “although I’m sure we haven’t met and I’ve never seen this film. Q—strange!” He leaned toward Suliman. “Get her for me.”
“Oh, Sire, this actress is well-known in Europe. For what reason should I invite her to our country? And for how long, Sire?”
“Invite her with a small group. No, a large group. Oh, I don’t know. Just get her.”
Suliman saw his chance. “A reception, Sire? As we had planned for the twentieth year?”
“Oh, I suppose so. Reduce the original fortnight of events to a couple of days, but make sure this woman comes.”
“It is done, Sire.”
Now, as Lili sank before him in a sea-green curtsy and her black-fringed eyes stared at him, Abdullah took a deep breath and suddenly—at last—he felt alive again. He gave her a slow, unusually gentle smile and then regretfully moved on toward the next white satin curtsy.
Lili clutched her neighbour’s arm. The long flight from Paris and the subsequent reception at the airport had been more tiring than she expected, and it had been followed by a motorcade to the palace on the hill. The excitement and the jet lag must have exhausted her.
Golden trumpets heralded two hundred guests into the dining room. White damask tables were set with silver and lit by candles. The meal had been supervised by a team of chefs flown from Le Grand Vefour in Paris. Beluga caviar was served, then fresh sliced oranges vinaigrette, followed by roast duck stuffed with boned pigeon, stuffed with quail, stuffed with spiced rice and almonds. After salads, roseleaf sorbets were served with pomegranates and grapes.
Abdullah, seated among the most important guests, was far from Lili. At the end of the meal he rose and made a speech of welcome, then announced that trifling mementos of their visit would now be handed to each of his honoured guests. White-robed servants pl
aced small dark wood boxes in front of each place, each exquisitely inlaid with a geometric design of mother-of-pearl. Every man received a pair of cuff links made from ancient Roman gold coins, and every woman found a pair of earrings; each was different from the next, and each had been especially designed by Andrew Grima, the jeweler most favoured by the oil sheikhs. Lili’s earrings were robin’s-egg-size turquoises set with small diamonds and sapphires in roughly worked gold.
There was an instant buzz of delight. The speeches of extravagant congratulation from the diplomatic corps lasted until past midnight, when the guests returned to the throne room for dancing. As the band struck up “Oh What a Beautiful Morning,” His Majesty offered his arm to the wife of the American Ambassador. Lili found Suliman at her elbow and together they whirled under the chandeliers. At the end of the dance Suliman immediately steered Lili up to King Abdullah, who smoothly requested the next dance.
She felt the warmth of his gloved hand on her naked back; lightly, he pressed her to his white dinner jacket. She could feel Abdullah’s chest rise and fall as he breathed. She raised her eyes to his. Neither of them said much as they moved together, each aware of the rhythmic breathing of the other.
As the music stopped, Abdullah murmured, “Regrettably, I must now dance with other ladies, but I should like to talk to you later. Shall we say in half an hour’s time in the jasmine garden? Colonel Hakem will escort you.”
Lili felt the silky brush of his mustache on her hand, and as he moved away, she found Suliman bowing before her.
“I don’t think I want to dance,” Lili said, her face pink, the blood still pounding through her temples.
“Perhaps you would care to sit in the jasmine garden?” He led her through long, white marble corridors and out into the star-sprinkled night. The creamy moon floated above a small, softly lit garden. Great sprays of star-white jasmine hung from the high walls, scenting the dark with intoxicating perfume. Colonel Hakem patted his hands twice, and white-clad servants appeared with a silver tray of coffee and sorbets.
Lili turned to the Colonel, but he had melted away and in his place stood Abdullah, fiercely handsome in the moonlight. He lifted the tips of her fingers to his lips and she felt the touch of his teeth on her nails, the soft caress of black silky hair against her hand.
“I feel that I already know you, that I’ve always known you,” she whispered.
“That’s exactly how I feel,” he murmured as his lips brushed against her throat, “as if we belong together.”
After that Lili remembered nothing but kaleidoscopic flashes of moonlight, the velvet night, the jasmine, the fairytale unreality of the shadowy garden, and the yielding couch beneath her, as her white arms reached up to him.
It was almost midday when Lili opened her eyes and saw the unaccustomed cerulean-domed ceiling and a brilliant blue sky beyond double-arched white windows. Abruptly she sat up in bed and pulled the soft sheets to her naked body. She was alone.
But she hadn’t been alone.
Slowly she lay back on the pillows, remembering the feel of his flesh. Her visual memory was blurred. It had been dark in the garden, and later, when he had guided her back to her suite, she could only remember a dim figure. But never would she forget what had happened among the jasmine flowers, and for the rest of her life the smell of that sweet, erotic odour would magically, instantly, transport her thousands of miles back through time to the silver and black silent garden where, for the first time in her life, Lili had felt passion.
A servant slid into the room and bowed, barefoot in a long, white robe. Silently he offered a silver tray upon which was fruit, mint tea and the earring box that Lili had left in the jasmine garden. Then he bowed and disappeared again. Lili glanced at her wristwatch, then reached for the thick cream official folder that contained the program of events. Thank goodness, there was still nearly an hour before the ladies’ luncheon, after which the wife of the commander-in-chief was to escort the ladies on a tour of the bazaar while the gentlemen, who were lunching with His Majesty, would spend the afternoon inspecting the desert reclamation plans and models.
In the early evening the guests assembled in the outer courtyard, where a fleet of Land Rovers waited to drive them along the coast toward Dinada and into the desert for a moonlit feast. The men wore casual clothes, the women wore silk dresses, and each guest had been presented with a crimson wool burka in case the night turned cold.
The scarlet-robed guard presented arms; silver scimitars flashed through the air, to be held level with fierce dark eyes, as King Abdullah slowly descended the shallow, bleu belge marble steps of the palace. He moved slowly in public, his back straight, his head thrown back, apart from other men, distanced from them by his rank. Never for one minute was anyone allowed to treat Abdullah as an equal in public, and very few were foolish enough to try it in private.
Now, as his guests bowed and curtsied, Abdullah looked at Lili with no sign of recognition, but when all the guests had been ushered by the major domo into the long line of Land Rovers, she found herself seated at his side. Lili felt a touch, light as a butterfly, brush her left arm, raising the soft down, making the hairs lift on the back of her neck, taking her breath away. Apart from that, Abdullah behaved to her exactly as he did to his other guests—so much so that for one moment, she wondered whether she had imagined his hard, naked body against her soft white belly on that silken dark divan. But then her eyes caught his, that black, liquid stare met hers, lingered, and she felt a thrill of exultation, of passion and suspense.
As dusk fell, they bumped through a yellow haze and onto the rough desert track. Twenty minutes later, as they passed through a gully of blackened, blistered rocks, the moon slowly rose above the endless silver sand.
“How on earth can the driver see where he’s going?” Lili exclaimed.
The King laughed. “The desert only looks the same to Westerners. A Bedouin can find his way back to the same spot again and again, with no more trouble than you’d have in getting from the Place Vendome to the rue de Rivoli.”
Suddenly, on the horizon, they saw the ancient ruins of a famous Roman amphitheatre. Three crumbling, curving, rose-brown tiers of arches were open to the sky: cunningly spotlit, from the distance, each arc of blazing light looked magically perfect, as if the amphitheatre had been built yesterday. Silken rugs had been laid before the old arena, where gladiators had once fought for their lives, where runaway slaves had shivered before the glaring green eyes and open jaws of lions and leopards, where crowds had bayed for blood.
That night Lili, again escorted by Colonel Hakem, hurried to the dark warmth of the jasmine garden. Abdullah moved forward from the leafy shadow and clasped her in his arms. She felt his lips on her dark hair, her slender neck, and then her mouth as effortlessly he swung her into his arms and strode toward the silken couches.
Before an hour had passed Lili realised that for the second time in her life she loved a man, but this time it was with a violent passion, a total abandon such as she had never experienced.
Much later she felt his velvety cheek nuzzling her. “Will you stay here?” he asked.
Lili had no means of knowing that Abdullah had never before brought a European woman into the kingdom, that he was flinging caution to the winds, that his passion for her was politically dangerous.
She hesitated. Her heart and her body told her to say yes, but her reason and her memory reminded her that she lay in the arms of an international playboy. Lili definitely didn’t want to appear to the world as merely the latest in Abdullah’s string of women. Since finishing Rain she had felt a growing sense of self-esteem. The picture hadn’t yet been premiered, but everyone in the business knew that Lili’s Sadie Thompson was a superb performance—and a personal victory for Lili. She was determined that nothing was going to rob her of what she had worked so hard to achieve—respect as a serious actress. But life was for living, and never before had Lili felt so alive and yet so at peace.
The premiere was
still five weeks away.
A week or two in Sydon could hardly matter, could it?
57
A YEAR LATER, Lili was still in Sydon. Those idyllic twelve months had seemed endless, and yet they had passed quickly. Abdullah was passionately devoted to Lili. When he was with her, his past unhappiness ceased to exist and he could think only of that moment. To her surprise, Lili found that her initial, dazzled fascination developed into an inexplicable happiness. She felt an extraordinary peace when she was with Abdullah, something that was totally different from the sedate calm that she had experienced with Stiarkoz and had thought was peace. Lili also experienced an unexpected respect for Abdullah as she saw how great his dedication was to his people, how awesome was his responsibility to them, how total was his power over them. One word from Abdullah could mean death to a man. Just a nod to Suliman and the servant who had been caught hiding in the Dinada royal garage, where he had no business to be, started to scream in horror as he realised his fate and was roughly dragged away.
“There was no proof, no poison, no bomb, no knife! That man wasn’t allowed to say a word in his own defense. How can you possibly know that he wanted to kill you? How can you be so cruel?” Lili burst out, as they sat upon the terrace that overlooked the sea.
Abdullah looked thoughtfully at her. “You’re wrong, I’m not cruel,” he said. “Cruelty is finding pleasure in inflicting pain. I inflict pain only when it is necessary, and I don’t find any pleasure in it.”
He looked up at the sky and added, “However, I am certainly ruthless. If I weren’t, I’d have been dead before I was sixteen. Some people find that after a shock their hair turns white overnight. After the first assassination attempt, when I was fourteen, I woke up next morning and found that I was ruthless. You see, the alternative was death.”
She had come to accept the harsh reality that lay behind this life of luxury. She loved living at Dinada Palace. Poised on the outer curve of a sheltered bay, the palace was built into the low cliff and descended in a series of white, arched spans, down into the rocky waters of the sea. Each of the five levels had its own terraced garden—below her Lili could see white-turbaned gardeners bending over rosebeds as they tended the honeysuckle and white-starred jasmine that quivered against the palace walls in the light sea breeze.
Lace Page 61
