Beloved Gomorrah

by Justine Saracen

  “How does it end? I mean, is Katherine redeemed in the end?”

  “Ah, no. Her sports car crashes and burns. Presumably after she dies, she’s in for more of the same, for all eternity.”

  “Sounds like a revenge-on-Hollywood film.” Joanna tried to rub away the itch on her nose, though the coating of sunscreen prevented a satisfying scratch.

  “I suppose it is. If it weren’t for the money, I swear, I’d dump this thing for the trash that it is.” She sighed with exasperation. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to plague you with my little problems. I’ll stop whining now and let you enjoy the day.” She turned a page.

  Joanna’s elbow ached from lying on her side, and she suddenly sat up. Was it her imagination, or was Jibril glaring at them from the other end of the deck? He turned away abruptly and disappeared down the stairs.

  “How long has Jibril worked for you?” she asked.

  Kaia glanced up from her typescript. “Just this summer. Why do you ask?”

  “He was staring at us. I also heard him saying his afternoon prayer in one of the cabins. I wonder how he feels about working for Western women who lie around in bathing suits and shorts.”

  “I’m sure he considers it shameful. The whole country considers it shameful. But that was his choice when he signed on. If he does or says anything improper, you should let me know. Otherwise, we have to put up with his disapproval the way he puts up with our shamelessness.”

  “I guess you’re right.” Disquieted, she glanced back toward the top of the stairs where he had been standing, then decided it wasn’t worth worrying about. She had other things to think about, such as the shark attack. She closed her eyes again, letting memory seep back up from her unconscious.

  The first image was the sudden drop-off and the crevice. She could see it now, Charlie just beneath her. She had glanced at her wrist computer—nearly forty meters down, farther than they had planned for. A stupid idea and a dangerous one. But she could see her own hand, no, it was Charlie’s hand, lifting something metallic, then some things square and dark, covered with sand. Charlie rubbed off the sand as they gradually surfaced. She remembered waiting at the decompression stop and examining the objects in Charlie’s net bag. A cup. A block, covered with marks. No, with cuneiform. A tablet. Now she understood why Charlie was so excited. The pieces had to be old. Breathtakingly old. And she had been so stupidly wrapped up in her own misery she’d brushed him off. She owed him an apology and a lot of questions.

  She felt suddenly overwhelmed, and under the shaded Egyptian light, she surrendered to sleep.

  *

  A hand on her shoulder shook her gently. “You’ve slept for two hours. That’s probably enough, don’t you think?”

  Joanna sat up, stupefied. “Umpf. Yeah, I guess so. Was I snoring? Or drooling? Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “Neither one, dear. And you looked so peaceful, I knew you needed to rest. Don’t worry. I covered you with the towel so you wouldn’t burn.” Kaia was dressed now in a white shirt and old blue jeans, her feet and hands bronzed against the washed-out fabrics. She’d combed her hair and put on earrings. Even a little makeup.

  Joanna glanced away and asked casually, “What time is it?” It had to be late. The blue sky in the east was already graying with evening. In the west, the sun was nearing the horizon in a gaudy field of pinks.

  “Six thirty, more or less. We’re on our way back to El Gouna, where we’ll eat in about half an hour. Here, I brought you a heavier shirt and some wine. You’re off the antibiotics now, aren’t you?”

  Joanna drew on the shirt, that still held Kaia’s fragrance, and shifted around to prop herself against the bulkhead. “Yeah, there’s no problem with medication. But wine on an empty stomach? I don’t know. I wax philosophical when I’m tipsy. At parties, I can empty the room in two minutes.”

  “Drink up, then. The sun will be setting shortly and we’re out on the Red Sea. A perfect time for philosophy, I’d say.” Kaia filled two glasses and handed one of them over.

  Joanna tapped her glass against Kaia’s. “To the Red Sea. Over it and under it.” Then she took a long drink. It was a good wine, even she could tell, but how soon would it go to her head?

  “I love it too. Best place to escape Hollywood.”

  “Really? Millions of people would kill to be in Hollywood.”

  “They don’t know about the constant pressure to make nice with narcissistic actors, the kowtowing to egotistical producers and directors, the invasive fans. I realize it’s the price you pay for fame, but it’s a high one.” She took another drink and smiled toward Joanna. “I’m guessing you love the ‘under’ part more.”

  “Yes, of course. It’s both work and vacation. I’m grateful to be part of this ingenious, deeply poetic project. Imagine, creating a city of art, an international one, and then surrendering it to nature. I can’t imagine a better way to spend my energy.”

  “I know what you mean. I feel that way about the theater.”

  “I thought you just said you wanted to get away from that.”

  “No, I was talking about Hollywood films. The live theater is something else. I’ve only done three or four plays, before my film career took off. But it felt so much more honest. You don’t film five minutes of action, then take a break to adjust makeup and lighting and change angles. Even the steamy love scenes consist of ten different takes, and all the while your leading man is sweating and getting a hard-on. No, I’ll take the stage anytime. Even something as difficult as Shakespeare. I’d give a lot to do Lady Macbeth or Hamlet’s mother.”

  “Gertrude.” Joanna supplied her name. “I know what you mean. Live theater is classy. It goes back to the Greeks and requires an engaged audience, while movies are for the popcorn-eating masses. If there was narcissism, I don’t remember it, just the theatrical personalities. My father was an actor.”

  “Yes, you mentioned that. You said he acted in Peter Pan. I was very impressed.”

  “He played Captain Hook and Mr. Darling, the father, too. It’s a mixed good-guy/bad-guy role. Actually, that sort of describes my father too. A unique experience being the child of an actor.”

  “The apple has really fallen far from the tree, hasn’t it?” Kaia laughed. “Is he still acting?”

  Joanna shook her head. “Oh, no. That was a long time ago. He died in a boating accident when I was young. He was celebrating the end of a long run of the play by partying with friends in Westcliff-on-Sea. Apparently they all went out on a boat, everyone a little drunk, maybe a lot drunk, and my father went missing. They never found him, so they assumed he fell overboard and was swept out to sea.”

  “Oh, how terrible for you.” Kaia laid a comforting hand on Joanna’s wrist.

  Joanna smiled. “Thank you for your concern, but it was, um…twenty-five years ago, so I’m sort of over it. Anyhow, I still have relatives in theater. An uncle in administration and a cousin who is an actor, but I never see them. It’s a different world from mine.”

  “I’m sure it is, but not different in the phony plastic-and-glitter way that the film world is. Well, maybe one day…” Kaia shrugged. “So what got you interested in sculpture? I mean, you’re a marine biologist, aren’t you? They don’t usually go together.”

  “No, they don’t. Anyhow, I’m primarily a scientist, and I’ll never make a name for myself as a sculptor. Basically I can only record what’s already there. In fact, I started in photography, doing close-ups of mammals and fish, comparing their individual faces.”

  “Faces on a fish? Oh, c’mon. All fish faces are alike.” Kaia’s tone was faintly mocking.

  “Ha. A lot you know.” Joanna mocked back. “Fish recognize each other, don’t they? And they probably think we all look alike. But seriously, the biological world is all about replication, generation after generation of the same thing, while individuals—with faces—emerge and nudge the pattern into variation. It’s the delicious dichotomy of evolution, and it’s been operating since the dawn of
life.”

  Kaia chuckled softly. “I see what you mean about wine making you philosophical. Here, have some more. I like you this way.” Kaia filled their glasses again and raised her own toward the burning white ball approaching the horizon. “Here’s to the Red Sea at sunset. Both art and nature, wouldn’t you say?”

  Joanna held up her drink to the blazing red sky. “Nature, art, religion too. Isn’t there a Hawaiian god of the sunset?”

  “A goddess actually, called Hina. I’ve had a little plaster statue of her since forever, and of course the boat’s named after her. I love the Hawaiian gods. One of the worst things to happen to the islands was the arrival of the missionaries.”

  “So I’ve heard. Do you miss Hawaii? Do you still have family there?”

  A few cousins, my ex-husband. Sometimes my daughters go back to visit him. But mostly it’s a memory of leisure and innocence. A lot of days like this one.”

  The word daughters brought Joanna up short. “You have children? I didn’t know that. Somehow I just never imagined—”

  “Yes, two daughters. Kiele and Mei. Grown up now. I married in Hawaii when I was very young and had babies the first two years. Then I discovered acting and moved to the mainland. Bernie downplays that information to the public because he thinks it hurts my image.”

  “And Bernard adopted them?”

  “No, they were nine and ten when we married, and they never really hit it off with Bernie. He was expanding his agency and working to promote my career, and they always preferred their Hawaiian father. There was a lot of tension. Misunderstandings.” She looked out over the water for a moment. “And now they’re on their own and doing just fine.”

  Grown daughters, young women whom Kaia loved. Joanna felt a twinge of jealousy. “They live in Hawaii?”

  “No, in Los Angeles. One of them teaches elementary school, and the other is starting graduate school at Stanford. I don’t see them as much as I’d like, but we telephone every couple of weeks.

  “Why did you leave Hawaii?” Joanna sensed she already knew the answer.

  “I traded it for a career. There’s no film industry in the islands. I left the kids for a while with their father and went to acting school in New York. That led to a few off-Broadway plays. After a couple of years of that, Bernard discovered me. He was just reinventing himself as an agent after years of making short commercial bits and some shadier films. But once we got the connections and the screen tests, there was no turning back. We got married and the girls came to live with us.”

  “That must have been the early ’80s. I remember you in Bravados.”

  Kaia laughed. “Yes, Bernard’s first coup, to get me cast in a Western along with Clint Eastwood. As an Apache, of all things.”

  “Yes, and then you were a gypsy in Carmen of the Factories, a gangster in Vendetta, Delilah in Samson in Delilah, and after that a pharaoh in Queen of Thebes. Always the bad girl, never the ingénue.”

  “I’m flattered that you remember. That was Bernard’s doing. He wanted to mold the image and decided that playing bad girls suited my exotic persona, as he called it.”

  “And now you’re playing another one in a Christian movie.”

  Kaia’s expression clouded. “Yeah. The Temple Institute is financing it and they’re willing to pay a huge salary. Frankly, with this yacht and the houses and Bernard’s standard of living, we need it. I’ve never questioned his judgment before, but this is about as far as I’ll go.”

  Joanna was beginning to feel the effects of the wine and she rubbed her face, trying to keep her thoughts clear. “The Temple Institute. Aren’t they the ones who are running the campaigns against abortion and gay rights? They’ve also brought a lawsuit against some high school, I can’t remember where, to force creationism to be taught in science classes. They’re pretty high profile.”

  “Are they? That’s too bad. I hate the thought of being part of that sort of thing.” She shrugged. “But an actor’s got to work. And it’s not like we have a say in the message of the films we play in. Half the time we don’t even know the message of the film. We recite our lines, sometimes take our clothes off, and emote. Then we collect our paycheck. At the end of the day, we’re high-priced whores.” Kaia’s words were slurring a bit too.

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far. Actors also love to perform, don’t they?”

  “Yes, we do. Stage actors and maybe the Independents still have that sort of honesty. But once you get into the big leagues, with the million-dollar contracts and the Academy-Award nominations, you’re ‘on’ all the time. You never dare go outside without makeup because of the paparazzi, half your friends are doing cocaine to keep their weight down, and you’re terrified that you’ll go a year without working.” She scowled out at the setting sun for a moment.

  “If you want a Hollywood income, you have to live the Hollywood life. You take dubious roles, just to be seen, give TV interviews where you gush over people you despise, go to the cocktail parties where the directors can feel you up, have sex with producers and agents, and get your first facelift at fifty and another one every three years after that.”

  Joanna frowned. “I can’t believe you’ve done any of that. And if you have, I don’t want to know.”

  “Well, I haven’t done the facelift part yet.” Kaia chuckled. She set down her glass. “But let’s not talk about age and mortality, any of that. Fate has given us this stunning sky, and it would be boorish not to enjoy it.”

  “And we certainly don’t want to be boorish, do we?”

  “Shush, now. Just look. Talk later.”

  Obediently, Joanna gazed up at the spectacle of orange and fuchsia streaks that spread across the sky as the last particle of the sun sparkled on the horizon.

  Kaia. She formed the word silently in her mouth, uttering no sound, holding the name inside of her like a captured bird.

  Chapter Eight

  Charlie took a seat at his favorite table in the El Gouna Sun Bar and signaled for a beer. The waiter, a strikingly handsome boy with huge eyes and a narrow chin who could have stood model for Tutankhamun’s mask, nodded acknowledgement.

  Charlie wiped his hands on his thighs, feeling the powdered grit that remained from drilling into the stone stele, and was extremely pleased with himself. Not only had he finished the lines of poetry on schedule but had done so even after a last-minute change of text. The new verse was so much more appropriate than the Shakespearean sonnet he’d originally proposed, and he knew Joanna would love it too. Then, to make sure she didn’t see it until it was installed, he’d covered the stele with a tarpaulin and arranged to have it moved the next day to the holding lot. With a little luck, it would be under water before she was back in the workshop.

  Then, with an hour to spare, he’d also done an experimental mix of the alginate that Joanna would need. The first mixture went well so he was fairly confident that everything would be ready for the casting once Joanna was up and running again. Well, maybe not exactly running. He smiled at his own thought. He’d settle for her standing in one place and slapping liquid alginate on her first subject. Until they heard from London about the tablets, she had an art project to finish.

  “Ach, zere you are,” someone said, and he glanced over his shoulder. Marion patted him on the back, then slipped into the cushioned booth next to him. “How is going it?” she asked, as she did every day, and he answered “Coming along” as he usually did. He saw no point in correcting her grammar.

  “Und Joanna?” she asked, and before Charlie could reply, Gil appeared and slid into the booth from the other side. “Yeah, is she on her feet yet?” he asked.

  “She’s walking with a cane and can get up stairs, but only just. I went down to the dock today and the boat was out at sea. So I guess she’s having a good time.”

  The waiter set down Charlie’s beer and took the other orders.

  “Is she going to make her schedule?”

  “I hope so. They gave us two additional weeks. The block
s and basin for the fountain are ready to be dropped into the water as soon as the committee assigns a spot. Then it’s just the statues. Once Joanna’s back in the workshop, it’ll go pretty fast. It just depends on how soon she finds the faces she’s looking for.”

  “So why not use you and me? Or Gil? We have nice faces. I look around the bar, everywhere, great faces.” Marion waved her hand vaguely at a woman leaning with her elbows behind her on the bar. “Her especially.” The woman, who looked European, stared in their direction.

  Marion took a long drink of her beer. “I love this place. Very…umm, Weimar Republik, nicht? All kinds of people. Old men, boys and girls together, boys together.” She pointed with her chin toward a couple of young men hunched shoulder to shoulder over their drinks.

  “That’s the good part, but there’s also the guys watching us from outside. Those I could do without.” Gil tossed his head toward two men who stood in the doorway. Their Islamic three-day beards sharply contrasted to the smooth, mostly European, faces in the bar.

  Charlie let the matter drop and turned toward the placid Gil. “How far along are you on the train?”

  “Almost done. The cars and the caboose are already under water and the locomotive’s being delivered to the holding lot tomorrow. But I checked inside the little train station they set up. It’s fine on the outside, but inside, the concrete reinforcing rods are exposed and some of them simply jut into the interior space. They’re going to rust right away.”

  “That shouldn’t make any difference. People will only see the outside, won’t they? The inside is fish habitat.”

  “Eventually yes, but you know divers are going to want to go inside of everything. Someone could get caught on those rods. I’m wondering how many other buildings in the exhibit have the same hazards inside them. I’ve filed a request for them to be covered in some way.”

  “Don’t hold your breath, so to speak,” Charlie quipped. “I mean, you know those guys take their own sweet time to get things done, especially when it concerns changes to something they’ve already agreed on.”