Charlie dared not turn his head, but he followed her with his eyes. “Nigel and Judy want to publish the transliterations right away in the museum journal. What do you think? It will have all our names on it.”
“That’s fine with me. I’m assuming the museum will also make a press announcement. We can give them a call tomorrow, right after we’ve done your head.” She swept the floor around his feet, collecting all the dried pellets of alginate and plaster into a dustpan.
“It’s a shame we have to be so circumspect about who your statues are. I don’t think a generic man with a rock is going to get the message across.”
She dumped the refuse into a bin and set aside broom and pan. “We promised Gamal we’d be discreet. I won’t go back on my word. But…” She nodded to herself. “I’ll find a way. Just give me a day to work out how. But listen, we’ve got a very tight schedule now. Everything’s got to be at the drop lot by Sunday.”
“Well, you still need Lot’s wife. I mean Atiyah. Who do you have in mind?”
Joanna knew what was coming, and a beat later, it did. “Why don’t you ask Kaia? Are you in contact with her since you, um…departed from her yacht?”
She glanced away. “Yeah, she was here this morning to make sure we were all right. Her husband’s gone to New York again and she invited me back to the boat.”
“Great. If that means what I think it does. You are going, right?”
“What’s the point? In a day or two her husband will return and claim his property, and we’ll be back to square one. I’m not up to another humiliation.”
Charlie’s expression registered slight impatience. “Humiliation, schmuliation. This may sound crass and male, but if a beautiful actress invited me to spend the night on her boat while her husband was away, I’d be there in a minute. With clean underwear and a toothbrush.”
“It doesn’t bother you that she’s married?” Joanna tapped lightly on the plaster on his chest. The muffled sound told her it was still too soft.
“According to you, she’s married to a bastard.”
“A bastard husband is still a husband.” She felt along his arm where it was slightly harder, but only a little.
“Suddenly you’re an evangelist for fidelity? Look, Kaia is a grown-up woman, and she’s married to a creep. If she decides to have an affair, that’s her decision, not yours. You have no business deciding her morals. Do you know how many millions of men, not to mention women, would jump at the chance she’s offering you?”
“A chance of what? Meaningless gratification?”
“Not everything has to have meaning. Go have fun. Give her an experience she’ll never forget. Maybe one you’ll never forget either. Stop waiting for the magic prince, or princess in this case, to come and wake you from your slumber.”
“Would this be the Sleeping-Beauty-in-the-castle slumber or the Valkyrie slumber on the burning mountain?”
“Actually, I was thinking more of the Snow White poison-apple slumber. That would make Gil and Marion and the rest of us the seven dwarfs.”
“Charlie, for a grown man, you know way too much about fairy tales. But I’ll give it some thought. I do need an Atiyah. Soon.” She tapped on his chest again and heard the satisfying thud she was waiting for.
“Ah, finally.”
*
Joanna and Charlie stood back and admired the still-headless casting of Lot.
“Fabulous, wonderful, excellent, and other superlatives,” Charlie said. “But really, it’s a beautiful piece of work.”
“Yeah, it is, if I do say so myself.” Joanna ran her hand along the upraised arm of the statue. “The rock still looks like a bundle of rags, but I’ll sand that down later today, along with the other rough spots. Meanwhile, I’m starved. How about going over to Falafel Ali’s for a bite?”
“Sorry, dear. I’d love to, but first I’m enjoying a long hot shower and then I’m taking a snooze. This old man does have his limits and, well, these last couple of days…”
“Okay, fine. I’ll just grab something and come right back.” Joanna waved him off and washed her hands in the workshop sink. With the pleasant sense of achievement, she set off again for El Gouna village and Falafel Ali’s. Maybe some of the other artists would be there too. She was in a mood now for company.
Though it was well past lunchtime, Joanna was pleased to note that Marion was at one of the outside tables in the shade of a canopy. She pulled up a chair across the table from her.
“How’s the war wound?” Joanna asked, pointing with her chin at Marion’s thickly bandaged shoulder.
“Not so bad. Doesn’t hurt, but I can’t dive for a couple of days. Good thing I’m finished with the project, nicht? What about you?”
“Almost finished, but I’m working on a theme now. I never liked just having generic figures at my fountain, so now I’m giving them identities.”
“Really? Who?’
“That’s actually a long story.”
“So? I’ve got time, lots of time. Talk to me.” She held up two fingers to the man behind the counter, the eponymous Ali, indicating two falafels.
“Well, I don’t suppose there’s any harm in telling you. Let me try to summarize.” Joanna thought for a moment. “Okay. At the bottom of the crevice where my display was supposed to be, Charlie and I found some artifacts that were probably from an ancient shipwreck.” At Marion’s expression of amazement, she amended her tale. “Well, we saw no sign of a ship, but we did find some gold objects and some tablets. We gave them to the Egyptians, of course.”
The falafels arrived and they put off discussion while they both bit in.
Marion chewed thoughtfully for a few moments and then swallowed. “How do you know they are ancient and not dropped from some tourist boat?”
“Because the text on them is in cuneiform and because it tells the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.”
“Oh, those myths. Just anti-gay Scheisse.”
“Well, they were anti-gay, for sure, but they weren’t myths. The tablets give an account of the destruction and the aftermath from the perspective of Lot’s daughters, and they seem to be authentic. You can tell by the style and the language.” She set down the pita bundle and held out both hands for emphasis. “Marion, they seem to be proof that those cities actually existed and were burned to the ground. Can you appreciate the importance of that? It’s staggering.”
Marion chewed silently for a moment. “Impossible.”
“I don’t think so. Of course we’ll find out when the clay of the tablets themselves is finally dated. But we can’t do that right now because the Egyptians have them. We, that is, Charlie, just took photographs and sent them to London for translation.”
“But even if they are three, four thousand years old, they could still just be more versions of the same myth, like the Evangelium. Don’t know the English word.”
“You mean the gospels. No, they’re not at all like the gospels. Those are all told in the third person, the way myths always are. But the tablets are all first-person accounts, and they seem very real. And they describe how religious fanatics set fire to both cities, wiping out everyone and everything. God, I can’t imagine…”
“I can,” Marion murmured. “A city burning.” She pushed aside the rest of her meal and took a breath. “My family is from Dresden. My father was in the Dresden firestorm and I spent my childhood hearing about it. So I can imagine it very well.”
“How awful for you.” Joanna recognized the blandness of her remark but could think of nothing stronger.
“Yeah, you know how some people are so traumatized by something they never want to talk about it? My father was the opposite. He couldn’t think of anything else. When they rebuilt the city after the war, he moved the family near the Elbe River, you know, just in case it happened again. It was the way we could save ourselves, you see, by jumping into the water. And anything could start him talking. He would get this distant look in his eyes and start talking about the soun
d and smell and feel of a burning city.”
“Please, I don’t want to hear,” Joanna said.
“I didn’t either. But you can’t close your eyes to history, he said. So he talked and we had to listen. Everyone should have to listen. About human torches trapped in the molten asphalt, the roar of the wall of flames, the screams from adults, children, even animals in their cages as the zoo burned. Dresden was a big city, but I think the suffering was the same in Sodom and Gomorrah. All people burn to death in the same way.”
Joanna stared into unfocused space for a moment. “You know, when you read about the Old Testament genocides, you never really think about the physical suffering. Biblical stories you simply take at face value, as detached moral lessons. But when you accept that Gomorrah’s firestorm was as real as Dresden’s, you begin to sense the horror of it all. You imagine the people burning to death in their homes or running with their children and infants, only to be struck down in their streets. Familiar streets, with shops and fountains, all a blazing inferno.”
She thought of the mysterious Tiamat and her infant and shook her head. “All for having the wrong gods or the wrong lovers. It makes you physically sick.”
“Ja, ja.” Marion nodded helpless agreement. “And some do it still.” She touched her bandaged shoulder.
“So what do we do to stand up to that?”
“Tell the truth, I guess. And not be afraid to love. Very important to not be afraid.” Marion shrugged with her good shoulder. “But what do I know? I am just a stupid person who makes statues.”
Joanna snorted softly. “Yeah, me too.”
Chapter Twenty
Joanna pulled into the lot in front of the dock and stepped from the car, strangely self-conscious. Did she look all right? Well, she was wearing her favorite moss-green shirt and freshly washed cargo pants, so it wasn’t going to get any better than this.
She stood for a moment staring up at the evening sky, calming herself and collecting her thoughts. There it was, Orion, in only a slightly different position from where she’d seen it two weeks ago. Orion, the hunter, or the Fool, depending on your culture. She took a deep breath and started down the path onto the dock.
As she passed the other boats she heard the casual evening conversations of workers and boat owners in Arabic, French, English. A quiet night in the neighborhood of the very rich. But while she walked, something seemed to evolve in her. The uncertainty she’d felt in the workshop talking to Charlie had worn off and been replaced by determination. She was tired of being at the mercy of other people’s decisions. She would be the actor now, not the acted upon.
There it was, the Hina, looming darkly against the cobalt sky. Only at its center on the upper deck, a warm amber light shone like a hearth from the salon. Curiously, the gangplank still connected the stern of the boat to the dock, as if she was expected. But that was hardly possible.
She stepped on board, climbed the stairs to the main deck, and paused in front of the double glass doors. It was ten at night. Surely they’d be locked. But when she laid her hand on the handle, they slid open smoothly.
Kaia sat at the small table at the far end of the salon. At the sound of the opening doors she stood up but remained motionless. Then she brought her hand to her chest.
Joanna paused, not from uncertainty, but because the instant was precious. Kaia waited for her, a vision in white and blue, with summer skin longing to be touched. The air between them was electric because she knew, they both knew, that everything was about to change. There would be no sweeter moment than this one, of anticipation and certainty, the crossing of a gulf to a new land.
Joanna strode the length of the salon. Momentum brought her hands up to caress Kaia’s face, then to pull her forward.
The kiss, at least at first, was not so much passionate as it was an act of laying claim. But as Kaia’s arms encircled her and as their two bodies pressed together, Joanna felt her whole body heat.
How wonderfully she kisses, she thought, feeling Kaia’s lips sliding lightly across her own. It wasn’t at all like in the movies, in all the scripted kisses she had seen her do with Hollywood’s dashing men. She didn’t bite, or moan, or seize Joanna’s head. She seemed instead more cautious, tentative, and then she broke away.
For a second, Joanna feared rejection. But Kaia simply ran her thumb over Joanna’s mouth and said, “Not here. Come downstairs. I don’t want us to grapple like teenagers on a sofa. I want it to be in bed.”
Bed? She said “bed”? Joanna yielded wordlessly when Kaia took her hand. This did not correspond to her resolve to be the initiator of events, but things seemed to be moving along well, so she followed Kaia down the circular staircase and into the guest cabin.
Kaia turned on the low bed lamp, then faced her again. “I was afraid I’d lost you,” she said. “You were here, and I let you slip through my fingers and I thought I’d never get you back.”
Dazed, Joanna stepped out of her sandals and moved again into the embrace, burying her face in the thick brown hair. “I’m here now. As long as you want me.” Then, with sudden alarm, she drew back. “Your husband. He’s not going to walk in, is he? He’s got a talent for that.”
Kaia undid the top button of Joanna’s shirt and kissed the spot just above her breasts. “No, he won’t. Stop talking. Just be with me.”
“Yes, oh, yes.” Joanna grasped handfuls of Kaia’s dark mane and kissed her hair, her brow, her eyelids. Like a blind animal moving across a foreign terrain, she explored with her lips the way along Kaia’s cheek and ear down to her throat, inhaling the fragrance of her skin, her shampoo, the perfumed detergent of her clothing.
The soft, washed-out denim shirt awakened memories, of comfort at her hospital bedside, of strength and rescue, of her own stolen glances at the swellings beneath. And now she could uncover them.
She covered Kaia’s mouth again and they dropped awkwardly together onto the bed.
Resting on one elbow, she unbuttoned Kaia’s shirt and kissed downward in a line to her breasts, then drew the shirt back freeing her shoulders, finally her arms. Only the bra remained and, with a deft movement, Kaia rid herself of it.
Kaia’s breasts were all that Joanna had imagined. Small and round and not at all the way they appeared in her films, they had been little harmed by age. “Beautiful, so beautiful,” she murmured, not minding the cliché. She brushed her cheek and lips over the coffee-and-cream skin of Kaia’s chest, down to the earthy brown of her nipples. A shiver of arousal went through her as she encircled one with her tongue. It still seemed forbidden and dangerous.
“I want to touch you too, your wonderful young body.” Kaia laid her hand on Joanna’s still-covered breast, and Joanna felt the warmth of her palm seep through the fabric. With her eyes shining as if she opened a gift, Kaia finished unbuttoning the shirt and exposed the pale flesh of Joanna’s chest.
“Look at you, you don’t even wear anything underneath.” Kaia pulled the moss-green shirt out of her trousers. “Come here.”
Joanna stretched out over the length of her, and kissed the pulsing throat. “Is this ‘here’ enough?” she murmured as Kaia slid hands inside her pants and tugged them down. The cool air on Joanna’s naked buttocks caused her sex to tighten suddenly. She rolled to her side and gave a little kick, freeing her feet from the pants’ legs.
“Now you,” she said, unzipping Kaia’s white cotton pants and sliding them along her hips. She studied the soft womanly belly, the beginning of pubic hair. This is the forest primeval. Then she drew them farther down, exposing the full dark mystery of Kaia’s sex. There was the awkward, faintly comical moment of seizing the pants by the cuffs and pulling them over Kaia’s feet, but then Joanna fell back next to her, studying her naked form.
Kaia seemed to blush. “Don’t look at me that way. I’m not used to being so exposed.”
Joanna laughed gently. “What? After all those hot movie love scenes, with the cameras revealing every inch of you? How is that possible?” S
he trailed gentle fingers from Kaia’s throat down between her breasts to her belly.
“That wasn’t me. I mean of course the kissing scenes were with me. But for the sexy stuff, they used a body double.”
Joanna sat up. “What? All that time people were drooling over your luscious tan flesh it was…?”
“Someone else’s luscious tan flesh. Yes. Actually several people’s. It was never me.”
“So that means I’m not sharing this with anyone?” She bent forward and brushed her lips along Kaia’s midsection.
“Well, hardly anyone. But no, it hasn’t been on the big screen.” She took Joanna’s hand and kissed her palm. “And you are the first woman. It’s strange…how much I want you. And I don’t even know what it is I want. Just that I want it with you.” She pulled Joanna over her again and they shared the first long kiss of deep arousal. “I want you to do everything. Teach me everything, Kaia breathed.”
“Nothing to teach. You know already, I’m sure.” Joanna slid her tongue along the valley between the warm swells of Kaia’s breasts down to her belly and to the mysterious dark triangle. She grasped Kaia around the hips, then covered the moist crevice below with her mouth and finally knew the wonderful lemony, earthy taste of Kaia’s sex.
“Yes, oh, yes. Do that.” Kaia threaded her fingers through Joanna’s hair, lifting toward her, offering herself.
Joanna massaged the pliant flesh under her hands, then gripped the warm thighs. With her thumbs she spread the vulva, allowing her tongue to enter the wet cavern, and felt the hardened clitoris. There could be no play-acting here.
Her tongue intruded and began its dance, in the soundless, wordless communication of their passion. She slipped one finger inside, then two, and thrust with a steady gentle rhythm. Kaia murmured incoherently, her body swallowing up the invaders in the slow hula of their lovemaking. Joanna was relentless, but when Kaia pressed against her hungrily, Joanna slackened, drawing out the torturous climb.
Beloved Gomorrah Page 20
