Roberta Leigh - Flower of the Desert

by Roberta Leigh

  Within a month of being with him again, she had known she could never regard him as more than a friend, though having come thousands of miles to work near him, it was difficult to make him accept this.

  "How was your trip to London?" she asked.

  "Cold and damp but successful. I'll give it another year here—maybe less—then I'll make tracks for home. I'd like to get out of oil and into proper legal work again."

  "I hope you won't leave before I do," she said lightly. "I'd feel lost without you."

  "Maybe I should let you feel lost. It might make you realize how important I am in your life."

  "I don't need to miss you to know that," she smiled. "But it doesn't mean I love you."

  "How can you be sure if you don't give yourself a chance to find out? I wish you'd come away with me." She shook her head and he sighed heavily. "You're so beautiful and sophisticated, I can't believe you're as old- fashioned as you act."

  "It isn't an act."

  "You're an anachronism then. Maybe that's why you came to Iran!"

  "Oh, no," she laughed. "Compared with Persian women I'm totally liberated."

  "Which reminds me," Rory said, refilling her wine glass. "How did the Khan girl take her family's refusal to do as you asked?"

  "In a surprisingly subdued manner. I expected an explosion but it didn't pome."

  "Don't encourage one," he warned, "or you'll end up in the middle of a family feud and have your ears cut off!"

  "I can imagine the Khans doing it too." She shivered. "Let's not talk about them any more."

  "Good idea." He looked around for the waiter. "I'll settle up and we'll go on somewhere and dance."

  They invariably did this when they went out and usually ended up with the American and European crowd with whom he worked. He was an extrovert and liked to show her off—a fact which always embarrassed her— though tonight she was glad of his wholehearted admiration, so different from the obvious disapproval that had emanated from Karim Khan. She tried to envisage the aloof Persian living- in America and England, where he had obtained his degrees, but could not see him fitting into either country. He was too exotic a bird to be happy in anyone else's territory.

  The following day Nizea did not come to school, and Fleur was dismayed to learn that the girl had fallen down a flight of stairs and broken her leg.

  "She is in the hospital," Madame Nadar informed her, "and is unlikely to be back for the rest of the term."

  "That means she won't be able to sit for her university entrance," Fleur said in dismay.

  "As she won't be going to the university..

  "I still wanted her to take it and see how she did."

  "If she had passed, it would have made her more discontented. It's far better that she doesn't take it."

  "Do I have your permission to send her a couple of novels as a gift?"

  "You don't need my permission to send one of your pupils a present"

  "I realize that, Madame, but as it's Nizea…"

  Madame nodded to show her appreciation of Fleur's tact, though she might not have been so appreciative had she seen her young teacher's choice of books: a Saul Bellow, a Lawrence Durrell, and a haunting but tender story of life in a Yorkshire mining town during the depression of the 1930s.

  Another week went by, and Teheran became less cold. The Judas trees were in bloom, and the flowerbeds in the garden around the school were full of pansies. The silver plane trees were no longer leafless but wore their new green skirts and seemed as integral a part of the capital as the chestnut trees do in Paris.

  As the Persian New Year approached, everyone began to make plans for ways of spending the holiday. All Persians were expected to spend the day fasting near running water, though the Europeans merely headed for the hills with picnic baskets.

  Rory took it for granted that she would spend the day with him and, since the school was closed, she could not find an excuse to refuse his offer of a weekend at the house of some friends who lived in the mountains outside the capital. She still found it strange that the Persian weekend should cover Thursday and Friday instead of Saturday and Sunday but, since the Muslims' sabbath day was Friday, it was logical from their point of view.

  It was the first time Fleur had gone out of the city, and she looked forward to seeing something of the landscape. She had been told that parts of it were like Spain but found the resemblance only superficial. The rocky hills were interspersed with areas of thick trees, more junglelike than one would ever find south of the Pyrenees.

  Her host and hostess were an American couple in their mid-thirties who took it for granted that she and Rory were more than friends. There was a moment of embarrassment when Mary Jackson made it clear that she and her husband had no objection if they wished to share a room.

  "Fleur isn't my girl friend," Rory said plaintively, "though it's not for want of trying."

  Mary laughed but later told Fleur she thought Rory a darling man whom most girls would be delighted to have.

  It made Fleur see her behavior toward him as selfish. If she did not love him, it would be kinder not to monopolize his time. By continuing to see him, she was letting him believe something meaningful might yet develop.

  Because of this she hedged when, the weekend over and she was saying good-bye to him outside Madame Nadar's house, he asked when he could see her again.

  "The senior girls are taking their exams in a few weeks, and there's a lot of cramming to be done."

  "You surely won't be working every single night?"

  "Possibly not, but I won't know which ones I'll have free."

  "I can be free any time," he said meaningfully. "When you find you can get away for a couple of hours, let me know."

  "I will," she said, with no intention of doing so and allowed him to kiss her briefly before saying good-night.

  If she went on seeing him, it would be easy to make herself believe she liked him enough to be serious about him, but there was no feeling of enchantment—which she had always assumed would exist between herself and the man she would love. Was she being over-romantic to think this way? Would she be wiser to settle for companionship and understanding? After all, she and Rory liked the same things and held the same beliefs—unlike Karim Khan who did not believe in anything she held dear. Angry that the Persian should come into her mind, she tried to push him out of it. But he remained there like some elusive spirit, tantalizing her with his all-knowing smile and heavy-lidded eyes.

  Hardly had Fleur finished her breakfast the next morning when she was asked to go to Madame Nadar's office.

  "I had intended to speak to you last night," the woman said after she had inquired whether Fleur had enjoyed her weekend, "but you came back later than I expected and I was already asleep."

  "Is anything wrong?" Fleur asked.

  "No, no. I only wanted to tell you I had made arrangements for you to give Nizea private tutoring. The child has been brought home and is fretting at not being able to take her examination. Mr. Khan telephoned me during the weekend and asked if it were possible for you to visit her each day."

  "How can I?" Fleur was dismayed. "What about my class? I've nineteen other girls to teach. I can't let them down because of one."

  "I was not suggesting you let them down." Madame looked dutifully horrified. "I was hoping that for the next few weeks you would be willing to teach Nizea in the late afternoon, when school is over. I know it will mean a long day for you, but it will be for only a month."

  Fleur bit her lip. When she had told Rory she would be working every night, she had not realized her he would come true. That would teach her to tempt Fate. Hard on this thought came another. If she went to Nizea's home, she might have to see Nizea's brother. It was not a prospect she relished, and she looked so disturbed that Madame gave a gusty sigh.

  "I cannot force you to go if you are reluctant. I pay you only to teach here."

  "It has nothing to do with money," Fleur said at once.

  "But it would mean
working long hours and, if I were tired, I wouldn't be capable of doing my job."

  "I think two hours a day with Nizea would be more than enough. And we can rearrange your hours here so that you can leave by three each afternoon."

  "You're making it difficult for me to refuse," Fleur sighed.

  "And if you refuse, you would make it difficult for me." The woman rested her pudgy hands on the desk. She was big and plump, with hair that grew well down over her forehead, giving her a simian look. "I owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Khan. When I found myself widowed and had to return here, he generously loaned me the money to open this school. I have paid him back long since, but I have never forgotten his kindness."

  "In that case I cannot refuse to do as you ask."

  Madame Nadar smiled. "I am glad you understand my predicament."

  Fleur was at the door when she remembered something else. "If Mr. Kahn doesn't want his daughter to go to the university, why does he want her to take the examination?"

  "I believe his son persuaded him."

  As she walked to her class, Fleur puzzled over the younger man's behavior. From his attitude when they had met, she would have expected him to oppose any further education for his sister.

  Madame Nadar kept her word, and Fleur's classes were rearranged to let her leave school at three o'clock that afternoon. She had no time to change but wore one of the dark cotton shirtwaisters in which she normally taught. The one today was in deep blue with a wide belt that showed her twenty-three-inch waist to advantage. Despite her low heels, she was still much taller than the average Persian woman—and more colorful looking, too, she thought, running a comb through the red-gold waves that fell to her shoulders. Muttering, she pinned back her hair in a severe French pleat and hid her sparkling green eyes behind dark glasses. Although it was spring and not hot, the sun had a bright intensity rarely found in England at this time of the year.

  It was not until she went downstairs to ask a servant to get her a taxi that she discovered the Khans had thoughtfully sent a car for her. It was the same limousine that had brought her home a couple of weeks earlier, and she sat in the back with a sense of familiarity. She had never anticipated returning to Karim Khan's house. But it was not his house; it was his father's. If she remembered that, she wouldn't feel so on edge at the prospect of going there.

  Fleur's fear of meeting the younger man made her apprehensive for the first few days. But when a week went by without his putting in an appearance, she concluded he did not come home until after she had left the house or, if he did, that he was careful to keep out of her way.

  Nizea was restless at being confined to bed but otherwise was a model pupil. With no other girl to take Fleur's attention away from her, she proved to be a highly responsive student and, in a few hours, would do as much work as if she had been at school all day.

  On Wednesday, Fleur met Nizea's mother. She was an older edition of her daughter and looked far too young to have a son of Karim's age. She did not make much conversation and spoke poor English though excellent

  French. She would drift into her daughter's room, listen for a few moments to the lesson, and then glide out again, leaving behind a flowery scent that took several hours to evaporate.

  "My mother cannot understand why I do not wish to live the kind of life she does," Nizea grumbled on one occasion. "But she is so easily pleased and never gets bored doing nothing."

  "Running this house can't be called doing nothing."

  The girl burst out laughing. "My mother doesn't run the house. Aunt Maideh does. She's my father's sister, and she's lived with us all her life. My grandparents died when my father was very young, and he took care of all his brothers and sisters."

  "That's one of the nicest things about your way of life," Fleur said. "The way you take care of your relations and don't abandon old people."

  "We care more about old people than we do about the young," Nizea muttered bitterly. "I'm not allowed to have any opinions of my own, and I'm always expected to obey my elders."

  "Young people all the world over say that," Fleur grinned. "So don't pity yourself by thinking you're the only one."

  "I never pity myself," Nizea said with spirit. "I'm too busy thinking up ways of making my father change his mind about me. I am going to go to the university," she added darkly.

  "You would be wiser to forget it," Fleur warned.

  "Never."

  Reluctant to get involved in another argument, Fleur stood up to go. To her surprise Nizea begged her to remain for dinner, pleading loneliness as her reason, and concluding with the sly comment that they served far better food that Madame Nadar.

  "But I'll feel in the way," Fleur protested. "Your parents…"

  "They'll be delighted to know you're keeping me company."

  Fleur accepted the invitation and thoroughly enjoyed the excellent dinner served to them on a trolley. It seemed ungracious to leave immediately afterwards, and it was nearly nine before she bade her pupil good-night.

  The following day Nizea took it for granted she would stay that night as well. "Time goes so much more quickly when you're here to talk to me, and if I'm left alone I get miserable and send my temperature up."

  "You haven't had a temperature for days," Fleur teased.

  "I'll get one if you leave! Besides, even though you're English and don't consider food important, you can't tell me you prefer to have dinner at school?"

  "Like George Washington, I cannot tell a lie," Fleur laughed. "But I can't dine here on a regular basis."

  "Of course, you can. You will be doing my family a favor."

  By the time dinner was over it was usually after nine, and Fleur would hurry to the waiting car that took her through the brightly lit streets of Teheran to the quiet suburb which was now her temporary home.

  "You should not allow Nizea to commandeer so much of your time," Madame Nadar commented one afternoon as Fleur was leaving for her daily visit. "I hadn't realized you would be staying there so late each evening."

  "Nor had I," Fleur admitted. "But it's pointless making an issue of it now. In another ten days Nizea will be taking her exam, and I'll be free."

  "How is her leg healing?"

  "It's still in plaster, and I know she's often in pain. I try not to talk to her about it because she likes to dramatize it."

  She remembered this when she entered the girl's room half an hour later and found her weeping and banging her head on the side of her bed.

  "I can't take the examination, Miss Peters. All the work we've done has been for nothing."

  "What do you mean? I thought your father…"

  "It has nothing to do with my father. It's the doctor. He isn't satisfied with the way my leg is healing and says I must go into the hospital again."

  "You poor child." Sympathy brought Fleur to the bedside. "I'm sure it's all for the best. You've been feeling far more pain than you should have done. You must at least be grateful that the doctor has discovered there's something wrong which he can put right."

  "They should have put it right the first time they operated," Nizea cried.

  'These things sometimes happen," Fleur placated.

  "My father doesn't think so. I heard him tell Mama he's bringing in another surgeon from Paris. He arrives tomorrow morning."

  Fleur marveled at the speed and ease with which things could be done when there was sufficient money at one's disposal. But in order to benefit from such a moneyed world, Nizea also had to be controlled by it.

  "You'll still come and see me each day, won't you?" the girl pleaded, holding Fleur's hand.

  "If I'm allowed to be with you, I'll be there," Fleur promised.

  "Why shouldn't you be allowed? I'm only having my leg reset. In a couple of days I'll be quite well enough to study."

  "Is it Miss Peters' teaching that you enjoy so much, or is it her company?"

  The deep voice that spoke from the doorway made Fleur turn, and it required no introduction to tell her she was facin
g the master of the house.

  A tremor weakened her legs and for no logical reason her heart started to pound. Staring into the dark eyes she had a premonition that this man was going to be important in her life; that his wishes and commands would affect her behavior and her happiness. It was a ludicrous thought and she tried to dismiss it. Their worlds were so far apart that what she did could have no significance for him. Certainly what he did would mean nothing to her. But the uneasiness persisted, folding itself around her like a shroud so that she wanted to shake herself free of it.

  But was it Ibrahim Khan who frightened her or the authority he represented? Deciding it was a little of both, she also accepted the fact that as long as she remained in Persia she would consciously resist the subtle pressures of male dominance.

  Ibrahim Khan's hooded eyes were impassive as they met her own; then a flicker appeared in their depths, almost as if her thoughts had become visible and he was reading them. She had had the same impression when she had met his son.

  I'm being fanciful, she admonished herself. As far as he's concerned I'm an insipid little English teacher whom he can dismiss any time he wants. And he'll have no hesitation in doing it if he ever thinks I'm trying to lessen his authority.

  Four

  With firm strides Ibrahim Khan came farther into the room. If his son had made her think of a hawk, the father made her think of an eagle; proud, strong, king of the sky as the lion was king of the earth. Despite his European clothes he looked so Middle Eastern that he might just as well have worn a flowing burnoose. It was all very well for the Persians to say they were not Arabs, yet this man looked as if the desert was his natural habitat and that he could more easily ride a stallion than in an automobile.

  He was considerably older than she had expected, though his air of command told her that only death would take the reins of control from his hands. His skin was swarthy and looked darker because of the heavy black beard that covered the lower portion of his face, masking his chin and almost hiding the thin-lipped mouth. He had the same dominant nose as his son, but his eyes were smaller and set below thick, bushy eyebrows. Age had not robbed him of his hair though it had put silver strands among the black, and he wore it brushed away from his high forehead, its fullness making it rise to a crest. Here was a man whose word was law and who would accept nothing less than total obedience. Remembering the letter she had written to him, Fleur wondered how she could have been so foolish. Nothing she could say would ever make him change his mind. There was no need to ask from whom his son had inherited his obstinacy.