‘The one in the middle is an adviser to the Turkish Defence Minister. On his right is Martin, civil servant, develops long-range arms strategy. The other one is with Dassault.’ She looked at him with an enquiring expression.
‘They make the Mirage fighter, apart-from anything else. I can guess what they’re talking about.’ He gave the men a cheery salute, then turned back to Ayeshah. He had done business with all three men but appreciated that they might not wish to admit in public that they knew a small-time arms dealer.
Ayeshah left him and greeted the men, had the barman mix them complimentary cocktails, then vanished into the offices behind the bar. As she returned to the table, two tiny Thai girls dressed in fuchsia pink came out and negotiated the bamboo steps up to the cages with difficulty in their tight skirts.
‘You like my Siamese twins?’ She was in a better temper now. ‘They really are sisters, you know. Truthfully.’
‘I believe you.’
The civil servant reached for the telephone and summoned the two girls to the bar. After some desultory dancing there was an intense conversation and all five left. Ayeshah’s richly curved lips gave a small pout of satisfaction.
‘I thought he’d go for them.’
‘How do you know a thing like that?’ Hussain found sex fascinating because everything about it was outside his own experience.
‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘I just know, that’s all. I suppose you can read a man’s sexuality in his face, if you know what you’re looking for. But that’s another thing – Philippe! I can’t make him understand. There’s no future in running a small-time operation like this.’ She waved her arm contemptuously around the smoky, noisy boíte. ‘Sure, the club makes a profit, we make a living, but that’s nothing compared to what I could do. A nightclub is like the centre of a spider’s web. People are attracted, then you catch and hold them, and after that … they’re yours, you can take what you want from them.’
‘What do you mean?’ He offered her a cigarette.
She shot him a shrewd glance from below her short, straight eyelashes. ‘Listen. I did that …’ she blew disparaging smoke towards the cages, ‘two years. I know a lot about men, things you wouldn’t believe. And there’s one thing I will never believe, that’s what they will do for a piece of tail. A man will swim through a river of snot if he thinks there’s a friendly pussy on the other side. And as for the bent ones …’ she shrugged, indicating that their idiocy was infinite. ‘Completely crazy. It’s the Achilles heel – sex.’ The way she mispronounced Achilles was adorable, even while she was talking with savage cynicism. ‘You know, you’ve seen it too. Even now, my Siamese twins could take photographs and that Turkish pervert would be in big trouble, and he’d pay big money to get out of it. That’s better than 200 francs a trick, wouldn’t you say?’
Hussain nodded. ‘Philippe doesn’t agree?’
‘Too much trouble, too big a risk … he’s afraid. No, he’s not afraid. He’s just nothing.’ She folded her arms and sat back.
There had been many advantages for her in Philippe’s taste for opium; as their ambitions diverged, she had encouraged him to smoke as much as he liked to get him to the state of dissociated unconcern in which he would let her do what she wanted with the business. Now, however, his personality was beginning to disintegrate and he could no longer be controlled.
‘What do you want to do, then? What are these plans for which Philippe has no enthusiasm?’
‘Simple. We close this place, buy another, really chic. You see, even now, we’re getting some pretty flush clients. I’ve had Bardot in here with Vadim, Yves Montand … but they come here for fun, it’s not their style, it’s just a curiosity.’
‘So, a smart club and …’
‘The telephone is not a toy, you know. It’s the future, I have seen that. Call girls. No more stupid little dolls who just want to shake their asses down at the Crazy Horse. Most of the business my girls do is with tourists, foreigners, out-of-town executives, parties … people who don’t just want a fuck, they want a whole scene, a performance. They want to feel they’ve been where the action is, they want to feel they’ve been to Paris – the Paris they all dream of, where l’amour is a great art, where women know more about love than anywhere else in the world.’
‘So – you want simply to be the most famous madame in the world. Your ambitions aren’t modest, are they?’
‘Of course not, what would be the point of just a little ambition? No, you’re wrong, I don’t want to be a great madame. I want more than that.’
‘What then?’
‘What is there? As much as there is, that’s as much as I want.’ Again, the look that stabbed his secret thoughts. She was like a panther, he decided. She could switch from kittenish play to the absolute concentration of a killer in the flicker of an eye.
‘Does that frighten you?’ she asked him.
He considered. ‘No. I think you’re right. A small ambition isn’t worth having.’
‘It frightens Philippe.’ Philippe almost cowered when she tried to explain her plans to him. ‘He thinks I’m going to eat him up.’
‘And are you?’
‘How should I know? Yes, if it’s necessary. He has no right to stand in my way.’ They fell silent and watched the dancers and drinkers, the buyers and sellers of flesh, as they circulated under the blue lights like languid fish in an aquarium.
‘Shall I show you this place?’ Ayeshah was a kitten now, soft and playful. She closed her hand over his wrist.
‘Why not – is it far?’
She shook her head. ‘Just off the Champs – ten minutes if we go in your car.’
She took him to a four-storey building with graceful wroughtiron balconies that was squeezed between taller buildings in a narrow street between the Champs-Elysées and the Rue St-Honoré.
‘Wonderful location,’ he approved, ‘your carriage trade will be gold-plated.’
‘The Ritz is one minute away.’ She methodically sorted through a large bunch of keys until she found one which opened the door. The pearly dawn light of Paris flowed into a courtyard paved with ancient flagstones.
‘I want to make a glass roof here,’ she waved both arms skywards, an ineffably beautiful gesture that emphasized the arrogant modelling of her breasts. ‘And this can be the dining room, like a conservatory. In the summer we can roll back the roof and eat under the stars. And then here inside, the bar, the dancing, perhaps a room for backgammon – like a library, with a good fire. You can have a lot of people here but, you see, it will still feel intimate, like a private house. I want it all very modern, with leather seating, but not cold, you understand? You can be chic and not intimidate people. No red plush.’ She gave a pout of disdain. ‘And very nice flowers, looking as if the lady of the house has just done them with her own hands.’
He followed, spellbound, as she led him through the empty building, conjuring up visions which completely blotted out the tired cream paint and cheap partitioning.
‘And upstairs – the girls?’
‘Absolutely not. The girls somewhere else, maybe not too far. But no connection, no suspicion, ever. Who would come to my club if they thought the beautiful woman they were fortunate enough to meet there would be in the position to destroy their life the next morning?’ She raised one perfectly pencilled, black eyebrow as if inviting him to share a huge joke which only they could appreciate.
‘Do you love Philippe?’ he asked her as he drove her back to Le Bambou in his discreet Peugeot convertible.
‘No.’
‘Did you ever love him?’
‘No. I can’t love any man.’
‘Do you love anyone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Women?’
‘I am not a lesbian, if that’s what you mean. I don’t think sex has anything to do with love; that’s just stupid nonsense people make up because they feel dirty.’
‘Why not answer my question – who do you love?’
She gave him a
peculiar stare, for once uncertain how to respond. Then she said, ‘I love children, because they are innocent.’
‘Do you have any children?’ he asked suddenly, prompted by a premonition. He turned to look at her face as she replied, but a young man on a moped a few yards in front of the car suddenly swayed out into the roadway, and Hussain was forced to look back and steer to avoid him.
She ignored the question. ‘And you? Who do you love?’ she asked him.
‘My mother. Don’t all men love their mothers?’ They cruised over the Pont Neuf and Hussain halted at the crown of the bridge to admire the effect of the dawn on the white façade of the Sainte Chapelle.
‘And who else?’ she pressed him, as they drove on.
‘No one. Passion is a distraction which I have been spared. I love to make deals, that’s my great vice.’
In a few minutes they reached the narrow street where Le Bambou was situated. ‘What would you say …’ Hussain paused as he took the keys out of the ignition, ‘if I bought that lease for you? It would suit me to have the upper part of the building for my office.’
‘You mean, you want to back my club?’
‘Yes.’
‘I need about half-a-million francs, I think.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘OK,’ she spoke with care, mysteriously calm, ‘it’s a deal.’ She put out her narrow, long-fingered hand and he shook it.
Scarcely a month later Hussain felt as if his destiny had been transferred from the care of one woman to another. His mother had a slight stroke, then a much more serious one which left her partially paralysed. In hospital, X-rays revealed a large tumour of the brain. She began rapidly to decline.
He hired three of the best nurses money could buy, and brought her infusions of verbena tea every two hours, really as an excuse to sit at the end of her bed and have her precious company for a little longer. Even at the door of death she was beautiful, her complexion as pale as a Christmas rose with violet shadows to highlight the proud swell of her cheekbones.
‘Promise me something,’ she whispered to him one evening. ‘Promise me to live a good life, Hussain.’
‘Of course, Mother, of course.’
She shook her head, frustrated by her weakness. ‘I mean your business. You think I’m foolish, I know, but bad money is the easiest money, I know that. Promise me you will never do anything which would have made me ashamed.’
‘I promise.’ He pressed her hand and kissed it, noticing tiny bruises where her frail capillaries had burst under the translucent skin.
‘Another thing …’
‘Anything – tell me.’
‘Your little Ayeshah, she must go to Givenchy. Tell her,’ she paused for breath, her eyes sparkling with fun, ‘tell her it is my dying wish. Tell Hubert … no, I will tell him.’ She made him pass her the writing case and made a supreme effort to control her trembling hand as she wrote to Hubert de Givenchy instructing him to give his personal attention to the new client she was recommending.
That night Hussain’s mother died peacefully in her sleep. He cried like an infant for the first time in his life.
Barely a month later, early on a Tuesday evening when Ayeshah was still dressing upstairs and Le Bambou was almost empty, two uniformed gendarmes walked into the club and asked to see Philippe. He emerged smiling from his office at the rear of the premises, fearing nothing since he paid the police their graft like a prudent businessman. He was surprised when the gendarmes began to question him about his drug-trafficking, since a substantial proportion of his wares was bought directly from the narcotics squad, a favour granted in return for the occasional betrayal of his customers.
When clattering boots resounded on the stairs from the back alley to the rear entrance of the club, and police began swarming through every room, searching with unnecessarily destructive application, Philippe realized that he had fallen prey to a predator bigger than himself. With fatalism that was partly his nature and partly induced by opium, he shrugged his shoulders and allowed handcuffs to be locked around his wrists.
He was led away by the two officers; following them was a third who carried the sack of Moroccan kif from his desk. In the office, a police photographer’s flashlight illuminated the desk top, the scales, the pharmacist’s jar of white powder and the delicately-folded paper packet of cocaine which Philippe had prepared for one of Hussain’s acquaintances.
Ayeshah watched her lover’s arrest with a curious expression of anticipation. Within an hour Hussain strolled through the door, punctual as ever for his appointment, and he saw at once from the suppressed excitement which was almost making her tremble that Ayeshah understood perfectly how he accomplished the removal of his only possible rival.
He opened his mouth to speak and she instantly pressed two fingers to his lips to silence him.
‘Let’s talk about something interesting,’ she suggested lightly. ‘When will you take me to Givenchy?’
He escorted her to the salon the next day, where she was entertained by the great couturier himself and appointed the same fitter who had served Hussain’s mother.
‘Incredible!’ the woman exclaimed, peering at the tape measure pinched between her blood-red fingernails. ‘Your measurements are exactly the same as the Princess’s. Exactly!’
‘Was she a princess? I did not know.’ Ayeshah was conscious that her slip was not of the best quality silk. It creased unattractively at the waist. There was still so much to learn.
‘Why, yes, didn’t you know? Very, very old Persian aristocracy, related to the Shah, the old Shah that is. Shahzdeh isn’t their real name. The Princess invented it because no one in Paris could pronounce their real name. So considerate. A true aristocrat.’
‘If your mother was a princess, you must be a prince?’ she asked Hussain that afternoon.
‘Yes, that’s right. But, believe me, if you’re trying to find a home for three ship-loads of contaminated tuna, it is no advantage to be a prince.’ He was exasperated. ‘Being a prince won’t help me get these Nigerians to put their money into escrow. The Africans will buy anything, you know – they just have a little difficulty paying for it.’ She smiled. He was confiding in her more and more.
‘But if you are backing a nightclub, being a prince would be a help, I think.’
In a few weeks workmen were tearing down the flimsy partitions in Ayeshah’s premises and hacking holes in the brickwork to fit the glass roof.
Hussain went to see a doctor. ‘As far as I am aware,’ he said, ‘I have never had any sexual feeling or completed the sexual act. Nevertheless, I would like to get married, and I would like to know if – if anything can be done.’
The doctor sent him on a long pilgrimage to specialists, who did tests to investigate his hormones, his gland functions, his neurological fitness and his potential fertility.
Then the doctor faced him cheerfully across his desk. ‘Physically you’re in perfect health – well, almost perfect. Your testosterone level could be higher, but we can give you synthetic hormone treatment to counteract that. The major factor in your sexual deficiency is almost certainly psychological, and you would probably find that if you went into analysis for a few years it would be possible to achieve some improvement.’
‘Could I have children?’
‘You could have children now; if your future wife accepted artificial insemination. Your sperm count is quite normal.’
That evening he called for Ayeshah with a corsage of white orchids and took her to dinner at Procope. Afterwards they strolled in the moonlight by the side of the Seine, as lovers are supposed to do in Paris.
‘What would you say …’ Hussain began, halting opposite the curtains of an ancient creeper by the side of Notre Dame, ‘if I asked you to marry me?’
She took his hands but stepped away from him. Tonight the white dress was of a rich brocaded satin, a Givenchy classic which swathed her body like a Greek statue.
‘I would make one condition only.�
�� This was the panther speaking; there was no flirtation in her manner.
‘What would that be?’
‘That you become a prince again.’
‘Is that all? What could be simpler? Then will you be my princess, Ayeshah?’
‘One more thing – do you want children? Because I can’t have them, I think. Anyway, I don’t want them.’
He shook his head, the moonlight glinting on the metal buttons of his double-breasted, blue jacket. ‘I would not even want you to be my wife in the physical sense, unless you would like to be. The doctors say I can be treated, but I am reluctant to give up an advantage such as sexual disinterest. Unless it would make you happy, of course.’
She smiled, childlike and happy. ‘I would not ask that. Let us have a marriage of ambitions.’
‘Ambitions and interests.’
They shook hands once more on the deal, and he laughed. ‘Of course, we will be the happiest couple in Paris.’
‘Why just Paris?’
‘All right then, the happiest couple in Europe.’
‘Only Europe?’
‘The world?’
She shook her head. ‘Primitive people are happy, you see. It never occurs to them to be unhappy. All they know is sick or well, old or young, enough to eat or not. We shall be the happiest civilized couple in the world.’
They walked on, arm in arm, and Hussain realized that he had no idea where his bride came from. It was not important. She was a citizen of her place and time, just as he was. The rest was just excess baggage.
Chapter Eighteen
James, Bill and Ibrahim felt as if their luck changed at the moment they crossed the state line into the smiling green territory of Pahang. After months of frustration, semi-starvation and enduring the obstructive hostility of the Chinese Communists in Perak, they began to revive their hopes of hitting back at the Japanese.
A truck loaded with lumber met them at an appointed place on the road to Kuala Lumpur, and a young Malay flung open the unglazed door.
‘Selamat!’ he said joyfully. The Malay word for peace was the usual greeting. ‘What about a real cigarette? I know you want one – no Kensitas in the jungle, eh?’ And James filled his lungs voluptuously with fumes of Virginia tobacco.
Pearls Page 45
