“Great.”
“This time we will shoot your legs as you put on lingerie made by the company.”
“I am not going to bare myself completely before the camera, even if they paid a million dollars.”
Fernando laughed loudly and said mockingly, “If they offered you a million dollars you’d do anything.”
She looked at him in silence, feeling insulted. It seemed he realized it, so he bowed his head, placed it between his hands, and murmured in a tired voice, “What did I just say? It seems I’ve smoked too much pot. Sorry, Carol.” She nodded and affected a smile as he went on in a matter-of-fact voice: “In any case no one will ask you to bare yourself completely.”
They had several rehearsals until she understood her role and did it well. He would shoot the lower part of her body as she put on the Double X lingerie and, over the following thirty seconds, she had to relax totally before the camera, feel her underwear with her hands, extend her legs, wrapping one on top of the other slowly to give the impression of total comfort, then the caption “Double X underwear. for your comfort” would be superimposed.
The commercial was a great success and her fee was raised to $1,200 per hour of shooting. Soon afterward, Fernando offered her another commercial. “This time we will work on a more modest part of your body: your feet. The next commercial is about Double X socks.”
For a whole week Carol gave herself over to a pedicurist, who worked diligently for two hours every morning on her toenails and heels, and on scrubbing and softening her feet to make them look delicate and smooth. The result was so dazzling that Fernando shouted as he was doing the camera test, “What splendid feet worthy of a Roman emperor’s concubine!”
This time she had to raise her leg gracefully in front of the camera, point her toes like a ballet dancer, then coquettishly pause for a moment and put the socks on in a suggestive manner. After the commercial was broadcast, Fernando said to her, his face beaming with happiness, “Our success has become legendary! You’re quite an inspiration, Carol. You bring out the best in me.”
As usual he offered her something new. “The new commercial is different from all the previous ones.”
“What’s its idea?”
“Your fee will be raised to fifteen hundred dollars an hour.”
“Thanks. The idea?”
“It’s not conventional, but I won’t give it up. If you refuse to do it, I’ll have another model do it.”
“Talk, Fernando.”
“Okay. Double X has produced a brand-new bra model that’s totally see-through.”
He paused for a moment then continued gruffly, to hide his embarrassment, “The idea of the commercial is as follows: I will shoot your bare breasts, and you will be sexually aroused so I can shoot your nipples erect.”
“You’re such a bastard!” she shouted and got up angrily. She picked up her purse from the chair and hurried to the door. Fernando hurried after her and grabbed her by the arm, trying to calm her down.
“Carol, it’s much simpler than you imagine. Think about it for a bit. We’ve shot your bare breasts dozens of times. How would it hurt to shoot them erect?”
“I’ll never do that.”
He looked at her in vexation and said, “Listen, this is my last offer. I’ll pay you a special fee, two thousand dollars per hour. You’ll get this fee only for the commercials involving sexual arousal. In ordinary commercials, your fee will remain as it was.”
Carol looked at him in silence. It seemed that events were moving too fast for her to absorb. Fernando, sounding as if he wanted to end the meeting, said, “You have until the morning to think about it. The company is in a hurry to get the commercial and you have to give me a chance to get somebody else if you refuse.”
The following day Carol came, stood before him, and before he asked her, she mumbled without looking at his face, “Okay. When do we begin?”
Fernando laughed loudly and hugged her tightly, lifting her off the floor. “What a magnificent woman. If I were interested in women, I’d have done my best to seduce you. Come on, let’s get to work.”
She went with him to the studio and took off her clothes as usual. He spent a long time adjusting the lights and cameras. After several attempts he shot the part where she appeared bare chested. The harder part remained. He asked her to put on the bra, and he himself snapped it closed at the back, and then he stood her in the middle of the frame that he had prepared and said, “Carol, I’m going to help you get aroused. Don’t be embarrassed; I’ll touch you in a perfectly professional manner.”
He got close to her, put his hands through the bra, cupped her breasts with his hands, and began to knead them slowly. Then he took the nipples between his fingers and began to rub them gently. A whole minute passed without any response. He said, “It seems I’m not arousing you sufficiently. Should I go on?”
She didn’t answer. She stood where she was, looking at his hands stuck between the bra and her chest. He took out his hands and jumped behind the camera to make sure it was adjusted, and then went back and whispered to her, “I’ve prepared something to help you. Look at the screen.”
She noticed for the first time that he had placed a laptop on a nearby table. He pushed a button and she could see scenes from a pornographic movie: a white woman was sleeping with a black man and screaming with pleasure. Carol shouted, “Please turn it off.”
“What?”
“I can’t stand those movies.”
“Why?”
“Because they are phony and naive.”
“Do you have a problem with this?”
“I’m perfectly normal.”
He looked at her almost angrily and said, “Listen, I’ve got to do one or two shoots today. Don’t ruin my work.”
“Give me a chance. Let me be natural and I’ll do it.” He glanced at her uneasily. She whispered as she pushed him to stand behind the camera, “Go on, please.”
He dragged his feet like an unruly student kicked out by the teacher. Carol closed her eyes and began to recall her intimate moments with Graham, that burning pleasure that engulfed her when she was with him. Little by little she forgot her surroundings and got totally absorbed in the wonderful feeling that she was reliving. When she realized, somewhat vaguely and from a distance, that the lighting was getting more intense in front of her closed eyes, she ignored it and continued in her reverie until she came to as Fernando exclaimed while putting his hand on her bare shoulder, “Brava. A wonderful shot.”
Shooting took several sessions. Carol used the same method to arouse herself. The commercial was a great success. A few days later, Fernando invited her to dinner, and after two glasses of red wine added to the ever-present effect of marijuana, he started humming the old song “Oh, Carol,” then he said to her as his eyes gleamed with enthusiasm, “Where’ve you been all this time?”
“It’s all thanks to your talent.”
Fernando looked at her for a little while, as if reluctant to speak. Then he said with a childlike spontaneity that she liked, “The owner of the company would like to meet you.”
“Really?”
“Your guardian angel is working with extraordinary efficiency. This meeting might change your life. It’s Henry Davis, owner of Double X, one of the wealthiest people in America. Do you know that I’ve never met him? I’ve asked to meet him more than once, but they’ve always had all kinds of excuses.”
“In my case it’s different. You want to meet him but he refuses; he wants to meet me but I don’t know if I’ll say yes or no,” she said in jest, but he didn’t laugh.
He looked her in the eye and said in a serious tone, “I hope you appreciate my honesty. Someone else in my place would never have let you meet the company owner before signing an exclusive contract with you.”
“I appreciate all you’ve done for me.”
“You have to prove that. I’ll give you Henry Davis’s office number to schedule an appointment with him. In return, you will not sign a co
ntract with him before getting back to me.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Chapter 32
“It’s Salah, Zeinab.”
His breathing was painful. His voice sounded strange to his own ears, as if it were someone else’s.
It was as though, after a thirty-year separation, he had suddenly seen her in the street and kept running after her until he caught up with her. How strange it all was. He could not believe that he was talking to her, as if he had not been absent for a whole lifetime, as if he had not longed for her a thousand times and cursed her a thousand times. His voice meant much more than his actual words: “It’s Salah, Zeinab.” His voice was really saying: Do you remember me? It’s Salah who loved you as no one has loved you. When I lost you, Zeinab, I lost my life. Thirty years I’ve lived, lost, away from you. I’ve tried and failed, Zeinab, and here I am coming back to you.
“Salah? I don’t believe it!”
Despite age, her voice had kept its old passion.
“Did I call you at a convenient time? I don’t want to take you from work.”
“I work for the Egyptian government, Salah. Working here just means showing up. We always have extra time.”
Oh, my God. Her wonderful laugh was still there. She said she couldn’t describe how happy she was to hear from him. She told him about her life: she was living alone after the death of her husband and the marriage of her only daughter. He avoided talking about her husband. He asked her about Egypt and she said in sorrow, “Egypt is living its worst days, Salah. As if everything we’ve struggled for, my colleagues and I, was just a mirage. We don’t have democracy; we have not been liberated from backwardness, ignorance, and corruption. Everything has changed for the worse. Reactionary ideas are spreading like the plague. Can you imagine that I am the only female Muslim in the department of planning, out of fifty employees, who is not wearing the veil?”
“How did Egypt change like that?”
“Repression, poverty, oppression, having no hope in the future, the absence of any national goal: Egyptians have given up on justice in this world, so they are waiting for it in the next. What’s widespread in Egypt right now is not true religiosity but a collective depression accompanied by religious symptoms. What makes matters worse is that millions of Egyptians have worked in Saudi Arabia for years and have come back with Wahhabi ideas. The regime has helped spread these ideas because they support it.”
“How?”
“Wahhabi Islam forbids rising against a Muslim ruler even if he oppresses the people. The thing that preoccupies Wahhabis most is covering a woman’s body.”
“Can Egyptians’ thinking fall so low?”
“Even lower. There are in Egypt now women who wear gloves so they won’t feel lust shaking men’s hands.”
“Isn’t Abdel Nasser responsible for all that?” She let out a laugh that touched a soft spot in his heart and said, “You want us to resume our quarrels about Abdel Nasser? I still believe that he is the greatest man who ruled Egypt. His worst mistake, however, was his failure to bring about democracy and the fact that he left us with military rule inherited by those less sincere and less efficient.”
She paused for a moment then sighed and said, “Thank God, despite my failure in the national sphere, God granted me success on the family front. My daughter is an engineer who is successful in her work and marriage and has given me two wonderful grandchildren. How about you?”
“I got a PhD and became a university professor.”
“Did you get married?”
“Yes, married and divorced.”
“And children?”
“No children.”
He felt that his answer gave her some comfort. They talked for about two hours, and from that night on his life changed. His nocturnal life was complete. His enchanted city that he kept secret because no one would believe him if he spoke about it came into being. He kept it to himself because people would think he was crazy. During the day he lived halfheartedly, but at nightfall he turned into another creature as if he were a mythical hero, his wings soaring back into the past: he put on his old clothes, watched a 1960s black-and-white movie and listened to songs of Umm Kulthum and Abd al-Halim Hafiz until it was morning in Cairo. He would call Zeinab and tell her truthfully and sincerely everything that he did, as if he were a child who had come back from school and run to the bosom of his mother, who kissed him, took off his clothes, and washed the dust of the road off his face and hands. One night they reminisced about the old days, and the memories brought about pure sweetness to both of them. He suddenly told her, “How about me inviting you to come to America?”
“Why?”
“Perhaps to begin a new life.”
She laughed and said, “You think like Americans, Salah. What new life? At our age we ask God for a good ending.”
“Sometimes I get angry at you.”
“Why?”
“Because you brought about our separation.”
“That’s ancient history.”
“I can’t help thinking about it.”
“What good would that do now?”
“Why did you leave me, Zeinab?”
“It was you who decided to emigrate.”
“You could’ve convinced me to stay.”
“I tried but you were determined.”
“Why didn’t you come with me?”
“I can’t leave Egypt.”
“If you’d really loved me, you would’ve come with me.”
“It’s absurd to disagree now about what happened thirty years ago.”
“Do you still think I am a coward?”
“Why do you insist on bringing back bad memories?”
“Don’t be evasive: am I a coward in your opinion?”
“If I considered you a coward, I wouldn’t have had a relationship with you.”
“The last time we met you said: ‘I regret to tell you that you’re a coward.’”
“We were quarreling so I had a slip of the tongue.”
“That sentence gave me pain for years.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t think it was a slip of the tongue.”
“What exactly do you want?”
“Your real opinion: am I a coward in your view?”
“Duty dictated that you stay in Egypt.”
“You’ve stayed; what was the result?
“I wasn’t waiting for any results.”
“Not one goal that you struggled for has been accomplished.”
“But I did my duty.”
“To no avail.”
“At least I didn’t run away.”
Her words had a heavy impact. They both fell silent until she whispered in an apologetic tone, “Sorry, Salah. Please don’t be angry with me. It was you who insisted on talking about this.”
Chapter 33
It was as though a muscle in Dr. Ra’fat Thabit’s face had contracted forever, giving his features a look of indelible bitterness, as if he were carrying a heavy burden that slowed his steps and crooked his back, replacing his former sprightly athletic gait. He lost his ability to concentrate and seemed most of the time to be staring at nothing. Only one question weighed down on him: Where had Sarah disappeared to? He looked for her everywhere to no avail. Had she escaped with Jeff to another city? Has she been attacked by a gang in Oakland? There were crimes in Chicago’s poor black neighborhoods that were discovered only by chance; some might never be discovered. He asked himself: What has happened to you, Sarah? I will never forgive myself if anything bad happened to you. How cruel I was with you! How could I have insulted you like that?
After a few days of strenuous searching he decided to inform the police. He was met by a polite black officer who listened to his story with interest, then sighed and said, “Sorry, sir. I’m a father like you and I appreciate your feelings, but your daughter is now an adult and, under the law, is a free citizen who has the right t
o go wherever she wants. So there’s no legal justification at this point to look for her if she’s missing.”
Ra’fat went back home, despondent, and found Michelle lying on the sofa in the living room. She looked at him blankly and asked him, “What did you do?”
He told her in a soft voice, then sat next to her and held her hand. They looked at that moment like an old couple whose long life together enabled them to communicate without words. The ordeal had brought them closer, and they had stopped fighting. They were brought together by an instinctive solidarity, like that uniting people facing a fire or a natural disaster. She removed his hand gently and said as she got up, “Is there anything we can do?”
“I’ll publish an ad.”
“You think she’d read it?”
“I remember that sometimes she read ads in newspapers.”
She looked at him for a long time then hugged him. He felt her body shaking, so he tried to console her and calm her down. He walked her to bed then returned and threw himself on the sofa. He had a splitting headache, and a heavy sense of dejection was choking him. Since Sarah’s disappearance he couldn’t sleep without a sleeping pill and was unable to do anything, night or day. He repeatedly missed his classes, and the chairman, Dr. Friedman, called him to a meeting and said to him with a smile, “Ra’fat, all of us in the department understand the situation. Please let us do something to help a little. If you feel you’re not up to giving a class, all you have to do is let me know beforehand and we’ll manage.”
It was a magnanimous gesture from colleagues that he had worked with for twenty years, but he knew that such magnanimity was not going to last forever. His contract with the university would end in April, and if he went on like that they wouldn’t renew it no matter how sympathetic they were. Work was work, and many professors with degrees and experience like his, and maybe better, would love to get their hands on his position. He got up slowly and took the sleeping pill. He had forty minutes to fall asleep. What was he going to do? Deep down he knew that he would do what he did every night: he was going to pour himself a double drink (in defiance of his doctor’s warning against combining liquor and sleeping pills). He would take out the large photo album that Michelle kept in the living room next to the piano. He would drink and look at the old pictures. The happy days were all there: days of love and youth, a picture of him and Michelle embracing in Lincoln Park, another on New Year’s Eve at Davie’s Club. What year was that? He’d find the date stamped on the back of the photo. Soon Sarah would begin to make an appearance in the pictures: first as a baby, then in the blue navy suit he had bought her for her fifth birthday, then an entrancing picture of her playing with her bike in the garden. He looked at her laughing face: how beautiful she was! Where was she now?
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