Arms for Adonis

by Charlotte Jay

  ‘And you say thirty pounds is all you have in the world?’ He had suddenly arrested their abandoned dash through the city and now, heedless of the irate honking of motorists behind him, crawled along in the middle of the road. Again he turned to look at her. ‘That’s very little money. You are beautiful. Doesn’t some man provide for you?’ Before Sarah could answer, he said, ‘Why are you carrying all you own around in your handbag. And if you were going to book a seat on a plane, what were you doing in the suk?’

  Exasperated beyond words, Sarah shrugged her shoulders. To relieve her feelings she looked him over with a critical eye, noting everything she found to disapprove of. There was practically nothing that did not fall to her condemnation. The sapphire ring. Another jewel winked in his tie which was in any case hideous. A faint perfume—a mixture of some musky scent and Turkish tobacco—wafted from him. He was the opulent East brought up-to-date. Ostentation run riot. His car: what, she demanded contemptuously, could anyone want with such a car, except to shove other people off the road? She imagined his women, and there would be many of them, dressed by a foremost French couturier, made up by specialists from Elizabeth Arden, but still in purda probably, a purda brightened with rock-and-roll and cocktail bars. Who is he? A wealthy playboy? And what does he want from me?

  Again he glanced at the rear-vision mirror, and it struck her fleetingly that something was happening that she did not understand. They were driving slowly along the Corniche. It was more open here—the road wide, with trees growing along the sea’s edge. The day had turned sultry, and people were bathing off the rocks by the lighthouse. Fishing boats drifted on a sea so calm their slowly moving prows dragged it like scissors pulling blue silk. Sarah turned to look behind them. A vendor with a flat tray and big circular loaves of sesame bread wandered along under the trees calling out his wares in a voice so melancholy it seemed to mourn the sorrows of the world. A car followed, but it did not gain on them, a taxi—she could tell by the red number plate—with a Muslim driver, for there was a large picture of Colonel Nasser stuck on the side of the windscreen.

  ‘You are imagining that taxi is following us?’ she said.

  ‘Who can say? When people start throwing bombs, who can say where it will end?’ He slackened his speed further. The taxi gained on them and went past. There were two men in the back.

  ‘I don’t want to argue with you,’ said Sarah. ‘It was kind of you to pick me up and I’m grateful to you, but the loss of my bag is really important to me.’

  ‘What a lot you think of money.’

  ‘One has to,’ she replied evenly, trying to keep her temper, ‘when one has only thirty pounds.’

  But she had ceased to care. After all, what was thirty pounds? If it had been a hundred there might have been something to lament. Now I shall be stuck here for weeks, she thought, straightening up this mess. The British Embassy, another passport, arguing with the airways about the lost ticket. It was too exhausting to think about. She yawned and felt sleepy. The morning had been altogether too much. Leaving Marcel, treading in a puddle of blood, bombs going off, no passport and now this peculiar man. What was he up to? Where were they going? Well, he had picked her up and, short of throwing herself out of the window, there was no way of getting away from him for the present. Sarah brushed dirt off her frock, straightened her hair and wished she had not lost her lipstick. Anyway, I can’t possibly leave for days, she thought. I may be stuck here until the end of summer.

  ‘I really think,’ she said, ‘that I would at least like to report the loss of my bag to the police. Couldn’t we do that?’

  To her surprise, for so far he had not been very co-operative, he said, ‘Yes, we should do that.’ Stopping the car he slipped into reverse; they went shooting off backwards towards the end of the Corniche and turned up a side street.

  At first Sarah assumed that they would be going to a police station, or perhaps to the British Embassy in the direction of which, dodging through narrow lanes, they were now making their way. But when they eventually stopped it was in a narrow street of cafés and small expensive shops. Her companion got out and opened the door for her.

  ‘Please come this way.’

  Sarah hesitated. ‘Where are we going? I want the police. This isn’t a police station.’

  ‘Please leave everything to me,’ he said, suddenly solicitous. ‘Your life has been threatened. This has been a great shock to you. You shall sit here and drink a cup of coffee while I arrange everything.’

  She submitted meekly. It struck her for a moment as being incautious to enter the small, dark doorway of a strange building with an unknown Syrian, but caution had played little part in her affairs that morning and there seemed no point in clutching at it now. To go on was to face, perhaps, some interesting development in her fortunes. To turn back would merely confront her with tedious realities.

  C H A P T E R 3

  The house they entered was not, it turned out, in the least sinister. A rather charming café-restaurant, one of those slightly dilapidated-looking places where the food would probably be good. They went up a rickety stairway and came out onto a terrace overlooking the street. Wooden lattices enclosed it on three sides, and vines, from which bunches of hard green grapes hung down, rambled on a trellis overhead. There were tables set about, geraniums in boxes and a potted oleander covered in pink blossom. A cat dozed in a chair and a brown hen with stony-yellow eyes clucked and pecked about under the tables.

  ‘Please sit down here.’ The Syrian pulled back a chair for her and stood commandingly behind it. Not a very attractive table, thought Sarah, who would have liked to sit near the edge of the terrace, where she could look through the lattice at any view there might be, instead of being jammed up in a corner by the cash desk and a jukebox, which at any moment somebody may take it into his head to play. But she sat down obediently and looked about her.

  There were only three other people in the café. A young couple, looking French and fashionable, the man with his hair cut en brosse, the girl in a sleeveless cotton frock, sat whispering, their heads close together; and in a corner a man in a grey suit and a fez, who sat alone drinking beer and eating black olives, cream cheese and tabouli from an array of little dishes.

  Sunlight and the pointed shadows of vine leaves flickered on the check tablecloths. A ladybird fell from the trellis above onto the back of Sarah’s hand. The Syrian went to the desk and banged a bell. He was very tall, she noticed, and ridiculously wide across the shoulders. He seemed to know he was handsome and walked menacingly, like a panther. She watched him appreciatively as he created a stir around him.

  A waiter appeared, was sent away and returned with a fat, heavy-eyed, unshaven man in pyjamas, who seemed to be the proprietor. Two more waiters came with a writing pad and envelopes, a telephone which they plugged into a connection by the desk, and two cups of Turkish coffee. The fat man in pyjamas listened while the Syrian talked, and then talked while the Syrian, staring at his manicured nails, appeared not to listen. This conversation was in Arabic, and Sarah could make nothing of it. She drank the coffee and felt refreshed.

  She began to wonder idly what she would do now. Perhaps the wisest course would be to return to Marcel, and Sarah was not above giving consideration to this. But only for a moment. It had not been the fact of his infidelity that had angered her, but the manner of it. He had seemed, when they had discussed the affair the night before, to be breaking her in, cynically, to habits of promiscuity that would become common practice as she learned to tolerate them. And now, after the incident in the suk, his appeal for her was even more diminished. It had been made clear to her that she lived in a world where bombs were thrown and blood ran in the gutters. In such a world one wanted someone of sterner calibre than Marcel for a life’s companion.

  In any case there was no need to turn to him, for there was always Nadea. Nadea would put her up, would lend her money; Nadea would love to be imposed upon. It would be like turning the clock back to her fir
st days in Lebanon before she had been such an idiot as to fall in love with Marcel.

  The ladybird took flight from the back of her hand. She leaned back and looked at the vine leaves—translucent, glass-green against the sky. She felt drowsy and happy, yes, extraordinary as it was, happier than she had felt for months. It was a relief to have made the break, so long impending, from Marcel. In the meantime the Syrian was looking after everything. He was rather nice, in spite of his pink car. And so handsome. She supposed he must be a person of importance, at least within the confines of this restaurant. Waiters, at his instigation, were running up and down stairs. Now he was on the telephone talking to the police—she supposed it was the police.

  She listened but understood nothing.

  He looked up and said, ‘What is your name, please?’ He pushed across a writing pad and handed her a pen from his pocket.

  She wrote her name clearly in block letters: Sarah Lane. An honest-to-God simple English name, she thought with satisfaction. It was good to claim it back again.

  He had been watching her attentively but now broke out with an impatient, ‘Yes, yes—’ and began talking on the telephone again. Sarah watched the shadows of the vine leaves on the floor. The speckled hen, clucking, came toward them. What a lot they want to know, she thought. At last he hung up. Again she felt his speculative gaze upon her. It contained little admiration and did not flatter her. It filled her with a vague discomfort; there was a brooding thought in his eyes that she could not read.

  ‘Will I have to make a statement and sign it or something?’

  ‘Perhaps later—not now. Now you will choose a bag, please.’

  She turned and started to see a young man carrying an armful of handbags standing beside her. He stepped forward smartly and put his wares on the table. ‘Good morning, Madame! We have a very large stock of the finest quality handbags. I have brought with me a small selection. If you are not satisfied with these you can step downstairs to our shop.’

  ‘No! No!’ cried the Syrian, looking murderous.

  ‘No?’ The youth, startled, blinked his large, long-lashed eyes, but recovered quickly. ‘This is Italian leather, Madame, the finest quality. These all arrived from Europe only last month.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sarah, ‘but I couldn’t possibly.’

  ‘Please, Miss.’ The Syrian broke into English. He spoke quietly and with a queer earnestness. ‘I have been the cause of loss to you. If you refuse to do as I say you will humiliate me. Tell me, which one do you like?’

  ‘Well, I like that one, but—’

  ‘Say no more,’ he said scowling.

  ‘If you will just let me finish—’

  ‘Enough!’ said the Syrian.

  The young shopkeeper had discreetly faded off, leaving the chosen handbag behind him. Under the table the speckled hen chose that moment to peck at the nail polish on Sarah’s toes. She kicked out at it viciously and set it, squawking and shedding feathers, into some potted shrubs.

  ‘Please don’t shout at me,’ she said. ‘I have no intention of taking the handbag. What’s more I am going now—’

  The man’s mad, she thought. His hands were trembling. A bank of grey pallor outlined his beautiful mouth. She pushed back her chair, but his hand shot out and gripped her wrist. ‘You will not go,’ he whispered.

  ‘Let me go!’ she cried.

  To her surprise the fingers gripping her wrist relaxed a little. He leaned forward over the table and said in a low voice, ‘Lady, please stay with me.’ Then after a pause he said, ‘There is something I must tell you. I would have told you before but I thought it might frighten you. I know now that you are honest and brave and will not repeat what I am going to tell you.’

  Sarah was not sure whether or not she wanted to be told. ‘That’s all right,’ she said, gently withdrawing her hand; and then wishing she hadn’t. All she could think to say was, ‘I’ll take the handbag if you want me to. But I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  He said quietly, ‘There is a man in this city who has hired assassins to kill me. The bomb in the suk was for me and, when it went off, I saw you there. I knew that with you beside me he would make no further attack on me. He, and I too, do not want western powers directing our destiny. The last thing he wants is to give others an excuse to interfere, and so not only you were safe; I was too. Will you walk across there and look down into the street?’

  The request came so abruptly she sat staring for a moment before obeying.

  ‘Please.’

  She got up; making her way through the tables, she came to the open lattice on the edge of the terrace and looked down. The houses on either side of the street blocked the sunlight out; they were old French-style buildings with tawny plastered walls streaked with pale pink and blue where paint had run down from the wooden shutters. Washing flapped about on the flat roofs. There were few people about; the pink car was parked where they had left it in front of the restaurant and one of the waiters, evidently standing guard over it, leaned against the front mudguard; an itinerant vendor selling green almonds and apricots trundled his barrow along the centre of the road. Some fifty yards further down stood a green car, a taxi, with a coloured photograph of Colonel Nasser on the windscreen.

  Sarah turned and walked back to the table. ‘All I can see is a taxi, a green car.’

  ‘They have followed me.’

  For a moment she too had thought this, but the suspicion, put into words, seemed too far-fetched to be taken seriously.

  He leaned forward and, with his hand on her wrist, said softly, ‘Please stay with me.’

  A long silence followed.

  ‘How long do you want me to stay with you?’ she asked.

  She had expected him to say, Till next Monday, or, Till the end of the month, and was a little dashed when he replied, ‘Till half past twelve.’

  She looked at her watch. It was 11:30. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because then I have an appointment.’

  ‘I see,’ she said. ‘Well, I don’t mind.’ She lapsed into silence.

  The noise of Beirut—the rush of traffic and honking of horns—came up muffled from the streets outside. But the café was quiet and peaceful. The Syrian had taken pen and paper and was bending over the table, writing quickly. For some time the only sound was the low murmur of the young couple in the corner. The moments ticked by. Sarah became conscious of a feeling of unreality. What have I got myself into, she thought. She looked up to find his eyes upon her. He had finished writing and held two letters in sealed envelopes in his hand.

  ‘Sarah,’ he said, ‘is a Muslim name. Sarah was Abraham’s wife.’

  Sarah stiffened defensively. Not because there was any impertinence in his manner, but because his dark, steady regard disturbed her.

  ‘It’s a Jewish name too,’ she said. ‘Abraham was a Jew.’

  The retort, once made, struck her as outrageously foolhardy. He’ll murder me, she thought, but his expression did not change.

  ‘Jesus was a Jew too.’

  Sarah smiled back. ‘Yes, but I don’t mind.’

  ‘That’s true. You English are cold-blooded. You don’t mind anything.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. We just don’t waste our passions. We make sure that the things we mind about are worth our notice.’ A fine one I am to talk, she thought.

  ‘That’s true too. We do not always know the difference between important and unimportant things. I have been to Europe. It is easier there. Your history has sorted these things out for you. You think you are wiser than we are, but it is your fathers who were wise, not you. You simply enjoy your inheritance. You laugh at us.’

  ‘I’m not laughing.’

  ‘Of course you are! Yet it is we who should laugh. We have covered more ground than you.’

  ‘So it’s all a matter of speed and distance is it? That’s why you drive such a big car.’

  He scowled at her. ‘Yes, for us it is speed and distance. Now will you please see if
the taxi is still there?’

  Ordering me around again, thought Sarah, as she rose to obey him. She went to the lattice and looked down into the street. When she returned to the table he was slipping the gold pen back into his pocket.

  ‘I knew you were alarmed for nothing. It’s gone.’

  ‘Then we can go, but first I must make another phone call.’

  Not Lebanon, thought Sarah. Too many digits. The Syrian spoke quietly and gently. What a lovely language Arabic can be. Sweet, tender, lilting. If I stay here—and heaven knows why I thought of leaving—I must learn it. Who is he talking to? I think it must be a woman.

  Then she, startled, looked at him, to find that he was looking at her. She had heard him speak her name.

  The conversation continued for about fifteen minutes, then, replacing the receiver, he said, ‘Now we can go. Will you look down at the street?’

  He was not, he told her, going to drop her off at Rue Jeanne d’Arc but at the place where he himself was going for his appointment. He apologised for this discourtesy, but it would be more prudent, he explained, for her to stay with him for as long as possible. In any case she would not be greatly inconvenienced, for Rue Jeanne d’Arc was only a few streets away.

  They drove along the tramline past the American University and turned toward Rue el Hamra. They passed some fruit stalls and a travel agency, and turned into Rue Zahle.

  It was a short, one-way street connecting two larger, busier roads. Down these the traffic rushed with its usual abandon, but Rue Zahle was empty and quiet. The pavements and garden walls looked white hot in the sunlight, the shadows dark and cool, like pools of water. The street contained one tall, narrow block of flats in the process of being built, with a good deal of rubble lying around it, a few small shops that sold cigarettes and vegetables, and some large houses set back in gardens. Outside one of these the car came to a halt. Through an iron gateway set in the stone wall Sarah could see pomegranate and loquat trees.

  There were few people about, for it was getting towards the hottest part of the day. Some children were playing in the rubble by the new block of flats; in the shops across the street a fat man dozed behind a counter displaying earthenware bowls of leban and slabs of white sour cheese. There were no other cars in the street and the only pedestrian was an old man who hobbled along the pavement toward them, an extremely ancient and bent–up figure wearing a long, stripped flannel nightshirt, a nightcap with a tassel and large, floppy slippers.