Too Much Too Soon

by Jacqueline Briskin

  “How’s my wife?”

  “Good, fine, wonderful.” And at this moment, in their clinch, her boring, sleep-squandered days did indeed seem tinged by a roseate light.

  “Miss me?”

  “Mmm,” she said, kissing the flat spot on his nose. “Let me think about it. Want a drink?”

  “Later,” he said. “Right now I could kill for a bath.”

  He lounged in the rusty water that cost more than gasoline in Lalarhein while Joscelyn perched on the closed toilet seat, watching his face as he told her about his week’s progress on the pipeline.

  Her mind automatically analyzed and sorted the information, but her attention was fixed on him. Lighter-brown patches where the skin had peeled on his wide shoulders were the only flaw in his magnificent bronze tan. By contrast the skin covered by his work shorts seemed marble white. Between his shield-shaped pelvic bones floated his penis in its wreath of dark hair.

  He pressed his feet hard on the bottom end of the tub—his feet and ankles, being covered by the desert boots, were also white. “There’s a problem that’s come up,” he said.

  She was used to hearing about problems. Laying pipe requires great skill: once large lines are laid and filled with oil it is nearly impossible for them to be lifted or repaired, which was why Curt had sent experienced people to guide the seven hundred local artisans and laborers. Malcolm, the youngest engineer by ten years on the project, agonized over every decision.

  “What is it now?” she asked sympathetically.

  “The stretch we’re doing, the plans call for burying the pipe. But I’m not sure it should be buried, just not sure at all.” There was a boyish appeal in his tone.

  “Have you run into rock?” Excavation in rocky ground cost a fortune.

  “No, but some geologist sure as hell goofed. Near the ridge the ground’s very saline.”

  “Salt, mmm. Then what choice is there? You can’t bury pipe where it’ll be corroded.”

  “But what about Heinrichman?” Heinrichman, in charge of the entire project, thrust out his large belly and questioned every on-site decision made by his engineers in a loud, argumentative voice. “When he finds out he’ll hang me out to dry.”

  “Malcolm, all you have to do is explain to him about the aggressive soil. He’ll be grateful.”

  “Think so?” Malcolm asked uncertainly.

  “I’m positive.” She was standing. “Ready for me to scrub your back?”

  “Be my guest.”

  She wielded the loofah vigorously to loosen the top layer of skin and engrained sand, then massaged in the soap with her hands, moving slower and more sensually as she worked her way downward to his waist.

  “Hey,” he said, looking down. “Look at what you’ve done.”

  “Time to adjourn to the bedroom,” she said, holding out her hand to help him from the bath.

  He tugged at her hand. She struggled in his hard grasp a few seconds, then acquiesced, laughing as she splashed atop him. He slipped down her Bermudas and underpants, but left on her dripping shirt. When things were good between them he often initiated one of their crazy games or was adventurous about location and position. They made love like playful seals.

  * * *

  They were at the dinette table eating their ham and carrots au gratin when the phone rang. The instrument sat on the window ledge next to Joscelyn and as she reached for it she was positive she would hear an invitation to one of the liquor-hazed evenings that alternated along the Ivory enclave every weekend. Malcolm shone at these gatherings.

  “Is that you, my little turtle dove?” Fuad asked.

  She felt warmth surge through her. She had always been crazy about Fuad, and here in Lalarhein she cherished him doubly because he—a Moslem who supposedly saw women as lesser beings—respected her for her engineering expertise while the Ivory men smiled with infuriating tolerance whenever she talked shop. “When did you get home?” she asked. Fuad and his family had been traveling in Europe for much of the time she and Malcolm had been in Lalarhein.

  “My little turtle dove, I flew back Monday to be in your arms. Can you and Malcolm come to dinner tomorrow night?”

  “It sounds terrific, Fuad, we’d love to.”

  * * *

  Fuad’s substantial house might have been transported by a djinn from England: crimson brick, numerous prim slate peaks, ornamental chimneys, a plethora of heraldic stained-glass windows, architecture that was at insane odds with the landscape.

  The Edwardian interior was overwhelmed by Fuad’s collection of Lalarheini carpets, which are widely renowned for the exquisite workmanship of their yellow, rose and indigo floral designs and their graceful arabesques. Every inch of floor was covered, on the walls hung small, subtly faded rugs, the numbers woven into their right-hand corners attesting to their antiquity; lustrous silk rugs covered the low divans. The effect was one of exuberantly colorful opulence.

  Fuad came toward them beaming. Joscelyn always needed a minute or so to convince herself that this was indeed Curt’s overweight, corny jokester of an old college buddy. In Los Angeles it had been impossible to believe that Fuad was a genuine prince, while here in Lalarhein, wearing his black bisht banded with gold to indicate his rank, she found it equally impossible to believe that he was anything other than royalty.

  His wife kissed each of them on both cheeks, engulfing them in Jolie Madame.

  “Bonsoir, mes chers,” she said, although neither of the Pecks knew French. Princess Lelith, or Lelith as she had requested they call her, spoke no English. She concealed herself beneath a black abeyya and gutwah whenever she stepped beyond the high mud-brick wall surrounding the property, but in her home she preferred her Parisian wardrobe. The short-waisted, short-skirted red Jacques Fath dress made her look like a chubby little girl with protuberant, warmly affectionate eyes, and to complete the impression she wore a bow-shaped diamond barrette to hold back her hennaed hair.

  A thin man in his twenties was rising from a divan.

  “This is my nephew, Khalid, home from Oxford,” Fuad said.

  Like his uncle, Khalid wore the traditional garments with the regal band of gilt. His skin was smoothly, tautly pale, his brown mustache appeared painted on with a narrow brush, but it was his eyes that Joscelyn noticed. The left eye moved independently of the right, flashing like his aunt’s jewelry.

  Fuad draped his stout arm around Joscelyn. “And this is the sister of my dearest American friend, Curt Ivory—Joscelyn Peck.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Khalid,” Joscelyn said.

  Khalid averted his gaze from her.

  “And this handsome boy, this lucky man, is her husband, Malcolm Peck.”

  “Your highness,” Malcolm said, respectful.

  This must be the manner in which Khalid desired to be addressed, for he held out his hand to Malcolm. “Good evening, Mr. Peck,” he said, adding tersely, “Mrs. Peck.”

  Soft drinks were served. Lelith smiled and nodded, as if urging them to converse without her. Fuad sat next to her, from time to time patting her plump, beringed hand.

  Khalid said to Malcolm, “So you are building our new petrochemical facilities.” His regal tone indicated that the construction was on his property.

  “I’m only one of the Ivory people, your highness.”

  “He’s an engineer on the pipeline,” Joscelyn added.

  Khalid sipped his ginger beer while continuing to look at Malcolm. “In the Trans-Arabian pipeline I’ve heard the steel was fabricated with carbon, manganese, phosphorus, sulfur. Is that information correct?”

  Malcolm nodded, his eyes uncertain. It astonished Joscelyn to realize how little he knew about so similar a project.

  “It is,” Joscelyn said. “Except we’re using a slightly different proportion.”

  “Joscelyn is an engineer, too,” Fuad said. “A Phi Beta Kappa from my old alma mater.”

  “But of course she’s not working on this project, your highness,” Malcolm said to Khali
d. “Now she’s devoting herself to marriage.”

  Dinner, a six-course banquet, was French in flavor except for the entrée, which was the Lalarheini specialty of baby lamb simmered with dates.

  Over the coffee—again French rather than the thick, sweet Mideastern brew, Khalid said, “This oil is a benison for Lalarhein. Now we can have the best of your Western world, yet retain the best of ours.”

  “Khalid, don’t bore our guests with your political views,” Fuad said, but his voice was fond. “My nephew, like all you young people, is a bit of an extremist. He believes our legal system should be based solely on the Sharia.”

  “The same law as the Saudis use,” said Joscelyn. Since her immurement here, she had studied about the Mideast with her old schoolgirl intensity, poring over books and newspapers, erudition that wasn’t worth a hoot in the Ivory enclave, where people had no interest in the locals. “It’s a bit extreme.”

  “The laws were handed down to Mohammed by Allah,” Khalid said.

  “But reverting to Sharia would mean scrapping the bulk of your legal system,” Joscelyn said.

  “A legal system foisted on us by the British,” Khalid retorted. “In the West you treat morality and behavior as a private matter. Sharia treats them as a social concern, the responsibility of the entire society. There were over a thousand murders in your Los Angeles County last year, less then fifty in Saudi, which has a slightly larger population.” The left eye was flashing wildly.

  “Fairly impressive proof of Sharia’s superiority,” Malcolm said.

  Khalid made his first smile. “On the other hand,” he said, “your technology is admirable.”

  “There we agree, Khalid,” Fuad said. “Our country needs a sanitary system, more roads, more schools, a water supply, possibly a university.”

  “And don’t forget a modern airport,” Khalid said. “The Daralam field can’t handle the new jumbo jets. Or the new fighter planes.”

  “Fighter planes . . .?” Joscelyn asked, her voice trailing off as Malcolm gave her a quick, hard glance.

  She picked up her Limoges demitasse cup with trembling fingers, smiling at Lelith.

  30

  As soon as they were in the house, Malcolm hit her on the hip. It wasn’t a hard blow, but like the preliminary jabs a boxer feints at his sparring partner. “Bitch!”

  “Okay. So I opened my mouth at a friend’s house.”

  “You’re such a fucking genius—don’t you know where you are?”

  “I’m in a prefab with plasterboard walls, and if you yell any louder, the entire block will tape us.”

  “You’re in the Mideast.” Now his pitch was low and dangerous. “That’s where you are.” He landed another restrained punch on her arm. “You’ve had your genius nose buried in enough books about the goddamn area, so how come you haven’t read someplace that women don’t mean shit here?”

  “It bugs you that I spoke to that twerpy religious fanatic?”

  “It bugs me that you meet one of the royal family and call him by his first name then tell him his religion goes in for barbarism.”

  “I never said that, I’d die before I hurt Fuad, but since you’ve brought it up, Sharia does include public whippings and beheadings, lopping off a hand or two.”

  Another slap. “Khalid—his highness to you—is hot to build an airport. Talbott’s has been doing a preliminary plan, and so have we.”

  “That’s no big secret. What I fail to see is the connection with his royal highness.”

  “I intend to see we get the job.”

  “Through him?” She gave a snorting laugh. “He just finished college, he’s hardly one of the powers that be.”

  “He’s an Abdulrahman.”

  “Exactly the logic I’d expect from an engineering authority who doesn’t know whether to lay pipe above or below the ground.”

  His eyes glazed, his mouth quivered: he looked like an unjustly whipped child. She sucked in her breath, wishing she could recall her words. Then an angry flush spread across his tanned face to redden his ears. He swung again. This time his blow landed full force in the pit of her stomach. She had no sensation of falling; she was suddenly asprawl on the speckled yellow linoleum. There was no immediate pain. She was too filled with hatred—she had never hated anyone as intensely as she hated Malcolm at this minute.

  He went into the kitchen, returning with an unopened bottle of Johnnie Walker. His footsteps reverberated through her, and her sudden fury evaporated.

  “Malcolm, please don’t go,” she whimpered from the floor. “You know what a mean fighter I am. Please?”

  He didn’t glance at her. The flimsy walls shook as he slammed out. In the reasoning sector of her brain Joscelyn knew her husband had gone to a house identical to his and was ingratiating himself with a group of Americans in various stages of inebriation, but her panicky fear at losing him refused this logic. Was this what she had feared since they had first started dating, the big split?

  Struggling to her feet, she lay down on the bed, breathing shallowly so as not to intensify the stabbing pain below her ribs. The fluorescent green hands of the alarm clock were pointing at ten after two when Malcolm got home. She listened to him go to the bathroom, then fall on the daybed in the other bedroom. Only then did she drop into an uneasy, pain-filled sleep.

  * * *

  One of Malcolm’s most endearing qualities, though, was an inability to hold a grudge. The following Thursday he arrived home from the Q’ram whistling. He hugged her gently, bending to contritely kiss the broad adhesive that the sweet old English doctor in Daralam Square had taped around her rib cage.

  While she was rinsing the dinner dishes, the phone rang. Malcolm took it in the next room. After a minute he pushed open the swinging door.

  “That was Khalid,” he said, grinning triumphantly. “He’ll be here in a half hour.”

  Kalid brought another guest. Though he himself was again dressed traditionally, his companion wore cheap Western clothes that were immensely large for his scrawny frame. The sleeves of his faded blue shirt were rolled up to show small, knotty biceps, his trousers belled out around a waist so thin that he’d wound his belt around twice. Into the worn leather was thrust a revolver that appeared to be a German army surplus, circa World War I.

  “This,” Khalid said with a casual wave of his hand, “is Harb Fawzi.”

  The one-sided introduction told Joscelyn that skinny Harb Fawzi was unimportant, probably a servant. She amended this to be a bodyguard as Fawzi narrowed his eyes to give her and Malcolm a visual frisk.

  Under the intensity of his gaze, Joscelyn frowned uneasily. Then, without a by-your-leave, Fawzi prowled into the dinky bedroom hall, opening the doors and closets before going into the kitchen, where he spoke in sharp Arabic to Yussuf. Joscelyn took a step to rescue her “boy,” but Malcolm’s glance halted her. She remained on the couch, very aware of the tight taping around her ribs.

  Fawzi returned, nodding. Khalid shot him a flashing glance and he sat on one of the ladderback dinette chairs, fingering his gun butt.

  Yussuf served coffee, his head bowed respectfully as he approached Khalid. Joscelyn, as she and Malcolm had prearranged, took her cup to the bedroom, where through the thin walls she could hear voices but no words. After about an hour the big black Lincoln started, purring away in the direction of the mansion-strewn hills.

  Malcolm burst into the bedroom, exhilarated. “Hey, under that costume Khalid’s a regular guy. We got along fabulously.”

  “Know something? Outside of the movies, I never saw anyone wear a handgun tucked into his belt.”

  “Harb Fawzi, you mean? He’s Khalid’s driver. At Oxford Khalid gave some speeches and the Zionists got rambunctious. No violence, but ever since Fawzi’s played bodyguard.”

  “Talk about paranoid. How many Zionists can there be in Lalarhein?”

  “Joss, Khalid’s more important than you think. He has enemies among his own people.”

  I’ll bet he does, Jo
scelyn thought. “Was there any reason for his visit?” she asked.

  “We hit it off the other night.” Malcolm spoke a touch too easily. “He likes to shoot the bull, and we’re about the same age.”

  * * *

  Over the next weeks, Khalid returned five times, and the procedure was always the same: Fawzi, armed and watchful as a lean hound, searched the house while she retired to the bedroom. After the duo left, Malcolm was invariably very up. Joscelyn not only accepted the odd friendship, but exploited it, basking in Malcolm’s sunny mood.

  Once she heard them laughing, and later asked what it was about. “It cracked him up, how Heinrichman settled that problem at the pumping station site with a judicious smear to the right guys from the slush fund.”

  A slush fund was kept by every company doing business in the Mideast, where it was the custom to hand out small sums of cash to expedite business and to prevent harassment. While the pilferage at Pumping Station 1 was not major, every piece of supplies had to be shipped in, and the cost of waiting for replacements was monstrous. Heinrichman’s solution was to give the workers he suspected of robbery extra wages to be “night watchmen.”

  * * *

  As part of their additional benefit package, Ivory employees in Lalarhein had a month’s vacation with a travel bonus.

  In February, Malcolm took off two weeks. He and Joscelyn flew to Paris. At the Orly airport they rented a sardine-can Citroën and carved leisurely through the winter-struck Loire Valley. Malcolm, who had never been in Europe, studied the red Michelin for starred restaurants, he bought stacks of illustrated guides to châteaux, he learned enough about the local wines to order judiciously.

  The second week they returned to Paris, giving up the car and staying in the Hôtel d’Antin, a small, inexpensive place near the Opéra. They strolled, gloved hands entwined, along the Seine embankments, they climbed the steep hills of Montmartre, they gazed entranced at the bright, glowing Impressionist masterpieces in the Jeu de Paume.

  After their visit to this small, magnificently endowed museum, Malcolm invented one of those silly games that lovers play in Paris, taking Joscelyn into art galleries to pretend to select a memento of their vacation, a choice they both knew was vastly out of their range.