Girls auctioning themselves off has resonance for me, and I long to give one or two of them advice. Needless to say, I cannot, but I eavesdrop on conversations and try to discover how the madness is supposed to work. I am relieved to discover that they are meant to be wearing racy underwear, which is not for sale. Nor are the girls. The Honourable George was coy about this point over the past few weeks, but it seems to have been made clear tonight. I don’t know why this concerned me so. There are plenty of other women in Alidar making grievous errors of the heart, and I feel no mission to them. I suppose it is simply the way my anxiety expresses itself.
Mubarek and his son arrive at eight thirty, circulate and withdraw. Everywhere they move they are surrounded with respect, but the rest of the party goes on as if they are not present. Ibrahim is in his uniform, complete with pistol. I mention this to Philip. “He’s on duty,” he says. No one else remarks on it. I am not sure many people in Alidar even notice Ibrahim.
Around ten thirty we get our first casualty. A pirate falls down the steps from the terrace to the pool and cuts his hand. A woman dressed as a nurse, who turns out actually to be a nurse, patches him up. At eleven a mermaid who flies for Qantas manages to get thrown into the pool, and pulls a clown in with her. At eleven fifteen, two nice young men with stencilled T-shirts offer to pay me two dinars apiece to kiss them. “You are the best looking woman here,” one of them says, “and we decided you weren’t likely to pay us.” I can’t refuse. I also have to admit the attention pleases me. Fatima claps, so I give her my four dinars and suggest she let them earn it back. This is impossible, of course, but she finds the idea exciting beyond words.
Then something extraordinary happens. I decide I should find the Honourable George and tell him what a good host he is, and as I am looking for him, there is a kind of stirring in the crowd. Someone has entered the ballroom dressed in a chador. I look back at Philip, and I realise he has guessed who it is. I don’t think she had warned him.
She moves slowly around the room, leaving a wake of interrupted conversations. The band stops playing. I assume everyone is having the same thought. After a minute or two, she arrives at the table where the yellow corsages are – there are extras “in case of volunteers,” George had explained – picks one of them up and tries to put it on. She is struggling with the pin, so I walk over and help her. “Hello, darkness,” I say. She makes no answer. Nor does she thank me. It has become reasonably quiet now. She turns to face the room, and with a quick motion throws the black silk off her head and onto her shoulders. Her blond hair and the yellow flowers blink at each other. People applaud, cry out, laugh nervously, laugh drunkenly. The music resumes. No one actually comes over to her. Ever alert, George fills the gap. “Can I get you a drink?” he says. “Thank you,” she says brightly. “Mineral water.” I drift away.
I have to admit that Mrs. Baxter has made a courageous entrance, and it is affecting to watch her glancing over at Philip, out from among the friends and strangers now milling around her. I have returned to his side, so I see her full face. It is foolish for her to be jealous of me. I can tell from how hard he is working not to look back.
“I had better congratulate her on her costume,” he says finally.
He leaves me. We had not actually spoken for some minutes.
It is interesting what is troubling the crowd. Her costume is in the worst possible taste, but that was to be expected, and that is not it. It is the fact that she is naked underneath her costume – which she has committed herself to remove in a few minutes. It is quite easy to see this when you are close to her.
Now, people do not fear nakedness, in my experience. What they fear is madness. And that is what they think of when they see the contours of her breast against the silk. The proximity of the two stunts is troubling. There has always been an expectation that interesting things will happen at this party. At a pinch, there is the swimming pool, which could provide an excuse for toplessness. But it is all supposed to be lighthearted, humans allowing each other to be naughty, to have something to remember when they’re old. And properly done, a costume party always produces a certain frisson. Miyoko dressed as an airhostess, for example. That’s cute. Everyone knows how many of them she has found boyfriends for. Tonight, the fantasy is more overt. Ian in blackface as Isa. I suspect few realise how witty that is, but they know that something is going on below the surface, and it makes them happy to be here. What is happening underneath Mrs. Baxter’s black silk, however, is upsetting. Nudity at this party is supposed to be unpremeditated. It is clear the American girl is insane.
Philip returns. “I’ve got to get her out of here,” he says.
“I don’t know how you’ll do it,” I say.
“Abdulrahman, do you think you could get George to delay the auction?”
“Why?” Abdulrahman has not yet been to speak to Mrs. Baxter.
Philip glances at Fatima for a moment. “She has nothing on underneath,” he says.
“Well, she’s got the figure for it,” says Abdulrahman.
Fatima slaps him playfully on the wrist.
The auction is announced. There is a burst of whooping and clapping as everyone moves outside to where a platform has been erected. I am so conscious of Philip’s distress that I focus only gradually on how the proceedings work. George himself is the auctioneer. The girls are going for around seventy-five dinars. The winning bidder has to come up on the platform and collect the costume as the girl takes it off. The red panties, spangled bras and Edwardian corsets make their appearance. The applause is gratifying. The girls grin and curtsey. One or two put on T-shirts as soon as they are off the stage, but most have the courage to stand around in their underwear, being admired.
George has the sense not to save Mrs. Baxter for last. People murmur as she mounts the stage. She has made an enormous bet with herself. Her smile is rigid. The crowd applauds as “lot number eight” is announced. “Very fine silk. Not suitable for a wedding, but otherwise quite versatile. May I hear an opening bid?”
There is a moment’s silence. Mrs. Baxter is bad luck.
“Who will start the bidding?” George says again. I can see that he is scanning the crowd for help. It is a shame he is an escaped felon, or whatever it is. He has nice instincts.
Philip takes a step away from me and raises his hand. George acknowledges him.
“Two hundred dinars,” says Philip. “And I’ll take her as she is.”
It is time for me to vanish. As Philip goes forward, I smile to Fatima and leave. The car and the pair of soldiers are there as promised. I have always preferred to bet on certainties.
On the seat of the car there is a small box, wrapped in shiny foil as Mubarek’s presents always are. It is his signet ring. “You needn’t wear this,” says his note, meaning that I shouldn’t, “but keep it with you.”
36
Sex with Philip Cooper was not what Allison expected. He wouldn’t even speak to her in the car, but she was in shock with relief, so it didn’t matter much. When they got to her house, he undressed immediately, standing in her living room, berating her for her “idiotic stunt,” but otherwise neglecting her. “What would you have done if I’d been in the men’s room when they auctioned you off? Or if I’d just let you hang? You have a nice body, Mrs. Baxter, but showing it to five hundred people would have been excessive.” He walked down the hall to her bedroom, leaving her standing there still wearing the chador.
After a minute he called out: “Take off that ridiculous costume and get in here.”
Allison felt hurt. It wasn’t a costume, it was a uniform. She’d killed people wearing it – and rather skilfully. But she couldn’t say that. So she left the black silk in a puddle on the floor and obeyed. At least he let her turn off the bedroom lights.
He wouldn’t kiss her but he used every other part of her body, taking her to the edge of bliss and back again like a lion tamer.
“Could we just…?” she said.
“No, we could
not,” he said. No further explanation. Another visit to the precipice. Another retreat. “What’s the matter, Mrs. Baxter? Is your husband away a lot? Does he neglect you when he comes home?”
“My husband is a gentleman.”
“Well, I am not. I run in the desert. I have killed eleven men. I can do this all night and give neither of us release if I choose. You have been a foolish woman, tempting me, Mrs. Baxter. I will make you desperate.”
“You already have,” said Allison, gasping.
“This is only the first night,” he said.
But after an hour or so, he let their gasping become sighs. After which they lay next to each other in silence.
“I have great difficulty,” he said finally, “letting go.”
“You’re fantastic,” she said, but he didn’t seem interested in that.
After a bit, he rolled onto his side and began to embrace her, but she stopped him, holding up her hand. Then she walked across his chest with her first two fingers. Slowly. He got the point. So he kissed every part of her as she presented it, beginning with silly places like her elbows and her feet. It was childish of her, but it made her feel loved. She wanted badly to be loved. They were pretty thorough about it, which she liked.
Two exceptionally handsome people doing awkward things to each other in a bed are a symbol of innocence in a complicated world. Allison was astonished when this thought occurred to her, as Philip performed a contortion to get at the back of her knee. She hadn’t had many visions. Nor had she previously associated sex with laughter. It had always been high drama. So this was new. Her whole body felt new. O Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
“Suppose I were to tell you,” Allison said into the kindly darkness, “that there were some awkward bits to my past? Hypothetically, that is.”
“A child?”
“No, no, no, no, no. Something really lurid.”
“Like?”
“Jewel theft.”
“Interesting.”
“Or...a year as a call girl.”
“To put yourself through college.”
“Right,” she said. “Or membership in a secret international organisation...”
“With nefarious purposes.”
“...signified by this tattoo.” Allison switched on the lamp on her bedside table.
“I thought it was a birthmark.”
“Well, it’s a tattoo, and I am not going to tell you how I got it, but the sorority was expelled from campus.”
“What did you do to the other girls?”
“The problem was what we did to the boys,” she said.
“Tell,” said Philip. He had rolled on his side and was facing her.
“Well, we had this tame tattoo artist in town, and if someone’s date passed out – and we sort of encouraged drinking at our parties – we’d get Ozro to make a house call.”
“Ozro was the tattoo fellow?”
“Right.”
“So go on.”
“Where do you think?”
“On his ass.”
“Right.”
“What sort of things?”
“‘Cupcake’ was a favourite. Sometimes just a heart with an arrow.”
“What a stunt.”
“Yes, well, it turns out that tattooing an unconscious person is considered assault in the State of Pennsylvania, and yours truly got to spend six months in the Women’s Correctional Institution.” Allison paused. “And it was not a nice place, and that is where I actually got this tattoo, courtesy of a couple of sassy black pickpockets who had decided they were Moslems and didn’t like my attitude.”
“Hypothetically,” said Philip after a moment.
Allison pulled back the sheet so he could see it. “Right,” she said.
“How did you explain it to Tommy?”
“I lied. I told him it was a prank in high school. I didn’t think he could handle the idea of prison.”
“How did you explain its being in Arabic?”
“I don’t remember,” she said. “But men believe what they want. That’s why they make good heroes.”
“And women?”
“Women believe in nothing. That’s why they make good criminals.”
37
I do not like being in prison. The chain attached to my foot is not long enough for me to sit with my back against the wall. I have not previously had occasion to think of leaning against a wall as a luxury, but if you are denied it, you come to this view within about fifteen minutes. In the end there is nothing to do but lie on your back in the middle of the cell.
Ibrahim takes the position that I am the Lady Assassin. I am the right height, I live in the right place, and my father was a policeman, so presumably I know how to handle a pistol. Also, inconveniently, I am left-handed, which several citizens are willing to attest the individual who shot their prime minister also was. I do not think Ibrahim believes I did it. But for some reason it is useful to charge me with the crime. Situations like this have a way of slipping downhill. I am scared, actually.
When His Highness was in my small house I explained to him about auras. In retrospect, it seems rather silly. He has presence. Correction: he has presence he is able to conceal. This is a serious talent, and one I understand. Creeping up on a man sexually is one of the ways to make him unable to resist you. You look crisp or lost or whatever instinct tells you he thinks he wants a girl to be, and when he is close enough to swallow, you turn into what he really wants. Lots of fun, actually.
I’ve known a couple of professional athletes – golfer, tennis player, I think that was it – and what they both readily admitted (which I liked) was that the availability of girls, including me (I was much younger then) was as nothing compared to the joy of exercising their particular skills. They liked hitting balls in the way balls wanted to be hit. They never tired of it. As it happens, I was able to help relieve their tensions in other ways, which they liked, and so did I – athletes are gorgeous, basically – but we knew no woman could be either man’s first love. Which is also true of Ibrahim.
Ibrahim is a warrior. He is so dedicated to his craft that he would probably be prepared to look simple all of his life, just to be able to surprise one or two enemies. It would have been useful to discover this earlier, but anyway, that’s what he is.
And Philip? A warrior to be sure, but something more. I keep remembering him naked in my sitting room, looking like a lost god. I have never been so directly cruel before. Were we acting out a myth? Was it inspiration or lurking madness? How is he different from the others I have served, that I needed to wound him so?
Philip mentioned earlier tonight the photograph Mubarek showed me. It seems it was sent to Philip and he took it to the king. He originally assumed it came from the American spy agency, but now he’s not sure. He thinks the Arthur person was surprised by what happened. I did not see this in the Arthur person, but Philip knows him better than I do. I go through all this in my mind, trying to convince myself that Ibrahim knows I did not kill Fawzi. They have by tradition some nasty ways of executing people in Alidar, sometimes breaking their hands and feet with hammers before they strangle them, for example. Mubarek has whispered about this. “My enemies must not think I am a softie,” he says. He thinks he is confessing but he is also bragging. Men are like that.
If he needs to touch up his courage with a furtive boast, I cannot blame him. I know I should admire the way His Majesty has been sitting still, watching the threat from Zaathah grow, with nothing to confront it but his son’s toy army, hoping he won’t need to ask the Americans for help, knowing he probably will and hoping that when the time comes they don’t procrastinate. I just wish he were crazy brave, to be honest, like my father was. I wish he’d come and rescue me.
Regarding the Americans, I had an interesting conversation – or maybe it was a disturbing conversation – with the Honourable George a couple of weeks ago. He says anyone in Alidar who thinks the Americans will save them
is foolish. Their diplomats are still hostages in Tehran, their spy agency has been firing its own clandestine operators – this being part of the backlash, he says, against Vietnam and Mr. Nixon’s dirty tricks – and their president, Mr. Carter, is a “goody-goody.” Now, the Honourable George is some sort of criminal, I know, and being an English aristocrat he is instinctively suspicious of virtue, but he has a point. So perhaps Mubarek’s strategy does not depend on the Americans. I hope he has a strategy.
I gave Ibrahim the ring Mubarek gave me. “Please return this to your father. If I am going to be executed, I would not want it found among my belongings.”
“He gave it to you?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent.”
He says this as if my having the ring were part of his plan. If you have read any history, you know that being part of someone else’s plan is not auspicious. Especially if your part begins with being put in jail.
38
Allison stood at the bathroom mirror, still glowing from her night with Philip. He had left while she was asleep, which made the whole thing seem like a dream. But it wasn’t. He had left his necktie behind. She’d put it around her neck while she made herself breakfast.
All that was left now was to kill the Zaathi. She was sure she’d have the opportunity. Maloof would have had adherents at the prom, so he would have heard all about it. Allison had made herself conspicuous. The Zaathi would want to know why.
Submission Page 18
