CHAPTER 27
December, 1938
Saba prepared for her confrontation. Her fever was gone. The gunshot wounds were closed and free of infection. She was weak compared to her normal condition but much stronger than when the fever had broken twenty-three days ago. The fever’s delirium had worn on her more than the wounds. And the thoughts . . . All the thoughts she wished to blame on the delirium had not abated. Her basement room at Les Demoiselles that had hidden and healed her was in part responsible. Les Demoiselles was not a hospital. Les Demoiselles was a brothel that sold sex, liquor, and hashish. All in copious quantities, more than Saba had witnessed in any of her trips through the capitals of Damascus or Beirut. The smells and sounds of whoring had been constant in the dark hours, fueling her delirium with images and fears and faces and fire in her skin.
The brothel’s patrona, Doña Carmen, a dark, intense woman, was at first Saba’s mother reborn in the fever, then a nurse who became harsh, very harsh, and unused to disagreements. But in the days since the fever had broken, Doña Carmen began to temper her tone, adding distance, speaking little, and no longer looked directly when they spoke. Saba began to exercise and eat. The patrona made it clear she had a business to run. When the patrona was in her barroom, Saba could climb to a loft in the patrona’s apartment and a two-way mirror that allowed a view of the barroom and its brazen stairway to the sex rooms above. There the women serviced Spaniards and Germans and even English businessmen on occasion, men who would be paid handsomely for the Raven’s head.
Doña Carmen was nervous when the English and Germans were in the brothel. The whores never seemed nervous. Saba quailed every day at the men fondling them and yet she watched until she could not. It was as if the delirium that had consumed her in the first days was now pushing her into an abyss populated with the horrible faces of England’s troopers and the sweet smile of Eddie Owen in America. The feelings were corporeal, sexual if she would admit it. She was alternately terrified of her own thoughts and hungry for them. Then so angry she would grab and brandish her weapons at her own fantasies. And the stronger she became, the worse it became. Her salvation would be that the world outside the brothel’s basement demanded her attention. Those thoughts she knew how to process.
On this, her thirtieth day in the brothel’s basement, Saba finished an hour of exercise and silent plotting. She had found a better plan: kidnap Erich Schroeder wherever he might be cornered, then ransom the Nazi to arm her partisans. While she held Schroeder captive, he would provide the necessary information to trap Ghazi bin Faisal and his Army of God. And then she would kill them all.
The plan was a good one, but it would require partners.
Saba exited her basement room, the black keffiyeh in hand. Her face was naked for the first time since she had arrived the brothel. Saba climbed the loft stairs to Doña Carmen’s desk table and stood before her. “You are not the Canarian you say.”
Doña Carmen continued to count the evening’s money.
“An Arab, yes? A Palestinian.”
The sharp look was short and uncontrolled, the eyes scanning only Saba’s hands.
“Please look at me.”
Doña Carmen did, but not fully and not long.
“You think I am her?”
Counting. “It is not for me to know.”
“But you do?”
“No.” Curt. Almost a shout. Doña Carmen hesitated, dropped the money, turned her head, and stared without waver. “If you are not an impostor—a whore like us, who makes a living being what we are not—then . . . then, yes, I worry who you may be. What you are.”
Saba had not expected that from the woman who had kept her alive instead of selling her for a decade of whore’s profits. “You fear I will hurt you or your house?”
The patrona’s eyes jumped away and stayed away. “I fear the poison in your blood that allowed your survival, the violence in your soul, where you have been and where you will go.”
“Yet you allow me to stay?”
Doña Carmen shrugged and told the table, “They say she was raped as a child by many, her family butchered. She wandered unwanted by her own blood, was buried dead in the mountain camps of the French, but rose and became a spirit, a demon, a soul dark enough to kill a man without touching him.” Doña Carmen nodded at her tabletop as she repeated the legend. “She rode as an equal with Khair-Saleh, the Raven. He gave her his name and the desert to bid for Palestine. And some say she does.”
“And this you believe. That a woman can rise from the grave?” Saba was moved, embarrassed as always by those who believed she was so much more than she was.
Doña Carmen looked at Saba. The often harsh, always confident voice cracked. “Are you . . . her?”
Saba hesitated a long moment, unsure if she was. “Yes.”
The patrona clenched as if shocked by an electric current. The jolt passed. She straightened her back and raised her chin. Her eyes closed and she whispered, “Insha’Allah. Then we will have Palestine.”
From that day forward, the trade between the two women was a simple one, one Doña Carmen knew well but rarely indulged. She saw in Saba the terrified desire to become a woman, to understand a man and to drown honestly in his affection. Whoring taught the opposite, to steel one’s self from affection while acting it, to give without giving, to feel pleasure unfelt. Both were truths; one was dangerous, the other profitable.
Saba Hassouneh al-Saleh, the Raven, wished to become a woman.
The desire was unspoken but apparent to them both. At first they argued, albeit carefully; the Raven had a temper when confronted with her weakness. Twice Doña Carmen feared she would die. Since then they had their discussions after Saba placed all her weapons in an open drawer.
Today they were discussing what a kiss might entail, how Saba’s breasts might brush the man’s chest, her lips linger on his neck near his ear, a word she might whisper . . . Saba was crimson as usual and unable to hold the patrona’s eyes.
Doña Carmen laughed. “It is good to be excited. The man will feel your temperature, know your interest. For you, this is a victory.”
Saba covered her face with her hands. Doña Carmen carefully pulled the hands partly away but not entirely. “You hide too much, everything. The heat is . . . is the invitation you feel but cannot say.” Doña Carmen waited until the resistance left Saba’s hands. “Good, now look at me.”
Saba refused.
“Look at me.”
Saba did, through her eyelashes, the timidity reaching to her shoulders.
“Chin up, as mine. You are proud to display this temperature, this invitation. Your eyes in his, but not a threat as you do.” Doña Carmen eased Saba’s face out of her hands. “There, see his eyes; yours should say, ‘strong but not angry;’ you know how. Show me.”
Saba’s lips tightened, her eyes said, “Stand back.”
“No. Soften your mouth. Show me you appreciate my help, yes? Chin up. Now show me appreciation with your eyes.”
Saba smiled and far too much, but her eyes were . . . beautiful. A young woman who for that moment hadn’t been to Palestine.
Teacher and student spent one hour every day for the next thirty attempting to openly enjoy the attention of a man. Doña Carmen used a great deal of patience, a mirror, and her hands. She touched Saba often, on her arms, hands, and hair. They hugged with the patrona facing away at first and Saba applying the pressure. Saba had great difficulty with this contact and complained. Doña Carmen spun once in frustration and grabbed. She finished on the floor with Saba’s hands hard on her neck.
Saba apologized and they tried again. And again. And again until after many days they hugged facing each other. Something little girls could do as soon as they could walk. For Saba it was draining, the harshest part of her recovery. Clothes would be next if she ever mastered the basest elements of the womanly arts.
As the days progressed, Saba’s mastery of the womanly arts did not happen and the stronger Saba became the les
s malleable she became. The brief rise of the woman was being replaced by the soldier. If the woman were to survive, there would have to be motivation, motivation that could not be faked.
Eddie turned his back to the refinery fence, studied his hands, then the sky, then the two PJs and two submariners watching him. An hour ago there had been news from Les Demoiselles. A small, rugged Canarian laborer who Eddie saw every day inside the refinery stopped his wheelbarrow next to Eddie, shifted the wheelbarrow’s load, and whispered, “The patrona says you may call this evening at 22:00. Do not be late.”
The rush of emotions shouldn’t have been a surprise, but they had been. And fear was up there near the top. Foreman Paulsen’s assistant was the reason. He’d vanished on November 18, not that Eddie missed him, but the little bastard had disappeared two days after Eddie had mentioned him to the Zionist with the gun as a possible culprit for the Mendelssohn papers. The assistant’s room had been ransacked the same night he disappeared. The news this evening was that on the night he disappeared, the assistant had dinner with a Canarian woman at the Gran Hotel Taoro in Puerto de la Cruz. Five hours ago his bloated body had floated ashore on a storm tide crossing the north end of the island. Both hands and ankle bones were broken and he’d been shot once in the back of the head. The rumors were it had been Canarian smugglers, or Communists, or the Policía Judicial.
Eddie scanned the fences that protected and imprisoned him, wondering at the timing of a dead refinery worker washing ashore who’d met with a probable Canarian smuggler on the same day this Canarian laborer was telling Eddie to be somewhere specific at a specific time. Eddie’s Canarian would have no idea who or what was going on or if Eddie would make it back alive. Someone was paying the laborer because he could get next to Eddie. Could be anybody—English, Zionists, anybody. Eddie had all of an hour to decide whether he would go—and that would be if the refinery allowed him to step outside the fences—and if he did go what he would say to Saba, what he would do. Forgiveness was out of the question if Saba were guilty, at a minimum. Schroeder’s concept of wartime morality and anticolonial agenda was way past anything Eddie planned to understand or ever entertain. For the last sixty days, Eddie had made that decision every day. If Saba hadn’t shot D.J., then any future they could carve out of this madness was possible. Eddie had made that decision every day as well—Schroeder couldn’t be positive; he hadn’t been there. Eddie had replayed that night so often—what Saba had said, the gunfire from three directions. Pirates? Smugglers? Zionists? Brits? FBI? Arabs? Eddie was no longer sure what he knew, what he remembered, and what he didn’t. It had been hell and it wasn’t over.
Paulsen forbade Eddie to leave the refinery. “You’re aware of what happened to my assistant?”
“I heard.”
“Then I don’t need to explain, again, why these fences keep you alive and working.”
Eddie said, “How does I quit sound?” They argued; both knew Eddie was going nuts from sixty days of confinement and both knew he couldn’t quit and both knew he was going into town with or without permission. House arrest wouldn’t help anyone.
An hour later, Eddie walked through the coral blue door of Les Demoiselles trailed by two German submariners and two PJs. A folk guitarist strummed a smallish guitar called a Canary Islands timple. The light above and around the musician was an uneven, dullish amber from glassed lamps high on the walls. Nine wine-barrel tables were topped with Canarian cotton cloth, all occupied save one. In this light there was no way to read the faces for threat. The bar itself was polished teakwood with four stools, girls on each, all facing Eddie and the door.
A reasonably attractive brown girl leaped off her stool, grabbed Eddie’s hand, and led him to the only empty table. Eddie sat; he read the room for the Zionist hoping to recover the Mendelssohn papers, who’d likely killed the foreman’s assistant. A waiter approached the table. “You wish to buy Beatriz a cocktail, yes?”
Eddie guessed he did and bought the girl who held his hand a honey rum cocktail and himself a Las Palmas Tropical Beer. She spoke a steady stream of Canarian Spanish as if he understood, and didn’t seem to care that he didn’t. She clutched both Eddie’s hands with both of hers, then smiled across her young face and urged him to take her up the stairs. Eddie glanced at the PJs watching him and nodded to the submariners. Neither pair looked pleased, and all four followed Eddie and Beatriz up the stairs.
Beatriz pointed Eddie into a small room, followed him in, and was not allowed to shut the door until the submariners inspected the room. With the door shut, she tapped her wrist as if it had a watch, then flashed her five fingers three times. The armoire door opened. Doña Carmen waved him in. Eddie ducked through the clothes, through a false wall, and into a narrow hallway. The hallway led to another false wall, then the back stairway that led to the basement.
Doña Carmen stopped outside the closed door, then gestured Eddie in, adding a finger across her lips. Inside, a small, empty table and two chairs were alone in the middle of the room. Eddie wasn’t sure if this was the room he’d been in eight weeks ago; that night and the one before it were a blur. On the table, a tall candle soft-lit two wineglasses and an open bottle. Doña Carmen pointed to one of the two chairs, then disappeared through another door. Beyond that door, Eddie heard a brief commotion, then muffled words, then silence. Doña Carmen reappeared, walked past Eddie, and exited via the stairway door they had entered together. Eddie waited, D.J.’s .45 cold against his back. And wondered what he would do.
In the deep shadows of the far wall, a shape stepped to the outer edge of the candlelight. The silhouette moved no closer. Flickering candlelight added and subtracted detail—a woman, hair brushed out to her shoulders . . . Carole Lombard from the Lucky Strikes ad.
The woman came forward. Saba, no keffiyeh. A wide-neck peasant blouse wrapped her shoulders and hinted at the curve of her breasts under the gauzy linen. She shook her hair off her shoulder, turned the empty chair away from the table, and sat on it backward, one arm over the top. Her eyes never left his. Slowly, her other hand eased a revolver onto the table, then withdrew from the grip.
It was like watching Sally Rand prepare her feathers before she took the stage. Or Marlene Dietrich tie her tuxedo’s tie. Eddie was too off balance to be cautious, or angry, or confused, or whatever the hell he was. He nodded at the bottle. Maybe liquor would help.
Hazel eyes, long lashes, olive skin. Man, she was something. Electric. Eddie said, “You remember me, right?” He edged a hand toward the bottle. “I’ll pour us some wine. Don’t shoot me.”
Her chest rose and fell, and made it difficult for Eddie to pour. Most of the wine went in the glasses. Saba’s eyes stayed locked on his. Eddie swallowed, flushed with . . . everything. His mouth tried to blurt the D.J. question/accusation; his hand jammed the wineglass into the words and forced his mouth to drink. He swallowed the wine, coughed, and said, “Try some. Say hello or something?”
Slow candlelit silence, then, “Hello . . . Eddie Owen.”
Eddie lowered the glass. Was she . . . frightened? Or was it . . . fearless? Eddie made his lips move. “Um, could you move your hand away from the pistol?”
She moved her hand.
Her lips had . . . lipstick? “I’m thinking about touching your hand.”
Her eyes cut away.
Eddie touched the top of her hand. Her skin was smooth and hot. His palm covered her fingers. His fingers reached almost to her wrist and stayed there. Exhale. “Standing up now.”
Her eyes cut back to his.
“Been thinking about holding you on the beach before . . . everyone got shot. Think about it every night. Stand up, okay?”
Saba stood using just the strength in her legs, her back straight, breasts high, chin higher.
Eddie gulped and reached both arms around her as if dancing with a porcupine. Saba didn’t flinch or move. He hugged. Her hands were at his waist, near the .45 but not on it. Gently he squeezed the distance out between them until her b
reasts were soft on his chest. Chestnut hair brushed his face and smelled of lemon. She trembled and might have tugged him an inch toward her. Perfume. Then strength? Her hands moved up his sides.
The embrace may have lasted a minute or an hour.
Eddie leaned back to look in her eyes and she let him. That in itself was a shock. “Okay, this is the big one. I’m going to kiss you on the mouth. Just a little.”
He did. She didn’t.
“Good. Good. Now this time you kiss back, okay?” Eddie tried again. Her breasts cushioned his chest. Her lips trembled but made a kiss.
Eddie grinned on her lips. “Wow, where’d we learn that?”
She tensed, as if it were a critique—
He kissed her again until she softened. “Feel strong enough to do this till morning?”
Her lips widened under his.
Eddie slid his hand deep into her hair and kissed her again, trailing the tip of his tongue across her lips. She softened further, arching her back, both hands gripping into his shirt. In another life it would have been fifth grade behind the barn. Here it was the most erotic moment Eddie’d ever spent. The swelling in his pants was proof. Eddie eased back and her body came with him until she realized she was pressing against him and stopped. Her eyes were luminous and right there, her lips parted and . . . Eddie lowered his arm to scoop her off her feet.
She snapped back and away.
They stared, confused, from three feet instead of three inches. Eddie reached with just his hands and palms up. She met him halfway, then all the way, pressing against each other again, harder than before, and kissed urgently, mouths open. The power in her body radiated through him and almost buckled his knees. She had a hand in his hair, the other full of his shirt.
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