Tilting his head, he caught her hand as it dropped from his forehead. He pressed it to his lips, gazing at her intently.
A white wooden boat with unfurled, billowing sails appeared on the horizon, drawing their attention away from each other. It moved steadily toward the shallow waters near the shore. Four bare-chested men busied themselves in gathering and folding large fishing nets with aging floats. The fading blue letters on the side said Isis.
“The water is shallow here,” Nasser said, raising his hand to his forehead to get a better look. “They’re bound to get stuck.” At the last moment, the boat turned slightly, dropped its sails, and came to a stop as the bow plunged through the watery sand, tilting the vessel in a southerly direction. One of the young men jumped into the water while another handed him a heavy basket that he carried toward the beach.
Justine tensed. She was surprised to notice her own mounting fear at the stranger’s appearance. The incidents in the market and on the desert road had left her quite shaky.
“He has fish to sell,” declared Nasser with delight. “Let’s go see.”
They met the young man at the edge of the water and examined the fish: drug, tahela, blue crab, calamari, shrimp. “What would you like, Justine? We can grill these tonight.” She selected a drug and six giant shrimp. Nasser bargained with the young man, settled on a price, and placed the fish into the small ice chest he’d brought with him. He had been prepared.
The youthful fish purveyor made his way back to the boat, clinging to the side as it moved down the shore toward other sunbathers. Justine’s face was ashen.
“Are you okay?” Nasser asked, frowning with concern.
“I’m fine. I seem to be getting a little paranoid.” She told him about the incident on the desert road.
Nasser was indignant. “This episode sheds a new light on the previous incident. I had almost dismissed those as pranks or misunderstandings. What has been done to catch the thugs?”
“Amir called the police. Although we filed a report, we didn’t feel like we could share the whole story about the codex. Consequently, they’re without a motive. Amir is not hopeful that they’ll take any action. As to why I didn’t tell you—I’ve tried to figure this out myself. I guess I have an aversion to being protected. Probably a holdover from my father’s excessive protectiveness.” She shrugged apologetically. “I do apologize for keeping you in the dark.” She was beginning to lose track of the secrets that she hadn’t told Nasser. Ever since the discussion with Andrea at San Giovanni, she’d been more wary, more cautious.
Nasser reached out and touched her hair. “Do I make you feel overprotected?” His voice seemed far away.
“You make me feel protected.” She smiled, color returning to her face.
Nasser was quiet for a several moments. “Have you had enough sun for today? Perhaps you could rest and read while I clean the fish and finish my novel.” Justine nodded. Nasser brushed the remaining sand off their feet, shook out the towels and threw them over his shoulder, then grabbed the ice chest. Justine put on her shirt and sarong, feeling the warm sand rise between her toes.
“Do you know about fish rice?” Nasser asked as they prepared dinner.
“Fish rice? You mean rice that only goes with fish? Teach me,” said Justine. The shower and nap had relaxed her immensely. She now wore her favorite white linen dress with a flowing skirt, one that she considered exceedingly romantic in an Ingrid Bergman sort of way.
Nasser handed her an apron. He chopped up a red onion and sautéed it in butter until it was golden brown. Justine cut the tomatoes and stacked them on a plate with white cheese, pickles, and marinated eggplant. Sliced lemons were arranged on a separate plate.
“Now, we just put in the rice and add enough water to cook it. Lid on, heat down, and wallah!” announced Nasser, swinging a large wooden spoon in the air.
He seems to have recovered from the earlier slight, she thought, not at all sure he could forgive her for keeping the desert road incident from him. “Love it,” she said. “Are we ready to grill the fish?”
“Almost. You know, if I were a devout Essene I wouldn’t eat fish or chicken. We’re vegetarians. But I am weak,” he said with a hint of irony.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know—about this weakness, I mean—I wouldn’t have brought chicken last night.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and set her chin on his shoulder.
“Not to worry. Eating living things is not my only transgression.”
Later, Nasser poured another glass of champagne as they enjoyed the last of their delicate morsels of Red Sea drug. Candles and moonlight illuminated the terrace, sparkled the champagne, and lent a radiant glow to Justine’s white dress. She retrieved her matching sweater to guard against the moist chill moving in from the sea.
“It’s been a wonderful day, Nasser. A perfect day, in fact. You’re a terrific cook. I either burn fish or serve it too raw. I told you there were some things I couldn’t do.”
He placed his hand on hers and held it there.
“What was the novel you were finishing this afternoon?” she asked, slipping her sandals off and tucking her legs into the folds of her dress.
“Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms,” he said, running two fingers along the inside of her wrist. “Have you read it?”
“Many years ago. Are you fond of him?”
“He has a way of creating conditions that test men. In Farewell, he recreated the chaos of war in Italy and showed how men respond to a world where they have no control. Hemingway gets at the depth of character, I think. Make sense?” The bougainvillea curled around the roof and flowed onto the terrace floor. Nasser picked one of the delicate fuchsia petals off her sweater and placed it behind her ear.
“In a way,” she said, fingering the petal. “It seems to me that Hemingway never understood women, though. The women in his books are so one-dimensional, so superficial. I remember that Catherine used silly words like ‘grand,’ ‘sweet,’ and ‘lovely,’ even as their life became frightening and she was about to die.”
Nasser began to tickle her toes with a hoopoe feather.
“You’re making me lose my train of thought,” she said, folding her skirt over her toes again and pulling back from his touch. “. . . And women have fewer choices than men.”
“You overestimate us,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Men have much less control than you’d think. Certainly as the only man in a household of women, I rarely felt in control.”
“Mm . . . Perhaps I do overestimate men,” she said with exaggerated seriousness. “Since you’ve been in charge, the world doesn’t seem very rational. We might be better off without men entirely.”
“I don’t want to be thrown out like yesterday’s fish. Besides, I’m perfectly harmless. I’m not in charge of much. Certainly not you!”
“No one is in charge of me,” she said, cocking her head to one side in a defiant gesture she’d used since the 8th grade. “But men could make different choices.”
“I’ll concede that point. But men and women share some of the same desires, don’t we?” He stretched out his words like a rubber band, inviting her to fill in the sentence. After a long pause, he continued, “To be in control, to have choices, to make sense of their lives, to be in love.”
“Does your life make sense?” she asked, extending her legs and arms, avoiding the ‘be in love’ comment.
“Make sense? Perhaps not. But right now it makes a great deal of sense.” He stepped back inside and put on a CD that Justine had brought along. Madeleine Peyroux’s voice broke through the night air with “Dance Me to the End of Love.” “Would you like to dance?” he asked, taking her hand and pulling her toward him.
Justine moved unhesitatingly toward him, laying her head on his shoulder as they swayed to the rhythm of the French melody. She felt her heart quicken as Nasser steered her toward the terrace wall and pressed her against a long branch of a white bougainvillea. Petals showered down on her hair and sweater. The
y gazed at each other through the dark silver of the moonlight, she fully aware that a person who feels music in every muscle is sensuous, somehow more abundantly alive.
“So you have put me in a veil,” she teased. Nasser didn’t respond, but gently blew the petals from her face and hair, and brushed his mouth against her slightly opened lips. As she leaned into his chest, the kisses became more desperate, the longing more intense.
Nasser picked her up in both arms and carried her into his bedroom, laying her on top of his bedspread.
“This is not a good idea,” she said breathlessly, making a disingenuous effort to push him away.
“Actually, I think it’s a very good idea,” said Nasser, with the desire of someone who hadn’t satisfied a thirst for a long time.
She unbuttoned her own sweater and loosened her belt.
Every inch of her skin felt magnetic as they explored each other’s bodies. Nasser rolled her on top of him and smiled up at her. A stream of moonlight fell across his blondish hair, rendering it white as snow. A cool breeze drifted in through the terrace door, ruffling the gauze curtains above her head.
She gazed down at him, then slowly closed her eyes as passion melted any remaining doubts. When she opened her eyes, he was still staring at her with exhilarating wildness. They gently exchanged positions, she now on her back. He massaged her thighs and entered her, moving with a gentle rhythm that reminded her of their dancing, igniting nerves throughout her body. She shuddered first, and he moaned in deep satisfaction as she drew him to that fulfilling release.
“I hope the neighbors don’t think I’m murdering you,” Nasser laughed.
“You are . . . you are . . .” she murmured as they lay trembling, surprised by their easy sense of abandon in each other’s arms.
As Justine opened her eyes, she saw Nasser gazing at her once more. They both smiled, enjoying their newly shared secret. He touched her nose, wiggled it from side to side and trailed the touch down to her full lips. Then he winked.
Raising herself onto one elbow, she lifted her hair and let it fall fully around her shoulders. “Porcelain doll?” she asked impishly.
“Hardly.” He grinned. “More like Odysseus’ siren.”
“I’ll settle for that,” she said generously. As he reached for her, she slid her legs out of bed, exposing the long scar on her right leg that had refused to tan. “Do you drink coffee?”
“I could,” he conceded, “just so it isn’t that weak American stuff.”
“I make only Egyptian mud,” she said, grabbing a towel from the bathroom to form into a sarong.
“Sugar, I assume?” she called from the hallway.
“Of course. Then come back to bed.”
Charged memories poured out across the terrace later that morning. “You’re so beguiling,” Nasser said. “Enticing, alluring, tempting . . .”
“Are you practicing your English?” Justine laughed. “Or trying to seduce me again?”
“Both, my darling, both.” He pulled out the chair next to hers and sat down, legs apart, his hands folded between them. “What’s for breakfast?”
“Ah, you would also have me as your slave.”
“That I would,” he admitted with the grin she yearned for.
Justine set out a breakfast of sliced mango, yogurt, toast, hibiscus juice, and more coffee. Nasser looked around the table, walked back into the kitchen, and returned with the peanut butter. He spread it lavishly on his buttered toast, sculpting the edges with a knife.
She watched, fascinated by his methodical moves. “Peanut butter on toast is uncivil!” she declared. “And you carve like an engineer.”
“You don’t like peanut butter? What kind of American are you anyway? Except for your weird tastes, this could have been the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” he said, sculpting the sides of his peanut butter toast like piecrust.
“Casablanca. My favorite movie.” What is he doing? Creating distance between us so soon?
“My second favorite,” he said. “My first has to be Lawrence of Arabia. Nice guy unwittingly betrays Middle East. Familiar theme.”
“It was a great film,” she said, stirring her mango into the yogurt.
“All too familiar,” he repeated absently as he spread a mound of peanut butter on a second piece of toast. He didn’t look up, as though to do so would break the spell.
“Do we have time for a swim before we need to head back?” she asked.
“I think so. I hope so,” he said, but they didn’t make it past the bedroom.
CHAPTER 16
IS THIS LOVE? JUSTINE WONDERED. SHE WAS walking east toward Qasr al-Ainy, on her way to catch the underground to Old Cairo in order to meet Amir at the crypt beneath St. Sergius. She felt hesitant to work with him now, suspicious of his motives, not at all sure that he hadn’t stolen the missing pages. But she was also eager to learn whether the codex had fallen from a niche in the wall of the crypt. And there was something else, she admitted. The thought of reentering the crypt alone frightened her.
Is this love? She’d asked herself this question over and over during the two days since returning with Nasser from the Red Sea. What was it her mother had said about love? Something like having the flu, a slight fever and joyful ache. The piece of that advice that bothered her was the likelihood that she could lose all perspective . . . that the object of her love would grow perfect before her very eyes. Has he already become perfect?
She stepped into the boulevard just as the light turned red. Blaring horns warned of collisions ahead, while the nearest car veered to the right and came to a screeching stop. Two cars traveling too close to each other collided into the left bumper of the first car, whose driver was now stepping into the jammed street. A stranger’s hand took hold of her arm and firmly steered her back to the curb. “In Cairo, my lady, red lights are for decoration.”
I knew that, she said to herself with no small amount of embarrassment, glancing over her shoulder at the disaster she had caused. “I know that,” she said defensively. “I guess I was deep in thought.” How much more perspective can I lose? Then, to apologize for the defensive edge to her voice, she smiled faintly and said, “Thank you,” to her unfamiliar young savior. “I think I’ll be fine now.” Her breath came rapidly and her hands were shaking. She wasn’t fine at all.
“We want to make sure, my lady,” said the man. As she looked up, she saw that he was quite young and clean-shaven, wearing a smart wool jacket and starched shirt. “Let me ask you to step right over here to my friend’s car.” He steered her toward a familiar black sedan. Two men sat in the front seat.
“No—no thank you. I’m fine now,” she said anxiously. Try as she might, she couldn’t unlock his grip. Just as she started to scream, her escort’s left hand covered her mouth and he pushed her into the backseat. He slid in beside her and the sedan pulled out into traffic with as much speed as conditions would allow.
“Hello, my lady,” said one of the men from the front seat. “Please be calm.” The man who had forced her into the car tied a damp handkerchief over her eyes. In the moment before the blindfold was tied, she glanced at the driver in the rearview mirror and saw the misshapen lip.
“What do you want from me?” she demanded. “Stop this car immediately!”
“We have some friends who want to talk with you. Don’t worry, you’re perfectly safe. You wouldn’t want to make a fuss and cause us to hurt you,” said the driver. The sedan moved east through the morning traffic, its occupants quiet. Justine concentrated on the route. Now turning north, the noises of Tahrir Square were unmistakable. A right turn would take them through downtown and out by the Khan El Khalili bazaar and Al Azhar University. The next couple of miles were slow going, a cacophony of market sounds, screeches, and shouts.
Justine attempted to chatter in Arabic above the noise. “I’m an American, you know. The police will come after me. I am due at an appointment. Stop this car!”
Eventually, the driver turned right ont
o what felt to Justine like the ring road encircling Cairo and the Citadel. My god, they’re going to throw me off the wall of the Citadel like Mamluk infidels. She shuddered, perspiring at the same time.
“No need to be afraid,” the man next to her said, then repeated the statement, as if he was trying to convince himself. “No need to be afraid.”
Someone inserted a CD into the car player. Allison Mosley began to sing “Cry Me a River.” If this was protest music, it suited Justine just fine. What was it her dad had told her about fear? All she could remember now was, avoid it when you can. Not so much the things that cause you fear, but your reaction to it. She had avoided many things that made her fearful: climbing high ledges, going over Niagara in a barrel, running with the bulls that summer in Spain. She didn’t have a choice this time, but trying to figure things out preoccupied her mind, warding off panic. By now they had passed the Citadel and were curving left onto what felt like a poorly maintained dirt road.
“We must drive slowly through this community, my lady,” the driver said, then told the man in the backseat to remove her blindfold. “It’s a small, friendly village, and we wouldn’t want anyone to get suspicious. To think anything is wrong.”
“Oh, no,” she said defiantly, “we wouldn’t want anyone to think anything was wrong.” Since they’ve removed my blindfold, they know I can remember where they’re taking me. I’d be able to find this place again. Unless they don’t intend to let me go. If I’m dead, it doesn’t matter what I know, does it? When we slow down, I’ll jump . . .
The stench invaded her lungs, nose, and eyes. Garbage was everywhere, piled into heavy, dirty white plastic bags and piled into Chevy diesels, Jeeps, Isuzu pickups, and donkey carts. She found perverse pleasure in cataloging the variety of vehicles. Trucks without garbage toted equally high piles of cauliflower, oranges, and crates of chickens and pigeons. Schoolchildren, properly dressed in Walmart-like clothes or wearing dark blue and white uniforms, proudly marched through the narrow streets. Younger brothers and sisters, dressed in rags, peered out from shadowed doorways. Not so unlike the City of the Dead. Children ran and jumped onto the backs of the trucks and carts, makeshift school buses.
The Cairo Codex Page 20
