by Philip Craig
Amelia came in as I was looking down at the package. She set the tea tray on the coffee table. “Hamdi Safwat. You saw his book the other day before all this dreadfulness took place. I met him after the war when he was an undergraduate studying in Boston. Wonderful man. About to retire now. We’ve kept in touch. He’s very knowledgeable about the riddles of the Near East. Perhaps you’ll be kind enough to mail the package and those letters for me. It’s on your way and it will save me a trip to the post office.” She sat down a bit heavily. “I’d appreciate it. I really don’t want to go into town today.”
“Of course.”
“Have you heard from Zee?”
“No.”
“It’s surprising that she hasn’t called . . .”
“She’ll be home today and tell you all about it.”
“Yes. She’s very sensible. Dear me, what a weekend.”
I offered her the only distraction at hand: “Let’s see what the papers have to say.” I gave her the Globe and took the Herald.
For some reason the Herald gets more late-breaking news into its morning editions than does the Globe, which otherwise I’m prone to favor. This morning not even the Herald had much to say because no one really knew anything. The paper compensated in Herald style by having a blazing front-page headline over file photos of the Stonehouse emeralds and various celebrities.
We traded papers.
I realized that my mind was only half focused on the newspapers when I found myself rereading what I’d just read. At that moment, Amelia put her paper down and got up.
“I’m going to phone the hospital and find out when Zee is expected back.”
She went into the den and I heard her voice. I couldn’t catch the words, but after a minute the tone changed. Some quality in it brought me to my feet. A moment later she came back into the living room. Her face was gray. I stepped quickly forward and took her arm.
“What is it?”
She gave me a haunted look. “The hospital doesn’t know anything about her. There was no emergency on Saturday. No patient was flown off-island. No one at the hospital telephoned me. What’s happened to Zee?”
A coldness clamped on my heart. I sat Amelia down on the sofa and went to the phone. The voice at the Martha’s Vineyard hospital repeated the message it had given her. I rang off and phoned the police. Whoever was at the desk was no, doubt caught up by the death of Willard Blunt, compared to which a woman unaccounted for for a couple of days was not of primary concern. He told me what I already knew: that missing people usually showed up and that it was too early for me to be really worried, but that they’d get on it right away. Had anyone checked her home?
I hadn’t and felt like an idiot. I gave him her number, then hung up and dialed it myself. It rang and rang. I hung up.
I needed something to do with my hands. Choke the policeman on the desk, perhaps? I picked up Amelia’s mail.
“The police are on the case. I’m going to drive up to her place. Will you be okay? I’ll stay longer if . . .”
She shook her head. “No. You go. I’ll be fine. Call me from her house.”
“Yes.” I saw Zee lying on the floor of her own house. Dead? Hurt? Lying there for three days while I hadn’t even had the sense to go up to her place and see if she was okay?
I drove away, thinking of the times I’d taken Zee home and dropped her off at the little house she rented amid the green foliage on the line between Chilmark and West Tisbury, the Vineyard’s prettiest townships. I had often invited Zee to live in Edgartown with me, but she had declined just as she had declined my several suggestions that we marry. On the other hand she had never told me not to darken her doorway again, so she lived up island and I lived down island and we visited a lot. For me, it had been better than it might be, enough for me to keep my hopes up. Now my hopes were not so high.
I found myself in West Tisbury and didn’t remember how I got there. I went to Zee’s house and saw her little Jeep in the yard. I found the spare key hidden under the flowerpot and went inside. Zee was not there. I felt a rush of relief followed by another of despair. I went through the house very carefully and found nothing unusual. The box containing Zee’s party dress was lying on the living room sofa as though it had been casually placed there. I phoned Amelia and the police and told them what I’d found.
I drove home past the fairgrounds, past the field of dancing statues, and, suddenly remembering Amelia’s mail, as people often think of trifles in the midst of crisis, stopped at the general store, where I posted it. Then I drove past the millpond with its geese and swans and on toward Edgartown, thinking. A few miles down the road there was a new pond on the right surrounded by open space lately cleared from the woodlands. Some developer’s latest brainchild, I guessed. I wondered if he would point out to prospective clients that his handsome properties lay directly under the flight approach path to the county airport. I reckoned not. The caveat emptor principal at work once again, even on the beautiful island of Martha’s Vineyard. All Edens have serpents.
I thought of Willard Blunt. He had been an actor in two puzzles: the theft and Zee’s disappearance. I was ignorant and needed information. I also needed distracton.
The Edgartown library is open on Monday afternoons, so I drove there. Libraries are favorite places of mine. Not only are they mines of information, they have librarians who will help you dig if you ask them to. I found encyclopedias and an atlas. The atlas showed me where Sarofim was located: east of Oman, west of Ahmadabad, nestled on the coast of the Arabian Sea, blessed by one fine, easily guarded harbor. Swamps were between Sarofim and Pakistan, and there were desert wastes along its border with Iran. The encyclopedias gave me rudimentary information about the country. Obviously, in the minds of the editors, Sarofim did not merit extended commentary even though it meant a lot to Edward C. Damon and, apparently, the United States government.
I eventually found out why the last two thought so much of it: newt only was Sarofim rich in oil, but its harbor was deep enough for navy ships and a portion of its flat desert lands could easily be transformed into landing fields for military aircraft; moreover, its government, made nervous by Islamic militancy in neighboring countries, was lately interested in establishing mutually beneficial relationships with Western nations, to wit, defense and economic alliances between Sarofim and the United States. The United States would get a deep-water port for its naval vessels, air bases for its planes, and access to Sarofimian oil, and Sarofim would get American dollars, weapons and military protection, and political support for its ruler, Ali Mohammed Rashad, the Padishah himself.
However, the treaties and associated agreements leading toward these ends had yet to be negotiated, thus the importance attached to good relations between the countries. No wonder the disappearance of the emerald necklace was such a bummer to Edward C. Damon and the Padishah.
I went to the card catalog and sought in vain for more information about Sarofim. I then went to the fountain of information itself: the front desk. Librarians know almost everything and they know how to get any information they don’t already have. The woman I spoke to was no exception. She listened to my problem, frowned slightly, then smiled.
“The National Geographic,” she said. She put a finger to her lips, and her forehead wrinkled slightly. “Now when did that piece about Sarofim come out? Was it last year sometime? Just one moment.”
She got up and walked off. Not much later, she returned, a copy of the National Geographic in her hand.
“Here you are. We only have room to keep the latest copies of our magazines out here, so we have to store earlier issues elsewhere. When you’re through with this, I’d like to read it myself. Mr. Damon, over on Chappaquiddick, is going to be ambassador there, you know, and I really should know something about the place.”
I took the magazine and went back to my chair.
The National Geographic has been a favorite magazine of mine since I was very little. Its photographs are properly world f
amous, and its writers travel to the farthest corners of the earth. It was, until the publication of Playboy, the magazine that showed young boys their first photos of naked breasts, usually those of dark-skinned jungle women in tropical places.
While the photos in the National Geographic are always interesting, the writing is often very restrained, especially when its subject is a totalitarian state. The magazine carefully avoids direct condemnation of even the most wretched of current leaders, contenting itself with hints at the political or cultural conflicts within their realms. The writers are much better at writing about the distant histories of the places they visit. The photo story of Sarofim was a typical Geographic effort, with fine photos, a well-written short history of the nation, and an examination of its current state, including a few careful hints of current political conflict within its borders.
The story was entitled, “Sarofim: Modern Times in an Ancient Land.” I thought it very Geographicish.
The photos showed a desert country with treeless mountains; a bright blue harbor holding both rusty ships and modern yachts; Gwatar, the capital city, a minor metropolis of general shabbiness but occasional walled houses evidencing great wealth; the ancient fortress with its cannon pointing toward the sea; a market street, new construction, oil wells, shepherds, women with golden rings in their noses and ears, children with laughing mouths, the Padishah, businessmen, students, and camel drivers. Closer examination showed sores and sewers, poverty and eyes without laughter.
The history of the nation, illustrated with photos of books and paintings, was one of trade and war between religions, with Islam in a mutant form eventually establishing itself as the dominant faith and a dynasty originating in Afghanistan positioning itself in the late Middle Ages as a trading and raiding power on the sea route between India and the Persian Gulf.
This dynasty was finally overthrown in the late eighteenth century by the revolution led by Mohammed Rashad with the aid of ex-British army officer Jacob Stonehouse, who made off with a good portion of the royal treasury as the war ended and the Rashad dynasty began.
I was pleased to find a photo of a drawing of Jacob Stonehouse done by some Sarofimian artist, apparently just before Jacob escaped with the family silver. Stonehouse was portrayed as a tall, lean fellow with fair hair and blue eyes. He was wearing one of those brilliant uniforms favored by military officers of that day. It was buttoned to the chin and must have been uncomfortable on the deserts of Sarofim, but Stonehouse showed no sign of sweat. His clever eyes looked out at me over a long nose and slightly smiling thin lips.
Beside his picture was a color photo of his most famous theft: the Stonehouse Emerald Necklace. It looked well worth stealing, I thought. For that matter, to me, the pastes had looked worth stealing.
The Rashads took up their predecessors’ practices of trade and piracy and putting down occasional revolutions. Nothing much changed in Sarofim until World War I, when the country’s harbor caught the eye of the great powers and the then-Padishah was obliged to curb his corsairs and establish alliances, none of which he kept longer than necessary, with those powers. Encounters with the great powers also brought closer contact with Western cultures, including French and Italian food and American movies, all of which fascinated the royal family and led it to send some of its sons to Western universities to learn more of such modern creations. Then, shortly before World War II, the great change came: oil was discovered on the wasteland of desert that made up the greater part of Sarofim’s territory, and the Rashads no longer were obliged to plow the sea in search of a livelihood. They were instantly made rich by international industrial coin.
But with wealth came troubles, for oil was the lifeblood of industrial nations, and Sarofim was once again the focus of the attention of competing powers both in the East and the West. World War II erupted before the Padishah was obliged to choose yet another alliance, but that same war brought new concerns since Sarofim was a convenient stopover point for Western forces moving to the East to confront the empire of Japan. Western ships paused in Gwatar’s harbor, and a crude military airfield was imposed upon its desert just outside of the city. The Padishah, unsure for a time about who was going to win the war, officially maintained a neutrality and invited all parties to use his facilities: in practice, though, they were used only by the British and Americans. One of the latter, I recalled, was the late Willard Sargeant Blunt.
At this point the writer became coy. Postwar Sarofim, its rulers made richer than ever by the spoils of that war, was an uneasy place. The wealth from the oil fields had not filtered down to the people whose sheep and camels grazed among the wells, who walked barefoot beside the highways the Padishah had built for the limousines of his family and aristocratic friends, and who still bought fly-covered food in open markets while the great families flew their cuisine in from Paris and Rome. Sons of the great families were educated in Britain, daughters in Switzerland; but the common folk remained largely illiterate.
Political activity of a revolutionary nature was hinted at but not overtly detailed. There were photos of the national university, of intellectuals discussing economics, and of young folk studying in Western universities, but these were balanced by cautionary comments about the conservative thought of the nation’s leaders and photos of the national police in full military garb.
When I finished reading the article, I thought about things for a while. The Padishah, as the Chief had suggested, was not universally popular among his own people. But then neither was I among mine. On the other hand, I had never been accused of butchering people. I looked again at the photo of the Padishah. There, just off his left shoulder was, sure enough, the face of his bodyguard. Colonel Ahmed Nagy was with him both at home and abroad, it seemed. The Colonel’s face was as I remembered it: watchful but otherwise expressionless. A ruthless, dispassionate-looking man. Just the sort you’d want as your bodyguard if you needed one.
I looked again at the fine photographs, pausing at one of the Padishah’s harem taken inside the royal palace. It was a genuine harem, complete with concubines and wives, all smiling at the camera. How did he keep so many women content when I couldn’t even manage one at a time? Did he have eunuchs with scimitars guarding the doors? According to the caption on the photograph, two of the wives were Americans. That probably shouldn’t have surprised me, since from time to time a story is printed of some American man having many apparently happy wives living together under a single roof. Still, I am always a bit perplexed by such reports since the American women I know don’t seem to be inclined to share their men.
I gave the magazine to the librarian as I went out. She smiled. “Well, J.W., how does it feel to be Edgartown’s greatest authority on Sarofim?”
“The ancient sages were right,” I said. “Wisdom is swell.”
“Spoken like a true savant.”
I went to the police station and went inside. The Chief was there. He took me into his office and told me that the island police agencies had all been alerted and that he’d talked to Amelia. Then he looked at me.
“Did she have any other boyfriends?”
It was a logical question. Crimes against women are often the work of actual or would-be lovers. When a woman is beaten up or killed or missing, the first suspects are the men in her life. I wondered if some man I didn’t know had done something to Zee and had then faked that phone call from the hospital so no one would start nosing around for a few days. I felt the chill of fear and rage.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t ask her about what she does when she’s not with me.”
“She’s a beautiful woman. She must have attracted a lot of eyes.”
“Yes.” I hated that thought, but knew it was true. I felt sick with fury and frustration.
The Chief chewed on his pipe. “Go home. The wheels are turning. She’ll show up.”
I had an extra martini or two that evening, and neither of them had much effect. The supper I made tasted like sawdust in my mouth. After
wards I tried Cognac, but that too was flat.
Zee had been missing for three days. I thought of my anonymous phone call, of what I’d been told about the Padishah and women, and of what I’d seen of him and Nagy, and my eyes drifted toward the gun case across the room where I locked up my long guns and the .38 I’d carried in Boston.
I tried to read, but found myself looking at the same paragraph over and over. I found a radio station playing country and western music and listened to the twang of guitars and the voices singing of guilt and, sometimes, redemption. Somewhere along the line I went to sleep.
At three o’clock in the morning the phone rang.
12
“Jeff. It’s me.”
Zee! My heart soared. “Where are you? Are you all right?”
“I’m home. Can you come up right away?”
“Yes. Are you all right? Is anybody there with you?”
“I . . . Yes, I guess so . . . No nobody’s here . . .”
“Stay there! I’m on my way!”
I drove through the night. The dark trees whipped by. Left on Barnes Road, right past the airport. The old Toyota rattled through West Tisbury toward Chilmark, found Zee’s driveway, and roared in.
The front door of her house opened as I braked to a stop, and there she was. I took her in my arms and wept. Then I was furious, then not furious. I held her and held her and then slowly let her go and looked down at her face. She had a crooked little smile and was very pale. I pulled her inside and shut the door.
I held her at arm’s length. She brushed aside a strand of hair and let me examine her. She looked fragile. She was wearing the clothes she’d been wearing when I’d left her at Amelia’s on Friday. They were dirty and wrinkled.
Where in the hell have you been? I raged inside. “Where have you been?” I asked.
