The Panther and The Pearl

by Doreen Owens Malek

  “I’ll bet they never did.”

  He grinned. “You’re right.”

  “Panther. Its suits you. Dark and lithe and dangerous,” Sarah said softly.

  He reached for the basket and winced.

  “Is your shoulder still bothering you?” Sarah asked.

  “Not often, only now and again. My permanent gift from the bedouins.”

  “Why did they shoot you? I never asked.”

  “They’re always shooting somebody,” he said wearily. “They identify me with the government so I’m a target.”

  “They don’t like the government?”

  “They don’t like anyone trying to collect taxes from them. They’re nomads, gypsies. They roam from district to district and answer to no one. The Sultan is always trying to pin them down and assign tithes, and in this area I’m the Sultan’s man.” He handed her an envelope of pita bread filled with vegetables. “They make good bread, though,” he said, and grinned.

  Sarah accepted the sandwich and took a bite, watching him uncork a bottle of boza and pour the liquid into two tumblers. “Are the bedouins Turks?” Sarah asked.

  He shook his head. “Arabs. That’s the problem. They don’t consider themselves subjects of the Empire, a situation the Sultan would like to change.”

  “Where do they get pistols?”

  “They steal them, barter for them, raid caravans for them. They do whatever is necessary to get arms. That’s why they’re so dangerous to the Sultan.”

  “What do you think of him?” Sarah asked.

  “The Sultan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, he’s a scoundrel.”

  Sarah giggled.

  “What’s funny?”

  “You have the same opinion of him that I do. Doesn’t it bother you that he’s your...” she stopped.

  “Boss?” Kalid suggested, and they both laughed.

  “Well, yes,” Sarah said.

  Kalid shrugged. “He doesn’t disturb me much in Bursa. I make my required state visits and pay enough duties to keep him off my back, so he lets me run my district my way.”

  “You were on a state visit when I first saw you,” Sarah said.

  “And I saw you,” he replied simply. “Which brings me to the subject of this little trip.” He took a long swallow of his drink and then said, “I have decided to let you go.”

  Chapter 10

  Sarah couldn’t have been more stunned if he had slapped her.

  “Let me go?” she said stupidly.

  “Yes. I’m giving you what you want, what you’ve always wanted since you came here. I did a lot of thinking while you were ill and came to a hard conclusion. As soon as Doctor Shakoz says that you are fully recovered and well enough to travel I will bring you to the American Embassy myself.”

  Sarah stared at him. “You once said that you would never give me up.”

  “I once said too many damn things,” he replied darkly.

  “Why did you change your mind?”

  “For two reasons. The first is that what I wanted has not happened.”

  “What did you want?”

  “I wanted you to fall in love with me.”

  Sarah looked back at him, listening, too shocked to say another word.

  “I thought if I kept you here long enough and spent time with you...well, you know what I thought,” he went on evenly. “But I either overestimated my charm or underestimated your determination. You have demonstrated more than once that I cannot force my will upon you. So. It is kismet, and I accept.”

  “What’s the second reason?” Sarah asked quietly, hardly able to believe her ears.

  “You almost lost your life here, because of me. This is not a safe place for you. Your poisoning opened my eyes to my own folly. I would rather have you alive and well and teaching in Boston than dead in my harem. You should go home.”

  “It was Fatma who poisoned me, not you, Kalid. And she’s gone now.”

  “For a woman in your position there will always be another Fatma,” he said.

  “My position?”

  “The beloved of the pasha,” he replied.

  Sarah looked away from him, too moved to speak. Why was he saying these things now? Because he had already decided that it was too late?

  “An Eastern woman would be able to survive the intrigues of the harem,” he went on. “After your first encounter with Fatma you vowed that you would fight her on her own terms, but instead you almost died. You are too...straightforward, Sarah. You can’t resort to deceit and trickery, not even to save yourself. The Ottoman Empire is not for you. And neither, apparently, am I.”

  “How long have you known this?”

  “I suppose I’ve known it all along, but I resisted accepting the situation. I thought if I had time, I could...”

  “What?” she prompted.

  “Win you over?” he said, with a smile that indicated how foolish that idea had been. “But it was not to be. So now you will be a virgin bride for your American husband.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t have an American husband.”

  “You will,” he said shortly, not looking at her.

  “Why did you bring me here to tell me this?” Sarah asked, undone by his resigned attitude. He was like a different person, not the one she had known.

  “I wanted to spend a last afternoon with you. It will give me something to remember.”

  “How long will I remain in the harem?”

  “Until Doctor Shakoz releases you from his care. A few days, I should think.”

  There didn’t seem to be anything left to say.

  Neither one of them was very hungry.

  “Are you ready to go back?” Kalid asked.

  Sarah nodded.

  He tossed everything back into the hamper and took her up to the carriage.

  Sarah couldn’t understand why she felt like crying all the way back to the palace.

  “Leaving!” Memtaz said, amazed. “No one leaves the harem unless they are sold. Or die.”

  “Well, I’ve been given my walking papers,” Sarah said.

  “What means this? What papers?”

  “It means that the pasha is bringing me to the American Embassy as soon as I’m well enough to go.”

  Memtaz looked very sad, her small face crumpling. “I will miss you terribly, mistress. But I am happy that you are getting what you want. You must be joyful to know that you will soon be returning to your country.”

  Sarah said nothing. She didn’t feel very joyful.

  “I thought you would be growing old with us,” Memtaz said, stacking pieces of jewelry in a box and setting it on the ikbal’s vanity table.

  Soon it would belong to someone else.

  Sarah didn’t want to think of Kalid with another favorite, even if it wasn’t Fatma.

  “It will be difficult to have a new mistress,” Memtaz said, tears welling. “I will always think of you that way.”

  Sarah patted the maid’s shoulder, unable to think of a single comforting thing to say. What could she tell Memtaz, that she would write?

  Even if such a thing were possible, the little servant could not read.

  The khislar appeared in the doorway of Sarah’s antechamber, his face solemn.

  “My master requests the presence of the ikbal,” he said.

  Sarah looked at Memtaz. What fresh torture was this?

  “When?” Sarah said.

  “Now.”

  Sarah followed the khislar through the halls of the palace to the mabeyn and into Kalid’s suite. The eunuchs assigned to her waited outside the pasha’s door.

  Kalid turned from his window as she entered. He was wearing a loose, dark blue cotton shirt and gray trousers that complemented his dusky coloring, the open collar of the shirt revealing the long, slender lines of his muscular throat.

  He had never looked more attractive to Sarah. Was this because she knew she was leaving?

  “You’re very prompt,” he said quietly. />
  “I saw no reason to delay.”

  “I have something for you.”

  “You’ve given me quite enough already.”

  “This is special. I think you’ll like it much better than harem jewelry.”

  Sarah watched as he withdrew a package wrapped in paper from a drawer. He handed it to her silently.

  “Open it,” he said, when she stood with it in her hands, unmoving, looking at him.

  Sarah obeyed, smiling when she saw that it was a copy of Twain’s “Life on the Mississippi.”

  “I told you I would get it for you,” Kalid said. “Look inside the cover.”

  Sarah lifted it and saw that the flyleaf was inscribed, “Samuel Langhorne Clemens.”

  “It’s a signed first edition,” Sarah said, amazed.

  “Signed with his real name,” Kalid added.

  “How did you find this?”

  He smiled.

  “Oh, yes. I forgot. You can get anything you want for the right price.”

  “Except you,” he said, holding her gaze.

  Sarah didn’t know what to say.

  “I don’t know if I should accept this,” she finally managed.

  “Why not?”

  “It just doesn’t seem right.”

  “Because you’re leaving?”

  “Among other reasons.”

  “I want you to have something to remember me by,” he said quietly.

  “I won’t need this to remember you,” she said.

  “You’d rather forget me.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You will forget me when you go back to the United States,” he persisted, watching her closely. “You will go back to your former life and after a while your time here will seem like a dream, a troubled dream from which you were glad to awaken.”

  “I won’t go back to my former life,” Sarah said softly, shaking her head. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I have changed.”

  “Did I change you?”

  “My feelings for you changed me.”

  They were standing facing one another, like debaters in a secondary school classroom.

  “How?” he said huskily.

  “You were my introduction to...” she stopped.

  “Passion?” he suggested.

  “If you want to put it that way.”

  “Is there another way to put it, kourista?” he asked with a wry smile.

  “I suppose not.”

  “Do you think you will ever regret that we didn’t make love?” he asked.

  “We did make love,” she said, flushing.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I already regret it.”

  He crossed the distance between them and took her chin in his hand, turning her face up to his.

  “What are you saying?” he demanded.

  “Just that when I finally do...sleep...with a man, I won’t feel the same way about him as I feel about you.”

  “You expect that your husband will be boring?”

  “I expect that he won’t be you,” she said quietly.

  He put his arm around her and drew her into the curve of his shoulder, nuzzling her hair. “You are undoubtedly the most impossible woman I have ever met. How do you expect me to keep my hands off you when you say something like that?”

  Sarah wrapped her arms around his waist and closed her eyes, not thinking, not caring about anything but this man and this moment. When he bent his head to kiss her she looked up and met his mouth with hers.

  Sarah gripped his hard shoulders, fitting her body to his, tilting her head back as his mouth traveled from her lips to the shell of her ear, the base of her throat. He ran his hands up her bare arms and across her back, crushing her breasts to his chest. She tugged his shirt loose from the waistband of his pants, seeking the satiny texture of his warm skin with her hands.

  Kalid found her mouth again with his, aware that he was kissing her too hungrily, but unable to restrain himself. He tugged at the slender belt of her gown and the silken material parted; his hands sought her flesh, caressing, his fingers hot, moving everywhere as Sarah swayed in his embrace, her eyes half closed. When he released her she would have fallen but for the arm he slipped under her knees as he carried her to his couch.

  He set her on it and then ripped off his shirt; buttons flew everywhere as Sarah held out her arms, eager for the renewed sensation of his skin against hers. When he joined her she clung to him, running her lips over the smooth line of his shoulder. He groaned and pulled her into his lap as she sank her hands into his lush hair, sighing luxuriously. Her touch drove all reason from his mind as she strained against him. Sarah felt the tension in his powerful body as the panther he was named for readied itself to spring. She shifted her weight, making a small sound of satisfaction as she felt him full and ready against her.

  “I can’t wait any longer,” he gasped, lifting her into position, his hands on either side of her slender waist. “I will try to be gentle, kourista.”

  “Gentle?” she said, opening her eyes.

  “When I take you,” he muttered, pushing her down on the couch, reaching for the top button of his trousers.

  Suddenly she was looking up at him with a clarity that belied her previous ardor. “I know what you’re doing,” she said.

  “What?” he panted, bewildered.

  “You want to get into me just once before you pack me off to Boston. Then you can still feel that you’ve won.”

  He let her go and stood abruptly, walking to the other side of the room to put some distance between them. When he could talk again he said tightly, “I pack you off to Boston? Me? You are deranged, do you know that? That’s your problem, not virginal reticence, not some drivel about being a captive or coming to Bursa against your will. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before, I must have been blinded by desire. The real difficulty here is that you are completely and totally insane.” As always when he was angry or excited, his British accent intensified, making the last word sound like “insign.”

  “And you, I suppose, are the picture of stability, paying a king’s ransom for a woman you’d seen once and then resorting to the basest tactics to have your way with her,” Sarah retorted.

  “What base tactics? What? Were you tricked or misled in any way tonight? If you were I must have missed it.”

  “Getting that book for me...” she said, sitting up and pulling her gown around her, tightening the sash.

  “That’s a base tactic?” he demanded, staring at her. “Thoughtfulness is now a crime?”

  “It wasn’t thoughtfulness,” Sarah said, standing.

  “Then what the hell was it?” he inquired furiously.

  “Duping me. You know just what to do in order to soften me up, make me susceptible to your charms. You’re a past master at it with all women and you’re particularly effective with me. I have no idea why, but it’s true. I’ve read that there is one man in the world that each individual woman will be helpless before, and for me that person is you.”

  “You are not helpless, Sarah, never less so than at this moment,” he replied darkly.

  “I’d like to leave,” Sarah said primly.

  “You may go. You have my promise that I won’t try again. There will be no more interviews, presents, or tormented embraces. Your business with me is concluded. You won’t see me until you are ready to be taken to the American embassy.”

  Sarah strode out of the pasha’s suite and walked back to the harem, her eunuch escort nipping at her heels.

  Kalid downed another slug of raki and stared down at his hands, the hands that had so recently caressed Sarah until she was at the point of submission.

  But she had not submitted, and he was now getting drunk to forget that.

  Nothing was going as he had planned.

  He had thought that telling Sarah she was free to leave him would make her realize that she did not want to go. He had thought that expressing conc
ern about her after Fatma’s attempt on her life would make her realize that she meant more to him than just another woman to take to bed. He had thought that she felt more for him than just the passion two beautiful people would naturally stir in each other.

  He had thought that freeing the caged bird would make it fly happily back to its perch.

  He had thought wrong.

  She was actually going to leave, and he had no one but himself to blame for it.

  Why did he always misjudge the situation where she was concerned? Was she really so different from the other women he had known? She never reacted in the anticipated way, leaving him baffled and frustrated.

  And alone.

  He finished the liquor in his glass and poured another two fingers into it from the jug.

  She would go back to America. She would marry some clerk or salesman or teacher, a faceless nobody who wouldn’t know the first thing about making her moan with pleasure, who would never see the slow flush creep up her neck as she gave herself over to passion.

  The very thought of it made him want to reduce every stick of furniture in the palace to splinters.

  Instead he threw his glass against the wall, where the liquid splashed and the glass shattered into a crystalline profusion of tiny pieces.

  “Thank you for agreeing to accompany me on this little farewell trip,” Kosem said to Sarah. “My grandson told me how much you enjoyed the Sweet Waters and I thought you might like to see it again before you left us.”

  Sarah pulled her feradge back from her face and studied the old woman sitting next to her. They were traveling in Kosem’s luxurious carriage, the cushions so soft that sitting on them was like sinking into a cloud. Two halberdiers rode on either side of them and the khislar trotted on his palomino behind the coach.

  “Why do you look at me so?” Kosem asked.

  “When you are about to spring a trap, you resemble Kalid very much,” Sarah replied.

  “He resembles me, no? I came first.”

  “So you don’t deny that this little excursion has an ulterior motive?” Kosem’s invitations always did.

  “What is an interior motive?” Kosem asked.

  “Ulterior. It means a secret motive, other than the one expressed.”

  “You think I’m tricky?”