The Desert Castle

by Isobel Chace

  A knock at the door broke into her day-dream and Marion opened the door to the bundle of cheap black material on the other side. A pair of gleaming, blue-grey eyes peered curiously through the veil that hung from her head down her back and which she had pulled across to half-hide her face. Marion sought for some kind of greeting in her mind and came out with, ‘Marhaba. Hullo.’The woman looked blank, producing a shy greeting of her own, and beckoned, palm downwards, for Marion to follow her into the dining-room.

  ‘Ah, Zein—I beg her pardon, Umm Haroun! The birth of her son is too recent for me to have got used to her new name!—she found you all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ Marion smiled. ‘I thought marhaba meant hullo in Arabic, but she didn’t seem to understand me.’

  ‘The Bedouin dialect is very different from the Arabic that the Palestinians speak, for example. Unless they can speak both they don’t understand each other at all.’

  ‘And you speak both?’ Marion said, knowing the answer even as she asked the question.

  ‘A little.’

  Marion took her seat at the table. ‘Are all the original Jordanians Bedouin?’ she wanted to know.

  He shrugged. ‘Most of them, I suppose. Those who are not Circassians, or Druses, or Samaritans, or the descendants of the Crusaders, most of whom are still Christians.’

  ‘Samaritans?’ Marion gasped. ‘Like the Good Samaritan in the Bible?’

  ‘Like him, and like the woman at the well,’ he confirmed. ‘Nothing much changes around here except on the surface.’

  Lucasta nudged Marion’s arm. ‘You should have been here earlier,’ she whispered. ‘Gregory had to find some knives and forks for us himself! He doesn’t bother when he’s by himself, but Denise insisted.’

  Marion looked round the table and wondered how he managed without some kind of cutlery. A great pile of flat bread had been placed in the centre of the table and was surrounded by bowls of different substances that made her mouth water to look at them.

  ‘One has standards!’ Denise declared forcefully. ‘It is not good to be a savage, mon ami, as Papa would soon tell you.’

  ‘Indeed, he would,’ Gregory agreed. ‘But when in Rome, I like to do as the Romans do. A knife and fork adds nothing to the taste of the food.’ He turned lazy, dark blue eyes on to Marion’s face. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I’d like to know how to do it properly,’ she admitted.

  Denise raised her eyes heavenwards. ‘But what is properly?’ she muttered. ‘It is known that the French cuisine is the best in the world, therefore—’ She picked up her knife and fork, leaving the rest of her sentence to their imagination.

  Gaston nodded across the table at her. ‘Knives and forks for French cuisine are a necessity, but nobody would describe this as French cuisine!’ He too picked up a fork and waved it in the air to make his point.

  Zein, the Mother of Haroun, apparently understood too, for she picked out a fork from the pile on the table and offered it to Marion, nodding towards the food.

  ‘Laal,’ Gregory roared at her. He took the fork in his own hand and put it back on the table. He tore off a portion of bread and dipped it into one of the bowls, putting it against Marion’s lips. ‘Open wide!’ he bade her, and popped it into her mouth.

  ‘What is it?’ she demanded as the strange taste broke across her tongue.

  ‘That one is ground up chick-peas with olive oil. Try one of those little meat balls and with it this dip of yoghourt and lemon juice.’ He smiled with satisfaction at her delighted pleasure, and said something in her own language to Zein, who giggled and shyly turned away from the table.

  ‘What did you say to her?’ Marion asked him, her face alight with laughter.

  ‘I said if you had been brought up on her cooking you might have grown into a large lady—’

  ‘That has nothing to do with it,’ Marion retorted. ‘It’s all in one’s genes, I’m sure of it. But if all the food is like this I will go back to England a good deal fatter than when I came!’

  He laughed too. ‘It’s difficult to be moderate when everything is new,’ he agreed. ‘If you will accept a little advice, leave a little space for the next course, which is the traditional Bedouin dish of Mansef. This is only meant to be the hors d’oeuvres.’

  ‘Goodness,’ said Marion.

  She was glad she had followed his advice though when Umm Haroun cleared away the first course and brought in an enormous dish of rice, mixed with roast nuts and pine seeds, with a lavish quantity of lamb on top.

  ‘Mansef means literally “a big dish,” Gregory said drily, enjoying the expressive wonder on her face. ‘Perhaps, for this, you’d better use a fork,’ he added.

  It was terribly good. The vision she had had of herself being forced to eat the eye of the animal that had been conjured up by his telling her that this was a traditional Bedouin dish receded, and Marion set to with a will and ate one of the most enormous meals ever to have come her way, despite Gregory’s open amusement at the extent of her appetite.

  ‘Do you always eat as well as this?’ she asked him.

  ‘Zein is a better cook than Umm Hamid, as her husband will be the first to tell you, but they both do me very well.’

  ‘It is always the same,’ Denise agreed. ‘I enjoy it when I come here, but for everyday it is dull to the palate. When I come for longer than one day I do most of the cooking myself. I worry about Gregory’s digestion when I’m not here. He eats too many eggs, which is very bad for the liver.’

  Marion was suddenly aware of the implications that lay behind the French girl’s remarks. Did she often stay for days together at the castle? And, if she did, was it so that she could be alone with Gregory Randall? The idea distressed her. It wasn’t that she minded what Gregory did, but if Denise took it into her head to come while she and Lucasta were there it would be almost impossible to ignore the situation.

  Gregory rubbed his chin against his knuckles before lighting himself a cigarette. ‘Monsieur Dain likes to retreat to the desert every now and then. Denise caters for his tastes as much as for her own.’

  ‘And you, mon cher, do you pretend that you are not pleased when I take a hand in the kitchen?’ Denise challenged him. ‘You are not so different! You cannot pretend to me, for me, I know better!’

  ‘Then you have answered yourself,’ he teased her. He patted her hand that was lying on the table. ‘I am tempted to ask you to make the coffee, but Zein will want to serve her own brew in the sitting-room. She is always in a hurry these days with her little son to feed as well as us.’

  ‘Why doesn’t Umm Hamid do all your cooking for the time being?’ Gaston asked his host.

  Gregory grinned. ‘Abou Hamid likes a peaceful household. The women quarrel if they don’t have the same opportunities for turning an honest penny. And also, I have to admit that I prefer Zein’s gentle touch on my crockery. Umm Hamid has a very heavy hand when it comes to the washing-up.’

  ‘Abou Hamid,’ Marion repeated, ‘Does that mean the Father of Hamid?’

  ‘Hamid is his eldest son. His own name is Mohammed, but he is hardly ever called by it.’

  Marion found herself looking with greater interest at Zein when she served them their coffee, wondering what it was like to share her husband with another woman, a woman moreover older than herself who had borne her husband a son when Zein was still at home learning the household tasks of being a wife and mother in her father’s home. She noticed that the girl had dyed her eyelids with black kohl, an effect not very far removed from the eye-shadow she used herself. Her face bore none of the tattoo marks that Marion had read were popular with some of the Bedouin tribes, but she had dyed her nails and the palms of her hands with henna, probably as a hygienic measure, for henna is considered to have many of the same properties as an antiseptic solution has in the West. Then, it was not exactly a veil she was wearing, more a large scarf which completely covered the sides of her face and was crossed over under her chin to keep it out of the way. The
voluminous black robe that covered her from head to foot was at least a yard longer than she was, and was pulled up over a wide, elaborately decorated belt that matched her glass and copper beads and bangles that completed her outfit. It was strange to meet someone, to think one had made a genuine contact, and yet to know so little about that person and perhaps even less about how she lived out her days.

  The Bedu girl looked back at her with a much more open curiosity. She touched her lips and giggled, admiring the lipstick that Marion wore. If her husband approved, Marion vowed to herself, she would give Zein one of hers, the colour of which would suit her honey-coloured skin better than it did her own rain-washed, English pink and white complexion.

  At last Denise reluctantly got up to go. She made no bones about the warmth with which she embraced Gregory, making soft, purring sounds in his neck, and promising to be back the following Friday, with or without her father as there were now other women at the castle.

  ‘You are to miss me more each day I’m gone,’ she instructed him with a soft, intimate smile. ‘And you are not to flirt with the art woman! It is understood?’

  ‘If you bring the things she needs to restore the frescoes, we’ll both be too busy working to see much of each other,’ he told her.

  ‘Then I shall certainly bring them.’ She turned away from him, her eyes wet with tears, and bade the others a casual au revoir. ‘But where is Gaston? I cannot go without him!’

  The young engineer presented a rather pink face. ‘I was saying goodbye to Lucasta,’ he explained uneasily. He squared his shoulders and held out his hand to Gregory. ‘I shall bring the car next time. There are many places your niece should see while she’s here if you have no objection, monsieur?’

  ‘Not if you check with Miss Shirley or myself first. When can we expect you?’

  ‘Would next Thursday evening be too soon? We get off early on Thursdays to give the workmen a chance to go home for the Friday prayer. I might be rather late arriving, but there would be no need for anyone to wait up for me. I can let myself in.’

  ‘Do that. The door is never locked,’ Gregory assured him easily.

  They all went outside to see the French couple go. The plane looked small and not very robust to Marion’s critical eyes, but Denise pulled on her helmet and disappeared into the cockpit with an engaging assurance. A moment later the Piper was bobbing over the rough ground as it taxied into position to take off.

  ‘She must be very brave!’ Marion exclaimed after the heart-stopping moment when the aeroplane left the ground and climbed up into the air.

  ‘Or foolhardy,’ Gregory said drily. ‘To be brave, you have to first know what fear is.’

  ‘And Denise doesn’t?’

  He shook his head. ‘She’s armour-plated with Papa’s money. But one day she’s going to find herself and then she’ll be a rather marvellous person.’

  And then he’ll marry her, Marion thought, and she wondered why the idea should be so objectionable to her. Was it only because she thought that even Gregory Randall deserved someone better than the going-to-be-marvellous Denise Dain? She hoped not, because if she did think that it had to be because she liked him a great deal better than she had yet admitted to herself.

  CHAPTER IV

  Marion settled into her new life with an ease that surprised her. She saw very little of Gregory except at mealtimes, but she was more than content to explore the local terrain with Lucasta and came to enjoy her encounters with the local people whose hospitality was apparently endless and whose curiosity about the strangers in their midst could never be sufficiently satisfied. Whenever he had nothing better to do, which was most of the time, Abou Hamid followed them about, pretending to translate their remarks to all and sundry. But he had little English himself. He showed them his guns with pride, claiming that one had been given to him by Glubb Pasha, and another by the King himself. He also wanted to know all about their relations and if they visited their uncles and aunts and cousins with a frequency he considered proper. Marion enjoyed these exchanges, but she tried to keep than to a minimum because it made Lucasta edgy to be asked about her parents’ doings and she considered his questions about them to be grossly impertinent.

  ‘Why does he want to know?’ she kept asking. ‘He’ll be asking you next how much you earn teaching at school!’

  ‘He already has,’ Marion told her. She had answered him too, but that she did not pass on to Lucasta. Nor did she tell her that his two wives had been listening to the whole conversation, demanding that he should translate every word for their benefit, and how they had apparently understood that she valued her independence. They too, they had told her, were not afraid to entertain men as equals when their husband was away, but when he was there it was better that the men should be left to their own talk, they preferred to gossip to other women about the things that really mattered. It was nice to have both, Marion had pointed out, and the women had gravely nodded their consent before they had asked her about Gregory’s reasons for sending for her from England. In vain had Marion protested that Gregory had had nothing to do with her coming.

  By the week-end, though, she was more than ready to start work. Denise, arriving in the early afternoon of Thursday, handed over the chemicals Marion had asked for, warning her to be sparing with them. ‘I did not enjoy trailing around Beirut in search of such things. Next time, you had best come back with me and find them for yourself!’

  Marion thanked her with as much warmth as she could summon up and took them straight to her room, determined to get started as early as she could the following morning She heard Gaston’s arrival in the middle of the night in a haze of sleep. She was glad he had come because Lucasta liked him and nobody could have thought that she would ever be in the least bit interested in frescoes. If Marion didn’t know by now that she was bored stiff by any kind of painting, she would have been a much worse teacher than she was. Lucasta’s idea of getting through the hour devoted to the art class every week had been to turn it into a talking-shop with most of her friends and, providing that they didn’t annoy anyone else, Marion had allowed her to do just that.

  When Friday dawned, bright and clear, Marion could have hugged herself with excitement. She went into her room immediately after breakfast and shut the door firmly behind her, determined to begin on the shy little houri as soon as she had prepared her witch’s brew.

  The morning passed with a speed that disconcerted her. She had been far more successful than she had hoped and she was bubbling over with glee when she ran down the corridor to the dining-room for lunch.

  ‘May I come and see how you’re doing?’ Gregory asked her.

  She was reluctant to show him her small beginning. In the most ridiculous way, she felt he would impose on the timidity of the delightful little creature she had so carefully revealed.

  ‘I’m not really ready for visitors,’ she said.

  He looked disappointed and she relented, her longing to share her excitement with someone who would appreciate what she was doing overcoming her fellow-feeling for her little houri.

  ‘Don’t expect too much,’ she warned him. ‘There isn’t much to see yet.’

  ‘I won’t,’ he promised.

  It was only then that Marion realised that no one else had turned up for the meal. ‘Where are the others?’ she asked, a little uncomfortable at being alone with him. ‘Why didn’t you go with them?’

  ‘Because, like you, I have work to do,’ he answered.

  She looked down at her plate. ‘Denise must have been disappointed,’ she remarked.

  ‘I dare say she’ll survive,’ he murmured with all the heartlessness she expected’ from him. ‘Why don’t you like her, Marion?’

  ‘I don’t know her well enough to like or dislike her. She’s a lovely girl and she seems to have a great deal going for her—’

  ‘But you are not greatly interested in material things, so it can’t be that that bothers you.’

  ‘How do you know?’ she sh
ot back at him.

  His navy-blue eyes regarded her thoughtfully. ‘I know.’ He was uncannily sure he was right, ‘Nor do I think you are jealous of her beauty. You are well enough yourself not to be afraid of any competition she might offer. So why don’t you like her?’

  ‘I don’t dislike her,’ Marion repeated.

  ‘But there is something there?’ He hesitated. ‘I can’t see Denise ever taking anything from you that you really want. She is a girl who has few friends amongst her own sex. Won’t you befriend her?’

  ‘It takes two to make a friendship,’ Marion reminded him tartly. She knew one thing Denise would take if she could and that was Gregory Randall, and he must be blind if he couldn’t see it!’Why don’t you ask Denise why she doesn’t like me?’ she added. He ought to know the answer to that too, she thought. Denise would never like any female who was living under the same roof as Gregory because as far as she was concerned life for women was a competition with man as the prize for the winners, and she couldn’t conceive that everyone else didn’t share her attitude.