"Putting out a well fire is pretty hairy business,” Abdul admitted, rubbing the burn scar as if he could still feel the intense blast of heat that had seared his flesh. “As involved as I've been in the oil business, I was naturally drawn to that aspect of it. Darrel agreed to take me on for some on-the-job observation. He was called in for the Maracaibo holocaust, and I flew in with him.” The sheikh's dark eyes took on a slightly dreamy quality, and Gil knew Abdul was suddenly thousands of miles—a continent—away. “I remember we came in at night,” Abdul said, licking his lips as a protection against the heat of the sun. “You could see the conflagration for miles; lighting up the sky like all hell had been turned loose on earth. On the spot, it was brighter than noontime. I couldn't believe there was a chance in hell of extinguishing it, but Darrel moved right in as if there was no bigger challenge there than some he'd had previously. And I guess, there wasn't. He snuffed the fires out one at a time, using nitroglycerin blasts to smother their flames.” Although Abdul seemed to see Gil, it was doubtful whether he did see him, so deeply was he into his recollection. “Each time the nitro went off, there was this sudden spray of fire three hundred feet high and two hundred feet wide that suddenly dissolved into a black gushing of sticky crude."
"And the scar?” Gil asked, knowing that everything couldn't have run smoothly if Abdul came away with what had obviously been a bad burn.
"After the last one was blown, I moved in too close without a protective suit,” Abdul continued, his wry grin saying as much as anything that he should have known better. “Someone suddenly yelled that it was going to torch again, and I barely got turned around before it did just that. I didn't feel a damned thing, although I found out later that the force of the spontaneous re-ignition sent me through the air like Superman and knocked me unconscious against the side of a shed nine feet from where I'd initially gone airborne. The burn was less bother than the cracked ribs turned out to be."
"I'm a little confused as to why the fire would re-ignite after it had been put out,” Gil said. “Lightning again?"
Abdul shrugged. “It could have been anything—a spark caused by someone dropping a wrench, even the static electricity of someone running his hand through his hair. All I do know is that it did torch again, and when I got out of the hospital, Darrel wasn't too anxious to take me back. I had become a little too important to too many people for him to want to be the one who had to write home about my going up in a ball of flame."
"I can't say as I blame him,” Gil said. “You didn't actually want to go back, did you?"
"Sure I did,” Abdul replied and looked at Gil as if the younger man couldn't possibly have thought the sheikh had wanted to do otherwise. “You can't really believe the excitement inherent in one of those operations. There's a beauty to it that you're not going to find anywhere else on Earth—all that billowing smoke and red-orange flame. The noise is like a hundred cannons going off simultaneously."
"I would think cracked ribs and a nasty burn would be just a little too high a price to pay for the show,” Gil said, amazed at Abdul's favorable nostalgia.
"When I heard somebody yelling that the baby was going to go, I felt closer to death yet more alive than I ever felt previously. I hadn't felt it, that intense, when I was knifed, not when I was shot, not when I totaled the race car in France. It was an experience I really can't even begin to explain."
"Obviously,” Gil said. Abdul could talk until he was blue in the face, and Gil still wouldn't understand what impulse could drive a man into seeking the hypnotically macabre beauty of the horrible catastrophe just described.
"Anyway,” the sheikh said, likely having learned from earlier experience that he wasn't going to make any converts, but hardly upset because of it, “you can now say you've had the guided tour of the battlefield with only one big surprise left.” He chuckled at that bit of suggestiveness and, shutting his eyes, settled back in his chair to enjoy a heat that would be far more kind to him, for a moment's exposure, than an exploding oil well had once been.
Gil opened his magazine and tried to read, with no more success than he'd had since Abdul first joined him. He closed the magazine silently and turned his attention back to the man beside him. He had thought the sheikh one of the most handsome men he had ever seen when Abdul had his clothes on, and Gil's opinion hadn't been changed by most of those clothes having been removed. There was an aesthetic beauty to Abdul's anatomy that was somehow made more masculine by the imperfections of his scars. Gil couldn't help comparing what he saw here with what he had seen that moment Peter had peeled off the bloodied shirt in the tent outside Saqqâra. Abdul's body had a classic masculine beauty, but Peter's physique was somehow more exciting to look at. Gil was disturbed at the prospect of forever finding himself comparing every man he met, dressed or undressed, with Peter Donas. Without meaning to, Gil found himself wondering whether Peter's body was as smoothly perfect everywhere as it was in the areas Gil had already seen.
He must have dozed; the next thing he remembered, he was hearing the discordant clang of something hard being struck against something metal. He opened his eyes, immediately having to shield them from the sun with his hand. Abdul was awake and looking at him with a degree of lust that made Gil almost wish he wasn't always forced to compare the sheikh to Peter.
"I think that racket you are presently hearing means lunch is being served,” Abdul said. “It's the equivalent of the pleasanter chimes you would have heard had this been one of the larger ocean-going liners. Hungry?"
"A little,” Gil admitted, reaching for his robe. He'd eaten hardly at all the night before and had only a roll and coffee for breakfast. “You?"
"Famished,” Abdul said, giving Gil a mock-lecherous glare and smacking his lips. Gil couldn't help laughing. “I hope you don't mind my having already arranged for the two of us to share the same table in the dining room,” the sheikh said, his voice apologetically asking Gil please to forgive him if he had somehow, once again, overstepped certain acceptable boundaries.
"I don't mind at all,” Gil said, getting to his feet. He suddenly felt much better about everything. Perhaps, Abdul's words had sunk in. The sheikh had been right about the wisdom of clearing the air between them. The sheikh had been right about a lot of things, not the least of which had been how Gil was fighting off the feelings he felt for Peter by refusing to accept even the possibly that Peter felt at least some of the same in return. Maybe there was such a thing as love at first sight. Abdul had convinced Gil it would be better to rush in, even to take big chances, rather than to sit back and let the world pass by. Gil felt a bit guilty about his feelings toward Peter in the face of Abdul's rather fearless—and certainly selfless—honesty, but he knew the sheikh would understand. Abdul played his games fairly, and Gil intuitively knew the Arab wouldn't be a bad loser, either. That Abdul had lost, Gil knew already. “I can think of nothing I'd rather do than have lunch with you,” Gil said. It was a harmless white lie, far better than the needlessly cruel truth that he would have far preferred having lunch with Peter. “I'll meet you in the dining room in about ten minutes."
Gil hurried back to his cabin. Taking off his robe and swimsuit, his gaze was helplessly drawn to that one small splash of orange floral color amid the surrounding whiteness of the other flowers. He went over to the rosebud and drew it slowly from its vase, feeling the coolness of clinging water on his fingertips as moisture drained down the thornless stem and formed a small drop of liquid at the base. He brought the flower to his nose and smelled deeply of its heady perfume. Its fragrance brought back reminders of how Peter had looked standing there in the doorway, so handsome, humbly offering the rose in apology. Gil forgave him his rude exit. He forgave him everything, most of all his being Frederic Donas's grandson.
Gil held the rose gently, letting its delicate petals rest against his cheek. He guided the rose down his chin and along the arc of his throat. He shut his eyes as the delicious caressing of the flower progressed down along the athlet
ic curves of his naked chest and torso to rest atop the sizable spear-like shaft of his burgeoned erection. Clear sticky fluid oozed his cockmouth and pooled within the parenthesizing pout, like a rare and exotic desert jewel in the perfect setting for it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LUXOR, KARNAK, THEBES: a closely grouped triad of Upper Egyptian archaeological sites whose combined total area includes the ruins of the most mammoth monuments and greatest accomplishments of the Thirteenth to the Thirtieth Dynasties. It wasn't, however, the magnificent Temple of Luxor, whose removed mighty obelisk now graces Paris's Place de la Concorde, which made the locale so special to Gil. Nor was it the Temple of Karnak, whose hypostyle hall boasts one hundred and thirty-four massive columns, anyone of which might hold one hundred standing men on a capital mushroomed sixty-nine feet above the ground. In fact, as Gil stood on the guardrail of the Osiris sundeck, it was the opposite side of the Nile that held his attention. He looked toward Thebes and a landscape that would have appeared of no particular archaeological significance to a novice. There was immediately visible only the glare of sun on the Nile; the greenness of gardens and plantations; the stateliness of date palms—never coconut palms, which require a substantial rainfall; beyond all that was a desert not so much loose sand as a series of rocky buttresses ascending to impressively rugged cliffs. Viewed through the undulating heat of midday, the ground was a fluctuating distortion of white, yellow, ocher and brown, all without shadow.
"You do know that what you propose is really madness, don't you?” Abdul said, coming up behind and touching the coolness of a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice to the back of Gil's arm. Gil turned toward him and smiled, taking the offered refreshment and letting a couple sips momentarily relieve the dryness of his mouth and throat. “The tourist bus just got back, and the whole sweaty group who went sightseeing in it looks as if it's about to expire en masse,” Abdul said, gazing off across the river. “It's like a blast furnace over there at this time of day, especially this time of year."
"I'll survive,” Gil said confidently, knowing he had always found he was more adaptable to extreme warmth than to extreme cold.
"Sure you wouldn't like company, just in case you drop over from heat exhaustion, somewhere along the way?” Abdul asked, seemingly more than willing to join in Gil's scheduled sweat-box afternoon.
Gil had welcomed the sheikh's company when the ship had docked at Tell al-Amarna, the capital of the heretic pharaoh Ikhnaton, who had married Nefertiti—The Beautiful One is Come—and been succeeded to the throne by the boy-king Tutankhamen after an unsuccessful attempt at a religious reformation designed to replace permanently the Egyptian pantheon of gods with only one god, Aton, in the manifestation of the sun disk. Gil had stood with Abdul watching as the ship had leisurely cruised by Antinoöpolis, a city so obliterated by time that few on board had even realized the modern sugar refinery pinpointed the locale of a once major metropolis erected by the Roman emperor Hadrian in memory of his handsome young lover Antinoüs—he of melancholy expression, large eyes and beautiful mouth—who had drowned at that particular spot on the Nile, or more likely had committed suicide. Gil and Abdul had strolled through the ruins of Abydos, where the head of the god Osiris, whose brother Seth murdered him, was supposedly buried. At Dendera, they had admired the unencumbered symmetry and undeniable beauty of the Temple of Hathor. This afternoon, however, the Nile cruise almost over, Gil wanted to be alone in Thebes, having chosen the hottest part of the day, because he knew the intensity of the heat would drive most tourists to cool ship lounges or into equally air-conditioned hotel lobbies. “No, thank you,” he said, tempering his rejection with a smile. “Some things are best done alone, without the company of even a friend."
He had been using the word friend a lot lately in regard to their relationship, hoping to prepare Abdul for what might occur as soon as Gil was reunited with Peter a little farther up the river. There was something to the old adage about absence making the heart grow fonder. Gil, despite the companionship and admitted good times Abdul had offered, found himself more and more often thinking of Peter. He had even kept the fallen petals of the orange rose, gathered them up for preservation, while having allowed the steward to dispose of all the finally wilted gladioli. Gil found himself experiencing so much anticipation regarding his proposed meeting with Peter at Hierakonpolis that it actually overshadowed the afternoon's pilgrimage to which he had looked forward for so long. “I guess I really should be going,” he said, finishing off the welcome orange juice and placing the empty glass on a nearby table.
"A kiss in parting?” Abdul asked; since there was no one else around, Gil gave him one. There were kisses between friends and kisses between lovers, and Gil felt confident Abdul, as self-admittedly expert as he was in the nuances of romance, could tell the difference between this one and the other.
Gil left the sheikh on the sun deck and descended to the gangway after passing through air-conditioned rooms that reinforced the intensity of the outside heat when he stepped back into it. As he topped the stairway that brought him from the river's edge to the main street of the town, he turned back to see Abdul watching. Abdul waved, and Gil waved back. Gil was slow in being accosted by the drivers of horse-drawn carriages, men who were obviously surprised to see a tourist foolish enough to brave the heat. Gil didn't want a carriage anyway. They were fine for the shorter rides around Luxor and Karnak, but Gil's business was across the river in Thebes. He took the ferry and found a taxi on the other side. The cabdriver was no less surprised than the carriage drivers had been to see Gil out in the midday heat, but the Arab drove Gil northwest through greenery extended by the al-Fadleva Canal. Where the vegetation abruptly ended, and the desert just as abruptly began, the car passed the famed Colossi of Memnon, so dubbed by the Greeks in honor of their mythical hero. The two, seated, seventy-foot-high statues were actually representations of Amenophis III, now guarding a temple complex no longer in existence. When strange sounds were reported on occasion to be emitted by one of these stone figures at the crack of dawn, less superstitious observers were quick to explain it had nothing to do with anything more mysterious than the expansion and contraction of rock during temperature changes. Farther on, the road made a sharp right, and ruins became visible: the Temple of Minepaht; the Temple of Thutmosis IV; and finally the Ramasseum, funeral temple of the megalomaniac Ramses II. A roadway to one side led to the three-tiered funerary temple of Queen Hatshepsût, complete with its distinctive ramp ways. It seemed fitting that the monument to this particular Egyptian queen should be found perched at the base of an escarpment that probably contained more than its share of falcon aeries. Gil, however, refused to let his mind dwell on Abdul's falcon, merely reminding himself that Peter, when asked to pick between Gil and the bird, Hatshepsût, had picked Gil—even if Gil hadn't realized it until Abdul pointed that out.
The car turned sharply left and was soon veering into the Bibân al-Molûk—the doors of the king—a winding gorge that swallowed them momentarily into a maze of stone before spitting them out into a scorched and sun-baked depression. This place might well have seemed the end of the world were it not for the conspicuous presence of a government rest house that beckoned with cool rooms and cool refreshment. Gil gave the driver leave to wait inside, and Gil started off along a pathway free from the swarms of tourists found there in the comparative coolness of early morning. He paused only when he finally came to the one opening among many that he was looking for in all that weather-worn stone.
Tomb sixty-two in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes wasn't impressive inside or out. Its physical layout seemed particularly pitiful compared to that of tomb seventeen, those burial rooms of Sethi the First found at the end of one hundred and seventeen meters of descending corridor and known for their wealth of decoration; or tomb nine, that of Ramses VI, whose long gallery had been separated by a series of doors and intermediary chambers. Yet, tomb sixty-two was the most famous burial vault in Egypt—and possibly the world
. Here, sixteen steps leading to a small vestibule that opened into a funerary chamber measuring only six and a half by four meters, flanked by two side rooms, was the final resting place of the boy-king Tutankhamen. Crowded into a space so cramped that ceremonial chariots had to be dismantled, their axles sawed in half to allow them entrance, had been the only pharaonic treasure trove known to have escaped the tomb robbers of ancient times to see the light of modern day. It was the excavation of this site in 1922 that had brought Frederic Donas and Geraldine Fowler together. Here, at Thebes, they had meet. Here, they had loved. Here, Geraldine had died of a broken heart.
Gil hesitated before entering, hearing the sounds of someone else inside. Having not come this far to have company, he stayed put, enduring the incessant heat in its climb to even higher temperatures. He was beginning to sweat in the long-sleeved shirt he'd worn for coolness and protection. His cheeks and forehead were noticeably damp. Still, he waited patiently until finally the bearded young man and the skinny young girl emerged with their Arab guide. Only then did he go inside.
He noticed a slight drop in the temperature as he moved deeper. Reaching the vestibule, he turned toward the balustrade separating him from the stone sarcophagus, now glass-topped and set in a recessed chamber that allowed viewing of the inside golden coffin containing the mummy come home to rest. Deprived of the bulk of his treasures, including his gold death mask and the two most valuable of the coffins that had cocooned him like but one of several nested matryoshka dolls, Tut still managed to come out better than any of the other pharaohs once buried in the surrounding necropolis.
"Gil?"
He turned to Peter's voice, amazed that he had no more heard Peter's approach, here, than he had in the Egyptian Museum. In a telescoping of those years between the opening of the tomb and the present, he felt many of the same feelings Geraldine Fowler must have felt when rendezvousing with her young lover. Like Geraldine Fowler, Gil glided across the rough-hewn floor. Like Frederic Donas, Peter opened his arms in wondering embrace. Momentarily, Gil and Peter gazed into each other's eyes, as if all of the treasures of Egypt existed there. Then, they kissed. How wonderful Gil found the touch of Peter, the taste of him, the smell of him! Gil gave himself freely up to those sensations in which Peter seemed determined to immerse him, wishing only that the moment might stretch into infinity. Never had Gil known such ecstatic bliss from just one erotically lingering man-to-man kiss.
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