The waiters move with a deliberateness she is afraid is too obvious. But James seems happy and relaxed, laughing, squeezing her inner thighs now and then, which reminds her about the true reason for them being here.
At the front of the restaurant are a man and a much older woman. He is wearing a cream-colored linen suit, white shirt, and no tie. A casual silk kerchief rests in his breast pocket. He has horn-rimmed glasses and day-old stubble. The type of man fashion magazines describe as effortlessly elegant. She hates that phrase. The woman, on the other hand, wears a colorful silk caftan, which covers her from head to toe, yet she remains incredibly sexy.
James looks sideways toward the couple. “There’s a difference,” he murmurs.
“She needs to cover up,” she answers primly. “Too old to show so much skin.”
He laughs. “Oh, she has nothing on you, baby. Your skin is so pale, so delicate. So easy to bruise. Hers would be like leather. Not fun at all.”
The food turns dry in her mouth and swells, lodges wrongly. She coughs violently. She manages to excuse herself between coughs before leaving the table.
His chair scrapes against the stone floor, and he snaps his finger at a waiter, “Bring mint tea and cold water. As quickly as possible.”
Now, he is right behind her, taking her arm, guiding her as if she were an invalid. She is not, but she is overcome, out of balance.
The tea arrives promptly in their rooms; though her cough has already subsided, she is still grateful for the fresh, sweet drink, nonetheless. It restores her balance. She leans back in the cushions of the low sofa. James is sitting opposite her on a low leather footstool, looking at her intently.
“We don’t have to do this.”
“I want to.”
“Even after I have explained my preferences?”
She nods.
“You are sure?” His voice is tenderly considerate, almost polite. He might be asking for her opinion in a professional capacity.
“I am sure.” She nods for extra emphasis. It feels strange to be so explicit. But she is sure. There is nothing she wants more right now. Her rationality has almost dissolved.
He lifts his hands, observes them, turns them this way and that, stretches and bends his fingers. Then he clenches them into fists. She stares at his hands. She is lost in the grip of a desire so violent she can hardly sit still. Then she sees the numbers. There are six of them. Faded, crooked numbers burned into his skin.
“You see, my hands are the best part of me. The most authentic. You will get to know them.” His smile changes from gentle to feral. He gets up, walks behind her chair, puts his hands—those hands—on her shoulders. His fingers trail delicately around her throat, pressing a little, squeezing her windpipe lightly. Molten lead fills her veins. She burns. She can’t move. She gasps. He lets go.
“What is this?” he asks, lifting the rectangular golden pendant she wears on a gold chain around her neck. “It is surprisingly heavy.”
“It is a yoga mantra.” Her breathing suddenly slows down, almost coming to a halt.
“What does the symbol mean?” He is still fingering the pendant.
“Something like ‘true identity.’ It is hard to translate directly.” She takes the pendant from him and replaces it between her breasts. “I never take it off. It is kind of sacred to me.”
“It is certainly heavy,” he repeats, his hands now between her shoulder blades, under her arms, under her dress. He half lifts her from the chair, her nipples squeezed hard between his thumbs and middle fingers. Her face flushes and the front of her body flames.
“Never doubt that I can control you if I need to.” His voice is self-assured. Masterful.
She disappears in a submission that she has never experienced before—ego dying, body smarting, with feelings like thunderous waves of the sea.
Chapter 30
He pulls out a sand-colored linen suit and a pale-blue shirt from the open wardrobe. These clothes, along with sockless feet in brown loafers and a light Panama hat are his go-to uniform for hot climates. My white, empirical male outfit, he thinks to himself. Jo would hate it. Jo will hate it; he corrects himself with a smirk.
The sun is beating down as he makes his way to the shaded lounge area by the pool. Pale European bodies are on full, fleshy display in deckchairs, soaking up the sun like thirst-crazed survivors after a shipwreck. They are disregarding the danger of sunburn and dehydration. His disdain for their need to display their flabby paleness is manifest in the curve of his ironic smile as he walks past.
It is the time for an afternoon drink for more civilized types, and waiters are milling around in the lounge, serving iced mint teas and cocktails. He sees women in loosely draped dresses or caftans and men in similar tropical outfits like Francis’s own outfit. They are all international travelers, jet setters, bon vivants—and in their minds, the charter tourists by the poolside, getting tanned like roast chickens, are pitiable.
In a lush corner sofa, a Scandinavian looking couple is sitting close together. Francis can almost smell their recent sex across the lounge. Their body language is possessive, exploring, absorbing in a way no young lovers can be. The man is in his early fifties, tall and muscular. Rough looking. A loose white shirt over chinos with Birkenstock sandals. A physical man. Everything I am not, Francis muses. My opposite. The woman has short blonde hair and anonymous features, which at the moment are suffused with an afterglow that makes her almost beautiful. Her summer dress shows strong runner’s legs, and her arms have the long muscles you get from endurance sports. How well he knows that body. But he doesn’t know that look in her steel blue eyes. Never did she look at him with quite that look.
She doesn’t look up as he passes close by them. It even seems to him that she snuggles closer to her lover.
Even though the afternoon is far advanced, the sun still hits him powerfully as he leaves the dark coolness of the lobby and enters the cobbled, narrow street of Rue Harbil. The double doors slam shut behind him. A serene world of peace has shut behind him, and he enters into the heat.
Iron lattice in front of the windows throws decorative shadows on the salmon-colored walls where hibiscus and bougainvillea flower in abundance. He walks briskly, keeping as much to the shadows as possible, wanting to put distance between himself and the jealousy that flared up in him at the sight of the man and the woman.
He reaches the souk in the old part of town, so full of narrow passageways leading deeper into this world that has existed since time immemorial. He takes in dark corners that meet your destiny, colorful doors hiding God knows what and walls the color of faded blood. Not a place for the faint of heart. Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet comes to his mind, and he recalls a passage where exactly such a door hid a child brothel.
Vendors are calling out obscure items at him such as camel spleen, sheep’s head, and liver sandwiches. He realizes that they perfectly well know he won’t be buying any sheep’s head, but that they provide the sound and experience of this piece of theater, which is partly put on for the jaded Western tourists, day after day, while most Moroccans just pop down to the supermarket for a refrigerated piece of lamb.
Francis is walking further into the souk, his irritation and jealousy slowly giving place to a wordless, sensual enjoyment over the amazing display of the heart of Arab material culture.
As the day cools, the smells of body odor become less intrusive as vendors, donkey carts, shoppers, and young men on scooters pass one another in the narrow souk alleys. He smells the stench of freshly slaughtered meats and poultry, the salted animal hides from the leather tanners’ quarter, and the dyers’ quarters steaming in hot water and textile dyes.
Stalls contain cone-shaped and multi-colored spices, from deep red and yellow to lime green and cobalt blue. A universe of smells, tastes, and colors touches the deepest, imaginative spring in him, as it is so far from his Anglo-Saxon upbringing. As a child, he had watched the movie Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, and here in the Medi
na, he is suddenly overwhelmed by those ancient, forgotten sensory memories of the Arab heart and soul. The scents of a world of spices mix into an exotic, amazing wholeness, concluding in an eternal night of storytelling: cinnamon, paprika, cumin, turmeric, saffron, cloves, coriander. He lingers by these stalls, inhaling their deep and enticing scents, but shaking his head as vendors approach him and move on.
He passes stalls with brightly-colored pottery in intrinsic patterns, leather slippers in all the colors of the rainbow, wood-carvers and their handmade chessboards, and lamps from The Thousand and One Nights in intriguing cutouts, allowing the light to escape in the most beautiful patterns. He notes the walls covered in woven Kelim and Berber carpets.
As night falls, the sounds and smells change. Darkness is enveloping the city and lights are being turned on. The petrol lamps and naked electric bulbs in the souk throw long shadows of ghostly people moving by. Sounds intensify in the approaching darkness.
Suddenly, he senses an awareness tuned into his own person. Somebody is on his wavelength. He has this sense of another person latching onto him without turning his head, which is the normal, instinctive thing to do—it has been drummed into him. He feels his back between his shoulder blades tingle, and he knows with certainty that he is being followed. By a quick calculation, he realizes that it will take him at least twenty minutes to exit the souk, and then another fifteen minutes before he is safely back at the riad. And it would take the same amount of time before one of the waiters could arrive if he called the riad now.
That’s too long. There are any number of dark corners and deserted alleyways between here and the riad.
He fakes a twisted ankle and screams out in pain. People rush toward him. He allows himself to be carried into one of the stalls, his left leg trailing miserably behind him. Seated on a low stool, a cup of steaming hot mint tea in his hands, he peers intently into the crowd that has gathered to see whom his followers might be. But all he sees are curious Berber faces, mainly men, who are lined, friendly, and hopeful that he might spend money while he is waiting for the “Monsieur’s private car” that is already on its way from the riad.
The first number he speed-dials is Dhammakarati. “You are certain that he is gone.”
The monk needs a fraction of a moment to catch up, “Yes. He is gone. The pale man is gone for good.”
“Then there is someone else.”
He hangs up. The best thing with Dhammakarati is that you don’t need to nurse his feelings, he thinks to himself. Not at all. The monk is entirely emotionally self-sufficient.
His next call is to Thomas, who, as usual, picks up on the first ring.
“She was wearing the yoga amulet.”
“And?” Thomas asks.
“To show she is all right,” Francis snaps impatiently.
“Everything all right?” Thomas asks gently.
“No! Everything is not all right.” He knows it is unfair and immature, but he needs to let off some steam, and Thomas happens to be closest. He breathes deeply, then continues, “Somebody followed me in the souk today.”
“Did you get a glimpse?” Thomas asks.
“Not a peek.”
“Anything for me to go by?”
“No, nothing. I’ll let you know if anything shows up. By the way, is your guy ready? I haven’t seen him around the riad.”
“You wouldn’t. And yes, he is ready. He takes his cues from Vladimir.”
When Francis hangs up, a lizard is sitting on the silver tray next to an empty pot of coffee, itself silvery and grayish in adapting to its surroundings. The animal is staring him right in the face with a penetrating, angry stare. He feels invaded.
Chapter 31
“I need a coffee—and food!” she says, getting up. “You?”
“Yes.”
She picks up his shirt, asking his permission with her eyes before she puts on his larger shirt. The tiles are cool on her bare feet. Cool and hard. It would be painful to slip here, she thinks. It could be deadly even.
She picks up the service phone: “We would like breakfast served in our room. Yes, as soon as possible. Oh, and please make a reservation for a massage for me with Vladimir. Thanks.”
“Vladimir?” James raises an eyebrow.
“He is a famed masseuse who travels from resort to resort across the world. He is adored by the wealthy and by ordinary mortals like me,” she says, smiling. “I’ve tried him once before. He is good. Perhaps you should have a massage yourself?”
He shrugs. “Let’s see what you think after yours.”
Twenty minutes later, a waiter is laying out a mouthwatering breakfast tray—an omelet for him, exactly like the one she had prepared for him in Copenhagen. And fruit, jam, baghrir, and honey-combed pancakes fried on one side for her. The waiter also lays down a Turkish coffee in a silver pot with a raised spout and small glass tumblers with intricate designs on small hammered silver plates. Their meal is the best of the orient adopted to delicate European palates through generations of French imperialism.
“Sometimes something good comes out of suppression,” he murmurs in her ear as he pulls out her chair. She blushes, much to her own surprise. He has awoken the girl in her.
He is on the phone, his back to the door, and looking out the window when she returns from her massage. She lets the heavy iron latch on the door fall with a clunk. He turns around. She holds his gaze and slowly lets the soft white bathrobe slide from her shoulders. Her body is slick with oil. Warm. Supple.
She continues to look at him while she walks over to the bed, kneels on the edge, and slowly, so very slowly, leans forward. He has stopped talking. She hears the phone being dropped on the floor, then he is behind her, his hand clasping the small of her back.
“That was some advertisement, honey,” he mock-growls later. “I better have one of them massages. And quick too.”
She laughs at his pretend American accent.
“You must. And as it happens, I have already made you a reservation with Vladimir.”
“Oh! Have you indeed?”
“Well, yes, it came a bit expensive, as he had to let someone down. But he is worth it. You’ll see.”
They are holding hands as they walk up to the third floor in the riad where the Hamman and massage parlors are located. They come up to a diminutive woman in a crisp, white coat, with shiny black hair pulled back in a tight bun.
“More nurse than trollop,” he mutters, his breath hot in her ear.
The woman opens the door to the greeting area. “Mr. Hampton, welcome! This way, please.”
Jo gets a glimpse of a massage table strewn with pale pink rose petals before the woman ushers her back toward the entrance. “Please, Madame. This is for clients only. You already had a massage, yes?”
She nods.
“Please return to your room, Madame.”
Jo reaches out and grabs James by the elbow, “I’ll pick you up in an hour!”
“Sure,” he mumbles, giving her a hasty kiss. His attention is focused on the massive Russian entering the room.
“One hour. Minimum.” Jo looks hard at the small woman.
The woman nods solemnly.
She knows before entering that there is somebody in the room. She prays it is a person who should be there. She enters cautiously and immediately sees a young man bending over James’s computer. He barely looks up.
“Hi!”
“Hi,” Jo answers flatly. He looks all of nineteen years old—blond hair sticking out under a cap worn backward, Bermuda shorts, a semi-clean T-shirt—but he is absorbed in what he is doing.
In the bathroom, Jo hears another person moving around. She stiffens.
The young man mutters, “Cleaning! They thought it would cover any irregularities if the rooms were cleaned at the same time.”
She nods. Who are they in this instant, she wonders? Francis and Thomas? Francis and Vladimir? Francis and the tiny dark woman? She looks at her watch. “You have twenty minutes before you nee
d to be out of here,” she says to the young man.
“Relax, lady, I will be done in no time.” He answers without looking up, fingers flying over the keyboard on the MacBook Air.
Relax! That’s easier said than done. She reaches up and touches the yoga amulet.
“What exactly are you doing?”
“All I need to do is search his files for names of the family. That will not take too long.”
“Aren’t you installing a backdoor?” she asks
“I’ve already done that, but the fun part is finding all the files this guy thinks he has hidden. And I will find them.”
I am not so sure; she thinks to herself. James is a cautious man.
She looks again at her watch. Another five minutes have passed. She will need to leave in fifteen minutes. And the young man needs to be gone before she returns with James. But what if James decides that the massage is not for him? What if he gets up in the middle and returns while the young man is still here? No! She needs to trust Vladimir that James will not leave that massage table before an hour has elapsed. She needs to learn to trust her partners.
Her heart is beating hard. The room seems to grow smaller. She hates waiting, not being able to do anything. She walks over to the window. The narrow street of Rud Habil is deserted except for a man leaning casually against the opposite wall, smoking. Only a foreigner would smoke like that. He looks up and meets her eyes with a cold stare. She shudders. Who is he?
“Shit!” the young man mutters a few minutes later.
“What?” she snaps. She is at his side in a few long strides.
“There is nothing!”
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