by Неизвестный
were left alone.
“Two days through the desert, via West Barakat, to get to your father’s dig?” Ramiz asked softly.
“And we’re only halfway there,” Salah replied blandly. “It’s a four-day trip. Nadia’s not likely to
mention where the dig is, is she?”
“Does she know? I don’t, not with any accuracy. Subtle form of abduction, brother? She’s very
beautiful.”
“Subtle form of interrogation. I want to know why she wants to see it.”
“Ah.” Ramiz pursed his lips. “Nadia recognized her. Supermodel? She would have a lot of connections
among the wealthy.”
“Got it in one,” Salah said.
“Could she be an innocent pawn?”
“No. I tried that one. She’s hiding something.”
Even as he spoke he wondered why he had brought Desi to this house, where the least slip would expose
the truth of this expedition. Was he tired of the deception, had he somehow accepted that she was
innocent, that last night had taught him her real reason for coming? Or had he merely fallen victim to her
wiles in spite of his best intentions?
“The big mystery is, why has your father allowed it? Isn’t the site completely shut down to outsiders?”
Salah nodded. “I advised him to refuse. His sense of justice wouldn’t allow it. Desi’s family in Canada
hosted me very generously every summer for years when I was a kid learning English. He couldn’t say
no, even though we have to assume that whoever is behind it chose her for that very reason.”
“So the desert is going to sweat the truth out of her?”
Salah nodded.
“And what else?” Ramiz asked.
Salah raised his eyebrows in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“There’s more going on between you than just a spy story, Salah. The air catches fire every time you
look at her. What else are you trying to sweat out of her?”
“I have an idea!” Nadia said.
After a delicious cold lunch of various kinds of salad, Salah and Desi were making moves to go.
“We have a very interesting site close to Qabila. Rock carvings, two thousand years old, Desi! If you
stop the night with us, Salah, you can take Desi to see them this afternoon.”
Desi glanced at Salah. It was tempting, the thought of a comfortable bed and cool sheets and a shower in
the morning. But she was unsure what such an offer of hospitality meant. Was this one of those
moments when you were supposed to protest three times before accepting?
“Thank you, that’s very kind,” Desi said with a smile. “But it’s such a long trip, and I am really eager to
get there as soon as possible.”
“But if you leave now, you will not get to the site till nearly sunset, maybe even after dark,” Nadia said.
“You may as well stay here and go tomorrow morning. Anyway, the road is safer in daylight.”
A funny little silence fell over the table. Ramiz and Salah exchanged glances. Ramiz started to say
something in Arabic, but Desi was already asking, “The road?”
“Yes, in the dark, you know, you can hit blown sand before you see it. Salah is a very good driver, but
when sand grabs your wheels, it can be very uncomfortable.”
“What road would that be?” Desi asked carefully.
Nadia smiled and waved vaguely with her hand. “The main road to Central Barakat, of course! I really
don’t understand why—”
“The dig is on the main road?”
“No, didn’t you tell us once it’s an hour or two off piste, Salah? But the secret is knowing where to turn
off!”
“Really. A whole hour off the main road.”
“Shokran, Nadia,” Salah said. “But we’ll go on. I prefer to do the last leg under cover of darkness.
Harder to track us, if anyone is trying.”
Fifteen
A few minutes later they were in the Land Cruiser again, heading down the valley.
“So, are we going to continue the circular tour for another two days?” Desi asked as soon as she was
sure she could control herself. She had never been so angry in her life, mostly with herself. What a fool
she had been! Dreaming dreams about a man who had already proven himself a selfish, faithless
monster. A man, clearly, who was obsessed with honour because he had none.
“Desi…”
“Since your ancestors were faultless navigators, I assume the detour was planned. Did you mean me to
get to the dig at all? Or was the great navigator planning to get lost and spend two weeks driving around
in circles?”
“I told you I would not let you discover the way, Desi.”
“Five days? Was that much bluff really necessary?”
“I have told you from the beginning that I am concerned about your motives. I thought after a few days
in the desert you might tell me the truth.”
“Your own particular brand of endurance test. Is that why you made love to me, too?” Her heart
convulsed so that she felt sick. “To try and break me down? Hoping for a pillow confession?”
“I warned you there was no future for us.”
She began to laugh unhappily. “Oh, you’re as noble as they come! A true mountain warrior—what’s the
code you once told me?—generosity, hospitality, bravery in battle, and a good lover? Oh, yes,
everything’s there, except the generosity, the hospitality, and the bravery! What a cowardly way to fight
a battle against a woman! God, you make me sick!”
A cloud of sand billowed up around the car as Salah slammed on the brakes and pulled off the road
under a cluster of date palms. He turned to her, his black eyes blazing.
“What did you expect, Desi? You come to me with lies, but you want truth from me! I have to know
why you came here, why you want to visit this place! My father could not say no to you, because I owe
your family such a debt! Was it noble in you to take advantage of him in this way?”
“I am not taking advantage of him! Why do you suspect me? Why won’t you believe me?” she shouted.
“Because you are lying to me. I know it. Do not deny it again, Desi, it makes you more of a liar!”
“How can you make love to me at night and then in the day believe I could be a cheat?”
“Because you are a cheat. You cannot be trusted. You are weak. This I learned ten years ago.”
Her jaw fell open. Her eyes blazed outrage at him.
“Me! How dare you? I’m sick of this accusation, Salah! You’re ten years older now, isn’t it time you got
a handle on what happened? All I did was love you, and if that’s a sin, well, I’ve paid for it in spades!
You’re the one who was weak! You’re the one whose love didn’t last past the first hurdle. Not me!”
“Do you pretend to rewrite history with me?” he demanded. “Do you pretend to forget what you did?”
“What I did? What did I do, exactly?”
“Why do you want to open this? You did not love me.”
“That’s what I said, all right. I was sixteen years old. You’re the one who wrote the letter. You’re the
one who decided that we were not after all married in our hearts and therefore I wasn’t pure enough for
you!”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Do you pretend still? You could not have gone to the bed of this old man
if your love had been real. You know it.”
“Old man? Bed? What are you talking about?”
“You know. The one they called your agent. Why do you pretend with me?”
“Leo?” she screeched incredulously
. “Three years later, Salah! How long did you expect me to wait for
you to see the light?”
“What?” he whispered.
But she was in full flood.
“Three years during which you never once tried to get in touch! What was I supposed to do? You
rejected me in the most humiliating, shaming way possible! Was I supposed to beg? To promise to give
up my too demeaning career? Grovel because I was weak and slept with you before we were bound in
holy bloody matrimony?
“I waited and waited in the hopes that when you wrote it you were delirious or something, but no! Your
self-righteousness was fully conscious! I don’t know what the hell you think you had a right to expect…”
“What do you mean, three years later?” Salah finally found his voice, and it rasped like gravel against a
screen.
“I was nearly nineteen before Leo’s master plan came to fruition! Are you really presuming to blame me
for that? You didn’t want me, but I should remain virgin forever? What was it, some kind of sanctity
test? No one else got near me for three years, Salah. Did you wait that long? I’d like to know.”
His eyes were hollow with shock.
“He was your lover from the beginning! You went from me to him.”
Her face convulsed with distaste. “No, he was not! I was sixteen, for God’s sake! He was forty-two!”
“It wasn’t true?” He was hoarse with horror.
“What?” Desi stared at him blankly. Then her eyes narrowed as suspicion took hold. “What do you
mean? What wasn’t true?”
“Sami sent me a magazine clipping. A picture of you with this old man. It said…”
Her head went back as if he had hit her. She stared at him, and for a moment they were frozen there,
locked in mutual horror.
“You believed it?” She was open-mouthed with shock as the fact sank in. She stared, shook her head to
try to clear it. “Is that why—?” she whispered. “How could you believe it?”
“Desi—”
“You, of all people! Did you really imagine that within a few weeks I could—? With you on a
battlefield, for Christ’s sake! You thought I had—” Suddenly feeling came rushing in to fill the
blankness and her voice found its feet.
“You read something about me in a damned cheap-thrills sell-your-soul-for-a-dollar celebrity magazine,
and you believed it?” She drew in a shuddering breath. “My God, it was bad enough when I thought…”
She didn’t know where to look. She turned away from him, lifted her chin, breathing with her mouth
open like a wounded animal, trying to get air. Chills rushed over her skin.
“Oh, God!” she moaned. “This can’t be true! This is a nightmare…”
She closed her eyes. Opened them again. Fury flooded her.
“That was why you wrote that letter. Wasn’t it? You—you faithless…my love not strong enough? How
dare you talk to me as if—You! What was your love worth, if you could believe that? Without asking,
without even accusing—you just read some innuendo in a photo caption, and believed it? Leaving me to
the mercy of those vultures who were surrounding me! Nothing! I had nothing to defend myself with, if
you didn’t love me! Did you think of that?”
Salah looked like the survivor of an explosion. He stared at her, his eyes black with shock.
“No,” he said.
“A caption under a picture! Not even a story!—I wanted to deny it, but Leo told me if we made a fuss it
would only confirm it in people’s minds. It was better to let it pass. Anyway, he said, this would make it
easier for him to protect me from predatory men, the way he’d promised my father!
“And it did give me protection—of sorts! I was sixteen and pretty and not engaged to you. If Leo hadn’t
been in the background I’d never have had a moment’s peace!”
With an upsurge of the sick bitterness that Leo’s betrayal of trust had created, she added, “It didn’t
protect me from Leo himself, of course. He was the most predatory of all, but he could play the long
game.”
“Ya Allah,” Salah whispered. She had never seen his face the way it looked now.
“I hated it all. I’d never wanted the life, never! I always felt I was living some other girl’s dream. But
because it was so fantastic I somehow had to live it. I missed you so much! I wished and wished I’d
never done that stupid ad. Then you’d never have said what you said, and we’d have been married and I
wouldn’t ever have met Leo. But I was so nervous. Over and over I started a letter to you, but each time
I thought….
“And then you were wounded, and I knew none of that mattered, because I loved you and I would never
love anyone else, and if you died, I died, too. I waited for you to answer my card, wondering if you
would live, praying—God, how I begged for you to recover! And when I saw your letter lying there—!”
Her eyes squeezed shut. “I nearly died from joy. I thought my heart was going to burst out of me and fly.
“Then I read it—and you know what? He may have waited three years before he physically climbed into
my bed, but Leo got me in spirit the day I read your letter. I gave up that day. I gave up thinking what
we had was special, that anything was special! I gave up what I’d believed about myself. I wasn’t good
enough for you, Salah. I’d loved you and wanted you too much, and because of that you thought I—”
She began to sob helplessly, feeling as if all the tears of a lifetime were waiting to be shed.
“I felt so cheap! I thought, well, if Salah can say such horrible, disgusting things…then it was all
nothing. What I thought we had was nothing. It was never real. You betrayed your honour. It burned me
like an iron. I’ll remember that feeling till the day I die. I’d have given up that life in a minute, if you’d
asked, but that letter told me it was more than being a model. I’d demeaned myself in your eyes by
making love with you, too, that’s what I believed. What we had wasn’t beautiful at all, it was cheap and
dirty. That was the end of everything.”
He was silent, his eyes black, watching her, knowing without doubt that what she spoke was the truth.
“And now you tell me you wrote that filth because you believed—how could you believe it? And not
even to ask me if it was true!” she cried, as the barriers gave way and all the hurt rushed into her throat,
demanding release. “How could you think for a moment that I could go from you to him? I couldn’t
stand any other man touching me! Even three years after—the first time Leo…I was sick afterwards! I
ran into the bathroom and threw up!”
She stopped and groped in her bag for tissues, then lifted her head and looked at him.
“It was bad enough when I thought you despised me for loving you or for being a model, but this! It’s
too much, Salah. This is unforgivable. You destroyed the most beautiful…what a cold, judgmental,
untrusting bastard you were. Are. Well, I’m glad I know at last. And to think I’ve spent these few days
with you regretting what we missed!” She added, in a self-disgust so total she could hardly breathe.
“Imagining that we still had something that could…but we never had anything, did we? It was all a lie
from the get-go. I’ll never regret it again. I was lucky. I had a bloody lucky escape.”
Then there was silence, broken only by the sound of her weeping.
Sixteen
S alah felt blank, the way
one feels after a bullet has hit: the emptiness of waiting for the pain.
He sat staring into the past, as all the carefully constructed armour of ten years collapsed into rubble
around him. He had destroyed the dream by his own hand. Feeling began to blast in, a storm of grief and
self blame.
She was completely blameless. The fault had been entirely his from the beginning.
She was right. He had acted towards her without generosity, without honour, all the while pretending
that the lack of honour was hers. Even the least degree of decency had required that he ask her for the
truth before judging her. And even believing it true, shouldn’t he have tried to understand the pressures
of that new world? A man of forty-two, a girl of sixteen. What chance would she have stood? Why
hadn’t he seen it before? Why hadn’t he judged differently when he got a little older?
He opened his mouth three times before he could speak.
“Desi. There isn’t a word strong enough. What have I done? Desi, forgive me.”
He put his hand out to her but, still weeping, she twisted away.
“Forgive? How can I forgive it?” she howled.
“Desi.” His voice sounded completely unlike him. “My God. What a fool I am. Worse than a fool. A
devil.”
She was sobbing inconsolably. “You said you loved me, you say now it was the biggest thing in your life
—how could you think such a thing? How could you begin to believe it? Why didn’t you at least give
me a chance?”
He swallowed. Ten years. What could make amends for such a waste of life and love?
“Desi, I am sorry.”
“Oh, great. Yes, that makes all the difference!”
The car was insufferably hot. Sweat was pouring off her, and she wound down the window and tried to
catch her breath.
Salah started the engine. “We can’t stay here.”
He put the vehicle in gear and backed out onto the road again.
The sun was in the west, streaming into the car now from the front, now on the right, as the road curved
and turned. It was burning hot, in spite of the air conditioning, and Desi felt sick with the brightness and
the heat on her skin. For a few miles she twisted the sun visor this way and that, trying to block the rays,