Blood Rules

by John Trenhaile

  His arms closed around her, the stubble on his chin grazed her cheek, and she allowed herself to fall over against his body. She began to cry, softly, for her grandfather, but in a way she had not cried before: she mourned him, yes, but without the self-spite that had poisoned the grief of childhood and adolescence.

  Colin nuzzled her neck. First his hands, then his lips were on her breasts. Her own fingers began to stroke his back, farther and farther down they went, until at last both of them were aroused and all the pain and sorrow of youth could be put to rest.

  Later, when they lay molded together like one person and the first light of a brilliant dawn was peeping through the shutter vents, she whispered, “There’s one thing.”

  He was on the threshold of sleep, but he raised his head enough to see her eyes, and smile. “Tell me.”

  “Your mother … why did she blame you for your father’s death?”

  His eyes slid away from hers, and for a second the alert hunter once again stood on the boundary of his campsite, Colin against the world. Then he lowered his head back onto the pillow, but before he slept he said something and what she thought he said was this: “I’ll tell you on our wedding night.”

  At first she wanted to laugh, then to cry, because it was such a beautiful thing to say, and then she didn’t know what she wanted to do, because although it would have been magical to have him confirm that he had indeed said those wonderful words, suppose he hadn’t really?

  She spent the rest of the vacation chewing over her memories of the night that had begun with summer thunder and ended with a proposal of marriage that might have been nothing of the kind.

  Her constant preoccupation through the Peloponnesus, across Austria, into Germany and Belgium, the thing was: her family would never agree. A tragedy, because she wanted it so much. She adored Colin, Oxford, and England, in that order: by marrying him, she could obtain them all. A fresh start, away from Beirut, far away from the memories of poor dead Grandfather Ibrahim, away from Yusif.

  At last the time came for them to board the Dover ferry and she could stand it no longer.

  The brilliant razzle-dazzle of the holiday was dissipating fast, despite all their efforts to retain it. It was a cool gray day in late September, and what there was of sun, so far away from being a Greek sun, no longer hurt their eyes. Dense clouds formed themselves into layers, scudding across the sky. The white cliffs loomed ever closer through a thin veil of rain. Colin and Leila sat huddled close together on a bench at the prow, holding hands, silent.

  “Well,” he said suddenly. He lifted her hand and bumped it gently down on his knee. “Home again. Look, see those clouds?”

  She followed the direction of his pointing finger and shrugged.

  “Don’t they look like a couple screwing? She’s on her stomach, and he’s ramming it in from behind.”

  “Is that all you ever think about?” she wailed, but quietly, not wanting others to hear.

  “Sorry. Look, I’m sorry, okay? I was trying to cheer us both up. It’s just … I’m fed up because it’s over. We’re home.”

  She turned her face away, not trusting herself to speak.

  “Only I suppose you don’t think of England as home.” He waited for a response, but there was none. “I mean, the idea of living in England all the time wouldn’t appeal to you.” Another pause. “Would it?”

  She looked down at the hand on his knee and thought, Why do clever men always have to be so thick?

  “Because I was thinking, when you go back to Beirut, I’m really going to miss you.”

  “I’m not going back yet.”

  “But you will go back, won’t you? One day soon?”

  “Maybe not. I like it in England.”

  He could not make up his mind; she recognized the signs with a depression that bordered on despair. He was dithering around, avoiding the core, coming in for the kill and shying away again, and it drove her mad. Perhaps she was wrong to fall in love with him. A lifetime of this—

  “Leila. Leila, will you marry—?”

  “Oh, yes. Of course.”

  The words were out before she could even be absolutely sure that he intended to finish the sentence with “me"; perhaps he’d merely wanted to ask her if she ever meant to marry. But when he smothered her in a hug that squeezed all the breath out of her she knew he really was proposing, and she sought out his mouth with her own as the best way of cementing their betrothal, because as long as they were locked together like that he couldn’t tell her if he changed his mind.

  At last Colin held her at arm’s length. His eyes shone with laughter. “When did you first know you loved me?” he cried.

  How to answer that, she wondered, when he could never understand? Of course, her love dated back to that moment in the car park, when his resourcefulness had saved her from Feisal’s thugs; that was when her love began, but he didn’t mean that.

  “In Ios,” she said.

  “But when exactly?”

  “The night you had your bad dream, remember?”

  He slapped his thigh, laughing out loud. “I knew it!”

  She was laughing too, by this time. “Why? How?”

  “Oh, because you saw me weak and helpless and you still felt the same about me, and I realized it.”

  Not bad, she thought, for a man. He might have added something about her maternal instincts coming to the fore, and she wouldn’t have minded even that. But then the raw emotion that had been building up inside her ever since Ios broke through the dam, and she allowed herself the contemplation of joy.

  She’d wanted things, so many things, and they’d all fallen into her lap. She laid her head on his chest, meaning it to be a gesture of prostration and worship, and while she held on to him as if for salvation she burst into tears of utter breakdown.

  “I love you,” she said, over and over again. “Oh, dear God, Colin, I do love you so!” And she would pound his chest with her fist, softly, softly, as if seeking admittance to his life, and a sanctuary there.

  Leila had come home.

  But it did not feel like home when she presented herself at the Lancaster Gate penthouse, with its much vaunted views of Hyde Park, two days later. Halib had that effect on her. He made anywhere outside Lebanon, or, more accurately, Beirut, seem a temporary and decidedly inferior lodging.

  One of his girls admitted Leila to the apartment. Another sat with her legs curled up on the sofa, leafing through Vanity Fair. Leila recognized the expression on her face as the product of the kind of boredom that made you feel frantic. A third girl was in the black-and-white tiled bathroom, giving Halib a facial.

  All three women were in their early twenties, had long blond hair, and wore sheath dresses, the facial expert’s being made of scarlet leather. Halib never deviated from his ideal of feminine beauty. He wore these interchangeable, fully compatible girls to parties as other men wore gemstones on their fingers.

  “You’re not seriously telling me,” Leila heard the face girl coo, “that you put soap on that lovely skin of yours?”

  “Hi,” Leila said. “I hope I don’t interrupt anything important.” She went forward to kiss his cheek but Halib, anticipating her intention, swung the chair around on its stalk so that he had his back to her, and said, “Liquid soap only, Roxanne; the results are as you see. My sister and I have a lot to discuss; go now.”

  Roxanne wiped his face with a towel and stalked out, her heels beating a somehow ominous tattoo on the marble floor. As she passed Leila she gave a scarcely perceptible shrug. Leila leaned against the wall and said, “She’s new.”

  It took all her courage to do that. She knew she was in the wrong, that she would never be forgiven for going away with Colin, that she had brought disgrace and grief in equal measure down upon her family. It was scarcely tactful of her to bring up the subject of Halib’s latest acquisition. Leila didn’t know why she took the risk. Perhaps it was something to do with her upbringing, which had taught her that attack was the only form
of defense.

  Halib swung himself out of the chair. His linen shirt set off his handsome features to perfection. For a moment he regarded her without expression, almost as if he were trying to remember who the hell she was. Then his mustache lifted, his face creased into those gorgeously sexy concentric laughter lines, and to her astonishment she registered that he was happy to see her.

  “Welcome,” he said, coming forward to embrace her. “Welcome home, angel. You look fabulous.” He kissed both her cheeks: the token gesture of international diplomacy made warm, compelling. “Greece was fun, huh? I’ll bet. Come, tell me about it.”

  As if in a dream she allowed herself to be led into his bedroom, his inviolable sanctuary, where he seated himself in an armchair by the window. Sitting there with the translucent floor-length drapes waving gently in the breeze, he looked every inch the merchant prince: debonair, charming, rich as clotted cream.

  It wasn’t until she’d sat down opposite him that the truth behind his words really socked her. “You … knew I’d gone to Greece?”

  He spread his hands and grinned. “Of course. Just as I knew that poor Yusif flew off to Thailand to console himself when he heard.”

  Leila looked down at where her hands were clasping and unclasping themselves in her lap. She’d known that Yusif was going to be on the agenda, but she had not expected him to show up quite so soon. Funny, though: Halib’s tone, when he spoke of Yusif, had sounded almost mocking.

  “I wrote to him,” she said in a low voice. “It was very difficult.”

  “Yes, but you shouldn’t worry about it. Father’s relieved.”

  She raised her eyes at that, but only in an attempt to discover why he was playing with her so cruelly.

  “Yusif took off for Thailand and what do you think, angel? Marty Chamoun is having drinks at this hotel in Bangkok and who should mince across the lobby but Yusif and a boy who Marty swears can’t have been a day over twelve. So Marty put a little money about, you know? And he discovered that these boys—there were quite a crowd—spend every night in Yusif’s suite. You had a lucky escape, poppet. I’m so glad, Father’s glad, we none of us knew.”

  She wasn’t sure if she believed any of this. Her engagement to Yusif had been more or less arranged, she hadn’t known him particularly well either before or since the ceremony, although of course they’d spent time together. One of his more appealing traits had been an avowal of how much he respected female chastity before marriage; he’d never once suggested they do more than kiss. Even so …

  “I had no idea,” she muttered.

  Halib spread his hands even wider. “Water under the bridge. Shall I have the girls bring some coffee?”

  She accepted, not because she was thirsty but because she needed time to think. When dealing with Halib, Leila often felt herself to be a piece on an invisible chessboard, incapable of determining her own moves; the sensation had never been stronger. She had spent the summer cavorting with an outsider in circumstances that had destroyed any pretense she might still have to a reputation. Many an Arab father would have had her whipped and then banished, even now, at the end of the swinging sixties. Beirut in general was not like that, but Feisal was, and Halib never did anything that might upset their father or jeopardize his status as only son, putative successor.

  When Roxanne brought coffee, Halib paid her rather less attention than he might have given a waitress at the Ritz, although he was careful to ensure that she’d closed the door behind her before speaking again.

  “Now, angel,” he said, in the let’s-be-reasonable voice he saved for family manipulations. “We have to talk about a few things, mm? I know you had a wonderful time in Europe. From the family’s point of view, let me speak frankly, not so wonderful, but"—he shrugged—"that’s the world of today. And fortunately Colin, we have nothing against him, he maybe saved your life one time, who knows? And you love him, of course, you want to marry him?”

  When she said nothing, his face clouded.

  “Leila. I sincerely hope that you want to marry this man, that he wants to marry you. An engaged couple go on a spree, what the hell? But if you’re not engaged …”

  His voice dropped lower and lower, until she could scarcely hear him. He was most dangerous when absolutely silent. He held himself immobile, hands clasping the arms of his chair, and she knew he was judging her. He had the power to do that. He could sentence her too.

  “I would like permission,” she said, “to become formally engaged to Colin Raleigh, and to marry him"—she had been on the point of saying as soon as possible but wisdom prevailed; they must not think she was pregnant—"after a reasonable interval, to ensure that we can all get to know him better than we knew poor Yusif.”

  “Well said, poppet. Of course, I can’t speak for Father, but having met this Englishman and liked him, I feel sure I can make your case for you.”

  “Should I come home, speak to Father myself?”

  “Not necessary, unless he calls for you. Does this mean you won’t be continuing your education?”

  “I …” She realized she had not thought about it; the prospect of confronting Halib had been so terrible it left no room for anything else.

  “And where do you intend to live? Should we find something for Colin to do in Beirut?”

  “No.”

  “I thought not. And after all, why should either of you want to live in Lebanon? Things there will get worse, angel, much worse; much better to make your base somewhere safer. England, I dare say?”

  “I like England,” she said defensively.

  “I’m very fond of it too; you’ll see a lot of me.” He seemed to become positively jovial at the prospect. “Colin wants to teach, perhaps?”

  She stared at him. It was true that Colin had decided to pursue an academic career. But he’d only made up his mind the night before. How could Halib have known?

  Halib’s knowledge must stem from careful analysis of Colin’s character and past history. Which opened up another field of inquiry altogether: how had he found out about Colin’s background?

  He’d been spying on Colin.

  She knew herself to be part of an endgame now, and the bedroom turned cold.

  “I think,” he said carefully, “you should marry very soon, poppet. Or people back home are going to talk.”

  She almost hated him whenever he called her “poppet,” but this time she swallowed her rage and said, “How soon?”

  He did not even pretend to consider. “Next month.” She looked into a face that was suddenly stone and asked, “Why?” “Because we say so.”

  Father plus son equaled we. The royal We. “I don’t have any say in the matter of my own wedding?”

  “No.” He stood up. “Understand a few things, Leila. You’ve shamed us, to say nothing of yourself. But we’re not going to cast you out, we’re not going to cut off the money supply or destroy the man who ruined you.”

  If he was waiting for her to thank him he waited in vain.

  “Of course you have to marry this Englishman,” he went on, “if you’re to retain respect from beggars in the street. But you have to give something in exchange.”

  “What?”

  “Assistance.”

  “What kind of assistance?”

  “You’ll be told when it’s necessary for you to know.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  Thus did she make her final move, asking for bravado’s sake; don’t let the bastards grind you down, that’s what Colin always said. It didn’t alter anything.

  “If you refuse, we shall wall you up in Beirut for the rest of your life. And if by any chance you were to escape, rest assured of this: you would never be able to find your fiancé, not if you tramped the world for a thousand years.”

  Checkmate.

  22 JULY: AFTERNOON:

  DAMOUR, LEBANON

  CELESTINE spent the night of 21 July somewhere in West Beirut with her eyes blindfolded, listening to the shells fall and wondering who was
responsible for this latest bombardment. Not long after sunrise, two of Feisal’s men pitched her into a car before driving off at high speed. She sensed they were leaving the city behind; then rough hands snatched her blindfold away and she knew they were on the coast road, heading south.

  “Where are we going?” she demanded to know, although deep inside she had already guessed the answer; when Hassan looked around and said, “Damour,” it was merely a confirmation.

  Celestine had all but forgotten about the beach house at Damour, just a few miles south of Beirut, until the odious Hassan muttered their destination in response to her request, and then how the memories came flooding back!—midnight swims, the speedboat, dancing on the terrace, the parties, oh, my God! how she remembered those parties…. Lebanon, Lebanon, she thought; gone are the days of my youth, and of thine also.

  Yet some of her happiest times had been spent quietly at Damour, with just Ibrahim and a few books for company, and the radio banned except at weekends. Feisal had been conceived at Damour. When Celestine woke up next morning she’d had no coherent memory of the event itself, although she did feel certain she was pregnant and not even a hangover could dispel that. It had all seemed so wonderful at the time. She had no means of knowing, then, that one day she would come to fear her son, while he detested her.

  “I thought the Israeli army would have burned our place,” she said to the glass, her voice tinged with disappointment. “On their retreat.”

  “We have no trouble with the Israelis,” Hassan said complacently.

  The big Volvo raced down a narrow track between banana plantations and the sea, sending a shower of dust billowing into the air. Celestine recalled how she and Ibrahim had gone to visit this place shortly after their marriage: just a spit of land overgrown with long grass, the rusty remains of an abandoned tractor, and a hut. The banana plantation that occupied most of the hinterland was owned by an old school friend of Ibrahim’s who had fallen on hard times. Ibrahim wasn’t interested in bananas, but he liked the view from the ruined hut. It would not, however, have occurred to him to bid for the hut minus the fruit trees; he was acquiring from a friend who wouldn’t stoop to take charity, and, since the land’s value lay in its produce, it was a case of all or nothing.