The Triumph of the Sun

by Wilbur Smith

  Amber and Saffron opened the musical programme with a piano duet of ‘Greensleeves’. It mattered little that the consular palace’s grand piano was in sorry need of tuning: the twins made up in enthusiasm for what they lacked in other areas.

  This evening Rebecca was a gay and vivacious hostess, and her father could not help remarking her change of mood. Last week she had been sad and moping but now she sang ‘Spanish Ladies’ with Ryder Courtney, then prevailed on him to render a solo of ‘My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean’. This was well received by the company. Saffron, in particular, applauded him rapturously.

  Then Amber dragged Penrod on to the floor. ‘You have to sing also. Everybody has to sing or do something.’

  Penrod gave in graciously. ‘Can you play “Heart of Oak”?’ he asked, and Amber ran to the piano. Penrod’s voice startled and thrilled them all: it was easy, lyrical and true.

  ‘Come, cheer up, my lads!

  ’Tis to glory we steer,

  To add something more

  To this wonderful year . . .’

  When the song ended Rebecca tried to blink tears from her eyes, as she called gaily, ‘Refreshments will be served before the next act.’

  She served strong Abyssinian coffee in delicate Limoges porcelain demitasses. There was no milk or sugar. While she was serving Captain Ballantyne, she fumbled and spilt hot coffee on to his gleaming boots.

  Her father watched her from across the room as she blushed bright scarlet, and thought her confusion was almost as uncharacteristic as her clumsiness. Suddenly he realized what it meant. The pretty soldier has her deeply entangled in his web. She is all fluster and flutter whenever he is within fifty paces. When he disappeared she almost pined away, and now he is back she is dizzy with delight. He frowned, and thrust his hands into his pockets. She does not realize that in two days he will disappear again. I would hate to see her badly hurt. It is my paternal duty to warn her. He thought about that for a moment. And perhaps I shall. After all, the identity of the father of my grandchildren is very much my business.

  Rebecca recovered herself, and clapped her hands for attention. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I have a special treat for you this evening. All the way from Madrid, where she has danced before the King and Queen of Spain and other crowned heads of Europe, Señora Esmeralda Lopez Conchita Montes de Tête de Singe, the celebrated flamenco dancer.’ There was a brief but mystified spattering of applause as from behind the curtains a plump Spanish lady in lace mantilla, clattering bangles and earrings swept into the room on the arm of Ryder Courtney. In the centre of the floor she sank into a deep curtsy, then rose to her feet with unusual grace for such a portly female. She clicked castanets above her head, and as Rebecca struck up the opening bars of the ‘March of the Toreadors’ Señora Tête de Singe launched a drumfire salvo of heel stamps.

  David let out a snort of laughter. He had been the first to recognize Consul Le Blanc beneath the tall wig and hectic makeup. Then a howl of laughter went up from the entire room, and did not subside until Le Blanc sank to the floor in another theatrical curtsy, his makeup running.

  In the ensuing pandemonium David crossed to Rebecca and took her arm. ‘What an inspired entertainment, my darling. Le Blanc was superb. I do so love a good impersonation.’

  Rebecca was in such high spirits that when he led her towards the french windows she went without protest. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘My kingdom for a breath of fresh air.’ He led her along the terrace. ‘Of course, Ryder Courtney has a fine voice. A man of many talents. He will make some lucky lady a wonderful husband.’

  ‘Papa, you are always so subtle.’ She tapped his shoulder with her fan.

  ‘I have no idea what you are talking about. But I must say I was surprised by Captain Ballantyne. He also has an extraordinary singing voice.’ She went still, and looked away.

  ‘What a pity he is leaving, this time for good, and we shall probably never have the pleasure of listening to him again.’

  ‘What are you saying, Daddy?’ Her voice was small.

  ‘Dear me, I should not have let that slip. Gordon is sending him north with despatches to Cairo. You know these military men. Ships in the night, all of them, I’m afraid. One can not rely on them.’

  ‘Daddy, I think we should go in to entertain our guests.’

  Rebecca looked at herself in the mirror of her dressing-table. Her face was so thin that the cheekbones cast shadows beneath them. There are no fat people in Khartoum, these days. Even Consul Le Blanc is skin and bones. She smiled at the exaggeration, and noted with pleasure the improvement the smile made. I must try not to frown. She dipped her powder puff in the crystal bowl and lightly dusted the hollows under her eyes. ‘Better and better,’ she whispered. She was thin but she still had the bloom of youth upon her skin. ‘At least Daddy thinks I am beautiful. I wonder if he would agree.’ Thinking of him brought a glow to her cheeks. ‘I wonder if he is out there again.’ She glanced towards the balcony doors. ‘I am not going to look. If he is there, he will think I am encouraging him. He will think that I am a fast woman, which I am definitely not.’

  She let her dress fall round her ankles, and reached for the crêpe-de-Chine gown. Before she slipped it on she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Then, on an impulse, she crossed the bedroom and locked the door. She had sent Nazeera away, but she did not want her to return unexpectedly. As she went back to the mirror she pushed the straps of her shift off her shoulders, and let it fall to the floor beside her dress. She looked at her naked body in the mirror. Her ribs showed beneath her white skin, and her pelvic bones stood proud. Her belly was concave as that of a greyhound. She touched her breasts. Nazeera said that men did not like small breasts. ‘Are they too small?’

  Then she remembered the feel of his lips upon them, the brush of his moustache and the sharpness of his teeth. As she stared, the tips swelled and darkened with heat. Suddenly she was aware of that wetness again, hot as blood, spreading slowly down the inside of her thighs. From her breasts her fingertips traced downwards, but as they brushed the gossamer cloud of golden hair at the base of her hollow belly, she jerked her hand away. ‘I shall never do that again,’ she told herself.

  She reached for the gown, and belted it round her waist. She looked at the balcony door. ‘I should not go out there. I should blow out the lamp and go to bed.’ She moved slowly across the floor and hesitated at the door. ‘This is silly and dangerous. Heaven knows where it will lead. I only pray that he is not there.’

  She placed her hand on the door handle and drew a deep breath as though she was about to plunge into an icy pool. She turned the handle and stepped out on to the balcony. Her eyes turned instantly to the base of the tamarind.

  He was there, leaning against the trunk. He straightened and looked up at her. His face was in shadow and she stepped to the edge of the balcony to see him more clearly. They stood very quietly, staring at each other. Rebecca felt as though she might suffocate. Every breath was an effort. Her skin was hot and sensitive. Her whole body was on the rack, every nerve stretched to breaking point. The long sinews down the inside of her thighs were drawn tight as whipcord. She turned her head and gazed at a branch of the tamarind. It curled out from the trunk like a python, thick as her waist, and hung over the edge of the balcony beside where she stood. The twins used it as a ladder and a swing. The bark was lightly polished where they had slid along it. Now she laid one hand on it and looked down again at Penrod.

  ‘I am not enticing him,’ she told herself firmly. ‘This is not an invitation. He must not think that it is.’

  He went to the base of the tree, and began to climb upwards. No! she thought. He must not do that! I did not mean that!

  She was alarmed by the rapidity with which he came up towards her. He reached the bough, and instead of sliding along it in an ungainly manner, with his legs dangling on either side, he stood up and ran lightly along it as though it were a gangplank. He was twenty feet above the ground, and she was terrified that he m
ight slip. She was even more frightened that he would reach the balcony safely – and what then?

  She ran back into her bedroom, and closed the door behind her. She reached for the latch to lock it but her fingers disobeyed her. She backed away from the door into the centre of the floor. She heard his footstep on the balcony and her breathing came faster. The door handle turned and her fists clenched at her sides. She wanted to call to him to go away and leave her alone. But no sound passed her lips.

  He pushed open the door very slowly, and she wanted to scream. But her father was in the room across the landing and the twins’ room was even closer. She did not want to wake them.

  Penrod stepped into the room and shut the door quietly behind him. She stared at him, huge startled eyes in a thin pale face. He came to her slowly, with one hand outstretched as though to calm an unbroken filly. She began to tremble.

  He touched her cheek. ‘You are very lovely,’ he whispered, and she thought she might burst into tears. He placed both hands on her shoulders, and she stood rigid. He leant gently towards her. She could not tear her eyes from his: they were green in the lamplight, with golden flecks and stars round the iris. Lightly his mouth touched hers. His lips were hot and smooth. His hands slid down from her shoulders and settled on her waist. Her arms hung at her sides like those of a rag doll. He drew her towards him, and she was unresisting. His lips opened on hers, and the taste and smell of him overwhelmed her. His tongue forced her lips apart, and she lifted her arms from her sides and wound them round his neck. He pulled her harder, almost roughly, against his body. She felt that massive hardness growing up again between their lower bodies. Her own wetness welled up like a spring from deep inside her, and she clenched her thighs and buttocks to stop it overflowing, but it flooded creamily down her thighs.

  He swayed back, and she felt deprived as the contact between them was broken. She tried to follow his body with her own. He untied her belt and opened her gown. She tried half-heartedly to cover herself but he held her wrists, and studied her pale body with a rapt expression. ‘You are lovely beyond the telling of it,’ he murmured, and his tone was husky.

  Her shyness evaporated in the warmth of his praise, and instinctively she pulled back her shoulders. Her breasts were pert and pointed. She saw by his eyes that he did not consider them too small. Her nipples felt pebble hard. She wanted desperately to feel his mouth on them again. She was possessed by utter wantonness. She reached up and took a double handful of the dense springing hair at the back of his head, twisted her fingers in his curls and drew his face down.

  She gasped as his mouth closed on hers. She would never have believed the plethora of sensations that followed from such a simple act. His breath on her skin was alternately cool and warm as he inhaled and exhaled, his lips at first firm and dry, then soft and moist. His tongue squirmed like an eel, then lapped like a cat at a saucer of cream. He suckled on her, tugging and biting, and she felt the sensation repeated like an echo deep inside her.

  When she reached the threshold of pain, he broke off suddenly, lifted her and carried her to her bed. He laid her on it as though she were something fragile and precious, then stepped back. He unbuttoned the front of his shirt, turned to the lamp on her dressing-table, cupped his hand behind the glass chimney and drew a breath to blow out the flame.

  She sat up quickly. ‘No!’ she said sharply. ‘Don’t blow it out. You have seen me, and now I must see you.’ She could not believe that she had spoken so brazenly. He came back and stood over her. Without haste he stripped off his shirt. His skin was ivory smooth and unblemished where it had been protected from the sun. The muscles of his chest were hard and flat, forged by swordplay and hard riding. He stood on one leg to pull off his boot, and his balance was rock steady. He laid the boot aside, careful not to drop it, and she was grateful for his consideration. He did the same with the second boot. Then he unbuckled his belt and stepped out of his breeches. She had seen him naked once before, and she had believed that the image would remain with her for ever. But she had not seen him like this. She bit her lip to prevent herself crying out with shock. He came on to her bed and knelt over her. ‘Please don’t hurt me,’ she begged.

  ‘I would die first,’ he said. She whimpered as she felt him at the threshold of her being. She thought that something must tear or give way and she braced herself for the agony. She felt a wall of resistance within her.

  This cannot be happening, she thought, but she was suddenly reckless of any consequences. She pushed up hard with her hips to meet him, and she felt him break through. The pain was sharp but transitory. He glided on and on into her, until he had filled her to her very depths. The pain fell away, and she was carried out over the void, terrified at first, then soaring upwards as though she scaled a mighty mountain range. When she reached the peak, the need to scream out her triumph was so powerful that she pressed her open mouth into the hollow of his neck to gag herself.

  ‘Stay with me,’ she pleaded, as, later, he rose to dress. ‘Don’t leave me so soon.’

  ‘You know I cannot stay. It is late. Dawn is close, and the household will begin to stir.’

  ‘When are you going away?’

  He paused in the act of buttoning his shirt. ‘Who told you that I am going away?’ he demanded sharply. She shook her head. ‘That is dangerous knowledge, Becky. If the enemy find out it could cost my life, and worse besides.’

  ‘I will not tell another soul,’ she said miserably. ‘But I shall miss you.’ She wanted his reassurance that he would return. Papa had said, ‘Ships in the night, all of them, I’m afraid. One can not rely on them.’ She did not want it to be like that.

  He did not reply, but shrugged on his khaki tunic.

  ‘Promise me you will come back,’ she pleaded. He stooped over her bed and kissed her lips. ‘Promise me,’ she insisted.

  ‘I never make promises I may not be able to keep,’ he said, and then he was gone.

  She felt tears close to the surface, but she forced them back. ‘I will never be a whiner or a weeper,’ she promised herself. Despite her bursting heart, sleep came down on her like a dark avalanche.

  She woke to the sound of guns, but the shells were bursting near the harbour, where the attack had been beaten off. The Dervish were venting their spite. Her bedroom curtains were wide open, and sunlight streamed in.

  Nazeera was fussing ostentatiously around the room. ‘It is after eight, Jamal. The twins have been gone two hours,’ she said, as Rebecca raised her head sleepily from the pillow. ‘I have filled two buckets of hot water, and laid out your blue skirt.’

  Rebecca was still half asleep as she slipped out from under the sheet. Nazeera stared at her in astonishment, and she tried to brazen it out: ‘Oh, Nazeera, you look as though you were frightened by a jinnee. How many times have you seen me naked?’ She ran to the bathroom and poured one of the steaming buckets of water into the galvanized hip bath.

  Nazeera gazed after her, then pursed her lips. She pulled back the bedclothes and started with alarm. There was a patch of dried blood on the undersheet. Nazeera knew at once that this was not menstrual issue: al-Jamal had seen her moon only twelve days before and it was too soon for it to rise again. This blood was bright and pure and virginal.

  Oh, my baby, my little girl, you have made the crossing, and now you stand on a strange and dangerous new shore. She bent closer to the bed to scry the omen. The stain was no larger than her spread hand, but it was shaped like a bird in flight.

  A vulture? That was an evil omen, the bird of death and suffering. No. She thrust away the thought. A gentle dove? A falcon, cruel and beautiful? A wise old owl? Only the future will tell us, she decided, and gathered up the sheet. She would wash it with her own hands, in secret. No other must be allowed to see this marking. Then she stopped, for she sensed that al-Jamal was watching her through the open bathroom door.

  She dropped the bundled sheet on the floor and went through to her. She knelt beside the bath and picked up the loof
ah. There was no soap – they had finished the last bar a week ago. Rebecca held her hair on top of her neck, and leant forward. Nazeera began the familiar ritual of scrubbing her back.

  After a while she whispered her question: ‘Which one was it, Jamal?’

  ‘I don’t understand what you are asking.’ Rebecca would not look at her face.

  ‘Who climbed the tamarind tree last night?’ But Rebecca pretended she had water in her eyes, and covered them with both hands.

  ‘It could not have been Abadan Riji, the pretty soldier. He has another woman,’ Nazeera said.

  Rebecca lowered her hands and stared at her. ‘You are a liar,’ she said softly, but with deadly ferocity. ‘That is a cruel and hurtful lie.’

  ‘So it was the soldier. I wish it had been the other, who might bring you happiness. The soldier never will.’

  ‘I love him, Nazeera. Please understand that.’

  ‘So does she. Her name is Bakhita.’

  ‘No!’ Rebecca covered her ears. ‘I don’t want to hear this.’

  Nazeera was silent. She took Rebecca’s arm and ran the loofah over it. When she came to her fingers she separated them and washed them one at a time.

  ‘Bakhita is an Arabic name,’ Rebecca blurted at last, but Nazeera remained silent. ‘Answer me!’ Rebecca insisted.

  ‘You did not want to hear.’

  ‘You are torturing me. Is she an Arab? Is she very beautiful? Does he love her?’

  ‘She is of my people and my God,’ Nazeera answered. ‘I have never seen her, but men say she is very beautiful, and rich and clever. As to whether he loves her or not, that I do not know. Can a man like Abadan Riji ever love a woman in the same way that she loves him?’

  ‘He is an Englishman and she is Arab,’ Rebecca whispered. ‘How can she love him?’

  ‘He is a man and she is a woman before all else. That is how she can love him.’

  ‘Nazeera, an hour ago I was happy. Now happiness has flown away.’