Light of the Desert

by Lucette Walters

  “Gimme my glasses,” Ian said.

  Noora fitted them on him, then pressed the button to raise his bed a little higher toward a sitting position.

  “Roz wanted you to sign this letter first,” she suggested hopefully, sitting quietly while he read. He signed a few letters and a document. Minutes later, while Noora prayed he would not be interrupted, Mr. Cohen picked up the Lord of Doom screenplay and leafed through it for a long while. Finally, he put it down and sighed.

  She knew he would soon be too tired to go on.

  “It’s worse. They didn’t change anything. Just page numbers and swapped scenes. They must think I’m a moron. I liked your ideas.”

  “My … ideas?”

  “What you told me at the Hamlet.”

  Two staff workers walked in with a lunch tray—a small piece of grilled chicken breast, mashed potatoes, and sad-looking green beans. There was also a small can—some kind of a nutritious milk drink.

  Another nurse arrived to change his IV bag. “The doctor said if he drinks three of these cans a day, it’s equivalent to the nutrition he needs,” the nurse said, unhooking the plastic medicine bag.

  “You call those nutritious drinks? They’re shit. Plaster of Paris in a colorful can,” the patient said.

  “They come in flavors. Strawberry and chocolate,” the nurse recited with a broad smile.

  “Go tell that to another patient,” he murmured.

  “Okay,” the nurse said, smiling and walking out.

  “Directors … If I’d known, I would’ve told that … son of a bitch BB Gun to go and …” Ian sighed. He closed his eyes and whispered, “I feel like shit …”

  “Try to eat a little something, please,” Noora said.

  “Let’s wait until tomorrow morning.”

  “All right,” she sighed.

  Once they were alone again, Ian whispered, “Stay with me. That night nurse might poison my IV.”

  “Mr. Cohen, they’re nice here.”

  “Not the one at night. Hitler’s twin. She’ll knock me off my bed if I dare look at her knockers …” he murmured before drifting into sleep.

  His condition seemed worse. Noora decided to spend the night in his room; she would ask for a cot. If only he could swallow some of that nutritious “plaster of Paris.”

  “He’s making progress,” an exhausted Noora lied when she spoke to Roz, who called the nurses’ station. “But he’s still too groggy from the pain pills to look over the script you sent.”

  “Buy a small fax machine and install it in his room,” Roz said coldly. “Call me tonight at home. I’ll fax you more pages, and some letters Mr. Cohen must sign.” There was a short pause. “Listen,” Roz added, “I’m sorry if I’m hard on you. I’m getting a lot of pressure from the writers and that egomaniac director. Mr. Cohen couldn’t have picked a worse time to get sick. Glad to hear he’s improving. You’re doing a good job. Better get him back on his feet ASAP. We need the script changes and approvals sooner than that or the whole project is kaput.”

  *

  Returning from the cafeteria downstairs with a cup of hot cocoa, Noora spotted Ian Cohen’s cardiologist walking out of his patient’s room, looking quite serious. The second she decided to leave Mr. Cohen for a few minutes, the doctor made his visit. What terrible luck—when she had nerved herself to confront him with all her questions about Mr. Cohen’s condition. She watched Dr. McGratten as he made his way around the nurses’ station, with his back to her. He sat on a stool behind the counter and scribbled inside a manila folder. She approached the doctor. He picked up his folder and rushed down the hall. She had to talk to someone. The nurses? Or Doris, the social worker?

  “The doctor ordered a colonoscopy for Mr. Cohen,” Doris informed Noora. “Why? He has been through so much already.”

  “I know,” Doris replied compassionately. “The doctor wants to check for a possible tumor in the colon,” Doris said, guiding the worried Noora to the waiting area by the elevators, where they could sit and talk privately. “Just to rule it out. More likely, I would say, it’s impacted poop that needs to be flushed out.”

  “Impacted poop? You mean … he is constipated?”

  Doris nodded. “Very likely. I’ve seen many cases like that. Usually it’s caused by antibiotics and sometimes painkillers.”

  “It’s my fault. I’m the one who constantly begged the nurses for painkillers.”

  “Kelley, it’s not your fault,” Doris said. She touched Noora’s shoulder. “Mr. Cohen is very lucky to have such a devoted daughter.”

  Noora put up a hand to hide her face. She wanted to cry. What would Doris say if she knew the truth?

  CHAPTER 44

  THE HONEYMOON

  Zaffeera and Michel returned to the Beverly Regent Hotel, where they occupied a luxurious honeymoon suite. She enjoyed walking arm-in-arm with her handsome husband. They had strolled along Rodeo Drive, shopped in Century City, and lunched in one of the trendy restaurants. Everywhere they went, she could tell she was the envy of the women who saw her husband. If only he could fuck like he looked, life would be heavenly, Zaffeera thought. Soon, things would have to improve.

  On their way back to the hotel, Michel talked about a house on the hill designed by some famous architect. It belonged to a young Hollywood producer who had not yet returned Michel’s phone calls. Zaffeera wanted to shout: “Forget about famous architects and the damn houses! And the renovated hotels! This is our honeymoon!” But she decided not to offer suggestions at this time of their life together.

  When they returned to the hotel, Michel began examining the ceilings of the newly renovated lobby.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Zaffeera said as sweetly as she could, while Michel stared at the ceiling, “I am tired …”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, setting their shopping bags down and removing the plastic keycard from his wallet. “I’ll join you in just a bit … hope you don’t mind. I just need to see something.”

  “Not at all,” she said, minding very much.

  Alone in the elevator, Zaffeera punched the Penthouse button a few frustrating times. Married six days and five nights. Sex once? Okay, they cuddled. But doesn’t honeymoon mean SEX? She wanted to punch every elevator button that would light up, but she had to control herself. She had to find a way to satisfy her needs while gradually molding him to her desires.

  That afternoon, Michel received the awaited phone call.

  “I can see the house tomorrow morning,” he said gleefully, the moment he hung up the phone. “Would you like to come along?”

  Zaffeera sat on the edge of the king-size bed, her eyes cast downward. “All right,” she murmured.

  “What’s the matter, are you upset?”

  “Me?” Zaffeera looked up at Michel and batted her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, sitting next to her. “I’ve been very selfish.”

  Zaffeera twisted her wedding ring and watched the huge diamond sparkle in the sunlight streaming from the tall window behind her. “No,” she said, looking down at her perfectly manicured hands, which she rested on her lap.

  “If you’d rather go somewhere else, back to Neiman Marcus …”

  “No,” she said, wishing she could tear off his clothes.

  She hid her head in the crease of his neck.

  He put an arm around her. Now they were starting to get somewhere, Zaffeera thought.

  If she could just push him down onto the bed. They sat in that same position for the longest time. She was beginning to feel a cramp in her leg.

  “I would love to see that house with you,” she finally said, with a deep sigh.

  “I don’t want to make you feel like you have to come.”

  “No, I would love to come,” she murmured. Cum, cum, cum! Merde! Can’t he get a clue? Shit!

  But her double entendre went right over his head. She was about to explode.

  CHAPTER 45

  A MATTER OF HONOR

  On Friday afte
rnoon, Farid Fendil asked his wife to meet him in his office. Mrs. Yasmina Fendil assumed that a week after the beautiful wedding of their daughter, her husband wanted to share an evening with her. After all the recent events, especially during the past year, Farid had not asked Yasmina to see her for the purpose of being together as husband and wife. Usually, he came to see her in her room.

  Eagerly, she walked to his office in the men’s wing. She realized she had not been there in two years.

  “It was such a beautiful wedding,” she told her husband, smiling. She had forgotten how sumptuous his office was.

  He asked her to close the door and sit down.

  She was looking forward to reminiscing about the wedding. But Farid Fendil stood in front of his desk and looked at his wife seriously.

  “Is there something wrong, Farid?”

  “Actually, no,” he said, picking up his pipe and lighting it.

  Yasmina coughed lightly from the smoke, but pretended she was not bothered by it.

  “I wanted to ask you an important question.”

  “Yes?”

  “Is Shamsah circumcised?”

  “What?” Yasmina could not have heard her husband correctly.

  “Is Shamsah circumcised?” he asked matter-of-factly.

  “You … know we don’t … None of our daughters … And you know I never was, thanks to my mother …”

  “Don’t you think it’s high time we should?” he interrupted.

  “What are you saying?” she asked, bewildered.

  “Don’t you think it would be to everyone’s interest …”

  “Interest? No, I don’t believe our ancestors should ever have started this terrible thing in the first place. That’s like butchering … It’s mutilating a child, Farid … please.”

  “Nonsense. Not nowadays, when it’s performed by trained people.”

  “Trained people?”

  “Due to modern conditions, our daughters have forgotten their traditions. It has been decided that the old traditional ways are still the best. We must obey our customs, our beliefs,” he said with authority. “Now that Zaffeera is in the hands of her husband, we no longer need to worry about her. However …” he enunciated each word very calmly, “in the case of Shamsah, who is probably due to become a young woman any month now …”

  “Why do you think my mother became a midwife?” Yasmina said, her face turning red.

  “You interrupted me,” he said.

  “Why did she want to travel to so many rural towns to deliver babies?”

  “I don’t know, and that’s not the issue!”

  “Farid, it wasn’t just for her to be a midwife! It was to teach, to inform young mothers exactly that … that it was wrong! You … You can’t! Not your own daughter …”

  “Your mother was wrong.”

  Yasmina jumped from her chair. She wanted to hit him. Instead, she bit her index finger as hard as she could, drawing blood. She slapped her own cheek hard and clawed both cheeks with her nails until they bled.

  Farid Fendil’s eyes widened in shock as his wife began to tear at her clothes. She grabbed her blouse with two hands and ripped it off.

  “Woman! You stop that right away!” he demanded, and rapidly retreated behind his desk. He reached for the phone, as if to call for help.

  Yasmina grabbed her long skirt and tried to tear it off with her teeth.

  Her behavior left him too stunned to call anyone.

  “Here, heeere! Take it! TAKE IT ALL, WHY DON’T YOU?! Tear me apart!” She grabbed the shiny silver letter opener from his desk. “Here! Stab me, why don’t you! Tear my heart out! Go ahead! Like you’ve torn our family apart!”

  “Woman, you are crazy.”

  “And who made me crazy?! What happened to you?! You! The pasha! The decent …” she said, hitting her chest, “decent man … you once were. What happened to him? What really happened … to our child? What did you do to our Noora?! Aii, my NOOR … AGH!” she sobbed.

  “What?!”

  She dropped the letter opener on the floor. “You never grieved for her! You never … Why?” She grabbed her hair and tried to yank it out of her scalp. “WHY! Bentak! Your daughter! Aiii, benti anah! Oh, daughter of mine!”

  “STOP!”

  She fell to her knees and began banging and pounding on his antique Persian rug.

  “STOP IT!” He came around his desk and kicked her on her side.

  “Good, good! Kick me, KICK ME SOME MORE!”

  “Stop it right now or I’ll have to say the words!”

  “You can kick me. But you can never touch my children again! Not ever! You’ll have to kill me first, but even from the grave, I’ll haunt you day and night and send the devil after you! THIS, I PROMISE!”

  He snatched his letter opener from the floor and rushed back behind his desk, as if to protect himself from this madwoman.

  “I DIVORCE YOU, I DIVORCE YOU, I DIVORCE YOU!” he screamed. After a few moments, he solemnly repeated the words for the world to hear, “I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you!”

  There was silence.

  “Now I have said it,” he announced. “It is done.”

  They both knew that when a man repeated these words three times, the marriage was considered dissolved.

  He lifted a hand. “You are to leave my house!”

  Yasmina slowly rose and stood erect before him. Her chest heaving, she stared at her husband for a long moment. “The women’s wing belongs to me. I will leave when I decide,” she said as firmly and as calmly as possible. “You can leave your wing, if that is your wish. You will hurt us no more.”

  Farid Fendil’s eyes blazed. “What do you think you’re saying?!”

  “You know perfectly well.”

  “You have gone insane!”

  Yasmina opened the door and walked out.

  He tossed the letter opener angrily on his desk, fell into his chair, and buried his head in his hands.

  CHAPTER 46

  HOLLYWOOD HONEYMOON

  The black limousine glided regally up Benedict Canyon, passing the Beverly Hills Hotel.

  Zaffeera wore a tailored St. John sapphire blue knit suit with delicate pink borders around the neck and cuffs of the exquisitely designed jacket. She had seen it featured in a fashion magazine months before the wedding, and had ordered it. It took weeks to have it fitted and blocked just the way she had to have it, to complement her pear-shaped body.

  “Could we go to the Polo Lounge sometime?” Zaffeera purred as the limo passed the Beverly Hills Hotel.

  “As a matter of fact, I made reservations to have lunch there today!”

  “You did? My goodness. I’ve been thinking about going there and seeing how it looks since they remodeled,” she lied.

  “You have?” He looked pleased.

  “Yes,” she said. She really didn’t care to see it. But that morning, while Michel was in the shower, she had peeked in his Gucci calendar in his attaché case. He had written “Polo Lounge. Maybe lunch?” and scribbled the hotel’s phone number. “I’ve been wanting to see the unusual circular lobby,” she said, knowing he would be pleased at her interest. She had read about the Beverly Hills Hotel in an architectural magazine, only days before their wedding. “I would also love to see the new tapestry and furnishings …”

  “The owner of the house said if we should miss Angelo Drive, we’ll find ourselves on a street called Cielo,” Michel interrupted Zaffeera.

  She sank in her seat, realizing he didn’t really care what she had to say. He was more interested in finding that fucking house.

  “He said we shouldn’t take Cielo Drive, or Cielo Street, because it’s the service entrance and there’s no view. Oh, there it is, there’s Angelo …” Michel pointed as the chauffeur turned up the street.

  “I’ve never been this far up; looks quite secluded,” the chauffeur said, slowing the limo to negotiate the steep turns and narrow uphill climb.

  “We need to go down the private driveway
,” Michel told the driver as they reached the end of a cul-de-sac.

  The limo took the drive down, between geometrically shaped huge cement blocks that served as pots for royal palms.

  “That definitely looks like a John Lautner design!” Michel exclaimed, sounding like a kid discovering Disney’s Futureland.

  As the limo drove down, the narrow driveway opened to a wide circular parking area, large enough for a dozen cars. The driver pulled to a stop, away from the three-car garage’s doors.

  A bright red BMW convertible was parked in front of silver-painted wrought iron doors.

  Michel climbed out of the limo just as a woman’s voice shouted “Fuck you!”

  The wrought iron door flew open and a young woman with a Barbie-doll figure exploded out of the house. Her arms hugging a mound of clothes on hangers, the woman shouted: “YOU’RE A SON OF A BITCH!” She dumped her entire load on the back seat of the convertible. “Bastard!” She wore skin-tight leopard-design stretch capris, black heels at least four inches high, and a silk-sheer beige blouse so transparent, she might as well have been topless.

  Michel turned to Zaffeera and nudged her back in the limo. But she would not miss such a scene, and pressed the button slightly to open her darkly tinted window. First excitement in days.

  “Honey, it’s not what you think!” A man’s voice was heard.

  A tall, good-looking, dark-haired man appeared, wearing black trousers and a charcoal silk shirt opened to below the chest. He carried a few pieces of Louis Vuitton luggage. Wow, Zaffeera thought, a live Hollywood show. She pressed the window button slightly further down. Michel was standing outside, his back to her and partially blocking her view. But she could see the man as he set the valises by the trunk of the BMW. “Darling, you won’t like it when construction workers are here. You said so yourself.”

  “We could’ve moved out together!”

  “Honey, remember … I’ll have to stay with my stepfather …”

  “Lots of rooms in his castle.”

  “It’s not a castle!” the man retorted, obviously irritated by the young woman’s remark.