by Isobel Chace
“You ought to have something better to do than gazing at the natives,” he told her slyly. “I’m sure that’s not at all what Uncle Edouard intended when he left you everything.”
Katherine gave him a sharp look and wondered why this continual harping on Edouard de Hallet’s intentions should make her so cross.
“I don’t see how you, or Chantal, or anyone else for that matter, could possibly know what he intended!” she said shortly.
He slewed the car off the narrow road and brought it to a stop.
“My dear Kathy,” he said, “I should have thought it was obvious! One glance at all that luscious hair of yours and I knew exactly what he had intended!”
“Did you?” Her voice was icy. “You must have been alone, then, for everyone else seemed to find it as much of a mystery as I do.”
He reached out a casual hand and tried to pull her into his arms, but she eluded him.
“Don’t you want me to kiss you?” he asked her. He sounded hurt, like a rebuffed child, and his eyes were bluer than ever.
“No.”
He laughed, and she knew that his conceit would never allow him to believe her. She was annoyed with herself for getting into such a situation and even more annoyed with him for being so obtuse.
“I expect you’ll like it all right when it comes to it,” he informed her loftily. “I’ve never known a girl struggle too hard when it came to it!”
“If there were as many as all that,” she retorted bitterly, “I don’t suppose you even remember their names, let alone whether they liked your attentions or not!”
For some extraordinary reason he seemed flattered by that.
“At least I shan’t forget your name,” he promised her.
She began to wonder whether it wouldn’t be simpler to let him have his way. She had been kissed before, and although she hadn’t enjoyed the experience very much, she hadn’t objected either. But she didn’t want to be kissed by Guillaume. It wasn’t that she disliked him, it was just that she felt he was the kind to kiss and tell! Tell whom? Her cheeks became hot at the thought, and she hurriedly opened the car door and slid out into the hot loose sand on the edge of the track.
Perhaps it was fortunate that at the same time she heard the first beats of a nearby drummer, followed by the wailing welcome of some women. She had watched them often, putting a finger in their mouths and running it round their lips as they made that wild, weird cry.
“It’s a party!” she exclaimed to Guillaume, and set off rapidly across the sand in the direction of the noise.
He followed her without hurrying, his camera slung over one shoulder and a slight smile on his lips. Oh dear, she thought, wasn’t he even now going to take no for an answer?
She crossed another rise of sandstone, standing gaunt and yellow against the lighter shade of the prevailing sand and saw the little collection of houses beyond, dazzlingly white in the hot sunshine. An old man had picked up the rhythm of the drums on his flute and the dancing had already begun. Katherine ran towards them, joining a little group of women on the outskirts whose brightly-coloured clothing had caught her eye from the top of the ridge.
“What are you celebrating?” she asked them.
They moved over to allow her to see the dancers, but they were too shy to answer her questions. She clung to their company, however, for she didn’t think Guillaume would press his advantage by following her over to them.
She watched him as he lit a cigarette, looking down at the colourful scene from the top of the ridge.
“This won’t amuse you for long,” he called out to her. “It’s only a local wedding.”
“I’ve never seen one before,” she called back.
He came slowly down the slope, undoing the case of his camera as he went.
“There’s nothing to see. The groom will be at the nearest mosque with his friends and they won’t let you see the bride.”
“Why not?” she asked him.
He grinned at her.
“You might put the evil eye on her. Come on back to the car.”
She was disappointed. She wished she had brought her own camera to take some photographs of the dancers and of the women in their spectacular dresses and haiks.
“Will you wish the bride good luck from me?” she said to the nearest of them. It was difficult to make herself understood, but at last the message was understood and a little crow of approval went round the group.
“Come,” they called to her. “Come.”
She hesitated, turning to Guillaume, silently seeking his approval. With a shrug of resignation, he seated himself on the ground and smiled up at her. Really, she thought, as she turned away, he wasn’t as bad as he liked to make out. And perhaps he didn’t really mean to kiss her. Perhaps it was only that he thought all girls expected some kind of flirtation under similar circumstances. He was still watching her as she followed the women into the closely guarded compound, and she gave him a little wave of her hand to show she had forgiven him. The de Hallets were bewildering people to be with. One never knew where one was with them from one moment to the next.
It was terribly hot in the compound. The woven grass fencing cut out all the breeze and there was nothing but the hot sand and the metal-coloured sky that brooded over it. Wave after wave of feminine hands pushed Katherine to the centre of the excited crowd of women who had packed themselves into the enclosure, and at last she reached the centre where the bride sat, closely veiled, in the brand-new clothes that her husband-to-be had brought her. Katherine recognised immediately the satin quilted basket that lay, discarded, beside her, and the five-branched decorated candles that had been carefully put beside it.
The bride’s mother smiled a greeting and made room for her to sit down in the closely knit little circle of relatives and friends who sat round the bride, and the silence that had greeted her presence was broken and the babble of chatter broke out again all around her.
It took the bride longer to lose her shyness, but after a little while she loosened her veil and finally threw it right back from her face, her curiosity getting the better of her modesty. She looked very young, but proud and mature in the way that she smiled at Katherine. There was a little heap of some kind of corn in front of her, and she reached out for a handful and let it trickle out on to the top of her head.
The heat became greater every moment and Katherine began to wonder if she could bear it. She accepted a small sweetmeat and ate it very slowly, hoping the dizziness would wear off. It wasn’t very sensible to sit with the sun directly behind one’s head, and she longed for a cooler shadow and something behind her back to lean on.
When she could bear it no longer, she rose to her feet and smiled all round. The bride giggled and stood up too, following right to the doorway of the compound, all thought of the men outside forgotten. Her mother came after her, screaming instructions at the top of her voice, pushing and shoving her way through the other women. But she was too late. In the instant that the girl had stood there, her face quite naked to the people outside, Guillaume had lifted his camera and had snapped her.
“I’ve got her!” he shouted, well delighted. “Run, damn you, or we shall have the whole village after us!”
But Katherine could only stand there, as dismayed and as angry as everyone else. How could he have done it? For even he knew that no good Muslim woman would ever allow anyone to take her photograph.
“I am sorry,” she said to the angry men. But they completely ignored her. It was Guillaume they wanted, Guillaume and his camera.
She stood watching with a sense of fatalism as they overtook him and brought him, struggling, back to the compound. An older man, who could only have been the bride’s father, wrenched the camera from him and stamped on it. Guillaume went white in the face.
“Have you any idea what that camera’s worth?” he demanded. “I’ll sue you for this!”
The bride’s father regarded him with contemptuous eyes.
“Why do you wis
h to bring my daughter bad luck?” he asked. “Why do you wish to take an image of her for other men to stare at? So that her husband will divorce her before they are even wed?”
Katherine took one look at Guillaume’s stubborn face and bent down to retrieve the camera. It wasn’t badly damaged and she thought it could quite easily be repaired. With trembling fingers, she opened it and took out the film, silently handing it to the Berber.
He took it quite gently from her, exposing its long length to the rays of the sun.
“The insult still remains,” he said almost calmly. “The man stays here.”
She stared back at him in an appalled silence.
“But —” she began.
“The man stays here!” There was a finality in the man’s tone that brooked no defiance.
“We’ll have to run for it,” Guillaume said, without looking at her. “Run for the car and I’ll follow when I can.”
She hated leaving him, much as she condemned what he had done. It was so silly to ride rough-shod over other people’s customs and beliefs, but who would persuade a de Hallet of that?
She took to her heels and ran up the sandstone in a single rush, arriving breathless at the top. The car stood reassuringly where they had left it, the chromium glinting like glass in the sunlight.
“Happy landings!” Katherine wished herself. That at least still had the power to amuse her. though she couldn’t remember who it was who had first brought the saying to the hospital where she had trained. For years it had been a part of her life, mingled with exams and patients and operations. It had been a talisman of a kind and it had brought her luck.
She reached the car and got in it, sitting on the burning hot scarlet leather with a little ouch! of surprise. She looked over her shoulder and saw that Guillaume had succeeded in following her. She reached over and opened his door for him, and then sat back and left the rest to him.
She was furious that she had ever come with him. The story would soon spread through all the nearby oases. It would be common gossip in every market place for miles around and, more particularly, in the market place of Sidi Behn Ahmed where she was known and liked, and there it would undoubtedly reach the ears of Dr. Kreistler. She flinched away from the thought, almost hearing his stinging comments before he had even uttered them.
Guillaume swung the car round and headed back down the rough track towards home, leaving a group of angry Berbers standing on the roadside shaking their fists at the fast vanishing car. It had all been so unnecessary, upsetting them in this way, and who would
blame them if they took their revenge if they could?
It was a painful and silent journey home. To Katherine it seemed quite endless. The sun beat down on her and she felt dizzy and peculiar. The only thing to do, she thought, was to go straight to the hospital and tell Dr. Kreistler herself. She couldn’t allow his work to be compromised in any way.
They were almost at her house when Guillaume started to laugh. “What's so funny?” she asked him sourly.
“The whole affair! Would you have believed that people could behave like that? She wasn’t even particularly pretty!”
“That wasn’t quite the point,” Katherine said shortly.
“Wasn’t it?” He laughed again.
“No, it was not. And I hate to think what the repercussions will be. Dr. Kreistler will be furious with us both!”
“And you care?” he drawled.
She jumped out of the car and faced him, angry from the top of her head to the soles of her feet.
“Yes, I care!” she told him fiercely.
It wasn’t quite so easy to face Dr. Kreistler himself. She could tell by looking at him that he had had a long, hard day, and his impatience, never very well hidden, always frightened her a little. “What do you want?” he demanded when she ran him to earth in his office at the hospital.
She stood there in silence, not knowing how to begin.
“Well?”
She started, stopped and sneezed instead.
“I can’t tell you anything when you look so cross!” she complained. He laughed and his eyes became very kind.
“Can’t you? It usually pays to begin with the worst, I’ve heard. Nothing seems quite so bad after that, you see.”
She felt herself relaxing a little and she even managed a rather tired smile to show him that she appreciated his thoughtfulness. “Guillaume took a photograph of a bride, unveiled,” she burst out without adornment. “Her father was furious and he wanted to keep Guillaume there, but we escaped and drove straight home.”
His look of distaste was something she could hardly bear.
“And where was this?” he asked.
She explained to him as well as she could, her voice ashamed.
“I gave the father the roll of film, but he wasn’t satisfied with that,” she ended.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said consolingly. “Though I could quite cheerfully strangle Guillaume de Hallet! I’ll go out myself this evening and sort it all out.”
She was afraid of crying, and she swallowed hard and then quite unmistakably sniffed. He offered her his handkerchief and watched her with a professional eye as she mopped herself up.
“I don’t suppose you want to tell me why you stopped at that particular corner of the road?” he remarked, and watched the colour fly up into her cheeks. “No, I thought not,” he went on conversationally.
“Guillaume finds it so boring down here,” she cut him off defensively.
“And you?”
She was genuinely astonished that he should ask.
“I love it,” she replied simply.
He smiled, holding out his hand for his handkerchief.
“I thought as much. If you take my advice you’d encourage young de Hallet to go back to Hammamet.”
“And Chantal too?” She could scarcely hide her eagerness, and was a little shocked by her own inability to hide her dislike for the other girl.
But Dr. Kreistler only laughed.
“Chantal is harmless enough,” he said.
She wanted to tell him that she was probably the more harmful of the two, the more spiteful and the more vindictive, but the words died on her lips. He took both her hands in his and pulled her into the circle of his arms.
“You have a quaint, helpless look with your hair done up like that,” he told her.
She screwed up her nose and blinked as she looked up at him. Privately she thought his features stood up very well to this close scrutiny. She liked the warm brown of his skin and the firmness of his mouth.
“And when it’s down?” she asked breathlessly.
He gave her a light kiss on the forehead and released her.
“Why, then you look like a princess out of a fairytale!” he teased her lightly.
“Peter!”
They both swung round, and Katherine’s heart went cold within her, for standing in the doorway was Chantal, looking lovely in one of the smartest dresses she had ever seen.
“Hello, Chantal, my dear,” the doctor greeted her calmly enough. “What brings you to the hospital?”
The French girl laughed without any amusement at all.
“I thought I’d come and find out what kept you so busy over here,” she said sweetly. “What else keeps you so busy, I mean!” Her eyes swept round the office and rested for an instant on Katherine, and then dismissed her.
“Are you going to show me round?” she asked.
CHAPTER NINE
KATHERINE was sitting under the date-palm in the courtyard when Chantal came back from the hospital. The last of the evening sun had changed the glaring white of the walls to a softer hue and the bright blue paint of the doors and the windows had become a vivid purple. It was in many ways the best time of the day, when it was cool enough to do all the things it had been too hot to do all day, and the time when all the little birds in their cages began to sing and when the perfume of the flowers was at its heaviest.
In contrast Chantal looke
d hot and tired. The dry air was not being very kind to her skin and little lines were beginning to gather at the corners of her mouth and between her eyes. If she was not very careful, Katherine decided, they would set, stamping her face with the permanent marks of spiteful bad temper. She wished she hadn’t noticed them because she knew that she would always see them in the future, and in a curious way they added to her dislike of the other girl.
“What did you think of the hospital?” she asked her quietly.
Chantal smiled briefly with secret amusement.
“To be honest I hardly glanced at it,” she admitted. “I haven’t your enthusiasm for the smell of antiseptic. And that terrible green paint! Where did they dig that up?”
Katherine giggled involuntarily.
“Perhaps they thought it would match the green of the surgical overalls,” she suggested. “I rather like it. It looks so clean.”
“Exactly!” Chantal agreed with feeling. “And talking of cleanliness, have you seen my clean nightdress anywhere?”
Katherine blushed slightly.
“Ali put it in my room,” she admitted. “You have some lovely things,” she added without rancour. “I think Ali thought so too, judging by the careful way he spread it out on the bed!”
Chantal looked distinctly put out.
“I suppose he thought it was too good for me!” she said nastily. “Haven’t you any pretties of your own?”
Katherine shook her head, a little amused.
“Nothing quite like that!” she said dryly. And just as well too, she told herself with robust common sense. Her fair and rather average looks would be completely swamped by such magnificence. “I’ll give it to you when I go upstairs. Shall I put it in your room?” Chantal gave her a long, enigmatic look.