“Why are you crying?”
“If you had a world-class soccer player making goals against your ribs, you’d cry, too.”
“You think it’s a boy?”
“Is that what you want?”
“I can’t say that it matters.”
“It matters to me. I want a little boy that’s exactly like you.”
He sat up. “That’s the only sentimental thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
“And?”
“And I’m surprised.” He didn’t seem surprised. He seemed emotionally weary.
“Oh, James.” The tears flowed faster and instantly congested her sinuses so that she had to ask him to bring her tissues.
“Is this all because of the kicking?” he asked.
“No. It’s because I love you so much.”
“That’s very nice,” he said softly. But it didn’t make him say he loved her back.
She had said good-bye to everyone but saved Aunt Julia for last. Despite what Delal had done, her aunt had behaved courageously and deserved to have some peace. She had wheeled Cassie through the narrow streets of the Old City, trying to absorb and fix it in her mind. Already there were so many changes because of the partition.
“Your house is the most charming. I love to come here.”
“Nijmeh—” Julia’s eyes were blurred with tears, her cheeks flushed. “You’re going back. When will you come again?”
“When I feel more sure of myself and what I’m doing. When I feel stronger.”
“If you’re not sure, why not stay?”
“I have more choices in America. I can make a fuller life for myself.”
“I think that’s true, but won’t you be so alone?”
“I was alone when Paul was alive. You saw how little time he spent at home. I learned how to make a life for myself and now that’s what appeals to me. I need to know that I can plan my own life and not make a mess of it. It would be so easy to stay. And I worry about straying so far from where I came from. Right now it seems the thing to do, but perhaps later I’ll regret it. It’s a big decision, especially if I ever marry again. What will Cassie know of her background? My father is the sheik’s direct descendant. And I . . . I’m next in line.”
“Oh, darling, you don’t know how happy it makes me to hear you say that. I worried so that you would hate me. That you would want to turn your back on everything.”
“I couldn’t hate you. You did what you did out of love for my mother. I only wish I had known when she was still alive so I could have told her it was all right. It did trouble her, you know. There was a hesitancy. I always felt it and couldn’t understand why. Now I know.”
“But you brought her a lot of happiness.” Julia waited to collect her thoughts. “If she hadn’t had a child, it would have destroyed your mother. So in a very real sense you saved her life.” Nijmeh nodded but didn’t respond. Her mother’s life had been pitifully short, but she had been well loved. “Is your father very upset that you’re going back? Has he said anything?”
“Teta said more than my father. She’s certain that it’s a mistake.”
“Oh, dear. I’m not much help in that direction, but you have my blessing. Whatever you do, I’ll support you. I would have done anything for your mother and I feel the same about you. As much as I’d love having you here, I think—as a young widow—you’ll have a fuller life in America.”
“Thank you, Amti. I know you love me and I know you’ll always tell me the truth.”
She and Cassie left the next morning. The plane stopped at Beirut, where they changed to a plane bound for Rome, where they stayed overnight. The next day they flew from Rome to New York and then to Washington. By nightfall they were home.
“Over here!” Larraine’s voice carried across the length of the terminal. Cassie began to squeal and strain to get loose from her mother’s arms.
“Look,” said Larraine, taking the baby in her arms, “she remembers me. I missed you both. I thought maybe you’d decided to stay.” She frowned and threw Star a questioning look. “How was it?”
“We all did a lot of crying. Except Cassie. She had a wonderful time. And I did, too, in a way. Larraine, I put away a lot of ghosts. A lot of ghosts.”
In the car on the way home, Larraine talked nonstop. “I’m going to be selfish and gloat that you decided not to stay there. I need your support and your advice. The furnace went and they want five hundred dollars to paint the outside of the house. There’s a lot of sanding to do and the trim around the third-floor windows has to be replaced. It’s all rotted away. Chuck sold our house and I—thank God it was in both our names—received half the money, which was a nice surprise. Thirteen thousand dollars. Think what we can do with that! Except I moved into the top floor of the corner house. I hope you don’t mind. We’ll miss the rent but I had to move somewhere. I’m still working for McKay part-time for the income. Maybe you’d like to do that, too.”
“Maybe. My father told me that I had an inheritance left by my grandfather, so I went to the bank to sign the papers and sat there waiting for a check or a stack of money—I didn’t know what to expect. The man handed me this beige sack. He said, ‘Well, madam, here it is.’ So I thought, oh boy, this is my big inheritance. I thanked him and waited until I was outside to look.”
“What was it?”
“Gold coins. French gold coins. Dozens and dozens of them. They’re beautiful, but I don’t know if I can cash them in. It’s the strangest thing. I don’t know if I’m well off or if they’re just keepsakes. And anyway, how could I sell them? They were his coins and they’re in his money pouch. He probably wore it around his waist and had it all his life. It’s something precious.”
“Well, God bless him. I like it. He probably had no faith in paper currency. Isn’t that nice? I hope you told them about the mess Paul left you in.”
“I couldn’t. I want them to think well of Paul. They know his family. The whole town thought he was a wonderful man. How could I tell them otherwise?”
“I guess.” Cassie had fallen asleep against her shoulder and Larraine looked over at Star and then pointed to the baby. “This one’s out like a light.” She reached across the seat in the dark and put her hand over Star’s. “You did the right thing coming back. There was no other way for you to find out who Star Halaby is. No other way. And that’s the truth.”
The next few months were busy ones for Star. She moved from the second floor of the North Capitol Street house to the first, which was larger and had access to a small backyard. She painted the walls white and put white curtains in the two bedrooms and white carpeting on the floors. She stored the huge Oriental rugs and sold most of the furniture from the big house to an antiques dealer.
Three days a week she took Cassie to a playgroup run by the YMCA and worked for Fred McKay. She also took an evening course in accounting so they wouldn’t have to pay someone to do the books. The happiest image of herself in those shaky first weeks went like this: she was walking down their own block, carefully avoiding the dips in the sidewalk, a grocery bag in one arm, Cassie’s hand in hers, her mind free, her heart open. Going home.
Once in a while she and Larraine would go to a movie or eat out at an Italian place, taking the baby with them. But then Larraine began to date one of her clients, a man named Sam Hollings, who was newly separated and in need of a house. She began to buy clothes and fixed up her hair. One afternoon she came into Star’s kitchen completely made up: eyes outlined like Cleopatra’s, rouged, eyebrows tweezed, cheekbones highlighted—the works. “I went into Garfinckel’s to buy a lipstick and they made me up. No charge. What do you think?”
“You look lovely.” She tried to look cheerful. After all, Larraine was walking around the linoleum as if an audience had paid to see her. She was rolling her hips and thrusting out her breasts, and all of a sudden, to make a point she gave a littl
e kick backward as if she were the last girl in the chorus line and wanted the audience to remember her. Larraine was giddy with . . . was it relief? Happiness because there was a man in her life? The reality of being found desirable had transformed her from a freckle-faced ex-housewife into a credible beauty. It was a jolt to Star, who now felt a need to take inventory.
She was a twenty-four-year-old widow with a child and no immediate family. Not for a moment did she consider contacting the Walkers. The emotional repercussions—there might even be legal ones—would be so destructive, and what would she gain? Cousins for Cassie. If she waited until everyone who might be hurt was dead, she and Cassie would be too old to benefit from it. But that’s it, she thought. I have to bury that information.
She realized with a sense of irony that she—who had no Arab blood—was deeply rooted in the Middle East, while her daughter—who had Paul’s blood—was thoroughly Yankee in spirit. Cassie would never fight to remember the tantalizing sights and smells and the feel of that peculiar velvety air. Her heart wouldn’t stumble at the sound of that unique accent shaped by twenty years of British occupation. It was a realization that made her wince because—with all she knew—America was now her best and only hope.
When he saw the obituary in the evening paper, he thought he misread it. But instead of checking he got out of his chair and began to pace. Back and forth. Back and forth while his heart changed its beat. It was a long, graceful room with tall, arched windows looking out on rolling lawns and deep woods, but his eyes were on his feet. He wanted to concentrate and calm down. His mind had always worked on reason but now he felt superstitiously tied to Paul Halaby. For the last three months, outside his control, he had been suffused with an exquisite longing for the dead man’s wife. But he hadn’t counted on fate opening the road for him so decisively.
He had invented a past for her and convinced himself that she was in great need of being saved. Was that foolish? Why would such a beautiful woman be in trouble? For one thing, her eyes weren’t aloof—a woman like that could be spoiled and demanding, but this one was full of understanding and (surprisingly) sadness. When he heard her voice, his reserve had cracked. Desire changed from a chaste gauzy dream to open—and unchaste—desire.
I want you. That phrase was meant for slushy songs and teenage love talk. He was a man of the world. Wasn’t he? Those banal words had nothing to do with him. But they precisely fit what he felt. He wanted her. When he allowed his mind the freedom, it latched on to the idea of making love to her in every possible variation. He imagined a room upholstered in silk with huge square divans and soft lights. He wanted to place her in the middle of such a room—position her like a queen—and give her everything he had. His manhood, his mind and life experience, the sum of his saved-up love.
He stopped pacing and sat down to read the obituary from beginning to end. Like any premature corpse, Halaby was survived by a long list of relatives, including his wife, Star, and a daughter, Cassandra. Her name was Star. A condolence call was the very least he could offer. Would she remember him?
By the time he got around to calling, she was no longer living in the same place. At the forwarding telephone number, a woman said she was out of the country.
“Will she be back?”
“I certainly hope so.”
He waited six months to call again and by that time, to his intense relief, she was listed in the telephone book.
“Hello, my name is Andrew Larabee. We met at the Bowie track.” They hadn’t met at all.
Silence. Would she pretend to remember? “I’m sorry, I don’t recall.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m calling to offer my condolences on the death of your husband.” Her husband had been dead too long a time for condolences.
“That’s very kind of you.”
“Perhaps you’d like to spend some time up here around the horses. This is the prettiest time . . .” His voice was coaxing. “I know you used to bring your little girl.”
“That’s very generous, but I can’t accept.”
“I have a vacant guest house. No one would bother you.”
“It isn’t that. I have a job and this is our busiest season.”
“Oh. Too bad. What do you do? Train with the Washington Senators?” Good God, Larabee, you’ve gone crazy.
She laughed. “I work for Fred McKay, the real estate firm.”
“Well, that explains it. Perhaps another time.”
“Perhaps. And thank you.”
Damn. Why hadn’t he just asked her out to dinner right there and then? Why had be made that insipid joke? He should have been more spontaneous. He couldn’t call back now; she’d think he was an idiot or a crank.
Larraine was buffing her nails so vigorously she generated considerable heat. She doubled her hand over and admired the pink glow. It was a slow Monday and Fred McKay had left her alone in the office. She had to type up three new listings on white cards and do a little filing as long as the phones stayed quiet. The office was on the parlor floor of a brownstone off Connecticut and M. On the street level, which was down three steps, there was an Italian restaurant and the smells wafting up were making her stomach growl. She’d close up and let the service answer the phone while she went down for lunch. She put away her nail buffer and reached in the drawer for her handbag, but then groaned with disappointment. There was a client at the door.
One look and she forgot her annoyance. Everything about this one was whispering money, money, money. McKay had told her how to spot a Dunhill suit and here was the real article staring her in the face. Look at the buttonholes on the sleeve, he had instructed. If they really unbutton and if the buttons are bone—they’ll look striated—it’s the genuine thing or at least as expensive.
She could see that the buttonhole on his sleeve—his arms were folded across his chest—was the right kind. Mister, I’m going to sell you an expensive house, so help me God. “Yes, may I help you?”
“I’m interested in a house.”
“What kind of a house?”
He looked blank. “I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Uh-huh. Well, that’s all right, I guess.” She was stalling. Men were seldom vague about what they wanted. And he didn’t look like a crazy. He looked like an ambassador. An ambassador to the great outdoors. Lovely tan. “Neighborhood?”
“I hadn’t thought of that either.”
“Size?”
“Small.”
“Now we’ve really narrowed it down.” She smiled and hoped he would, too, but he didn’t. His mind was elsewhere. He kept looking around. “Just for yourself then?” There was no Mrs. Ambassador?
“Yes.”
“Well, how about this: a small but elegant townhouse either on Massachusetts or N or M in back of St. Matthew’s Cathedral. Or perhaps up around California Street or New Hampshire? Are you familiar with those streets?”
“Vaguely. Is Mrs. Halaby here?”
“Oh? Has she already taken you around?”
“No.”
“Someone recommended her?”
“No. I simply know that she works here and I thought I should ask for her.” Something was going on here, but she wasn’t sure what it was. “I met her up in the country.”
“Do you know that she lost her husband?”
“Yes, I do.”
“And you wanted her to take you around? She won’t be here again until next week.” The right hemisphere of Larraine’s brain was searching doggedly for a vital connection, which had to be deciphered. This man didn’t want a house. He would buy one if he had to, but he was here for other reasons. The news that Star was not available seemed to stump him. His eyes—staring out of that rugged face—were beseeching and that tugged at her motherly heart. Out of the blue, she blurted out, “Did you want to see her very badly?”
That got his attention. “Yes, I did.”
&
nbsp; Oh, so that’s it. He’s interested in Star. “Well, Mr. . . .”
“Larabee. Andrew Larabee.”
“Mr. Larabee, perhaps I can help you. That is, of course, if your intentions meet with my approval.”
She had bought a new dress for herself. Slim and black. “Every woman needs a little black dress,” the ad had said. “Let this be the one.” It was sexy. Sort of sexy.
“Well, look at you,” said Larraine. “Getting ideas again?”
“Of course not. It’s just a dress.”
She had bought the dress because McKay was having a shindig, as he called it, and she was invited. It was a sit-down formal dinner for sixteen associates and clients. She knew what that meant. He wanted to woo investors or repay those who had generated business and commissions for Fred McKay.
The night of the party she stood in the library of McKay’s impressive mansion and peered at each new arrival with some nervousness. One of them would be her partner. Maybe he wouldn’t show up, which would be a relief. She’d be able to eat without worrying about keeping up her end of the conversation. But then she’d be the floating guest. Whom would she talk with? Maybe her partner was already there, although there weren’t any men who appeared at loose ends. The doorbell rang and she jumped. I wonder if he knows I have a child? It shouldn’t matter, after all, it’s just for the evening. Maybe I don’t have to mention Cassie at all. It’s not as if I’m likely to see him again. Oh, God, this is so awkward.
He had to tie his bow tie three times before he got it right. He hated formal dress, even though women told him repeatedly that on him a tuxedo was dynamite. He looked distinguished and very handsome. At the last minute he had serious doubts about Mrs. Halaby’s reaction to him and began to think of excuses for canceling. The barn might burn down or one of his horses might become ill or he’d sprain his ankle. Maybe the White House would call and ask him to come right over. Or an eighteen-wheeler could jackknife across the road, blocking all traffic. He put on his jacket. How foolish he felt. His heart was skittering around his chest. He knew that if his heart was really to skitter around his chest, he’d be dead on the floor and it wouldn’t matter if Star Halaby liked him or not.
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