It was a large house. They could be in any one of a half-dozen rooms. He tried the study, the dining room, the breakfast room, the patio, but they were nowhere to be found.
Annoyed, he went into the bathroom and washed his face and hands with cold water. He was stupid. He should have known she would be off with him. He was a big man, attractive and, most of all, a movie star. He was nothing like the gigolos she found on the Riviera.
He came out of the bathroom and walked down the hall toward the living room. It was then that he noticed the whir of machinery coming from behind the closed door. He paused, thinking it might be the air-conditioning unit. The Americans had a way of installing that kind of equipment in closets. But then he heard the faint hum of what sounded like voices coming from a speaker. He reached for the knob. The door wouldn’t open. It was locked.
He looked around quickly to make sure the corridor was empty. Youssef had learned many tricks, including the use of plastic credit cards.
A moment later the closet door was open and Youssef was staring in surprise at the small monitor of a videotape recorder. The sound volume was depressed but the picture was in color and bright as day. Jordana was naked, on her back, her face contorted in the throes of orgasm. She seemed to be staring directly up into the camera as her legs gripped tightly around the waist of the man who was bucking like a bronco rider. The faint echo of her gasp whined in the speaker as the man began to spend himself inside her. Then slowly he rolled over on his side and came out of her, damp and already softening. He turned toward Jordana and smiled, his hand dropping to the side of the bed. Youssef had just enough time to recognize the face of their host before the screen went black.
He was frozen for a moment, then moved quickly. He knew the machine. Baydr had the same system installed on the boat, but only the playback units, not the recorder. Youssef depressed the key which released the videotape cartridge and took it from the machine. Placing it under his jacket, he stepped back into the corridor. He closed the door and heard the lock click.
He walked down the hall to the foyer. A servant rose from a seat near the front door, and he opened it as Youssef approached.
“Is the gentleman leaving?” he asked.
“No. I just thought I could use a moment of fresh air.”
“Very good, sir,” the servant said, closing the door behind him.
Youssef walked to his car. The chauffeur came out of the front seat. “Is my attaché case still in the trunk?” Youssef asked.
“Yes, sir.” The chauffeur went to the back of the car and opened the trunk. He took out the case and gave it to Youssef. Quickly, Youssef placed the video cassette inside and locked it. He gave it to the chauffeur. “Remind me to take it when we go back to the hotel tonight.”
“Yes, sir.”
Youssef watched the man replace it in the trunk, then went back into the house. He could feel his heart pounding. This was even more than he had planned, more than he had hoped for. Now it was simply a matter of deciding when it should be used.
He slipped back into the seat beside Vincent and looked up at the screen. Vincent turned to him and whispered, “Rick made a fantastic Moses, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Youssef answered. “How did you know he’d be so good in the part?”
Vincent turned to him with a smile. “I couldn’t go wrong,” he said. “Sullivan changed his name from Solomon when he went into pictures. How could a Solomon be bad at playing Moses?”
Youssef stared at the closeup of Moses that filled the entire screen. Of course. He wondered why he had not seen it before. The man had the face of a Jew.
There was a sound at the back of the room. Jordana and Rick were back. From the corner of his eye he watched them cross to the bar and sit there. He saw Rick glance over his shoulder at the screen and say something to her. She laughed and picked up the fresh glass of wine the barman had placed before her.
Youssef felt a rush of hatred. “Laugh, you bitch!” he thought savagely. “That’s it. Laugh, you Jew-fucking bitch!”
He knew not exactly what he was going to do with the tapes. Baydr would be eternally grateful to him for protecting his name by keeping from the world the knowledge that his wife had betrayed him with a Jew.
CHAPTER 16
Leila looked across the room at her mother. “I told you, Mother, many times. Hamid is just a friend, that’s all. I am not serious about him. I do not intend to marry him. He’s just a friend.”
Maryam sighed heavily. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you. He’s just an ordinary Syrian, not even from a good family. I can’t imagine what you see in him.”
Leila lit a cigarette. “I have to talk to someone.”
“There are many nice boys you can talk to. My father said the industrialist Fawaz spoke to him. His son is of the marrying age and they are interested in you.”
“Who?” Leila asked sarcastically. “Fawaz or his son?”
“Don’t be disrespectful. Grandfather means nothing but the best for you.”
“Like he did for you?” Leila asked pointedly.
“It wasn’t his fault,” Maryam said defensively. “None of us knew then what your father was like. We did everything correctly. No one can point a finger at us.”
“I don’t see anyone pointing a finger at my father either,” Leila said. “Apparently nobody cares what you do as long as you have enough money.”
Maryam shook her head in exasperation. “It’s just as I’ve always said, you take after your father more than you do me. You only see things the way you want to see them. I should never have allowed you to go away to school in Switzerland. The only thing they taught you was how to talk back to your mother. Your sister doesn’t act like that.”
“My sister is stupid!” Leila snapped. “All she cares about is her home and her children and her problems with servants.”
“That’s all a woman has to care about,” Maryam said. “What else is there?”
Leila gestured toward the window. “There’s a whole world out there, Mother. Can’t you see it? For too many years we’ve been oppressed, our people have been ridiculed and enslaved. Our brothers cry under the yoke of the Jews in Palestine. And you ask what else there is.”
“Those are the problems that men must solve,” Maryam said. “We should attend to our own affairs.”
“There’s no use,” Leila said in disgust. She walked to the door. “I’m going out.”
“Where are you going?” To meet that Hamid again?”
“No. Just out. That’s all.”
“What’s the hurry then? It’s almost dinnertime.”
“I’m not hungry. Don’t wait for me.”
Maryam watched the door close behind her. A few minutes later she heard the car start up in front of the house. She got out of her chair and walked to the window just in time to see the small Mercedes convertible turn into the street.
Leila was like her father. There was no one who could talk to her. She thought about the day last month when she had shown up at the front door with her friend the Syrian, Hamid. They were so ragged and dirty that at first the servant, who was new to the house, would not let them in. Finally, reluctantly, she had called her mistress.
Maryam was shocked at the way her daughter looked. Her skin was dark and leathery as if she had spent days in the desert sun, and there wasn’t a curve on her body. She was as thin and straight as a boy.
“What happened?” she cried.
“Nothing, Mother,” Leila replied calmly.
“But, look at you, you’re in rags. You look as if you hadn’t had a bath in months.”
“I’m all right, Mother,” Leila said stubbornly.
“Where did you come from? I thought you were still in school.”
“We hitched our way home,” Leila answered.
“What for? All you had to do was telephone. We would have bought you a ticket.”
“If I had wanted a ticket, I would have called. I wanted to do it this way.”
/>
For the first time, Maryam noticed Hamid, standing outside the threshold. She looked at him, then at her daughter.
“This is my friend Hamid,” Leila said. “He’s Syrian.”
Hamid took a step forward. He touched his finger to his forehead. “Tasharrafna.”
“Hasalli sharaf,” she replied automatically. She did not add the other customary words of welcome.
“I met Hamid on the road,” Leila said. “He’s on his way home to Damascus.”
Maryam said nothing.
“He was very nice to me,” Leila said. “If it weren’t for him, I might have had some trouble.”
Maryam turned back to the Syrian. “Enter,” she said. “And make yourself welcome in our house.”
He bowed again. “Thank you, madame, but I have some friends I can stay with.”
She did not demur. He seemed too coarse and common. But then so did most Syrians.
“I am glad you are home,” he said to Leila. “Now I must be going.”
Leila held out her hand to him. “You will get in touch with me before you leave Beirut?”
He nodded, and they shook hands. Despite their formality, Maryam sensed the familiarity between them. “I will call you,” he said.
But that had been almost a month ago and still he had not left Beirut. What he was doing, she did not know. But she did know that he and Leila met almost every day at the Phoenicia Hotel. She had been told that by friends who had seen them sitting in the coffee shop drinking Coca-Colas.
***
She parked the car in the street and went into the coffee shop through the outside entrance. She did not like to walk through the ornate lobby with its crowds of packaged American and European tourists. He was sitting alone at his usual table in the corner near a window. The inevitable Coca-Cola with its slice of lemon was in front of him. He looked up as she sat down opposite him. Without a word, the waitress brought her a Coca-Cola.
He waited until the waitress had gone. “I’m leaving tomorrow,” he said.
She looked at him. His face was expressionless. “Home?” she asked.
“Might as well,” he said. “There’s nothing going on here and I had a letter from my cousin. I can get a sergeant’s job in the army with time and bonuses. They’re recruiting veterans with experience.”
“I don’t understand it,” she said. “I haven’t heard a word and it’s almost a month now.”
He shrugged.
“Maybe they think I was killed with all the others.”
“They know you’re here. I told them when I went in to collect my last pay.”
“Then why don’t they call me? I’m going crazy waiting around here. My mother never stops nagging me.”
“They have other things on their mind. There was a story going around that Al-Ikhwah wanted your father to handle their foreign investments.”
“I know. He turned them down. That happened before I left France.” She sipped her drink through the straw. “They’re crazy. My father won’t lift a finger to help anyone but himself.”
“They’re going back to him again. They seem to think he’s important.”
“I wish them luck. There’s only one way they’ll ever get him to help them. At the point of a gun.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I know my father. He still thinks that money will cure everything.”
“Anyway I’m leaving tomorrow. That army job is better than nothing.”
“Maybe I should go down and talk to them. I didn’t get all that training to sit here in my mother’s house.”
“Don’t do that,” he said quickly. “Your orders were to wait until you were contacted.”
She looked at him. “Do you have to go?”
“I have to do something. My money’s almost gone.”
“I have money.”
“No.”
She was silent for a moment, staring down at her drink, then she looked at up him. “I was hoping we would be sent on a mission together.”
“I’m not the type,” he said. “They would rather have students for missions. People pay less attention to them.”
“You’re not that old. You could still pass for a student,” she said quickly.
“Maybe,” he laughed. “In the dark.”
“If you go back in the Syrian army, they’ll never let you get out.”
“Maybe I won’t want to. The way we’re building up and the way Egypt is preparing, the chances are something is going to happen. And if there is a war, I can make officer.”
“Is that what you want?”
“No.”
“What do you want then?”
“Just to make a lot of money”—he smiled—“like your father.”
“Stop talking about him!” she snapped, suddenly angry. “That’s all I hear everywhere I go. My father this, my father that. Even my mother never stops talking about him.”
“Did you see the paper today?” he asked.
“No.”
“You should have. Maybe then you would know why they talk about your father.”
“What did he do?”
“He just closed the biggest oil tanker deal ever made with Japan. He bought ten ships and they’re building twenty more for him. All supertankers. It will be the largest Arab-owned shipping line in the world.”
“Allah be praised,” she said sarcastically. “How much richer does that make him?”
“At least he’s doing something. There’s no reason for the Greeks and all the others to monopolize the shipping from our ports.”
“How does that help the Palestinians?” she asked.
He was silent.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean to quarrel with you. I’m just getting edgy sitting around.”
“That’s all right.”
She looked at him. “Would you like me to go back to your room with you?”
“Okay,” he said, then he smiled. “But is it all right with you if we go to a movie first? The only pictures playing in Damascus are at least ten years old.”
***
Baydr felt the warm sake buzzing in his head as he put down his cup. Almost as soon as it touched the table, the geisha sitting on her knees just behind him filled the tiny cup. Baydr looked at it. He wasn’t used to drinking. A glass of champagne occasionally but no more. And though he had only had three of the tiny cups he felt them.
“Enough,” he said, starting to get up. He felt slightly dizzy as he rose. The geisha was there to help him as soon as he put out his hand. He smiled at her. “Sleep,” he said.
She looked at him blankly.
“Sleep,” he repeated. He placed the palms of his hands together and held them to the side of his face, closing his eyes.
“Hai! Hai! Sleep.”
He nodded.
Still holding one arm under his elbow, she reached out and slid back the screen separating the rooms. She led him into the bedroom and closed the panel behind her. The bed was very low to the floor and he almost fell backward as he sat down on it. He thought that was very funny and began to laugh. She laughed with him.
“I almost fell.”
“Hai, hai,” she said, reaching behind him and pulling open the sash that held his robe. Gently she slipped it from his shoulders and he rolled back onto the bed as she pulled it from him.
“Tired,” he mumbled into the pillow. He rolled onto his stomach, face down. As if from a great distance, he heard the gentle rustle of her kimono. He smelled the faint perfume of the talcum powder settling on his skin like a soft cloud.
Her hands felt like gentle feathers as they softly stroked his back, her fingers tracing his spine from his neck to his coccyx. A moment later, she began kneading his flesh with slightly warmed oil. He sighed in contentment.
Her hands went down his back, cupping and stroking his buttocks. Then he felt her slowly part them, and gently place a probing finger inside him. She found his prostate and massaged it in a circular motion.
>
Almost asleep, he felt himself growing hard and began to move to his side. Gently but firmly, she held him so that he could not move. Her other hand, moist with the warm oil, began to stroke his throbbing phallus.
He tried to move with her but couldn’t. Then he became aware that there was not one but two geishas in the room. The second woman came around the other side of the bed and knelt before him. Now there were four hands instead of two. There was no part of him that was not being touched, stroked, caressed all at the same time.
The pressure on his prostate and testicles, the increasing rapidity of the moving hand on his penis became too much. He felt himself begin to contract into a knot. The agony became almost unbearable. A groan escaped him. He opened his eyes.
The tiny Japanese woman still clad in her kimono smiled sweetly at him. Then she opened her mouth to gently encircle his glans. The explosion came and for a moment he felt close to death as the semen flooded forth like a gusher. Explosion followed explosion until he was completely drained and all that was left was a mildly pleasant emptiness.
He was still watching the tiny geisha as she rose to her feet and moved silently away. He felt other hands draw the soft sheets around him. He closed his eyes and fell into dreamless sleep.
When he awakened it seemed as if he had slept for only a few minutes. But it was broad daylight and Jabir was standing over his bed.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, master,” he said, “but this cable just arrived and Mr. Carriage said it was most important.”
He sat up slowly and took the yellow sheet. The message was simple and one that only he and the Prince could understand.
THE DATE HAS BEEN SET FOR THE INVESTITURE OF YOUR SON AS MY HEIR. PLEASE RETURN AT ONCE TO COMPLETE ALL ARRANGEMENTS.
[signed] FEIYAD, PRINCE.
He was wide awake now. He knew that it had nothing to do with his son. A long time ago they had agreed on the meaning of this message.
War. War with Israel. The time to avenge themselves for the defeat of 1967 was close at hand. Or so they thought. A feeling of sadness came over him.
It was too soon. Much too soon. Perhaps they would win a minor victory at first, but the Israelis were too experienced for them. If the war ran more than a week it would mean another defeat for the Arabs.
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