by Isobel Chace
‘You know it isn’t!’ She stiffened her backbone until her muscles ached. ‘You think you know everything, but you don’t! You don’t know anything about me! You may be very clever, but it takes more than cleverness to be a decent human being!’
His eyebrows rose. ‘You think I’m inhuman?’
‘Yes,’ she said definitely. ‘I’m glad you’ve decided I’m beneath your notice. The exalted slopes where you have your being are too cold and lonely for me. I like other people, ordinary people like myself, and I don’t think it’s the least bit clever to look down on them!’
‘Ah,’ he congratulated her, ‘a genuine opinion at last! Well done, Deborah Day!’
She walked on, feeling more uncomfortable by the minute. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last. ‘I had no right—’
‘Deborah, I warn you, defeat me in argument if you must, but don’t patronise me by apologising for doing so!’
She was astonished. ‘It wasn’t exactly an argument and, even if it was, that doesn’t give one a licence to be rude. I expect I don’t understand how someone like you feels about—about people who don’t get the hang of things very easily.’
‘Are you by any chance referring to yourself?’
She nodded, waiting for the blow to fall when he agreed with her. His laughter at first shocked her and then made her more than a little indignant. ‘I can’t help it if I can’t compete with you—’ she began.
‘You don’t have to,’ he said.
She drew herself up. ‘I wouldn’t want to bore you, Mr. Derwent.’
‘There’s not much danger of that!’ The rueful slant to his mouth brought the excitement rushing through her veins again. ‘If I didn’t think you’d get hurt, I’d have a lot of time for you, Miss Day. But I think we want different things in that direction, so be grateful I’m still sufficiently human to consider your tender feelings enough to allow you to escape my attentions.’
She wasn’t at all grateful! A storm of rebellion shook her that he should be able to dismiss her so easily. ‘You flatter yourself!’ she said, her tone as dry as his. ‘Have you forgotten that I was engaged to Ian until quite recently?’
‘No.’ He didn’t seem inclined to remember it now.
‘Well then?’ she prompted him.
‘I find it very difficult to take that particular love affair seriously,’ he murmured. T could make you forget all about that young jackanapes in a few minutes if I chose.’ He turned to face her. ‘Shall I choose, Deborah?’
That was putting the ball in her court with a vengeance, and she took fright as she suspected he had known she would. She met his eyes with as much equanimity as she could muster, and, as their eyes met, she saw a flash of disappointment in his, but it was gone so quickly that she wondered if she had imagined it.
‘I might not be the easy game you suppose,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t find it as easy to turn my head as you think. Ian isn’t the only man I’ve ever known! I’ve always been able to pick and choose—’
‘Among the boys,’ he interrupted her. ‘I’m sure you had them hanging on your every word and enjoyed every moment of it. I’m not a boy—I doubt if I ever was in that way!—and there are some experiences it’s better for a sweet young girl not to have had.’
She turned on him then, angry at the picture of her he had conjured up with such mocking insistence.
‘You’re far too conceited to appeal to me I’ she claimed. ‘I wouldn’t fall in love with you if you were the last man left on earth!’
She stopped at a stall that was selling some of the carpets made by the nomadic Qashgai tribes, appalled to see among their number a gaudy representation of an American pop star. The proprietor hastily covered it up with a pile of more traditionally designed rugs and it vanished from view.
‘Did you see that?’ Deborah demanded, incensed, her quarrel with Roger Derwent temporarily forgotten.
Roger’s lips quirked momentarily. ‘I think you’re too young to fall in love with anyone,’ he said. ‘You and Maxine will make a fine pair!’
Deborah dragged herself away from the shop with difficulty. They had come to the end of the bazaar and were faced with an unsavoury-looking passage that could have led anywhere. Roger merely glanced down it, smiled at someone he knew, and turned to the left down another passage, lit by a single naked electric light bulb, that was completely empty except for a group of schoolboys playing some kind of football against its walls.
‘It isn’t far now,’ Roger encouraged her. Toil did say you wanted to live in the centre of the city,’ he added.
‘Do people really live down here?’ she countered. ‘It’s a bit gloomy without ever seeing the sun, isn’t it?’
But almost immediately they came out of the covered passageway and into a cluster of narrow streets made up of the windowless, anonymous-looking houses favoured by most Moslems, with only the relative grandeur of their doors to betray the wealth or otherwise of the families who lived inside.
Roger paused outside a particularly fine studded door, painted a rich green that had not yet had time to be faded and cracked by the hot sun. The knocker could have been solid silver and was formed in the shape of a female hand. Later, Deborah was to discover that all the fittings, the lamp too that lit the courtyard within, were made of silver, and she took over the task of cleaning them herself, distressed that anything so beautiful should be left to tarnish as if they were of no account.
The door opened and a young woman stood framed in the entrance, her hair as fair as a child’s and her smile as welcoming.
‘Darling Roger! I’d practically given you up!’
She reached up to embrace him, turning her face to meet his kiss so that it landed full on her mouth and not on her cheek as he had intended. She was dressed in a pair of jeans, frayed to the knees, and a man’s shirt that was several sizes too big for her. The warmth of her personality shone like a beacon out of her tall, long-legged frame. It would be hard for anyone to dislike her, Deborah thought.
‘Deborah doesn’t hurry for anyone,’ Roger explained. ‘I’ll have to rush off almost immediately if I’m not to be late. Do you think you two can manage?’
Maxine Reinhardt extended a much-ringed hand in Deborah’s direction. ‘We’ll try not to get into too much trouble until you get back. By the way, Howard wants to talk to you. Do you mind, Roger?’
‘He can come out to my place tonight,’ Roger suggested.
‘No, he can’t. I want to see you too.’ She put a second, more possessive hand on Roger’s arm. ‘I wilt when you neglect me, sweetest, you know I do. You promised you’d be around more often and I’m relying on you to make good your word on that score! Howard only wants to talk about some beastly poet. You can do that any time.’
Roger smiled easily. ‘Which poet this time?’ he asked.
Maxine laughed. ‘Since we came to Shiraz there only are two as far as Howard is concerned. It’s your own fault for telling him to read them in the original! His Farsi isn’t good enough and he doesn’t get the right nuance—or that’s what he says. I think he wants to pick your brains for his next essay on whichever one of them it is he has to write about this time.’
‘He should find Saadi easier than he found Hafez.’
‘I do,’ Deborah submitted, not looking at Roger. ‘Not in the original, of course, but in translation. I find Saadi’s stories much easier to understand, but less beautiful than Hafez’s imagery.’
Roger’s interest was caught. ‘You can interpret Hafez at a number of different levels, which makes him more difficult. Some people open his books at random and try to tell their fortunes from whichever lines they find there.’
‘Like you did for me?’ she said.
‘That wasn’t fortune-telling.’
Deborah was aware of the interested speculation in Maxine’s eyes. ‘What was it, then?’ she asked. ‘It sounded as though you were giving me a pointer as to my ultimate destiny.’
‘I shouldn’t have done so had
I known you as well as I do now,’ he remarked.
‘Roger!’ Maxine protested. ‘You’re being unkind!’ He looked at Deborah. ‘Am I?’
She shook her head. ‘I told you I’m not as romantic as you thought me.’
‘Rather more so,’ he observed, ‘and much greener too!’
Deborah put her head on one side, making a face at him. ‘You shouldn’t be deceived by appearances. I may have found your “minstrel of the night” a pretty thought, but I don’t believe he’ll ever come along!’ Maxine’s look of outraged horror made her want to laugh. Too many people admired Roger too much, she thought. He probably didn’t notice that most of them did, but she wasn’t going to make that mistake herself. It was time he met someone who wasn’t impressed by his every lightest word—or at any rate didn’t show him that she was.
‘Didn’t anyone tell you that Roger is renowned for seeing beneath the surface of things?’ Maxine asked her in appalled tones.
‘He did,’ Deborah admitted, ‘but that doesn’t mean I necessarily have to agree with him.’
Maxine gaped at this impertinence, recovered herself with some difficulty, and turned impulsively to the man beside her. ‘I never thought anyone would say such a thing about you!’ she declared. ‘The only other person who might have done so is your mother, and you know what I think of her! Roger, are you sure you want me to take her in?’
Roger glanced at Deborah’s unrepentant face. ‘It’s your decision,’ he said to the American girl. ‘Perhaps you’ll get on better without me.’ He put a hand on the small of her back and embraced her fondly. ‘I’m glad I have you on my side anyway.’
Maxine looked pleased. ‘I’ll always be on your side,’ she promised him. ‘But I guess you know that?’
Roger gave her a gentle pat without committing himself either way. He stepped back, flicked his fingers about an inch from the end of Deborah’s nose, and went out the door, straightening his shoulders as though he was glad to go. Deborah smiled at the American girl, trying to look at her ease, but Maxine made no effort to smile back. She watched Roger go with her whole heart in her eyes and shut the door behind him with such reluctance that Deborah began to wonder if she would ever let go of the latch.
‘Have you known Roger long?’ she asked Deborah dreamily.
Deborah tossed up in her mind whether to tell her that they had met for the first time the evening before, and decided against it. ‘I almost married his brother,’ she said. ‘We’re still business partners. That’s what I’m doing in Iran.’
Maxine’s smile flashed over her. ‘Oh, I see! If his brother let you down, I guess you’re not liking any of his family very much, not even Roger. Does he know? Because you weren’t very nice to him, were you? I think he’s the last word! He only has to look at me for me to go all mushy inside!’ She ran happily across the patio, taking it for granted that Deborah would follow her into the house. ‘Is his brother like him? I didn’t even know he had one!’
‘Ian is younger,’ Deborah replied briefly.
‘Is that all?’
Deborah thought for a moment. ‘Yes,’ she said, a little surprised herself.
‘Then you’re not still in a state of ghastly grief, or anything like that?’ Maxine probed. ‘It isn’t that I mind, but Howard is bound to make a meal over handing out the sympathy if you are. In fact,’ she went on frankly, ‘if I were you, I shouldn’t tell him a thing about it. He doesn’t have emotions like other people, he splurges them all over you, if you know what I mean?’
Deborah chuckled. ‘I don’t suppose he’ll be interested in my affairs,’ she said. ‘Roger said he was engaged to be married himself.’
‘That wouldn’t stop him!’ his sister said darkly. ‘He enjoys being miserable. He can’t understand why I never worry about anything if I can help it. Everything is a worry to him!’
‘He sounds kind anyway,’ Deborah suggested.
Maxine considered this. ‘I don’t like men who are kind,’ she announced. ‘I like them ruthless and impatient, like Roger. He doesn’t bother to be kind to anyone.’
‘He would be if he noticed them. He was kind to me,’ Deborah felt obliged to say.
‘Oh, that!’ Maxine dismissed her claim with a superior smile. ‘He probably felt responsible for you as you know his brother. He wouldn’t have bothered otherwise.’
Deborah wondered why the undoubted truth of this should hurt her as much as it did. It was exactly what she had been telling herself ever since she had met him.
‘Oh well,’ said Maxine, ‘it was a good idea of his to bring you here. I was on the point of dying from boredom yesterday, because I can’t seem to work as I should on my own. I’m used to having masses of people round me, all doing the same thing, and I don’t have the confidence to perform all on my lonesome. A year ago I was convinced I was America’s answer to Picasso and Rembrandt all rolled into one, but since coming to Persia I’m not so sure. I don’t think anyone is going to spend a million dollars on a Reinhardt in the near future after all. What’s more, Roger doesn’t think so either.’
It was clear that that mattered to her. Deborah wondered if Roger knew the effect his opinion would have on her. If he had, he would have voiced it all the same because to do anything less would be a betrayal of academic truth as far as he was concerned. It wouldn’t occur to him that to Maxine such truth might not be the most important thing in the world. ‘May I see some of your paintings?’ she asked.
‘You can’t help but see them round the house,’ Maxine told her. ‘They form the major part of the furnishings because we haven’t been able to afford much else. The Iranians who had the place before us don’t seem to have believed in having regulation chairs and beds and things like that. Howard and I presume they sat around on the magnificent silk carpets that are everywhere, sometimes two and three thick, and didn’t feel the need for anything else.’
Deborah found the house delightful. She followed her hostess around with relish, intrigued by the wooden columns that held up the balcony above, the extraordinary quality of the carpets on the floor, and the murals which graced the walls of the main living room which, to her uninitiated eye, looked more Chinese than Aryan.
‘It’s the Mongolian influence,’ Maxine said gloomily. ‘They’re marvellous, aren’t they? Now follow that, Maxine Reinhardt!’
It would not be easy, Deborah was the first to admit that, but then she wouldn’t have expected an artist from the West to have produced anything comparable to these fantastic creations. It was strange how vividly they compelled the eye when they paid little or no attention to the rules of perspective. Yet the canopy that was held over the heads of the most important characters was full of intricate detail, as were the facial expressions of all the guests.
‘Comparisons are odious,’ Deborah comforted Maxine. ‘It would be different if you were trying to paint in the same style, but you’re not, are you?’
‘At the moment I’m too overwhelmed to paint in any style! I was just beginning to think I might get started when Roger introduced me to their calligraphy. My dear, if you think these are marvellous, well, all I can say is that you ain’t seen nothing yet!’ ‘But I want to see everything,’ Deborah told her. She went on to speak about the boutique she and Ian ran together, explaining all the different things they sold and what lines she was particularly hoping to find in Iran.
‘Gosh, how fantastic!’ Maxine exclaimed. ‘I’d love to help. Oh, I can’t thank Roger enough for bringing you here. What do you call your shop?’
‘Aladdin’s Cave. Not madly original, but we thought it would give the idea of the kind of things we sell.’ Maxine grinned happily. ‘It must be wild doing something like that!’ Her face clouded over at her own thoughts. ‘How will you manage now Ian has married out of the business?’ she asked. ‘No, don’t answer that if you don’t want to. I had no right to ask you such a question.’
Deborah shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’m going to manage a great deal better than I ex
pected. I was upset at the time, but it doesn’t hurt as much as it should. Perhaps I wasn’t as much in love with Ian as I thought.’
Maxine opened her eyes wide. ‘If he’s anything like Roger you must have been!’
‘Ian isn’t at all like Roger—’
‘Well, I didn’t think there could be two of them,’ Maxine said reasonably. She laughed, her usual good humour welling up and brimming over. ‘Not of Roger! Come and see where you’re going to sleep—and you’d better meet Toobi. She’s our badji. She came on the understanding she was to be maid-of-all-work, but actually she’s our house-sitter. For some reason it’s necessary to have someone who’s at home all the time. As I can’t tell her what I want her to do, house-sitting is about all Toobi does.’
‘Doesn’t your brother speak a bit of Farsi?’ Deborah asked without much sympathy. She had every intention of learning a few basic phrases herself as soon as she possibly could.
‘Oh, him!’ Maxine said with good-natured contempt. ‘I doubt Toobi has heard of Iran’s great national poets, and anything else is beneath Howard’s attention. He doesn’t care if the floors get swept or not.’
Toobi came as something of a shock to Deborah. She thought Maxine should have prepared her in some way for the demonic little woman who screeched at her from the other side of the kitchen, drawing her chador so tightly about her that all Deborah could see of her was her toothless mouth in which she had anchored the part of the swathe of material that hid her face, and a single malevolent eye that peered out at her.
‘Toobi was recently divorced by her husband,’ Maxine explained. ‘This used to be her home before she married and she saw no reason why she shouldn’t return here now. It was too much trouble to explain things to her, and everyone kept saying we had to have a badji, so we got Toobi.’
Deborah advanced across the kitchen, her hand extended and a smile fixed on her face. Toobi shivered, muttered some imprecation, and fondled the large vulgar blue beads that she wore round her throat.