Crook & Flail

by Maira Isabel Pita

  “I had to carry you all the way out to a carriage,” Mark complains. “You don’t look so heavy.” He gently rests the back of his right hand against her forehead. “You’re hot, baby, but you don’t have a fever.”

  “I wish I could say it was a pleasure to meet you, Lucia.” Doug finally steps into the room. “However, under the circumstances…” He seems reluctant to come any closer to her.

  Mark rises, making way for him, and Doug takes his place beside her on the bed. Without further introductions and frowning as though he resents her wasting his time, he makes her say “ah” and then roll her eyes up into her skull. He measures her pulse, sniffs her breath like a dog and rests his cool, dry hand on her forehead. Finally he checks her pulse again.

  “This woman is obscenely healthy,” he declares, surging to his feet. “Whereas the papyrus I was working on is about to disintegrate.”

  “It looks like a papyrus is where you got your medical training,” Mark retorts. “If she’s so healthy, why did she pass out cold?”

  “Because that’s a perfectly natural reaction to shock,” Doug replies evenly. “Lucia, Mark tells me you think you saw your late husband in the temple of Karnak this morning. How long has he been dead?”

  His reasonable, almost matter-of-fact tone catches her off guard. “Seventeen months,” she says, “and I don’t believe death is something that just happens to us any more than life takes care of itself. The Egyptians understood this very well.” She has said more than she meant to.

  Doug stares down at her intently, as if studying a beautifully preserved mummy. “Well…” He clears his throat. “Considering your recent loss, Lucia, and your frustrated desire to study Egyptology, I suppose it’s not surprising these two passions have come together now in this unwholesome fashion.”

  Crossing his arms over his chest, Mark leans against the glass doors and stares out at the sky, clearly agreeing with this diagnosis.

  Embarrassed and more disturbed than she cares to admit by this abrupt change of scene—her body has never done anything so dramatic before—she takes her anxiety out on the pillows behind her, beating them into shape so she can sit up comfortably.

  Doug clears his throat again and looks over at Mark.

  “You both think I imagined it,” she says coolly, “but I didn’t. I’ve been living alone in a gloomy New England mansion for almost two years now. If I’d wanted to imagine a ghost that’s where I would have done it, not here.”

  “Perhaps you feel you’ve abandoned your late husband, Lucia,” Doug’s tone remains carefully neutral, “by leaving the home, the life, you shared together, and guilt is making you see things.”

  She shakes her head. “No, that’s not it.”

  The Egyptologist’s large dark eyes evoke a sarcophagus of the Greco-Roman period, when doubt was already stronger than faith. “I can give her something to take,” he mutters.

  “My grasp on reality is tenuous enough right now without any drugs, thank you,” she snaps.

  “I was only going to suggest a mild sedative.” He glances at Mark again like a dog desperate to be let off its leash.

  “A sedative?” She is getting angry now. “I need to be sedated because I believe in the immortality of the soul? Why is it so impossible to think I really did see Richard’s spirit in the sunlight at Karnak? I could just be imagining him but maybe I’m not and I think both possibilities deserve consideration, for Christ’s sake.”

  Mark says firmly, “Calm down, Lucia. Whatever else is going on,” he approaches the bed, “it’s obvious you’re dehydrated, jet-lagged and maybe suffering from a touch of Pharaoh’s revenge.” He bends over her and kisses her forehead. “Get some rest,” he urges quietly. “We’ll talk later.”

  * * * * *

  The instant the door closes behind them, Lucia gets restlessly out of bed, slides open the glass door and steps out onto the balcony.

  The Nile is a deep, glittering blue and the desert mountains beyond it are a stunning contrast in smooth gold and bronze.

  I saw Richard again!

  Immediately her reason argues that she is deluding herself and reminds her that she is hardly the first woman who has desired to break the laws of time and space for the man she loves. Her rational mind urges her to keep a firm grip on her emotions and her sanity.

  Her heart tells her that even after thousands of years forces are still at work in Egypt that facilitate communication between different levels of reality and that if she…

  Her thoughts stumble at an abrupt knock on the door. She knows it isn’t Mark because she gave him a key to her room.

  An Arab man in Western clothing is standing out in the hallway. “Ah!” He smiles, revealing a mouthful of uneven, nicotine-stained teeth. “I am happy you are feeling better, madam. I am with the hotel and when that young man carry you in, we were much concerned.”

  She is too elated to feel embarrassed. “Thank you, but there’s no need to worry, I’m fine now. Thank you,” she repeats and begins closing the door.

  “Wait, madam, here in Egypt it is very dry and you must drink much water.” He gestures to a robed man standing behind him, who quickly slips past her into the room, carrying a tray. “Compliments of the management, that you may feel better, madam.”

  Lucia thanks them, locks the door and hurries back out onto the balcony with one of the complimentary bottles of sparkling water. She makes an effort to dive back into her thoughts but her elation has flowed disappointingly away for the moment.

  She knows perfectly well she has to beware of the part of her that feels her visions of Richard are a reward for how much she still loves him. It is such a tempting concept she knows it has to be wrong. Dry skepticism is the proper attitude to mix with her intoxicating hope so her feelings don’t start bumping foolishly against very real physical laws. Yet it is impossible not to hope something is happening, something that is more than just the synapses in her brain getting crossed from the burning intensity of her desire to see him again.

  She grips the railing with her free hand and stares down at the tiny mountains and valleys formed by her knuckles.

  She was alone with a man in the museum’s dark gallery—there is no doubt about that. She would be able to convince herself now he only bore an uncanny resemblance to Richard if her eyelashes had not simply brushed him away. He was there one second and gone the next but he was there. Her vision feasted morbidly on him for at least a full minute before he turned toward her, at which point she might have blacked out from the shock just long enough for the man who looked so much like her late husband to rush away in search of a security guard to tell him a woman had just fainted.

  Her reason stubbornly proposes the theory that her imagination sculpted him from the gallery’s deep shadows and soft illumination, yet it does not explain his reappearance at Karnak as an impressionist stroke of white-gold light all her brain cells immediately recognized.

  “Oh God.” She drains the bottle, walks back into the room and opens a second one, amazed by the depth of her thirst. Then she begins undressing for a shower, always a small comfort when she doesn’t know what else to do.

  Mark is right, of course. Her perceptions are more likely than not being affected by jetlag and dehydration. She has also drunk a good deal of wine the last couple of nights and probably not enough water in a climate as dry as New England is humid. Her tears have also suddenly dried up, surrounded by the warm horizon of a living man’s arms.

  Hot water beating against her skin always stimulates her and today it makes her feel relaxed enough to accept that her visions of Richard are only tricks of light and of her pulse—a haunting biological projector powered by how desperately she misses him. And perhaps her love for her husband is having the opposite effect she desires and tying him down to earthly life. Grief and gravity are related in that they are both byproducts of physical existence and maybe what he wants is for her to lighten up inside and stop missing him so much so he can move on.

  L
ucia discovers the bathtub is not completely watertight when she slips on some wet tiles as she steps out of it. A sound like gunshots fired in rapid succession fills the bathroom as she grabs hold of the shower curtain to break her fall and rips it off three of the metal rings holding it up.

  Shaken, she wraps a towel around her and steps carefully out into the safely carpeted bedroom.

  Even after drinking two large bottles of water she is still intensely thirsty. She had not expected the Egyptian climate to be so relentless, probably because she had given up expecting anything at all.

  She lets the damp towel slip down her body to the floor and abruptly suffers the elating sensation of shedding her heavy sadness along with it. She goes and stands in front of the balcony doors, a hope growing inside her as clear and strong as the cool glass she presses her palms against. At the moment she does not give a damn that it could endanger her sanity should reality shatter it in the end. It is such a beautifully clear day the black railing around the balcony looks like a gash in the atmosphere through which she can see the darkness behind everything.

  The black rotary phone on the nightstand lets out a long metallic purr.

  She lets it ring two more times before answering it. “Hello?”

  “How are you feeling?” Mark’s disembodied voice is disarmingly sexy.

  “Better.” She sits down on the edge of the bed. “I think you’re right about my being dehydrated, Mark. I just drank two whole bottles of water and I’m still thirsty.”

  “I’m always right.”

  She smiles. “Is that so.”

  “Do you still believe you saw your husband’s ghost, Lucia?”

  “I told you, Mark, I don’t know what to believe. I’m just…open to things.”

  “Mm, yes, I like that about you.”

  She asks softly, “You’re not going to make me rest tonight, are you?”

  “I’m not sure. Do you think you’ve suffered enough for one day?” He does not give her a chance to answer. “I’m at the Savoy, in room nine. Meet me here at sunset.”

  Chapter Four

  Mark is staying in one of the Savoy’s garden rooms, a modern addition to the original Victorian structure.

  She knocks on the door of number nine.

  “Come in!” Mark’s voice calls from inside.

  The door is unlocked and Lucia pauses on the threshold, surprised by how dark the room is.

  “Give me a minute, princess.”

  Seated directly across from her at the other end of the room, Mark is outlined by a spectral aura that gives him the magical air of an Egyptian artist working on an illuminated section of wall deep in the earth.

  She closes the door behind her. “Take your time,” she says, observing the snake pit of cords at his feet. She approaches him but resists the urge to touch him since he is working carefully with the mouse. But before she can see what he has on the screen of his laptop he exits the program, turns in his chair and pulls her down onto his lap. She laughs and slips her arms around his neck. She would have liked to run her fingers through his shoulder-length hair but it is slicked back with gel to keep it out of his face. “Why don’t you just cut it?” she wonders out loud. Richard always kept his hair short—he disliked long hair on men.

  “Cut what?” he asks absently, engrossed in cupping one of her breasts and weighing it in his hand. “You’re not wearing a bra…” He brushes his thumb across her nipple, which is already firm from the cool wind outside. It hardens almost painfully now beneath his attention, pressing against her thin black cotton shirt. The low scoop neck allows him to bury his hot features in her cool cleavage. “You wicked thing,” he murmurs. “Are you trying to tempt me?”

  His breath seems to thaw the snow-white skin over her heart by sending a meltingly deep pleasure though her body. She plants both her hands against the back of his neck, which is warm and firm, strong and yet vulnerable, the sensual column of flesh joining his body with his mind that feels excitingly related to his erect penis.

  “Mm…” He tugs her shirt down out of his way to suck on her nipple, which feels strangely sore and swollen, as if months of longing for a man’s hungry devotion have accumulated like an intangible milk in her virgin breasts. And the more attention he pays her nipple the more a creamy excitement dampens her panties and makes her wish she wasn’t sitting sidesaddle on his lap.

  “Stop,” she breathes. “It hurts.”

  He turns his face up toward hers. “Why does it hurt, baby?”

  “I don’t know—they’re just so sensitive.”

  “Really?” he squeezes her right breast cruelly and then silences her cry by thrusting his tongue between her lips, forcing her mouth open in a kiss that literally takes her breath away.

  The door to the room opens suddenly. “Um, am I interrupting something?”

  Mark lets go of her and she slips reluctantly up out of his arms. “I didn’t realize you two were sharing a room,” Lucia says, concealing her annoyance at Nick’s unexpected appearance.

  “We were sharing a room.” Mark gets up after her and switches on a lamp. “Nick’s heading home tomorrow so I asked him to join us for dinner tonight, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Of course,” she lies civilly.

  Nick slams the door closed behind him, stretches his arms up over his head and falls straight back across one of the beds like a column toppling. “God, I’m worn out!”

  “It’s very dry outside,” she sympathizes and perches on the bed across from him to enjoy the spectacle of his muscular body stretching.

  “Yeah.” He cradles his disproportionately small head in his hands. “And I followed this gorgeous blonde all over Luxor.”

  “But you were too shy to say anything to her when you finally caught up with her, right?” Mark is examining the contents of one of the dresser drawers.

  Nick sighs. “I didn’t even get close. Oh well, I’m leaving tomorrow anyway. Back to civilization.”

  “And all those USDA choice babes.” Mark winks at her as he slips into a long-sleeved black shirt.

  Nick consoles himself. “She was too thin for me anyway. It would have felt like hugging a skeleton.”

  * * * * *

  “Let’s face it, we’ll never be able to get back that sense of wonder we had as kids.” Nick is still feeling sorry for himself. “Nothing will ever be as exciting as Christmas morning. Remember how great it was, Mark?”

  “Sure I do, but certain things more than make up for that loss don’t you think?” his brother replies indulgently.

  Lucia does not know whether to admire Mark’s patience in this ridiculous conversation or to respect him less for it until she looks at him and then respect wins hands down.

  Nick rattles the ice in his empty glass. “Yeah, well, I’d give up sex any day to feel that way about the world again.” He doesn’t appear to be joking.

  “Some people manage to retain their sense of wonder,” she argues, trying not to sound disgusted. “That’s the trick, isn’t it? It’s pointless to idealize childhood.” She refrains from saying “stupid”. “As an adult you have to cultivate your sense of wonder but you’re rewarded by a much keener appreciation for things. Inspiration—”

  “Oh who cares,” Nick interrupts her rudely. “When you’re a kid everything’s taken care of for you. You don’t have any worries. The only responsibility you have is to enjoy yourself.”

  “You’re forgetting about school, bro.”

  “No, I’m not. Studying was fun compared to spending eight hours a day in some stupid cubicle doing the same thing over and over again. At least we were supposedly learning something.”

  “Graduation blues,” Mark diagnoses.

  The two-star Savoy Hotel’s saving grace is the long veranda, where they are seated around a table on white wicker chairs. From here they can watch carriages trotting up and down the Avenue and the rhythm of their passage helps soothe Lucia’s growing restlessness.

  Sensing it, Mark leans to
ward her. “I’ll send him to bed soon,” he whispers, “and then we’ll go for a walk by the river.”

  She smiles her consent and tunes Nick out, concentrating instead on the energetic pulsing of the astonishing number of stars visible beyond the tranquil halos of the streetlights.

  Her emotions are playing with very real forces now, which is much more exciting than any make-believe childhood game ever was. Even if she is only imagining life’s divine plot, at least no objective authority can order her to clean up the poetic mess of her feelings and put away her desires.

  * * * * *

  When Nick finally heads back to the room to finish packing, Mark takes her hand and they stroll down the sidewalk on the riverside of the avenue in the direction of her hotel.

  Enjoying the feel of a man’s warm, solid hand holding hers again, Lucia gazes at the amorphous shapes of the boats docked below them. They rock gently on invisible currents with a soft lapping sound she finds both soothing and strangely exciting, as if the dark water is licking the base of her spine. Farther out the black river glimmers with starry scales evocative of a vast serpent casually swallowing whole centuries as it flows by.

  Mark breaks their silence with a gentle accusation. “You’re thinking about the vision you had at Karnak.”

  “No, not really,” she answers truthfully.

  He lets go of her hand. “Do you really believe your late husband appeared to you, Lucia?” he asks her again.

  “I don’t know, Mark. Maybe I’ve been grieving so long it’s driving me crazy.”

  “You’re perfectly sane,” he says impatiently.

  Part of her is more grateful than she wants to admit for his reassurance. “Mark, what I haven’t told you is that I had a similar…experience in the Luxor Museum yesterday morning. I thought it was a trick of light, that it was just some stranger who looked like Richard but then he turned toward me…” She cannot even begin to describe how she felt in that impossible moment. “Then suddenly he wasn’t there anymore, just like at Karnak. I blinked and he was gone, just like that.”