‘Speak. My time is valuable.’
Marmut bem Letif raised his head and licked his bloodless lips. ‘I humbly ask of Your Serene Highness why he does not arrest Colonel Tamat?’
‘Because he does not wish to. Do not ask for reasons, Letif. Even for a man in your office there must be secrets. Be content that your Supreme Ruler, the Holder of Almighty Power in our nation, enjoys the luxury of good enemies. Sham Tamat is very efficient, he is very proud, above all he is very self-confident. He is also stupid, base, and morally odious. He thus makes a very, very good enemy.’ He gave a quick white-fanged smile. ‘You see, like all good hunters, I bide my time. You too, Letif. Only you do not have much time. You have perhaps only a few days.’
He leaned forward and the cane slipped through his fingers, its wooden tip bouncing with a hollow click off the mosaic floor. ‘In the next few days, Letif, there will be men entering this country — foreigners with evil intent against our nation, and in particular, against my person. Remember, these men are not fanatics — they are impelled neither by ideology nor hatred of my Imperial Being, but by greed, by money, by great sums of money. We already know something of these men from the agent, Chamaz. But Chamaz has done the work of ten men, while the other nine have lain idle.’
He swung the bamboo cane lazily against Letif’s knee. ‘Stand up straight. For a Minister of my Court, your posture is a disgrace.’ He paused, his eyes half closed. ‘It is a pity that you are not younger, not better looking, Letif.’
His eyes opened again, aroused by some inner thought. ‘It is strange that the great and noble Hamid the Martyr, to whose memory even I bow my head in reverence, should have begat such a feeble, paltry creature as you, Marmut bem Letif. I even hear word — from tongues forked with envy and ambition, no doubt — that your paternity is in question, Letif. That such a wretched body could ever have sprung from a seed of the Great Hamid. But I am not troubled. I know that your body enjoys a good brain — and intelligence is always a virtue, even among my most obedient servants. Let us trust you use that virtue.’ His eyelids were drooping again, too far perhaps to see that Letif’s face had gone white. ‘Go now.’
The little man bowed three times and began to back down the long room.
‘Remember, he is very fat,’ the Ruler called. ‘He is as fat as the very fattest merchant that you ever saw when you ran as a child barefoot through the bazaars. Find him for me, Letif. Find him for me quickly.’
CHAPTER 30
‘I’m not going to discuss anything with you until you get rid of that ghastly moustache.’ Sarah turned away from Packer and gave Pol a tantalizing smile as she lifted the champagne glass to her lips.
Packer watched her sullenly from a chair by the door. ‘Charles prefers it. Tell her, Charles — she listens to you.’
Pol sipped his champagne and giggled. ‘You do not find him handsome like that, ma petite?’
‘Il est horrible.’
‘Ah, but it is also one of the simplest and most effective of disguises. A small precaution, perhaps — but a more important consideration than vanity, I think?’ He looked at Packer. ‘You still have some questions to ask?’
‘Several.’ Packer turned to Sarah, who had closed the window and pulled a cashmere shawl round her shoulders. ‘Do you know what will happen, Sarah, if you get caught?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘And you’re not interested?’
‘Why — are you? Or are you just trying to put me off?’
‘I’m just trying to make certain that you know the score. Because this time the rules are going to be different, and it won’t be a few years in a Swiss gaol, with the chance of parole if you’re a good little girl. The Ruler’s people do things rather less generously.’
She pulled the shawl more closely around her shoulders. ‘Well, what would they do?’ she asked, in a flat voice.
‘Sammy only told me what happens to a man, but no doubt they have an equally exciting recipe for women.’
Pol broke in with a wince of distaste. ‘Sammy has a vivid imagination.’
‘So, no doubt, have the Rider’s boys. It runs in the blood.’
‘You know something, Owen,’ she said slowly, ‘I honestly believe that you rather enjoy thinking about what they’d do to me. Well, go on — tell me what’ll happen to us both, if it goes wrong and we get caught.’
‘Ah, please, mes enfants!’ Pol looked distressed. ‘Such a morbid subject! It will spoil our evening.’
Packer spoke without looking at either of them. ‘The Ruler has the pick of every luxury whore outside the Iron Curtain — and he could probably get his leg over there too, if he bothered. So what guarantee have we got that he’s going to choose our little Sarah here?’
‘It is precisely because Sarah is not a luxury whore that she qualifies so well,’ Pol replied, and Sarah laughed: ‘Thank you, Charles!’
‘The Ruler has a very select taste,’ Pol went on. ‘And as I told you, he has already met Sarah and was impressed.’
‘What you mean is, he’d like to sleep with her?’ Packer scowled.
‘That is what was indicated.’
‘To whom?’
Pol took a sip of champagne. ‘His Imperial Highness confided in his close associate, Monsieur Shiva Steiner.’
‘How very touching.’
There was a pause. ‘Do you have any further questions, Capitaine Packer?’ Pol said at last. ‘Of a less personal nature?’
‘Yes. How did you get involved with Steiner and Zak?’
Pol slid off the bed and waddled over to the window, where he poured more champagne for Sarah. ‘Ah, mon cher!’ he cooed over his shoulder, ‘that is an indiscreet question, and it would require an indiscreet answer.’
Packer nodded. ‘So the final show was always planned to be played over in Mamounia — with Sarah in the star role, and me just walking on in the last act carrying a spear? It was just a matter of talking Sarah into it — convincing her that you’d got a back-up plan to rescue her. It doesn’t matter if it’s a good plan or a bad plan or a hopeless plan — just as long as she’s convinced.’ He gave her a tired smile. ‘Are you convinced, Sarah?’
She was looking at Pol, like a novice seeking spiritual guidance, but Pol did not respond; he just stood, grinning impishly, and said nothing.
‘That was why you chose me in the first place — even before Amsterdam?’ Packer went on. ‘I was to be your trained gun-hand and strategist. But it was Sarah you were really after, wasn’t it?’
‘Is this true, Charles?’ she asked, in a low tight voice.
Pol simpered over his champagne. ‘Our friend simplifies everything, ma petite. He is so very suspicious. And it is too late now to start distrusting each other.’
Packer said, ‘All right, Charles. Get out your cheque book and your gold pen. And make the first cheque out to Mademoiselle Laval-Smith.’
‘Owen, I feel cold. Is it cold in here?’
‘No. They’ve got the central heating on.’
‘That sounds funny — central heating in the Lebanon! And it’s nearly May.’
‘It gets cold up in the mountains at night. Like the desert.’
‘Yes.’ She gave a quick shudder and her teeth chattered. ‘Owen —’ she reached out with both hands, in a stiff theatrical gesture — ‘come here.’ Her eyes were large and bright with fear. He walked over to the bed where she was sitting, and stopped just beyond her reach.
They had gone back to her bedroom, at her request. Pol had disappeared — hopefully, Packer thought, on his mission to Beirut’s Central Post Office — and they were waiting for dinner which Pol had explained would be served in their rooms. It was now dark beyond the drawn curtains.
‘Owen, I’m frightened.’ She seized his wrist. Her fingers were very cold, and he allowed her to pull him up against the bed, but did not sit down beside her. ‘I need you, Owen. I’m all alone.’ Her other hand reached out and began to pull him down towards her.
�
��You need me, Sarah. But it’s not because you’re alone. It’s because you think I’m the only one you can trust. The trouble is, you’re too bloody right!’
She began to cry. He touched her shoulders, and she grabbed at him with both hands, her whole body shaking against him. ‘I’m frightened, I’m frightened!’ she moaned, between quick heaving sobs, and he could feel her tears trickling over the back of his hand.
‘It’s all right,’ he whispered, and they sat on the bed, rocking gently against each other; then suddenly she stiffened, pulled the shawl off her shoulders, and fell back on to the pillows, kicking off her shoes and wriggling her toes between his thighs.
He undressed her quickly, more from habit than from skill, turning her over to unhook her skirt, breathing calmly now, with her face turned away from him, as he pulled her bra from under her and peeled off her pants. He paused, looking down at her, and a giddiness swept over him.
He felt sick and the floor seemed to be moving, rising up to meet him, while the whole room had turned red, the walls expanding and contracting like a pair of lungs. He closed his eyes, and the darkness was full of ugly swirling patterns, with Sarah still on the bed, lying on her belly with her legs parted and her whole body bathed obscenely in red. He blinked and looked away, but her body was still there, still red, but horribly distorted. Things were happening to it — strange, vile, unspeakable things that were the product of disordered imaginations, fed on centuries of cruel desert lore.
He switched off the bedside light and lay down beside her, and her hands closed round him, her fingers sliding across his body like scales in the dark. He started to say something, but she choked the words off with her tongue, letting out a long hiss of breath as he went into her, and he felt her tremble and contract with a steady rhythmic frenzy which he had never known before. It was over very quickly and simultaneously. For several seconds he lay sprawled across her, drained and dizzy. In the quiet of the room he could still hear the sharp cry she had given when she came; and he felt another rush of sickness as he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to banish that horrible red image on the bed.
He pulled away from her, and she gave a little gasp. ‘Owen, what’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. Nothing at all — except that either you, or I, or both of us, is going to be killed in the next few days. All I hope is that it’s quick.’
They lay together, listening to the black silence. ‘Oh God, don’t say that!’ she cried at last. ‘It was so good just now, and you want to spoil everything.’
‘It was spoilt before we started. And what wasn’t spoilt, you killed off for good back at the Vereina Hotel.’
‘Oh no!’ Her hands groped for him blindly. ‘Please. Owen, that’s all past and forgotten.’
‘I haven’t forgotten,’ he said, and felt her stiffen beside him, but she did not speak. He traced her features in the dark and kissed her mouth, without opening his lips. ‘Sarah, tell me how you feel about being screwed by the Ruler.’
This time he felt her flinch away from him. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it much, either. But it’s not just personal interest — it’s business. Big business.’ He paused; she lay tense and quiet beside him, as though holding her breath. ‘How are you going to do it, Sarah?’
Again she said nothing. He reached out and felt for her chin, which was turned away from him, and yanked it round towards him, although her features were only a dim blur. ‘How are you going to do it?’ he repeated savagely.
‘I don’t know. Honestly. They haven’t told me yet.’ She suddenly scrambled up in the bed and slid off the other side. ‘I’m going to wash,’ she said. A moment later the light came on in the bathroom.
He lay back and tried to think.
CHAPTER 31
Sarah had all day with nothing to do but sunbathe and water-ski and go to parties where they ate caviar and drank champagne and danced until the dawn came up, pale pink and grey across the wide sweep of the Gulf which was flecked with fishing boats, their nets suspended behind them in the clear air like insect’s wings.
At least, that was how Mr Shiva Steiner had described it to her in Beirut, and in a manner of things he had been right. What he had not told her was that the sky was a dome of burning glass, extinguished only at night, and occasionally by the howling, biting Brown fog of a sandstorm; and tolerable only in that brief half hour after dawn and just before sunset. This was when the young and privileged of Mamounia went water-skiing; but Sarah was no better at this than at snow skiing, and had to explain to Steiner and his elegant cosmopolitan friends that she was forbidden this sport owing to a serious riding accident.
As for the parties, she had never greatly cared for caviar, and the champagne seemed to have a gritty brackish taste, as though it had been filtered through sand.
Steiner had also failed to inform her that the company at these parties, while affecting a suave Western chic, mostly looked like what her father was fond of describing, rather ambivalently, as ‘coming from the wrong side of Lombard Street’; nearly all of whom spoke languages which she had never heard before. And long before Shiva Steiner’s promised pink-grey dawn, half the men had usually offered, in broken but explicit English or French, to take her to bed — or rather, down to one of the huge American cars in the garage, where they suggested doing elaborate things to her — some of a weirdly mechanical, asexual nature which was quite unfamiliar to her; others more basic and foul, which she knew you could read about in special magazines, but had never been in the least tempted to try herself.
These men bored and disgusted her. One evening she told Steiner so, and he dismissed her remark with a shrug.
The women hated her — the older ones even more than the young. On her fourth night in the Ruler’s capital, three of them had lain in wait for her in the downstairs toilet reserved for the women, where two of them had spat scientifically in both her eyes, while the third had stabbed her in the forearm with a pin. She had staunched the blood, and slipped back to her room unseen, where she had had violent hysterics.
On the fifth day a high, hot wind had blown up, and by noon the city had grown dark with sand. That morning she had also woken afflicted by an acute stomach disorder, and stayed in her room until evening, eating nothing, speaking to nobody.
It was then that she began to feel like a prisoner. The windows were double glazed against the sand, and the air-conditioning was kept permanently on, its steady hum pitched at a note that always seemed just about to break off, but never did — blowing cold all day, hot at night.
Her mouth and lips and skin had that same parched feeling that she’d had almost from the moment of stepping out of Shiva Steiner’s twin-engined Executive jet, to walk the few yards across the bubbling shimmering tarmac to the black air-conditioned Fleetwood sedan. This had driven her to Steiner’s marble palace outside the city. The place reminded her of an old film she had once seen in which an ageing Hollywood movie queen acted out the last days of her career in a macabre setting which Steiner seemed to have copied with a demented sense of kitsch.
Sarah now lay naked on the bed, and listened to the wind booming against the glass, and shivered — perhaps with the dry chill of the air-conditioning, but more likely at the thought of this house.
She assumed it must have been built quite recently, with the coming of oil; but despite its polished floors, glossy buhl furniture and luscious indoor plants, the place already exuded a sickly sense of decay. In most houses she would have diagnosed mildew, dry rot and woodworm; but here the disease eluded her for the first couple of days, until she realized that she herself was contaminated.
It was the sand. Not the healthy pebble sand of a salt-washed beach, but a creeping silver-grey grit — a cloying fibrous substance which was not quite wet, not quite dry, not quite sticky — somewhere between mercury and powdered glass. It rubbed and itched and ate its way into everything, piling up under the windows like a fine layer of ash; collected r
ound the tops of her bottles and jars in the bathroom, clung to the bottom of the bath and the seat of the lavatory, clogged the spray of the shower, and worked its way into the fabric of the towels, the folds of her clothes, the roots of her hair, under her arms and between her legs and toes, into her eyes and mouth and ears.
On the sixth day she was appalled to find a rash beginning round her groin, where the edge of her pants chafed against the top of her thighs. She rubbed on cream, but by the eighth day the rash had spread and become inflamed, until it was uncomfortable to walk. That evening she gave up wearing pants at all, but the rash persisted, and she was now thinking of asking Shiva Steiner if there was an English doctor in town.
Her inbred sense of what was right and proper excluded all possibility of venereal complaints; and the thought that she should get stricken with some horrid little affliction so far from home, so utterly far from friends — and at the one time in her life when she must appear at her most glamorous and unsullied — filled her with humiliation and panic. She pressed her breasts against the stiff gritty sheet and wept.
Her discomfort, as well as her growing fear of humiliation, was increased by the state of her stomach, a condition which deteriorated during the day in equal proportion to that of the plumbing in the Steiner mansion. By mid-afternoon — either because of the storm or through some decrepit malfunction of the city’s water supply — the gold-plated taps ran to a dribble, coughed and dried up. The green onyx lavatory refused to flush.
She made the best of things by damping down both the bathroom and the bedroom with Guerlain’s ‘Chamade’, using the best part of a bottle before Steiner called her on the house phone to ask if she would like to go to a party at the British Embassy. He was not going himself, but his chauffeur would drive her there and wait for her.
She accepted only in the hope of meeting an English doctor. She dressed casually, not taking her customary care over her make-up, swallowed ten milligrams of Valium, and went downstairs feeling drained and feeble.
Shah-Mak Page 30