The Sycamore Song Page 6

  Tariq held out his hands to Victoria. “Are you coming down to my level?” he said. He lifted her down from her perch, right into his arms, and she made no protest at all. He kissed her on the lips. “This was a mistake, Victoria.” He ran his mouth over her face and then took her lips again, suppressing her faint gesture of protest with an impatient movement of his hands. She abandoned the unequal struggle and let him do as he liked, intoxicated by the feel of his lips on hers.

  Slowly he lowered her on to her feet, his hands hard against her hips, pulling her closer still against him. “A big mistake! But you look so lovely in the moonlight and I can’t resist you!”

  She clung to him. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He made an exasperated noise in the back of his throat. “Because I want to make love to you?” He put his hand over her mouth, effectively cutting off her answer. “I should have known better than to have brought you here. I’m going to kiss you once more, Victoria Lyle, and then I’m going to take you do dinner with my foster family—”

  “I’m going back to the hotel!”

  “Very wise. You should have gone when you last said that, my love. It’s too late now. The damage is already done!”

  “No, no, it isn’t! Let me go, Tariq—”

  “There’s star-dust in your eyes, did you know that?” He brushed her lashes with his fingers.

  She made an earnest effort to pull herself together. “Star-dust indeed! You must think me a fool if you think I’m going to swallow that!”

  He put a hand under her chin and forced her face up to look at him. She struggled feebly, twisting away from his strong fingers. She felt torn in two. One half of her longed to go on where they had left off, but the other, more sober self couldn’t help remembering that he had probably kissed a dozen or more girls in the moonlight, whereas she, despite her earlier claims, was a novice in the art of dalliance. She doubted but that she would lose her head, and perhaps even her heart, if she stayed a moment longer.

  “Is your foster-mother expecting you?” she asked in desperation.

  “She lives from moment to moment. There’s always a place for me at her table, and anyone else I care to take along. You’ll be welcome there, even as your father’s daughter and despite the fact that George and I quarrelled. Omm Beshir is a little woman, but she has a very big heart.” His hand stroked her back. “But first I’m going to kiss you just once more. Stand still, little one, and look up, or you’ll never know what it feels to have the man, and the moment, the Sphinx and the moonlight—”

  “No!” she gasped. She had to remember that he wasn’t serious, that it meant nothing to him that she was perilously close to falling in love with him. It was too late. Her blood thundered in her ears and her bones melted within her as his hands caressed her, drawing her ever closer until her whole world consisted of the smell and feel of him and the demanding mastery of his mouth on hers. He was not very gentle, making no allowances for her lack of experience, and, when she tried to take a step away from him to catch her breath, he pushed her hard against the chest of the Sphinx until the rough stone bit into her back and she was completely helpless in his arms.

  Then quite suddenly she was free and he had turned his back on her. “You’re too much!” he said huskily. “And don’t dare tell me again you’ve been kissed before, Victoria Lyle, because you’ve never felt that before!”

  “I wasn’t going to,” she said faintly. “But that doesn’t mean that I approve—”

  “Oh, lord,” he exploded, “you were well named Victoria!”

  “She was the one who wasn’t amused,” she retorted. “I said I didn’t approve of passing affairs. I don’t - I mean, I never have before and I don’t intend to start now!”

  He was silent for a long moment. “My word, you don’t pull your punches, do you?” he said at last. “I don’t regard you as a light-o’-love, my dear, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I only had to look at you to know that.” He turned his head. “Well, are you going to believe me?”

  “Yes, but I want to go back now.”

  He smiled wryly. “When you look so delightfully demure you tempt me to break my resolution not to mix business with pleasure, and I refuse to be tempted by you once more tonight. So come along, my lovely, and I’ll take you to Cairo before I change my mind!”

  He took her by the hand and pulled her after him, helping her down from the feet of the Sphinx to where the armed guard waited below. Her hand trembled in his and he looked back up at her and saw the fine pieces of stone that had caught on her dress when he had pushed her back against the Sphinx. With an unreadable expression, he waited for her to catch up with him and brushed her down with a gentle touch.

  “You’ll like my foster-mother,” he told her “She’ll be on your side, habibi, even from me!”

  Victoria saw a new side of Tariq that evening. She was entranced by the strange household to which he took her and especially by the dumpy little creature he introduced to her as his foster-mother. She was seated on the floor, her legs drawn up under her, her prayer beads flapping from one dainty hand as she spoke to one or other of the assembled gathering. Victoria thought that some of the people there must surely be guests rather than relations, for surely not even an Arab family could be so large, or so varied in age and colouring.

  Tariq kissed the old lady’s cheek, addressing her in Arabic. Her green eyes, which she attributed to the royal blood that had entered her family some time in the distant past, twinkled up at her foster-son as he drew Victoria toward to meet her. She reached up and saluted the girl’s hand with her lips, presenting her own beautifully moulded little hand for a similar salute from her.

  “Welcome to Masr!” the old lady bade her, using the colloquial name for both Cairo and Egypt. The green eyes were bright with speculation. “Victoria Lyle,” she said in her heavily accented English. “I heard much about your father from Tariq, but nothing before today about you. Victoria, like a queen, like Kilopatra, no? You would be better called for her, for she was more beautiful than the English queen, I am thinking. Tariq was very clever to find you!”

  Victoria sat down beside her on the floor, wishing that her limbs had been better trained for such a position. She was amused by the Egyptian pronunciation of Cleopatra, and by the sly compliment to her own looks. She liked Tariq’s foster-mother very much indeed and it was a decided point in his favour that the little Arab woman obviously adored him as much as if he had been her own child.

  “Does Tariq come here often?” she asked, hoping that he did and that he would bring her with him when he came again.

  “He is a son to me, mashallah!”

  Victoria was to discover that mashallah was a favourite imprecation of her hostess to divert the Evil Eye from whichever loved one she happened to be speaking about. “You mean he spent his whole childhood with you?”

  “Only the long holidays after he went back to England to the school his father chose for him. It was a sad day whenever he had to go back again. How we all wept! Him too, even when he was quite a big boy. But now he is here most of the time and we are happy that it is so.”

  “But you must have a great many children of your own,” Victoria commented, observing that yet more people were crowding into the already packed room.

  The old lady chuckled. “So many, but there is always room for more! Tariq was my first baby. It is sad that he is not my own child, but he is better than a son to me. He takes me out shopping whenever he is in Cairo and he spoils me in my old age.” Her eyes rested affectionately on her foster-son. “He has much kindness in him, especially for us women, and we - we all love him in return!” She gave a little crow of laughter “But you are the first girl he has brought here to see me. Did you know that?”

  Victoria blushed. “We only met this morning.”

  “Alallah! Leave it to God! We are all in his hands and are nothing without Him. It is time Tariq found a nice girl for himself. There have been others, but they have had no underst
anding of him, wanting only what they could get out of him. Are you different from these others, Victoria?”

  “I don’t know,” Victoria admitted. “Tariq and I are friends - nothing more.” She met the bright green eyes bravely and the older woman nodded her head, satisfied.

  “Your father did a bad thing to Tariq,” she said slowly. “You will need to do better by him than he did, but if you are good to him, he will be good to you. I think he will find it easy to be good to someone as pretty as you, no?” Embarrassed, Victoria never knew what she would have answered for, at that moment, Tariq came and sat on the floor beside them, picking up his foster-mother’s prayer beads in the most natural way, slipping them through his fingers with such grace that Victoria found herself quite fascinated by the sight. She had never seen anyone who had such expressive hands, she thought.

  “What has Omm Beshir been telling you?” Tariq smiled at her. “Has she been telling you all my secrets?”

  His foster-mother put a tiny hand on his arm. “This one pleases me well,” she congratulated him smugly. “Does she go with you to Sakkara tomorrow?”

  His eyes rested on Victoria’s face, alight with warm, affectionate laughter. “I go with her,” he corrected. “Her father has left her in charge of the expedition’s finances. But you needn’t worry. I shan’t let her out of my sight until that old business is finished.”

  Omm Beshir bridled. “And will that other one be there also?”

  “She won’t worry Victoria. Juliette and I have always understood one another, and anyway, it was George she preferred in the end.”

  Omm Beshir sighed, spreading her hands in dismay. “I don’t pretend to understand your Western ways! If she were one of us, we would know how to treat such a one, but I’m told she’s in no way remarkable in your country. I’m not surprised her husband will have nothing more to do with her!”

  Tariq grinned. “You do her an injustice. It was she who divorced her husband. It was only afterwards that she began to look round at other men.”

  Omm Beshir sniffed disapprovingly. “How many husbands does she mean to have?”

  He shrugged. “She claims she doesn’t want to chain herself down to any one man again. She likes being free and being answerable only to herself. She wants to make her own way in the world by her own efforts.”

  Omm Beshir was both shocked and contemptuous of such an idea. “What kind of freedom is that?” she demanded. “What is so good about having to do a man’s job? What comfort does she find in her ambition to be like a man? Am I less free than she because my husband lives his own life and I live mine, serving him and my children, and living as a woman was meant to live?”

  Tariq looked amused. “No one would dare deny that you are happy living the way you do, but other women want other things nowadays. Juliette wants to rejoice in her own achievements, not in her husband’s.” He turned to Victoria. “What about you?” he asked her.

  She hadn’t expected the question and she didn’t know how to answer. She was all too conscious of his observant, golden eyes on her face and was afraid that he could read her indecision all too clearly and would despise her for it.

  “I’m happy to be a woman,” she said at last.

  Omm Beshir gave her a good-natured poke in the ribs. “It is easy to see that you are happy to be a woman today, ya bent, but what of tomorrow when they will all be looking to you to make their decisions for you?”

  “But they won’t!” she denied too quickly. “They must know that I don’t know the first thing about such things. Anyway, Tariq will be there,” she added, completely demoralised.

  “And will you do what he tells you?” Omm Beshir teased her.

  They were both laughing at her, she saw, and after a moment she joined in, knowing that it was kindly laughter.

  “I may do,” she said, her nose in the air. “It depends what he tells me to do - and what the others want me to do too!”

  Omm Beshir shook her head at her and laughed again, breaking into Arabic which she found easier and more comfortable when talking to her family. Victoria changed her position to ease her aching thighs and began to look round the crowded room at her leisure. Tariq and his foster-mother had soon forgotten her presence as they talked to one another, and she listened to them idly, liking the sound of the liquid language they were speaking, half wondering if she would ever master the glottal stops in the back of the throat that seemed to be so important to the Arab speech, and half wondering if the room she was in was typical of the average Egyptian house.

  The house was very simply built, with few defences against wet weather such as they had had the day before. The bright green colour-wash on the walls showed large dark patches where the water had come in, and there was a faint, musty smell that pervaded everything and must also have been caused by the rain. Or, less likely but possible, it might have come from the strange furnishings that were packed round the walls of the room with an indifference to comfort that was strange in a people who were noted for their sensual tastes. There were couches galore, mostly too high for one’s feet to reach the floor when sitting, and a few iron-hard cushions covered in highly coloured materials. The chairs had spindly wire legs and stood in drunken disarray in whatever corner they had been shoved to get them out of the way. Some of the younger members of the family sat awkwardly on the edges of the couches as if it were a duty for them to do so, but their elders, more intent on their own comfort, either pulled their legs up under them where they were sitting, or followed Omm Beshir’s example and seated themselves on the floor.

  Victoria came out of her day-dream as someone touched her hand and she looked up to see a small boy holding a tray of glasses beside her.

  “Itfaddal! ” he said shyly.

  Victoria looked at the thick, exotic-looking mixture in the glasses with distaste. A sweet, sickly smell assailed her nostrils and she shook her head vigorously. “No, thank you,” she said.

  Tariq reached across her and pressed one of the glasses into her hand. “It’s considered very rude to refuse anything one is offered,” he said in her ear. “It offends against their hospitality. You must drink it, if only because they have gone to a lot of trouble to prepare it for you.”

  “What is it?” she whispered back, accepting the glass. “It will be your fault if I throw up,” she added mendaciously.

  “Don’t you dare! It’s a drink made from prickly-pear - an acquired taste, you might say, and one which I haven’t acquired. The best method is to hold your nose and swallow! Like this!” He took his own glass from the tray and poured the contents straight down his throat.

  But Victoria found herself unable to emulate this feat and she was still playing with her glass when Omm Bashir called them all to the table to eat.

  It was a strange meal that followed. There was cooked millet, which Tariq told her was called cous-cous; cabbage leaves stuffed with spiced rice; a roasted duck that was given pride of place in the centre of the table; and a great many side-dishes of vegetables and hot, peppery sauces. Victoria was relieved to discover that she liked most of the different foods that were put in front of her, and actively enjoyed trying out all the various concoctions, to the delight of her hostess who kept pressing her to eat more and more, until she began to feel rather like a stuffed delicacy herself. It was halfway through the meal before she realised that she was the only woman eating, everyone else at the table was a man.

  “Isn’t your foster-mother hungry?” she asked Tariq, taking advantage of a sudden burst of laughter.

  “It would embarrass her to eat with men she didn’t know well,” he answered. “All her neighbours have come to look at you as soon as they heard I had brought you to see Omm Beshir, and some of them she hardly knows at all. When I was a child,” he remembered with glee, “she used to rush behind a curtain if her husband brought home a strange man, but she has been living in Cairo for a long time now and has become very sophisticated and modern.”

  Victoria laughed. “I think she
’s a darling!” she said warmly.

  His golden eyes mocked her. “That’s more or less what she said about you,” he told her. “You may be complimented for although she seldom goes out, and even more seldom meets people outside her family, Omm Beshir is a very shrewd cookie indeed!”

  And, rather to her surprise, Victoria found that she was complimented, that she had wanted Tariq’s foster-mother to like her more than she had wanted anything for a long, long time.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The road to Sakkara led along one of the irrigation channels that had watered the fertile land beside the Nile for more generations than even the lengthy history of Egypt had recorded. Much the same methods were used to raise the water then as now: a blindfolded ox walking endlessly round and round and pumping the water up into yet smaller irrigation channels; or a series of buckets on a belt that is operated by hand; or even by the simpler method of a bucketful at a time. In the ancient days, if a man were to take more than his fair share of water he would be punished not only in this world but in the next. The crime is scarcely less heinous today and every drop is measured with the same care as of old.

  It was not far to Memphis. Victoria had gone in to breakfast with a businesslike glint in her navy blue eyes, determined to show Tariq that yesterday had been yesterday, but now she had to concentrate on her father’s excavation and wouldn’t have time for any other diversions. When she had sat down opposite him at the table, her resolution had been dented somewhat by the swift appreciation she read in his falcon’s eyes.

  “Tell me something about the tomb my father found?” she had invited him.

  “I’ll tell you at Memphis,” he said. “You’d better see the remains there on the way to Sakkara.”