Scorpion Sunset (3 page)

‘Good. That's what I like, a punctual woman.' Major David Knight stepped down from the carriage he'd hired and held the door open for her.

‘What else do you like in a woman, Major Knight?' Georgiana flirted mildly as she stepped inside.

‘Wit.'

‘Beauty?' Georgiana sat with her back to the driver.

‘Can't have everything, Dr Downe, and your spectacles are slipping down your nose.'

‘My eye-glasses invariably slide down when I use face cream.' She pushed them back up.

‘Perhaps they're telling you that you don't need to use face cream.'

‘Is that an attempt to flatter me?'

‘Not at all, you wouldn't be with me if you were too ravishing. I'm allergic to women who are more handsome than me.' He sat opposite her and ordered the driver to move on.

Georgiana laughed. ‘Harry used to warn me about good-looking men who were too besotted with themselves to love anyone or anything else.'

‘I miss Harry. Life was always fun when he was around. Everyone who knew him adored him. You were fortunate to have him for a brother.'

‘Harry wasn't just my brother, he was my twin.'

‘Even better, for you that is. So, to return to my favourite topic of conversation, me, do you consider me exceptionally good-looking?'

‘Not enough to outweigh your faults.'

‘For a woman who's only met me in the company of others until this moment, you have very decided and fixed opinions on my personality.'

‘You drank too much at the lunch Charles organised when you, Peter Smythe, and my brother Michael came downstream after the surrender of Kut.'

‘You kept a tally of what I was drinking? Knowing I'd been besieged, under fire, and starved in Kut for months and months.'

‘Harry's warnings about unsuitable men also extended to drunkards.'

‘That's rich coming from Harry. I've watched him open a fresh bottle of brandy when every other man in the room was under a table.'

‘Including you?'

‘Including me,' he conceded. ‘Every man with sense drinks too much in war. It's the only escape.'

‘I'm tired of discussing you.'

‘Surely not – but never mind, we can always return to the riveting subject later.'

‘Where are we going?'

‘You need to ask? How long have you lived in Basra?'

‘This is only my second free evening since I arrived and I slept through the first. I don't know how hard you work in the Basra Military Hospital but we doctors in the Lansing Memorial are drowning in patients. Not just the Turkish POWs you send us but the locals who can't get treatment anywhere else. Our shifts last round the clock.'

‘So you know nothing of Basra's wonderful nightlife?'

‘From what Michael tells me, it's centred on the Basra Club, the Basra Club, and the Basra Club.'

‘Your younger brother is right. Although he seems to have found an interesting place to live. Abdul's has quite the reputation among British officers.'

‘Michael lives there from a sense of duty.' She had trouble keeping a straight face as she said it and he knew it.

‘Don't tell me you believe what you've just said.'

‘A war correspondent needs to keep up-to-date with events and from what I gather most events in Basra start in the back rooms of Abdul's. Or so Michael tells me.'

‘Or upstairs in the brothel,' David added. ‘Or so Harry told me. He had a room there too.'

‘I know, I used to write to him there when I worked in London.'

‘About this dinner …'

‘You're wondering if I'd prefer to eat in the respectable security of the dining room or risk scandal by accompanying you to one of the private rooms?' she questioned.

‘Some of the private rooms are very comfortable.'

‘With bedroom and bathroom attached, or so I've heard.'

‘I've been told that too. So, public dining room it is.'

She smiled. ‘The privacy afforded by a private room may help me to understand you better.'

‘You want to understand me?'

‘I'm curious as to whether or not you deserve your reputation.'

‘I have a reputation?' He gave her the full benefit of his smile.

‘You didn't know?' She had to concede, if only to herself, that he was
very
good-looking. Possibly the most handsome man she'd ever met. His hair was white-blond, his eyes a deep cerulean blue. Piercing and full of mischief.

‘You amaze me.' He laughed a deep throaty chuckle that had the effect of broadening her own smile.

‘You most certainly do among the nurses who've worked with you,' Georgiana elucidated. ‘I would like to discover if you're really as dangerous and wild as they've suggested.'

‘I take it that you have talked to these nurses who've been privileged to work with me?'

‘Angela Smythe organises tea parties for them. She invited me along.'

‘I thought you were too busy working for a social life.'

‘I manage to spare the odd hour occasionally to drink tea.'

‘What happens if you find out that I'm not “dangerous and wild”?'

‘I'd be disappointed.'

‘Really?'

‘It would mean that I'd have to look elsewhere for excitement on my rare leisure evenings.'

Northern Mesopotamian Desert

May 1916

The ground was even colder than the air, the only warmth emanating from Mariam's small body as she lay across Rebeka's lap. Rebeka pulled her sister even closer, covering her ears with her skirt as the women who'd been picked to ‘entertain' the guards that night were dragged from the group. A few – those who had not yet learned that fighting back wasted energy better put to use in trying to survive – screamed and attempted to lash out at their assailants. The only rewards they received for their efforts were beatings.

Rebeka saw her sister Anusha rise when Mehmet beckoned and her heart went out to her.

‘Even as a baby everyone could see Anusha was going to be a beauty, not just in your family but in the town. Men's heads would turn when she passed them in the street when she was small. It pains me to sit here and watch while that filthy beast puts his hands on her. He's not fit to wipe her boots …'

‘What was that you said, Grandma?' A guard thumped Mrs Gulbenkian's ankle with the barrel of his rifle.

She stared up at him defiantly. ‘I said we need food, water, and milk for the children.'

The man laughed. ‘And where do you think we're going to get them? There are no shops here.' He lifted his head and stared up at the sky, ‘Only the heavens. You're a Christian, pray to your God. He might send something down.' The man grabbed Rebeka's chin, and wrenched it towards him. Rebeka closed her eyes but she still sensed the man staring at her.

‘You're ugly.' The man released Rebeka and grabbed the girl next to her. ‘You'll do.'

Rebeka exhaled slowly lest he detect her relief. She felt sorry for the milkman's daughter who'd been sitting beside her but not sorry enough to volunteer to take her place. She opened her eyes again and winced as fingers clamped painfully on her shoulder, digging into her flesh.

‘I'll take care of Mariam.' Mrs Gulbenkian reached out and lifted Mariam from Rebeka's lap.

Rebeka didn't protest. She'd tried to fight the first time she'd been ‘chosen' and still bore the swellings and bruises.

The gendarme dragged her to the fringe of the group of women. He grabbed the neck of her dress.

‘Strip!'

It was her last and only garment. If he tore it from her she'd be left naked, as some of the other women already were. She did as he ordered and stood before him, shivering. He poked and prodded her breasts and thighs, laughing as he did before pushing her to the ground and kicking her legs apart. All around, women and girls were suffering the same indignities she was being subjected to.

The man unbuckled his trousers and dropped them before landing on her, bruising her flesh. His breath stank of rotting food, his body of filth and stale sweat. His eyes, wide dark pools in egg-shaped whites, stared crazily into hers.

She left him and what he was doing to her and retreated to her ‘memory table'. One of the best gifts her grandmother had given her and her sisters. She could still hear her grandmother's voice the first time she told them about it.

‘Everyone has a memory table, but not everyone knows how to use it. The women in our family lay them with Great-Grandmother's lily-embroidered linen cloths, the white ones we keep for Easter and birthdays, but they are not set out with plates, silverware, almond cakes, and wine. They are furnished with your own very special memories. Some gleam silver with reflected moonlight, some with the tarnished light of the dying sun on a summer's evening, and some dance, bright and cheerful: red, pink, white, cream, and blue, like newly opened flowers at sunrise. But be careful to select only the best. The ones when you were happiest.

‘When your days are difficult, and you are unhappy, go to your table and pick and take a memory. Hold it close, relive it, and remember the good times and believe with all your heart that there are more to come. Keep your chosen memory with you throughout the entire day and relive every precious second, because you will have to wait a whole sunset and sunrise before you can take another.'

She picked one. It wasn't one of her special memories or even one she would have chosen to remember. But it was one she couldn't blot from her mind because it marked the division between her old life and the new.

Rebeka's family home, Kharpert Plain

April 1916

Anusha thrust open the door, charged into the house, and dropped her basket of shopping. ‘Mehmet's back in town,' she announced breathlessly.

‘Surely not. You must be mistaken.' Their mother calmly carried on chopping red and white cabbage for winter salad.

‘He's wearing a gendarme's uniform.'

‘Mehmet's father is such a nice man.' Her grandmother, who insisted on believing the best of everyone, dropped her sewing and tucked her needle into the linen. ‘The way he runs his stables, he can't do enough for people. When the farmers don't have enough money to rent a plough horse, he gives them one and waits until harvest before asking for payment.'

‘Mehmet is not his father, Mother,' her mother replied. ‘Have you forgotten what he did to the spice seller? Beating him and stealing his takings from the shop.'

‘I thought Mehmet was sentenced to ten years in jail. Not just for beating up the spice seller but …'

‘That's enough, Anusha.' Her mother spoke sharply after looking to Veronika and Mariam who were sitting on the window seat plaiting rags to make rugs.

Her mother wanted to protect her youngest daughters but she, like Anusha, knew it was too late. Mariam, Veronika, and every girl in town had heard the tales of the girls Mehmet had done despicable ‘dishonouring' things too. Girls who didn't dare make a complaint to the police because they knew they'd be expected to stand up in court and speak against Mehmet. And that would forever taint them as ‘used goods'.

Her father walked in from the school where he taught. ‘Anusha,' he'd kissed her cheek. ‘You must go home to your husband at once.'

‘Why, Father?'

‘Just go, quickly, girl.'

Her mother set down the knife and sat down. ‘The stories are true?'

‘I've just watched the gendarmes post the notice on the church door. All Armenian men and boys over the age of fourteen are to report to the church before nine o'clock tomorrow morning. We are to take enough food for a three-day march, stout shoes, and warm clothing.'

‘You must go to the Americans at the mission … you must …'

Her father went to her mother and gently, tenderly helped her from the chair. ‘We older men have to go, my love, so we can care for the boys and the younger men.'

‘But …'

He silenced her mother's protest with a kiss. ‘Go, pack food and my warm clothes and while you do put your trust in God, my love.'

Northern Mesopotamian Desert

May 1916

The man who'd raped Rebeka spat in her face as he climbed unceremoniously off her. ‘You're ugly.'

She wiped his spittle from her eyes with her fingers, grabbed her dress, and pulled it over her head.

‘If a man chooses to favour you again, try moving. Making love to you is like making love to a potato sack.'

Rebeka knew she was taking a risk but she could not remain silent. ‘You call what you just did to me “making love”?'

‘It's more love than someone as ugly as you deserves. Don't look at me like that. Bitch!' He lashed out. She ducked to avoid the blow and fell to the ground. Bruised, battered, and bleeding, she stumbled back to Mrs Gulbenkian.

‘Mariam … did she …?'

‘She saw nothing,' Mrs Gulbenkian assured her. ‘She's so tired she hasn't opened her eyes, the angel. Come, it's cold. Sit next to us, Rebeka. Have you heard the story of the Golden Bird?'

Rebeka had, many times, but she shook her head, curled close to her sister, and prepared to listen.

Basra Club, Basra

May 1916

‘Any complaints about the dinner?' David asked Georgiana.

‘None, but as all you did was order the food I hardly think you can give yourself an accolade.' Georgiana sat back in her chair and sipped her glass of wine.

‘Can I order us brandies without running the risk of you calling me a drunkard again?'

‘Brandy can affect the body in so many ways. I'd rather visit that bedroom first.'

‘You're very direct, Dr Downe.'

‘I've discovered honesty saves time, especially in war when there are so few leisure hours to enjoy the limited pleasures that are available.'