So this had been her life before he met her. So these had been her lovers. He was certain of it. Had she perhaps led them a merry sexual dance? Were there many broken hearts among them? Rashid tried to put the erotic Tana Dabra out of his mind. At least until sunset, when they would be away from this wild and primitive, yet stirring and mysterious place. But it was difficult. Every glance in his direction was knowing but declared that, above and beyond all, she was his alone, and that was what this journey was about.
They took with them fifteen of the cases packed with food and gifts and necessities for the wedding. Rashid was to follow them, with Serge and the two Turkish bodyguards, in one of the two fast motor launches, speeding across the Red Sea to them from a Saudi Arabian yacht belonging to the royal family. Rashid was not without rich and powerful friends who were eager to help implement the couple’s plans.
“Don’t be late for the wedding,” she shouted from the prow of the fat wooden dhow, and waved farewell to him.
“And don’t you change your mind and disappear and leave me stranded,” he called back as he walked along the water’s edge. The dhow moved swiftly away from the shore on the hot breeze as it slipped into the current.
One of the Amharas, a staunch supporter of hers who
had arrived from Addis Ababa, remained behind with Rashid while waiting for the Saudi launches to arrive. The man, formerly an ambassador to the U.N. in New York, sat with Rashid and Serge under the wing of the plane. It was the only shade under which to savor the champagne, chilled when they had taken it from the plane but warm before they were able to empty their glasses.
From this man Rashid was able to learn more about how important Tana Dabra’s work was for her country, how dependent they were upon her, if the current regime was ever to be supplanted. Day by day it drifted further from the solutions needed for their country.
Rashid stood under the makeshift canopy made from blankets and scarves, odd lengths, shapes, and kinds of cloth, stretched and tied on wooden staves shoved in the sand. It was a mélange, a patchwork of bright, jewellike colors. The sea lay behind him on this strip of desert beach sheltered by small sand dunes undulating smoothly one after another, shimmering in the heat. Only the men he brought with him in the launch were there.
He watched the former ambassador climb over a dune and disappear. He assured Rashid he was going to get the bride. Fifteen minutes later the faint sound of chanting, of tinkling bells, of cymbals and other strange instruments off in the distance scattered the silence of the desert and the Red Sea lapping the shore. As it grew louder, a kind of excitement such as Rashid had never experienced before came over him. There appeared on top of a dune an untidy procession of bishops, priests, and deacons, carrying brightly colored velvet umbrellas embroidered with gold and silver and glass beads and semiprecious stones, dressed in flowing robes and carrying Coptic symbols and crosses. It slowly zigzagged down the sand dune to the beach and the shelter where Rashid was waiting, in a swirl of wailing and chanting and wild swinging of golden, bowl-shaped incense burners from long chains. The smoke and scent transformed the place and atmosphere into a pungently religious moment. A timeless moment to be remembered for always.
Then he saw her dressed in traditional white cotton,
trimmed in colored embroidery, and worn in the traditional manner draped over her head. An ancient silver Coptic cross, large and beautiful, hung from a silver chain around her neck. She walked alone, an attendant carrying behind her a white silk velvet umbrella, encrusted with gold-threaded embroidery, so that it sloped high above Tana Dabra’s head. She was surrounded by her trusted men, a dozen or more of the clergy and musicians preceding her, leading the procession, with a similar number behind.
Rashid never knew quite what it was — the heat, the incense, the champagne, the chanting — but by the time she was standing by his side and a ceremony half-pagan, half-Christian, its detail colored yet more by traditional Coptic ceremony, was in full flood, he was as if hypnotized. As the priests and deacons crowded under the wedding canopy, their makeshift church, with their holy waters and oils and ointments, and they pressed the word of God, and of Abyssinia of old and Ethiopia of today, upon them, Rashid felt himself and Tana Dabra as if absorbed by some strange and pagan god, whose name yet might have been Jesus.
And then suddenly something snapped, and it all stopped. It was over. Rashid came out of his daze. He saw the devout Ethiopian priests and their elaborate sanctity as fossilized. He was ready to believe Tara Dabra when she told him later that there was a lack of moral virtue among them. Although it was a social fixture, the highland priesthood usually attracted the worst kind of highlander; and it was not something that could easily be changed in a priesthood that was mainly hereditary. Rashid, not a particularly devout Moslem, but loyal to Muhammad and Islam, had a moment’s wondering about his own Hajj to Mecca the following day. How would that and their Moslem wedding affect him?
But, if the ceremony was one kind of culture shock for Rashid, what was to happen next was another. As the holy crew dispersed from them, Rashid and Tana Dabra were able to see, across the desert, as if from nowhere, other kinds of people, one by one, perhaps two at a time but
never more, slowly beginning to appear. Dressed in rags worn proudly as robes of gold, often with a wooden staff across their back, their arms encircling it to hold it in place and help them to walk tall and ramrod straight, came the peasants of Ethiopia. They carried only a worn-thin blanket, usually slung over the wooden staff, a skin for water strapped across the chest by a string, and a small leather pouch holding scraps of food. They had covered huge distances to pay their respects to Tana Dabra, these people of the land, who knew who she was by her near-legendary works. Poor and wretched people, who had sheltered her and kept her safe when she was working under cover in her country. They saw her as their only hope of saving their traditional way of life, threatened as it was by the military regime.
All afternoon they came. Rashid and Tana Dabra sat under the canopy on a thin, woven rush mat laid over the sand, offering food and drink from the stores that they had brought with them. Roasted pigeon and wine, fresh fruit and hundreds of sweet cakes. The feast was supplemented by traditional Ethiopian fare arranged by Tana Dabra’s helpers. Around the newlyweds sat the coterie of Tana Dabra’s close associates and the clergy. As in the tradition of the Coptic church in Ethiopia, a man will never go any closer to the center of the church than he feels worthy; so it was with the wedding guests. Only those who felt worthy sat under the shelter. The rest sat out under the blazing sun under makeshift shelters of umbrellas and draped cloths and blankets, or, in most cases just their turbans, in a large semicircle facing the wedding party and the Red Sea. By late afternoon it was obvious by the distances people were arriving from that word of Tana Dabra’s wedding had spread swiftly through the country. Rashid, after speaking with Tana Dabra’s associates, took over.
He and Tana Dabra and the two Turkish bodyguards slipped away as unobtrusively as possible in one of the motor launches for the Saudi Arabian yacht awaiting their arrival. They were to spend their wedding night on board, sailing to the port of Jiddah. Her associates, at Rashid’s request, confirmed by Tana Dabra, kept the party going by
inviting those there to stay. Rashid deployed Serge in the other launch to return to the plane, fly directly to Jiddah, and ferry back food and drink for the wedding party which he would arrange for from the yacht.
Tana Dabra and Rashid stood silently at the stern of the launch. Happy but pensive, they waved goodbye to those on shore and watched their wedding party — from the water looking more like a ramshackle colorful festival of some sort than the nuptial feast of two powerful international celebrities — recede from them, growing smaller and smaller until it was no more than a patch of color on the horizon.
“I know this may seem odd to you, Rashid, but I loved my wedding.”
“Now why should I find that odd? I loved my wedding too. I may not have understood it, but I did love it.”
They turned to face each other and they kissed. And then, leaning into his arms, she said, “I never expected so many people. Rashid, it was so generous of you to send them more food and wine to keep the party going.”
“They came such distances. They have a lot of natural dignity. They are very impressive. They love and respect you. It was a fabulous wedding. I want it to go on for three days. It will be nice to think of them camped there, still celebrating, while we are at our Moslem wedding and feast.”
Then holding each other with great love, they watched the red-hot, red fireball of the sun drop swiftly in the sky and set under the waters of the Red Sea.
“W
hat if it rains all the time they are here? I’ll die.”
“It won’t rain
all
the time.”
“Oh, what a relief.”
“Well, it might.”
“Oh my God. I can’t bear it. Then why did you say it wasn’t going to.”
“To make you feel better, to stop you from making a Greek drama out of the weather.”
“What you really mean is a Jewish drama.”
“I said Greek.”
“You thought Jewish.”
“What are we fighting about, Deena?”
“The weather.”
“Oh that’s all right then, everyone gets ratty about the weather.”
“Oh hell, Brindley, now you think I’m ratty.”
“Nervous. I should have said nervous.”
“Yes, you should have.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because, my dear, you were being bloody ratty and turning a Greek drama into a Jewish drama over the possibility of a little rain. Now try to make something out of that.”
Deena raised her chin a little higher, stared her husband in the eye, and said, “You’re quite right. Only you needn’t be so rude about it, Brindley.”
“Oh, I give up,” he said, and gave up.
“Me too,” she added, and then they burst into laughter.
A small plane traced a noisy and meaningful circle above the house. Deena and Brindley rushed out of the study and into the courtyard of the Tudor manor house. The plane circled a second time. Deena looked up and waved, crossing her arms over themselves in front of her, beaming with excitement. Then she and Brindley drove off toward the farm and airfield at a reckless speed in Deena’s BMW convertible. Behind them followed the assistant gardener-chauffeur, driving Brindley’s father’s 1931 black-and-tan Rolls. Behind him were two farmhands in one of the pickup trucks for the luggage. They sped down the avenue of lopsidedly pruned lime trees through the parkland toward the entrance to Lyttleton Park. It was a race with the plane to the field.
The plane returned, flew in low, and buzzed them from
the rear. They saw Adam in the cockpit and then Mirella and the Princess Eirene waving through the windows. Deena waved wildly back at them. But they were gone.
“Oh God, it’s a perfect spring, a perfect show of flowers. The best springtime your mother says she has seen at Lyttleton Park for twenty years. Everything’s out, just everything is bursting into blossom at once. They are going to see it at its very best. Oh, Brinn, I want it to be perfect for them, because it’s the loveliest place in the world when the sun is out.”
Brindley still felt responsible for the sun and its absences. He was British. He shot her a look. She recouped, “A slip of the tongue? Okay, I won’t mention the sun for a bit. Or the rain. It’s just that I love Lyttleton Park so much, and our friends have all made such efforts to come this one week when the gardens are at their best. I want it to be a week to remember. They lead such jet-setting lives, who knows when we will be able to get them all here like this again?”
They whizzed past the Folly and the Grotto that Deena had just had restored as a birthday present for Lady Margaret, Brindley’s mother. For a quarter of a century Lady Margaret had wanted it done, but somehow there just hadn’t been a moment. Deena caught a glimpse of a white swan, trailed by a black one and five black signets, gliding from the water in the Grotto on to the edge of the lake. Nearby three more white swans majestically sunned themselves.
“At least the swans are on show. So far, so good.”
Brindley began to laugh. “So far, so good? They haven’t even arrived yet,” he said. He swung off the avenue of trees a hundred yards before the massive iron gates and onto the dirt road that led to the farm buildings and the working farm beyond. There lay the new landing strip of bright green grass, a swath through two vast fields bright with yellow rapeseed in full bloom.
Suddenly Deena grabbed his arm. “Oh, Brinn, I have the most terrible thought. What if the runway is too short and they don’t clear the wood at the far end before they come in for the landing. What if they overshoot it on this
end and go smack into the dairy? How do we know the field is safe? What if they crash? What if they’re killed?” she asked, her face filled with terror.
Brindley gave her a look that said, “You’re being very feminine.” He accelerated through the farm and planted seventy-two thousand dollars’ worth of car and themselves squarely at the end of the runway. He switched off and put the ignition key in his pocket. He appeared to be proving something. He looked at her and they both looked embarrassed.
The plane appeared and came at them head on, dead center over the field. From below, any descent would have seemed too fast. It cleared the wood by just a few feet. Deena’s eyes were riveted to the wheels; she was frightened silent. The wheels bounced inelegantly on the grass before settling smoothly — Adam’s expertise had asserted itself. He noted the challenge presented by the car. The white airplane with silver-tipped wings rolled toward it with apparent abandon, then Adam braked and the motors eased off without a jolt. The plane, creating its own windstorm, roared. Adam let it slide to within about thirty yards of the BMW, then stopped.
After a thumbs-up from the pilot, Brindley opened the car door for Deena. Her knees seemed reluctant to undertake a stroll. “Okay,” she said, “but don’t you dare tell them I was frightened. Let them guess.” Her arm managed to imitate a wave toward the plane. Brindley slipped his arm around her shoulder and answered, “How could they?”
The plane door opened automatically from the inside. The first one out was Mirella. The two women hugged each other, all smiles, and began chattering and laughing all at once, delighted to see each other. The next to immediately alight was one of the Princess Eirene’s aged Sudanese eunuchs, her constant attendants.
He had tried to look as conventional as possible by dressing in a black suit. But there was his black silk turban, not to mention his physical appearance — his bulky but soft-looking, hairless physique, his odd facial features, and his height, nearly seven feet tall. Deena watched him turn
to help the Princess Eirene down the stairs. She was far from reassured to note that, although conventional by Oriental standards, Hyacinth looked no less exotic than usual. There was going to be talk among the locals about the two men named Hyacinth and Narcissus who had dropped in on Lyttleton Park. Their unusual condition, readily discernible in their strangely bland features and high-pitched feminine voices trapped in the bodies of men, would be just a bit too freakily foreign for the village. With the pair of them sleeping on the floor across the entrance to the guest bedroom where the princess would sleep, the sense of propriety of the manor house staff was in for an upset. Deena sighed. One thing about the Gloucestershire locals, they surely didn’t mind asking a question or two and relished a good gossip.
The diminutive, delicate-looking Princess Eirene, dressed impeccably though simply in beige and black, stepped on to the airfield. She looked, for all her years, as beautiful and coquettish as ever. She was followed by Narcissus carrying a large black alligator jewelery case. It was for Deena one of her proudest moments. She was so delighted that the princess, who traveled very little now, saw fit to accept Deena and Brindley’s invitation. Deena and the princess greeted each other with a kiss on each cheek, and never one to hold back for long, Deena whispered, “Eirene, you wear those two old boys like a pair of exotic earrings scooped off the harem floor.” The princess laughed and touched Deena’s cheek with her hand affectionately. “I love the English gardens. They refresh me. But no more than your teasing wit.” Deena went pink with delight.
Muhsine looked as sweet and pretty as ever. She wasn’t wearing her usual
salvar
, but Western dress. She came down the stairs of the plane next and was greeted by both Brindley and Deena. Rashid took the stairs quickly and swung Deena up off the ground in a hug.
“I don’t know how you’ve done it, but you have got us all here, and we are thrilled about it. If the English weather holds and we have a few days like this, it will be a great treat.”
Deena turned to Brindley and sensed he was again assuming his seigneurial responsibility for the climate. She raised an eyebrow and gave him a smug smile, as if saying, “You see the weather is a factor rather than a fact of life in the English countryside.”
“Deena, I believe neither you nor Brindley has met my wife.” With that Rashid raised his hand to help Tana Dabra down the few stairs to the ground. Deena, so completely excited by this time, had imagined Rashid’s wife might be a low point if there was going to be one in her house party. She turned to welcome Tana Dabra, eager to see what kind of woman was able to, as she liked to put it, “nail that smoothy to the boards,” never expecting that she could ever be a friend to any woman willing to take on Rashid full-time. The moment she saw Tana Dabra step into the midday Gloucestershire sunshine and clasped her hand in greeting, she knew she had been wrong.
In years to come Brindley would remember that arrival, and Deena’s happiness, if only in contrast to another arrival that took place during that house party. He wondered whence Mirella and Rashid gathered the aplomb to remain close friends despite their bitter battle over the ownership of the Oujie lands and holdings. He shook Rashid’s hand and made him welcome.
Brindley was introduced to Tana Dabra. Even his English reserve was duly impressed. Ever since the announcement of their secret wedding ceremonies and the flashing photographs around the world of them with others during their four-month-long, around-the-world wedding holiday, Brindley had felt increasing distaste for the fuss made over what he considered just another wedding.
But now, meeting Rashid’s wife for the first time, he understood what the fuss had been about. Weak-kneed, stern old romantic that he was, he fell instantly under the spell of her dusky aristocratic beauty. The majestic sensuality he saw in her face, in every movement of her long slender limbs, was something to behold. But it was the remarkable courage he sensed in her, the clever mind, the mystery of the soul that shone brightly in her face, that
captured his heart. He could take comfort that Rashid had been similarly captivated. And, by the look on Adam’s face and the intimate way he rested his hand on her shoulder as he stood on the top step of the plane, Adam had gone the same way too.
Adam hopped sideways off the top step to the ground and walked around them all to kiss Deena hello.
“Did you think I was going to skim the top layer off your fairy-tale castle,” he teased, “and ruin your house party?”
“Never,” she lied.
“Take out a few trees, the barn, or the dairy?”
“No chance. I had all faith in you. Even handsome devils know how to use their wings to fly.”
She let him laugh at her. And as he greeted Brindley, she stood and listened to their chatter about the smoothness of the flight and what a nice little airfield Lyttleton Park could turn itself into. A gift from Mirella to Brindley, so that he could spend more time in the country with Deena, instead of jostling around in airport terminals while covering the world on behalf of Mirella and the Oujie estate.
Deena was always just a little in awe of Adam and his handsome, sexy looks. That rugged American-dream look he had, and all the exotic life he lived, were never lost on her. Since she had met him, he had become one of the richest, most powerful men in the world. Still, there was a touch of the Midwestern, all-American football hero about him, which she still found so attractive. She liked to think, even as she stood now with him and her best friend, Mirella, that the very private sexual world they indulged in was just a phase that wouldn’t last. Though she knew differently.
Mirella, only weeks ago, had confessed to her that she was still as sexually involved with Rashid as ever, and that Tana Dabra, like Adam, accepted and never discussed it with him. That is, if Tana Dabra knew. Rashid assured Mirella he had never told her and never would. Deena took one last look around her house party and had to admit to herself that it still shocked her that she was not the sexually wild woman she always had thought she was. Here were
the true libertines, who practiced what they loved, sexual freedom. They indulged their most erotic of fantasies without guilt or self-recrimination. Brindley and she were mere bumpkins when it came to sex as these people lived it. Here they were still on the airfield, and Deena was already getting turned on sexually by their very presence. If he were to ask, could she say no to anyone as sexy as Adam? Maybe the question was, would she ever say yes?
“You coward, you fink, Deena,” she thought, and then remembered what Brindley once said to her, “You and I, we were so lucky to meet Mirella and Adam and Rashid, and watch them change with the love they found in their unusual relationship. They and their boldness maybe catalyzed our own frustrated sexual desires, and we were there at the right time and in the right place to come together, throw out those frustrations, and set ourselves sexually free with each other. We owe them a great deal. But it’s not a bad idea to remember we are no less free because we choose to live a more staid and conventional life than they do. That’s just the way it is, we aren’t all cut of the same cloth.”
On an impulse she reached up and put her arms around Adam and, before she kissed him, said, “Give me a kiss, soldier,” in her best Marlene Dietrich voice. He gave her one while everyone laughed. She felt sensual stirrings within and was relieved that what she really wanted was her husband. She glanced over to him and saw a smile in his eyes. She pulled herself away from Adam and now wanted only what she had had that first crazy erotic night with Brindley after they had watched Humayun. Her thoughts flashed back in time to Humayun and the night of Mirella’s wedding when she had seen her in a sexual orgy. Suddenly Deena snapped to and realized that Moses was missing. She was upset. Part of the fun of this week was to have been Moses being there to see her new home and her new life. The house party was planned as a four-day visit for the guests now standing around the plane, plus Moses, the nanny, and the baby. After the Princess Eirene and her attendants and Rashid and Tana Dabra left, it was going to be a more intimate house party. A for-old-times’-sake
party, as Deena had called it when discussing it with Brindley. Now, before they had even left the airfield, something had gone wrong.