Marguerite Kaye - Summer Sheikhs

Her hair was loose, he saw, caressing shoulders and neck; her skin was without a flaw. She was wearing seablue silk that turned her chameleon eyes to turquoise: a clingy slip top bared the smooth skin of her throat and the shadow between her breasts; flowing trousers caressed the tantalizing shape of hip, thigh and leg when she moved; a matching jacket, the collar standing up under her chin, showed purple and gold embroidery. Gold and amethyst glinted against her neck and ears. Her sandals were delicate straps of gold across her insteps.

But it was her eyes where the true beauty resided—that wide level gaze that once had shown him all the truth of her soul, the gentle sweep of mobile eyebrows under a broad, pale forehead. The curve of her cheeks like wind-sculpted sand, and the mouth—wide, full, sensuous. Her face had always held this contradiction, as if her eyes held no awareness of the sensuality promised by her mouth and body.

Long ago, he had awakened something else in that gaze. Joy, sensual gratitude and love had mixed in a gaze for him and him alone. He had believed he was the only one to see it.

Falsely, as it happened, for it was exploited by every advertiser she posed for. But men had been fools before him, and would be fools when he was dust.

And still in ten long years he had not seen beauty to match it. But he would not fall victim to that beauty again. He had been weak earlier, but he would be that much more on his guard now.

Her gaze was guarded, her beauty remote. But something more: in her eyes was more than a simple veiling of the inner. She was lying to him.

What lie? Well, he would find out.

‘Good evening, Desi,’ he said.

He had dispensed with the keffiyeh and the oil sheikh’s robes. Now he was wearing flowing cream cotton trousers and a knee-length shirt, the outfit called shalwar kamees. The shirt was open at the neck and rolled up at the wrists, leaving his dark throat and his forearms bare. His head, too, was bare, black curls kissed into gold by the setting sun.

Without the keffiyeh , he was less a stranger. She looked up into the harsh face, searching for traces of the fresh-faced boy she had loved, and wondered if he, too, was looking for the awkward, naive girl of ten years ago.

The boy was gone forever. The eyes she remembered could never have looked at her as these eyes did: hard and suspicious, even as they raked her face with a hunger so blatant she shivered.

‘It’s a fabulous view,’ she said, to defuse the sudden tension. But his jaw only tightened. She felt a sudden jolt of heat against her back—his hand, guiding her.

They moved silently along the terrace and into a roof garden. In the centre of the space was a small fountain, its splashing sounds a caress to the ears in the twilight.

He led her to an alcove surrounded by trellis, enclosed in greenery, where a low platform was luxuriantly spread with carpets and pillows. He kicked off his sandals, stepped up onto the platform and sank down on the lush carpet amongst silken pillows.

Lying back against the cushions, dark and arrogant, he suddenly looked like a sultan in a storybook.

She hesitated, without knowing why. With a regal gesture he indicated the cushions opposite him in the little enclosure. Desi slipped off her own sandals, stepped up along the soft carpet and melted down into the luxuriously comfortable cushions opposite him.

‘You are beautiful tonight.’ The words seemed choked, as if they came out in spite of his intentions.

He had said it before. Tonight—and always, he had said then.

‘Mash’allah,’ she said, with a wry half smile. He had taught her the traditional Barakati response to a compliment. Like crossing your fingers, he’d said, you have to avert the evil eye.

His eyes darkened, suddenly, like a cat’s, but his lips tightened, as if the fact that she used the expression gave him pleasure but he would not allow himself to feel it.

Beyond the trellis and greenery, sky and sunset created a backdrop of magnificence. Intimacy closed around them like a velvet paw, trapping them for the gods’ amusement.

The desert was deep purple now in the darkness. A soft breeze lifted her hair as she gazed at the scene, tossed it lightly across her face. Shaking it back, Desi sighed in pure delight. A feeling of peace invaded her bones, and she searched for something innocuous to say. She did not want to fight with him.

‘This must be the most unusual dining room in the world.’

‘Princess Jana designed it for private use. It is Omar’s favourite retreat. No state business is ever conducted here.’

‘I hope food is coming soon! I haven’t eaten since London, and I’m ravenous.’

‘I apologize. Fatima should have offered you lunch.’

‘She did. I wasn’t hungry. Then.’

‘And you didn’t eat on the plane?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t usually.’

There was a curious amplified clicking noise, and then down in the city the haunting voice of the muezzin began to recite the call to prayer. The reciter’s deep tones, half singing, half chanting, poured out over the city, echoing in the distance. They sat in silence, listening, trying not to remember how, long ago, he had lovingly described this sound to her…

A waiter came, spread a tablecloth on the platform between them and set down a couple of jugs and four goblets. He half filled the goblets and disappeared again.

Allahu akhbar. Allahu akhbar. Hayya alas salaat.

‘What is he saying?’

‘God is great. Come to prayer,’ Salah translated softly.

‘Curious to hear so many echoes! Does the desert do that?’

‘Echoes?’ A smile twitched one corner of his mouth and he shook his head. ‘Each mosque has its own muezzin , so that no one lives beyond reach of the call. Up here we hear them all.’

The last note sounded as darkness covered the sky. Desi leaned back and looked up through the tracery of trellis and leaves at the stars just beginning to appear.

‘This is magic,’ she breathed again, and then, with a little frown, ‘It reminds me of somewhere! What is it? That sky is pure velvet. I can’t think when I last saw such a— Oh! ’

Heat burned up her chest and into her face like a flash fire, and she instinctively jerked upright.

‘What is it?’ Salah said.

‘Nothing.’ She coughed unconvincingly. ‘Something in my throat.’

‘You are reminded of something? A place? A time?’

‘No, not really.’ She coughed again and reached for a glass.

‘Yes,’ he said harshly, as all his intentions for the evening went up in smoke. ‘The island. I, too, Desi. The first time I sat here under the trellis at night I remembered those nights under the dock. We looked up at stars glowing with endless beauty, telling us it was the right time, the right place, the right one.’

Desi gazed at him, frozen, the glass halfway to her mouth.

‘You remember, Desi?’

‘Do I?’ she asked bitterly. Tears were ripping at the back of her throat, but she was damned if she would give him that victory.

‘Yes!’ he said fiercely. His face was shadowed in the candlelight, his eyes hidden, his mouth hard. ‘Yes, you know how our love was! Tell me! I want to know that you remember.’

‘Why, since you forgot?’

‘I thought the stars would die before my love for you. I told you that, didn’t I? When each of those stars is a blackened lump, my love will still be burning for you. Isn’t that what I told you?’

Her throat closed tight. She set the glass down again without drinking. ‘I don’t remember,’ she said, her eyes shadowed and grey.

‘Ah, that is well. Because I was wrong. My love did not last.’