Jina Bacarr - Cleopatra's Perfume

The fortune-teller’s words freed my spirit. I was like a bird released from its cage, not knowing I was the bait for bigger prey. I rebelled, ravaged my past and let go of my fears. Looking. Searching. Imagining. My need for sensuality clashed with my need to be rational, and won the fight.

I elected to remain in Port Said.

I returned to the ship and made arrangements for my luggage to be transferred to a hotel. Then I sent a cable to my secretary and oft-traveling companion, Mrs. Wills, in London, telling her I was staying in Port Said. A woman whose starched back never bends, her prompt response was one of concern as well as curiosity as to why the change in my plans. Bookish with gray strands weaving through her dark hair like a melody of lost notes, she cuts a slender figure in her proper dark suits and blucher-style brown oxfords. She’s an asexual creature who neither understands nor approves of my erotic adventures, but I value her friendship and advice. She rarely if ever ventures forth with a personal opinion, believing it isn’t her place to do so, but I would have never found my way in British society as Lady Marlowe without her.

I refused to admit I was profusely affected by what the fortune-teller had told me, his prediction disturbing me in an obscure, mysterious way. Over the next two days, I went out of my way to avoid men, peering over my sunglasses in a dismissive manner whenever a gentleman spoke to me, as if I was testing the fates and their uncanny way of making things happen when we fight against it. But my resistance was as fragile as a dream and just as fleeting when I saw the man I came to know as Ramzi.

It wouldn’t have happened, I’ve since convinced myself, if I hadn’t encountered Lady Palmer fretting about the hotel lobby, looking for her daughter. The young woman had disappeared after leaving an afternoon thé dansant, a tiresome trend consisting of dancing and sipping warm weak tea that has spread around the world from Bombay to Manila to Hong Kong by way of the contingent of the smart set. Lady Palmer was a longtime family friend of Lord Marlowe’s and fancied herself his social chaperone after his first wife died. She befriended me, I believe, more out of duty than true friendship. I found her pleasant and unassuming, though her daughter, Flavia, possessed the frivolous manners of her society stepsisters hungry for wicked games, but only if played according to their rules. No wonder Lady Palmer came to my husband numerous times to ask for his assistance in getting her daughter out of trouble without creating a scandal. He always obliged her with the understated elegance I loved about him. I felt that same obligation to help her when she sought me out in Port Said and told me her daughter was missing.

Earlier she had made plans to take the girl on a picturesque tour of the city, she told me, extolling the values of “going native” in a cart drawn by two mules, riding up and down the tree-lined streets past the lighthouse, then the Victorian buildings with purple-red bougainvillea overflowing on the terraces. Flavia refused to go. She assured her mother she’d have a better time at the afternoon tea dance, insisting she’d befriended some British girls she met on the beach visiting from St. Claire’s English School. That was the last time she saw her daughter. When Lady Palmer returned from her city excursion, Flavia’s new friends informed her the girl had left the hotel.

With a man. A tall Egyptian with a charming French accent, they said. Sweeping her away into his arms as if his galabiya, indigo blue robe, was a magic carpet flying around him, the orange-hued imma on his head contrasting with his black hair, the tightly wrapped turban giving him a courtly demeanor. Bidding the British schoolgirls adieu with a grandiose gesture of his bare brown muscular arm, his large ruby ring set in pearls dazzling them, the girls sighed, speculating he must be very rich and very important.

They said his name was Ramzi.

When I asked my British circle of friends about this Ramzi, no one knew much about him, though I watched more than one spectator-pumped miss sigh with a near-rapturous want, as if she’d gladly drop her knickers for a quick poke. I knew I must find him. Was he the souteneur the fortune-teller warned me about, the man who held the key to unlocking the great waves of pleasure I so desperately sought? I shuddered, though in a pleasant manner. I intended to see for myself.

Wrapped in a black curve-smothering tunic with clasps of bright copper and gold placed between my eyes to hold my nose veil in place, I hired a local guide to take me around the port city to places where men wearing dark-colored gandourah sat under the blue-and-white striped awnings of restaurants, playing games and smoking from nargilehs, water pipes. I kept my distance, my heavy cloak trailing over dirty floors rife with crawling creatures, until—

“Asim knows of this man you seek,” my guide said.

“Which man is Asim?” I asked behind my veil, trying to read their faces.

“The man with the dagger fastened with a leather band to his left forearm. He says Ramzi took the girl to his nightclub.”

“Is he sure?”

He nodded. “Yes. The Bar Supplice.”

“Why did he take her there?” I knew the answer before I asked. The French word supplice meant torment.

His mouth twisted in a dirty grin. “In Port Said, one does not ask why. One knows.”

“Take me there. I will pay you well.” I made him an offer, knowing I straddled two worlds here in a culture that judged me as a lesser being than men, but hadn’t I overcome similar prejudice when I, a commoner, married Lord Marlowe? I couldn’t stop now.

“I get into much trouble if Mahmoud sees me bring you there—”

“Mahmoud?”

“Ramzi’s bodyguard. He can snap a man’s neck in two with his hands.” He made a gesture that left me no doubt he’d seen Mahmoud render such a punishment.

I removed the soft georgette from my face as if to remind him I wasn’t like the women of Port Said who lived in a male-imposed fear behind the veil. In a steady voice, I made him another offer. A higher one. He shook his head. I kept raising the ante, trying to persuade him. After all, money meant nothing to me. I’d inherited a vast fortune to spend freely, along with a title, when Lord Marlowe was killed in a motorcar accident. I’ve no doubt he meant for me to indulge in our secret passion after he was gone. A shiver went through me even as I sweated under the heavy robe. This could be the end of my journey to find that passion again. I repeated my offer. The guide’s answer was still no.

I raised the abaya, robe, above my ankles, then my knees, to reveal my white wide-leg trousers, as if my gesture had become a symbol of the shift in my demands that now went beyond asking questions. I must make him understand I wouldn’t go away without an answer. My own curiosity and needs had been replaced by a feeling of dread. I was certain the girl’s life was in danger. No doubt Lady Palmer’s daughter had succumbed to the allure of an exotic man with a charming accent; but after a few whiskeys, I imagined her naked and trembling on her hands and knees in front of him, then lifting his galabiya and taking his cock into her mouth. So young she was, not more than twenty, and inexperienced. What did she know about performing fellatio? Such a delicacy must be savored by a woman.

Fighting my own needs, I must do what I could to help her, if only to repay a favor to my husband’s loyal friend. A woman’s body was a distraction in the Arab world, I knew, something chewed upon, then what was left over was tossed away like scraps to the dogs. I had no doubt the man who had seduced Lady Palmer’s daughter was such a deviant.