Sweet Revenge (3 page)

Adrianne crawled onto her mother’s lap, content to be rocked and soothed. Through the latticework at the windows, fingers of scented sunlight pushed across the room and into the pattern on the rug. “If I had been a boy, he would love us.”

Anger filled her so quickly, Phoebe could taste it on her tongue. Almost immediately, it turned to despair. But she was still an actress. If she could use her talent for nothing else, she could use it to protect what was hers. “What silly talk, and on your birthday. What fun is a little boy? They don’t wear pretty dresses.”

Adrianne giggled at that and snuggled closer. “If I put a dress on Fahid, he would look like a doll.”

Phoebe pressed her lips together and tried to ignore the flash of pain. Fahid. The son Abdu’s second wife had borne after she had failed. Not failed, she told herself. She was beginning to think like a Muslim woman. How could she have failed when she had a beautiful child in her arms?

You gave me nothing. A girl. Less than nothing.

Everything, Phoebe thought savagely. I gave you everything.

“Mama?”

“I was thinking.” Phoebe smiled as she slid Adrianne from her lap. “I was thinking that you need one more present. A secret one.”

“A secret?” Adrianne clapped her hands together, tears forgotten.

“Sit, and close your eyes.”

Delighted, Adrianne obeyed, squirming in the chair as
she tried to be patient. Phoebe had hidden the little glass ball between layers of clothing. It hadn’t been easy to smuggle it into the country, but she was learning to be inventive. The pills had been difficult as well, the small pink pills that made it possible for her to get through each day. They numbed the pain and eased the heart. Woman’s best friend. God knew, in this country a woman needed any friend she could make. If the pills were found, she could face public execution. If she didn’t have them, she wasn’t sure she could survive.

A vicious cycle. The only thing pulling her around it was Adrianne.

“Here you are.” Phoebe knelt by the chair. The child wore a chain of sapphires around her neck and glittering studs in her ears. Phoebe thought, hoped, the small gift she gave Adrianne now would mean more. “Open your eyes.”

It was a simple thing, almost ridiculously simple. For a few dollars it could be bought in thousands of stores in the States during the holidays. Adrianne’s eyes widened as if she were holding magic in her hands.

“It’s snow.” Phoebe turned the ball again, sending the white flakes dancing. “In America it snows in the winter. Well, in most places. At Christmastime, we decorate trees with pretty lights and colored balls. Pine trees, like the one you see in here. I rode with my grandfather on a sled like this one once.” Resting her head against Adrianne’s, she looked at the miniature horse and sleigh inside the glass ball. “One day, Addy, I’m going to take you there.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Snow?” Phoebe laughed again and shook the ball. The scene came to life once more with snow swirling around the decorated pine and the little man riding in the red sleigh behind a neat brown horse. It was an illusion. All she had left were her illusions and a small child to protect. “No. It’s cold and it’s wet. You can build things with it. Snowmen, snowballs, forts. It looks so pretty on the trees. See? Just like in here.”

Adrianne tilted the ball herself. The little brown horse had one leg lifted as the tiny white flakes danced around his head. “It is pretty, more than my new dress. I want to show Duja.”

“No.” Phoebe knew what would happen if Abdu learned
of it. The ball was a symbol of a Christian holiday. Since Adrianne’s birth, he had become a fanatic about religion and tradition. “It’s our secret, remember? When we’re alone, you can look at it, but never, ever when anyone is about.” She took the ball away and hid it in the drawer. “Now it’s time for the party.”

It was hot in the harem though the fans were whirling and the lattices were closed against the power of the sun. The light coming from the shaded filigree lamps was soft and flattering. The women had dressed in their brightest and finest clothes. Leaving their black
abaayas
and veils at the door, they transformed themselves from crows to peacocks in the flash of an eye.

With their veils the women also had shed their silence and begun to chatter about children, sex, fashion, and fertility. Within moments the harem with its shaded lamps and opulent cushions was filled with the heavy scent of women and incense.

Because of her rank, Adrianne greeted the guests with a kiss on each cheek as green tea and spiced coffee were served in tiny, fragile cups without handles. There were aunts and cousins and a score of minor princesses, who, like the other women, Showed off with equal pride both their jewelry and their babies, the two major symbols of success in their world.

Adrianne thought them beautiful in their long, whispery dresses, color competing with color. From behind her Phoebe saw a costume parade that would have suited the eighteenth century. She accepted the pitying glances cast her way with the same stoic expression that she accepted smug ones. She recognized full well that she was the intruder here, the woman from the West who had failed to give the king an heir. It didn’t matter, she told herself, whether or not they accepted her. As long as they were kind to Adrianne.

She could find no fault there. Adrianne was one of them in a way she could never be.

They fell hungrily on the buffet, sampling everything, using their fingers as often as she used the little silver spoons. If they grew too plump for their dresses, they would buy new ones. It was shopping, Phoebe thought, that got the Arab woman through the day, just as it was the pink pill that got her through. No man except husband, father, or brother
would see their ridiculous dresses. When they left the harem, they would cloak themselves again, veil their faces, hide their hair. Outside the walls there was
aurat
, things that cannot be shown, to remember.

What games they played! Phoebe thought wearily. With their henna and perfumes and glittering rings. Could they believe themselves happy when even she, who no longer cared, could see the boredom on their faces. She prayed to God that she would never see it on Adrianne’s.

Even at the young age of five Adrianne had enough poise to see that her guests were entertained and comfortable. She was speaking Arabic now, smoothly, musically. Adrianne had never been able to tell her mother that the language came more easily to her than English. She thought in Arabic, even felt in Arabic, and both thoughts and emotions often had to be translated into English before she could communicate them to her mother.

She was happy here, in this room filled with women’s voices, women’s scents. The world her mother told her of from time to time was nothing more than a fairy tale to her. Snow was just something that danced inside a little glass ball.

“Duja.” Adrianne raced across the room to kiss her favorite cousin’s cheek. Duja was nearly ten and, to Adrianne’s envy and admiration, almost a woman.

Duja returned the embrace. “Your dress is beautiful.”

“I know.” But Adrianne couldn’t resist running a hand down the sleeve of her cousin’s.

“It’s velvet,” Duja told her importantly. That the heavy fabric was unbearably hot was nothing compared to the reflection she had seen in her mirror. “My father bought it for me in Paris.” She turned full circle, a slim, dark girl with a fine-boned face and large eyes. “When he goes next, he has promised to take me with him.”

“Truly?” Adrianne stifled the envy that welled within her. It was no secret that Duja was a favorite with her father, the brother of the king. “My mother has been there.”

Because she had a kind heart, and was pleased with her velvet, Duja stroked Adrianne’s hair. “You will go also one day. Perhaps when we are grown, we will go together.”

Adrianne felt a tug on her skirt. Glancing down, she saw her half brother, Fahid. She scooped him up to plant kisses
over his face and make him squeal with laughter. “You are the most handsome baby in Jaquir.” He was heavy, although only two years her junior, so that she had to brace against his weight. Staggering a bit, she carried him to the table to find him a rich dessert.

Other babies were being cooed over and coddled. Girls Adrianne’s age and younger were fussing over the boys, stroking them, spoiling them. From birth, females were taught to devote their time and energies to pleasing men. Adrianne knew only that she adored her little brother and wanted to make him smile.

Phoebe couldn’t bear it. She watched as her daughter served the child of the woman who had taken her place in her husband’s bed and in his heart. What difference did it make if the law here said that a man could take four wives? It wasn’t her law, it wasn’t her world. She had lived in it for six years, and could live in it for sixty more, but it would never be her world. She hated the smells here, the thick, cloying smells that had to be tolerated day after listless day. Phoebe rubbed a hand over her temple where a headache was beginning to throb. The incense, the flowers, perfume layered over perfume.

She hated the heat, the unrelenting heat.

She wanted a drink, not the coffee or tea that was always served, but wine. Just one cool glass of wine. But there was no wine permitted in Jaquir. Rape was permitted, she thought as she touched a finger to her sore cheek. Rape, but no wine. Camel whippings and veils, prayer calls and polygamy, but not a drop of crisp Chablis or a dram of dry Sancerre.

How could she have thought the country beautiful when she had first arrived as a bride? She had looked at the desert, at the sea, at the high white walls of the palace, and she had thought it the most mysterious, the most exotic spot in the world.

She had been in love then. God help her, she was still in love.

In those early days Abdu had made her see the beauty of his country and the richness of his culture. She had given up her own land and customs to try to be what he wanted. What he wanted, it turned out, was the woman he had seen on the screen, the symbol of sex and innocence she had learned to portray. Phoebe was all too human.

Abdu had wanted a son. She had given him a daughter. He had wanted her to become a child of Allah, but she was and would always be a product of her own upbringing.

She didn’t want to think of it, of him, of her life, or the pain. She needed to escape for a little while. She would take only one more pill, she told herself, just to help her get through the rest of the day.

By the time he was ready to turn thirteen, Philip Chamberlain was a very accomplished thief. At the age of ten, he had graduated from picking the plump pockets of well-to-do businessmen on the way to their banks and brokers and solicitors, or nipping wallets from careless tourists bumping along in Trafalgar Square. He was a second-story man, though any looking at him would see only a handsome, neat, somewhat thin boy.

He had clever hands, shrewd eyes, and the instincts of a born cat burglar. With cunning and guile and ready fists he’d avoided being sucked into any of the street gangs that roamed London during the waning days of the sixties. Nor did he feel the urge to pass out flowers and wear love beads. Fourteen-year-old Philip was neither Mod nor Rocker. He worked for himself now and saw no reason to wear a badge of allegiance. He was a thief, not a bully, and had nothing but contempt for delinquents who terrorized old women and stole their market money. He was a businessman, and looked with amusement on those of his generation who talked of communal living or tuned second-hand guitars while their heads were stuffed with dreams of grandeur.

He had plans for himself, big plans.

At the center of them was his mother. He intended to put his hand-to-mouth existence behind him and dreamed of a big house in the country, an expensive car, elegant clothes, and parties. Over the past year he’d begun to fantasize about equally elegant women. But for now, the only woman in his life was Mary Chamberlain, the woman who had borne him, raised him single-handedly. More than anything, he wanted to give her the best life had to offer, to replace the glittery paste jewelry she
wore with the real thing, to take her out of the tiny flat on the edge of what was rapidly becoming fashionable Chelsea.

It was cold in London. The wind whipped wet snow into Philip’s face as he jogged toward Faraday’s Cinema, where Mary worked. He dressed well. A street-corner cop rarely looked twice at a tidy boy with a clean collar. In any case, he detested mended pants and frayed cuffs. Ambitious, self-sufficient, and always with an eye to the future, Philip had found a way to have what he wanted.

He’d been born poor and fatherless. At fourteen, he wasn’t mature enough to think of this as an advantage, as grit that strengthened backbones. He resented poverty—but he resented even more than he’d ever been able to express the man who had passed in and out of his mother’s life and fathered him. As far as he was concerned, Mary had deserved better. And so, by God, had he. At an early age he’d begun to use his clever fingers, and his wits, to see that they both got better.

He had a pearl and diamond bracelet in his pocket, along with matching ear clips. He’d been a bit disappointed after examining them with his hand loupe. The diamonds weren’t of the first water, and the biggest of them was less than half a carat. Still, the pearls had a nice sheen and he thought his fence on Broad Street would give him a fair price. Philip was every bit as good at negotiating as he was at lifting locks. He knew exactly how much he wanted for the baubles in his pocket. Enough for him to buy his mother a new coat with a fur collar for Christmas, and still have a chunk to set aside in what he called his future fund.

There was a snaking line outside the ticket booth at Faraday’s. The marquee touted the holiday special as Walt Disney’s
Cinderella
, so there were plenty of whiny, overexcited children and their exhausted nannies and mothers. Philip smiled as he went through the doors. He’d wager his mother had seen the movie a dozen times already. Nothing made her day more than a happy-ever-after.

“Mum.” He slipped in the back of the booth to kiss her cheek. It was hardly warmer in the glass box than it was out in the wind. Philip thought of the red wool coat he’d seen in the window at Harrods. His mum would look smashing in red.