Florence of Arabia (38 page)

"Corrupting Gazzy."

Florence smiled. "You always
were
a bad influence on him. In return?" The two women stared at each other. "A hundred lashes," Laila said.

"Oh, Christ, Laila." It was a death sentence. Did she know that?

"It's no wo
rse th
an some of the schools I was sent to. They'll deport me after. I imagine." She forced a smile. "I'm hoping for the South of France, not some lugubrious sub-Saharan country. What about you, Firenze? What is to happen to you?"

"Deportation," Florence lied. "It seems I've finally worn out my welcome."

The door was opening. The guards entered.

They clasped
each other's hands tightly. They
both understood.

"See
you in the South of France, then," Florence said.

"In the South of France. We’l
l get roaring drunk on champagne."

"Go wit
h God."

"With God, darling.
Allah maa'ek
yehfathek. Eshoofek b
iheer."

DELAME-NOIR WAS INFORMED over the phone by an icy voice in Paris that he was to return witho
ut delay. A jet was standing by,
and this one the Mataris had granted permission to land. Delame-Noir understood.

H
e leaned forward and asked his driver for a cigarette. A good thing he was in the Middle East. Everyone smoked. He himself had not had a cigarette in over forty years, when he was overcome with shame at having pressed the burning end of one into the chest of a recalcitrant
pied-noir
prisoner in Algeria while trying to extract critical information. He lit this one and inhaled and leaned back in the leather seat with the serenity that comes from accepting defeat. He decided to place one last call, to Prince Bawad in Kaffa, more out of curiosity than anything.

Bawad immediately began to excoriate Delame-No
ir in the harshest terms. Delame
-Noir let the torrent of abuse go by him al
ong with the passing desertscape
. He was intrigued by Bawad's fear—it was so palpable.

"And what is the decision with respect to the women?" Delame-Noir asked, exhaling a lungful of smoke. How good it felt. What a pity he had given it up for so long.

"He's going to kill them tomorrow!" Bawad shrieked. "You should be pleased,
mon
prince.
After all. it's what you wanted for so long."

"Don't you see—this will only make things worse. Much worse! His Majesty is furious!"

"So why don't you do something?"

"The maniac has sealed the borders and expelled everyone. We
can't
do anything!"

"Where there are no alternatives, there are no problems. Do you know who told me that saying? De Gaulle himself. I knew him well." "This is all your doing!" "How is it my doing?"

The only reason h
e
’
s going to kill the
Florence woman is because you kept talking him out of killing her.' And now he hat
es you so much, he's going to kill her just to spite you!"

"It's true I always thought that to kill the women would be a terrible public-relations mistake. I know how you people love nothing better than to chop off a head every now and then. So now you can enjoy your national sport." Delame-Noir exhaled another lung
ful of Turkish tobacco smoke. "I
think you are going to find yourself in a very big pit of quicksand,
mo
n prince.
Give my regards lo the king.
Au
re
voir."

Delame-Noir pressed
end.
Rarely, he reflected, had it
felt so satisfying lo hang up.

The jet was wailing. It was
his own jet they'd sent for him,
with all the comforts. There were two men inside, instead of Ce
line, the lovely woman who usually
served him. Delame
-Noir greeted them cordially, h
e was aware that everything he said, every action, every gesture, would be a top
ic of conversation the next day
in various offices in Paris—indeed, for many years—and he was determined that these conversations would be conducted in tones of admiration and reverence.

"Come on." he said, "let's have a drink." He found the bottle of forty-year-old sin
gle-mall Scotch that Celine kept
for him. poured drinks for his subdued guests, and as the jet lifted into the sky and headed ou
t over the sparkling blue Gulf
before turning west, he lifted his glass and said. "To the New Matar!"

The obituary appeared in
Le
Figaro
two days later
: Dominique Laurent Delame-Noir,
seventy-four, army veteran.
Croix de Guerre, Legion d'Honneur. widower, assistant subdirect
or of Near Eastern Affairs within the directora
te of the Bureau des Affaires Etrange
res, died of an embolism while walking his dog near his home in Brive-la-Gaillarde. Service and internment private.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-SIX

F
lorence was pleased
that
it was not to b
e done at a mall

All afternoon she had been tormented by the thought that she would have her head chopped off at a mall, and that her last earthly sight would be a Starbucks. There was no dishonor in dying, but she did not want to die in the middle of a 30 percent-off sale on women's shoes.

The vehicle stopped. She looked out the window and saw that she was in a town square. It looked like Randolph Square, now Yasgur Square. She used to go shopping here. There was a stand that sold wonderful peaches.

A crowd of several hundred had gathered around the scaffold, mostly women. They were moaning and whimpering softly in the manner of Arab women being forced to watch yet another abominable act. A moolah with a megaphone was haranguing them, educating them about Florence's villainy and godlessness and perfidy in attempting to kill the great imam, Allah's blessing be upon his mutilated body.

Florence looked nervously to see if
Laila
was there. She asked the officer accompanying her if the sheika was to be dealt with here as well. He told her no, that was happening at—the mall.
Florence winced. But at least L
aila would not have to witness her death; nor would Florence be required to watch them beat
Laila
t
o death in front of Starbucks. G
od is truly merciful.

A murmur went through the crowd as the executioner, a tall
Matar
i of the
Qali Sad tribe—Matar's traditional executioners—moved through the parting sea of
abaayas
toward her,
escorted by a moolah and a pistol-bearing captain of the Department of Public Health.

Executions in this part of the world, being commonplace, are not elaborate. Other nations and cultures like a bit of pomp and circumstance on the scaffold—a final statement, the blessing of a priest, the offer of a hood or blindfold, a cigarette (no longer allowed now, for reasons of health), a drumroll. The executions Florence had witnessed had been swift, business
-
like affairs involving no more ceremony than the chopping off of heads at the chicken market, except for t
he obligatory complimenting of G
od for His greatness. This suited her. No point in prolonging it. The more quickly it was over, the less chance there was that she might lose her nerve and make some undignified show. She so wanted to make a good death. But she could feel the fear fluttering in her like a dark moth.

'T
he headsman took her firmly by the arm and led her toward the scaffold. His attendant stood there, holding the sword. Florence prayed it was sharp. She had been troubled by another thought—that of an incompetent headsman, hacking away like a drunken butcher. It happened. One time in Chop-Chop Square, after eight or nine feckless strokes, a soldier finally pushed the executioner aside in disgust and finished the business with his pistol. She wished she had something of value with which to tip the executioner.

The moolah was still haranguing them through his megaphone
. The crowd of women moaned. He
took her to the center of the platform and pushed her to her knees. The a
ttendant moved to blindfold her,
but she shook him off. She had spent enough time under a hood. She would not have her last view in li
fe be of the inside of a dark st
inking doth.

She knelt
upright and looked at the crowd and smiled. Women began to wail openly. Florence looked down at the fresh wooden
planks of the scaffold and saw,
brightly outlined, the shadow of the executioner raising his sword to strike. She closed her eyes and tried to relax her neck muscles.

Then she heard gunshots, and she opened her eyes. The executioner went over backward, his sword falling with a clank onto the scaffold, nearly cutting her in the calf. She spun he
r head toward the crowd and saw,
scattered throughout the crowd, dozens of women, their
abaayas
lifted, firing weapons al the police and guards. In the next instant, she felt herself being picked up and rushed off by two men. She was tossed into the back of a van. The doors slammed shut, and it roared off.

She lay there, heart beating madly, for a while and then lifted her head toward the front of the van.

"You want to keep your head down, Flo? Y'almost lost it back there."

I
t was dark
by the time they stopped. When he opened the rear door, she burst out and hugged him.

"Come on," Bobby said finally, "checkout time. Look out f
or snakes. Whole country's crawl
in' with snakes."

She walked across the sand on bare feet toward the water. She wondered whether Maliq's bureaucrats had gotten around to renaming Blenheim Beach. They waited, ankles in the lapping surf. Bobbv watching, holding a machine gun.

Ten minutes passed. H
eadlights approached from the road.
"B
obby!"
Florence called out.

He signaled with a small flashlight. The headlights blinked twice, then once more. Bobby sprinted up the beach toward them. A minute later, he returned, supporting with one arm a female form hunched over in evident pain.

Florence embraced
Laila
.

"Not so hard, darling."
Laila
winced. "The bastards got in ten lashes before all hell broke loose. I could use that drink now."

The three waited. Then there was the sound of an outboard engine, and they saw men in a boat with blackened faces and weapons.

Florence had never been in a submarine before. She expected to hear Klaxons and men shouting "Down periscope!" Instead, an attractive, unhurried officer in khaki smiled and said. "Ma'am. Your Royal Highness, welcome aboard." Then Florence heard over a loudspeaker. "Prepare to dive." and a moment later, there came
another sound sweet to the ear,
a cork being propelled from a bottle of champagne, though officially, alcohol is not served on
U.S.
Navy vessels. But under the circumstances ...

EPILOGUE

Fo
llowing
the
Arab Women's Uprising,
Matar
was plunged once again into
turmoil, though not
for long. Having cut himself off
from his former Wasabi and French patrons. Maliq found himself isolated. Since politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum, Colonel Nebkir of the Special Prefecture—assisted by his patrons. Bobby's people—moved swiftly to fill it. Within a week. Maliq was forced to flee. There was karma in the manner of his departure: the race-car driver being driven into exile, cursing, in the back of a pickup truck. His present whereabouts are not precisely known. Some say he found refuge in Yemen; others. Mogadishu. It is not an especially heated topic of conversation.

After the Restoration,
Laila
retur
ned to Amo-Amas with her son, Hamdul,
who—God willing—will someday assume the throne. In the meantime, Colonel Nebkir administers the country, to the evident satisfaction of most Mataris, though it must be admitted that the promised elections keep being postponed for this or that reason.

TV
Matar nourishes again under Laila's leadership, broadcasting with flair and humanity into the darker recesses of the region. The once again enormous advertising revenues go to the fund for Arab Women, administered in Washington by a woman who bears a certain resemblance to the
woman known as Florence Farfale
tti. If it is true, as th
e eminent University of Chicago
anthrop
ologist insists, that many Arab
women do not want t
o be "liberated." so be it; now,
at least, many of their sisters have more of a choice in the mutter.