The Command (38 page)

They found an enclosed mall that was an Alpine-aired wonderland after the heat and exhaust of the alleys. It was almost like being in a nice mall at home, except the signs were in Arabic and French and Italian as well as English, and now they were surrounded by women. They bargained for perfume and clothes, and had tabbouleh and falafel with flat hot bread and jasmine tea at a noisy crowded restaurant. She fingered ancient jewelry the shopgirl told her was Bedouin. In the dress shops the Arab women laid their dark cloaks aside. Exquisite lovely women, trying on expensive European fashions, they eyed the Americans and slowly turned away. Ina tried on dress after dress. She chattered like a magpie. Lourdes kept complaining how expensive things were. Cobie almost bought an Italian linen outfit but when she went to pay found she'd mixed up dinars with dollars. The price wasn't thirty dollars, it was almost a hundred. She gave it back reluctantly to the girl, and one of the sleek women said something in Arabic to the others, who giggled. Then smiled sweetly at her, seeing she'd heard them.

“Come on, let's get out of here,” she told Ina.

“Just a minute, I want to check out these scarves.”

“We'll be outside. Come on, Lourdes.”

When Ina came out, they walked along the waterfront road, looking at the flower stands. They saw another mall, but Cobie said, “I'm sick of shopping. I can't afford to buy any of this crap anyway.”

“All right, how about dinner?”

They agreed on what they wanted: a nice restaurant where they could listen to music while they ate, where somebody would wait on them. Somehow that last part was important. That they wouldn't have to stand in line holding fiberglass trays. Just the memory of it made her sick: the grade B meat thick with fat and gristle, the watered-down vegetables cooked to mushiness. Midrats, the leftover meat from lunch or dinner, and hot dogs. Always hot dogs. Then they'd find a nightclub, and have some fun.

THE Gulf Gate was on the waterfront, with a pillared entrance, its name over it in blue light in English and Arabic. Mercedes and Rollses and white limousines in front of it. The doormen wore red uniforms and fezzes like in a movie. They hovered outside till they
got up enough courage to go in. Then they sailed in together, talking loudly to cover their nervousness. They followed Arabic music into a room decorated like a seraglio. It was called the Scherezade Night Club. “This is it,” Ina said. “There should be some guys from the ship here.”

“Do we
want
to see the guys from the ship?”

The maitre d' led them to a table. Ina asked if there'd be a band, and he said it was early; they could sit and have drinks till it started. Ina ordered a Fosters and lime. Lourdes said she'd have that, too. Cobie started to order a daiquiri, then remembered how wrecked she'd gotten on them in Palma. She changed her order to a vodka and orange juice, light on the vodka.

They nursed them, figuring they were going to be expensive, and after a while the band started, a local combo called Tweet Tweet. She thought they sounded like a garage band back home.

Ina spotted other girls from the ship and waved and they came over. They pulled their chairs apart to let them in. Then some guys came in, too, but they sat on the other side of the room. An Italian asked Lourdes to dance. She looked alarmed and shook her head no. So then he asked Cobie. He was a good dancer, but he started feeling her up while they were walking back to the table, and she told him to get lost.

They started talking about what was going on aboard the ship. Who was having a fling with who, from the one-night stands to the deep friendships, from the innocent, fantasy crushes to the full-blown affairs. About the rumors about the CO and the XO. One girl said they were always together in his stateroom with the door closed, and when Hotchkiss came out, she looked rumpled and sweaty.

A girl from Operations said, “I hear there's this one girl down in engineering, she's like the department whore. If she finds out some other woman has a crush on one of the guys, she goes after him. That's so pathetic … Her name's Cobie … Do y'all know who I'm talking about?”

They must have guessed they'd said something wrong, because not long after, they had to go. Cobie sat with her teeth clenched. She'd always liked gossip as much as anybody, but now she wondered how much was made up by evil people. Sharpened like a dagger, and passed along till it reached the person it was meant to kill. God damn Patryce.

“Ooh. Look over there,” said Ina. Cobie followed her gaze reluctantly, figuring she was trying to jolly her up, but still sucked in her breath.

Settling at the table next to them were the two most stunning women she'd ever seen. One brunette, the other blond. Their heels were high, their posture aristocratic, their makeup and hair professionally perfect, their bone structure lovely, their dresses, as they pulled off sheer silk scarves, incredibly revealing of the slender yet curvaceous bodies beneath. Diamonds sparkled. They sat laughing, heads together, as if they had not a care in the world.

“What language is that?” Lourdes whispered.

“I think it's Russian,” Ina whispered back.

The Americans stared enviously. For a little while Cobie had felt beautiful, as if life might hold someone who'd appreciate her. Now she looked at her hands with sudden clarity, as if these women had sharpened her vision.

Her nails were short and ragged, though she'd done what she could with an emery board. The one on her little finger was an ugly purple, it was coming off, she'd smashed it grabbing for a handhold when the ship rolled and she nearly went down a ladder backward. A burn mark was livid on her left arm. She'd bumped an unlagged piece of starting bleed air piping. It'd burned the shit out of her, she'd probably always have the scar…. She had calluses on her palms, and under the polish on her nails she knew there was a black rim of dirt and grease.

Suddenly she felt common and work-worn, dressed in ugly cheap clothes. Her friends looked drab and intimidated. They didn't belong in this sophisticated nightclub.

She was putting her hand on Lourdes's, about to suggest they go, when the waiter bowed over their table, holding a bottle wrapped in a white napkin. “From the gentlemen in the corner,” he said.

“Gentlemen?” said Ina hopefully.

The waiter twisted a teaspoonful into a glass and handed it to her. It was intensely sour. “It's delicious,” she said, and he poured it all around and left the bottle on the table.

That must have been a signal, because other waiters brought more chairs, and suddenly three men were with them. Their business suits were dark gray or blue, it was hard to tell in the dim flickering. At first she thought they were Spanish. One sat with Lourdes, one with Ina. The man who pulled his chair up to hers was about forty, with light skin and a round face and mustache and a little beard. He looked as if he'd been drinking, but he wasn't drunk. The ones with Ina and Lourdes didn't seem to speak much English, but hers said, “So, where are you girls from?”

“We're from America.”

“The United States? You don't look American.”

“Well, we are, love,” said Ina, in her best North London accent. He looked at her, at Lourdes; then grinned and snapped his fingers in the air. The waiters came running, and he rapped out orders. “My name's Hassan, but you can call me Harry,” he said, turning back to her. “This is Ajeel. This big lug here, he's Jamaal.”

She told him her name and Ina's and Lourdes's, and they all shook hands. “So, what brings you to sunny Bahrain?” he said.

“We're off a ship.”

“The cruise ship?”

“No, the destroyer.”

He looked confused again. “You're what, the wives of the crew?”

“We
are
the crew, love,” Ina shouted at him. She got loud after she had a couple of drinks, but it was a happy, rollicking loud. “Part of it anyway. So what do you do to keep the money rolling in?”

Harry said they worked in one of the ministries over on the mainland. Ina asked why they were drinking scotch if they were from Saudi. They laughed. Harry said, “We drink for the benefits, not for the evil. No one's perfect. Are you perfect, Ina?”

“Lord love you, far from it.”

“Allah,
subhanahu wa ta'ala,
does not expect perfection. He is forgiving and merciful. Tomorrow I will repent. As for now,” he snapped his fingers and held up the empty bottle, “I will find the joy that life offers me. This is the wisdom of the poets, not the prophets.” He added something long and rhythmic. The others listened, then raised their glasses. Poetry, Cobie assumed, and couldn't help being impressed even though she hadn't understood it. “So, what about you?” he asked her.

“What about me, what?”

“What do you do on this ship? It's a navy ship, you said?”

“That's right. I fix the engines.” Might as well make it simple.

“Now, that's interesting. That's something I'd like to see, someone who looks like you fixing an engine. Are you married, Cobie? Do you have a boyfriend on the ship?”

She said she didn't, and this seemed to be the right answer as far as he was concerned. The food came, platters of sweet things, dates, cakes, pastries, chocolate. She caught the Russian women looking. Now
they
looked envious. Not of the men. Of the chocolate. “Do you know them?” she asked Harry.

“Who? Them? That is Masha and Viktoria. They're here every night.”

“They live here? At the hotel?”

“Them? They're whores,” he said, giving her a funny look, as if it was obvious. And looking again, maybe it was. But then what did that tell him about the three of them?

He asked if she wanted to dance. He was even better than the Italian, and she started to enjoy herself. The vodka and wine were getting to her, but she was having fun. He stepped back and did a whirling step like in
Fiddler on the Roof.
He wasn't actually bad-looking, with the dark hair and the black mustache and beard.

They danced until she had to quit, then sat close, panting, hot. He put his face next to hers, and for a moment she thought he was going to kiss her. She was turning her chin, trying to angle it so he could, when he muttered into her ear, “Shall I get a room?”

“Shall you what? I'm sorry—the band's so loud.”

“Shall I get a room? For you, and your friends? I'll send a man to the desk.”

She started guffawing. Ina squinted at her. “I don't think so,” she said. Masha and Viktoria were leaving, two men helping them up to teeter off on those spiky heels.

“No? I thought you wouldn't.”

“Thanks for the offer, but no thanks,” she said, brushing her hair back. Whoa! The room was blurring at the edges. She rattled the ice and crunched some in her teeth. To cool off.

“Then let's go for a ride.”

“A ride?”

“Sure. We'll go see the Bahrain fort. It's a knockout by moonlight. We can leave your friends here.”

She said she didn't think she ought to go alone. He said great idea, why didn't they all go? And it didn't take much persuading. When they looked around for the waiter Harry said it was taken care of, they shouldn't worry about it.

She stopped dead when she saw the car. It was a block long, and glossy black. The driver was holding the door for them. She'd never been in a car like this. Ina muttered, “My Lord, he's a prince for sure.” They looked at each other, and Ina pulled her in to whisper, “They've got guns.”

“What?”

“I don't know about Harry, but I felt it dancing with Ajeel. He's either carrying a gun, or he's got a stiffie in a bloody weird place.”

“A bodyguard?”

“I think they're both bodyguards.”

“Then who is he? Really?”

Lourdes looked scared. They traded glances, daring each other. Finally they got in.

The night wasn't dark, it was wonderful. The highway lights blurred, and the lights of the city sank away as they sped along a coast road, then turned inland. The open fields were deserted under the rising moon. Ajeel and Jamaal didn't say much, but Harry talked a blue streak, telling them they should come here for the Friday bazaar, it was more colorful and truly Arabic than anything in Manama City. The girls fell silent, and Cobie felt a little scared: Where were they going? Why were the other guys so quiet? Were they a rich man's guards, or was there something going on she didn't know about? But just then, as she thought about asking who he really was, the limo slowed.

They turned in beneath a shadowy form that proved to be an immense mud-walled tower, dark except for accent lights around its base. Gardens spread around it, she could smell the flowers, and spray irrigation hissed. The silent men in the dark suits trailed them as they strolled. Harry told them the history of what he called the Qual'at al Bahrain. The eleventh century. The sixteenth century. Portuguese. Arabs. English. Seven distinct and separate foundations under it, dating back five thousand years.

In its shadow he pulled her into a niche he must have known was there. Because one moment they were walking in the moonlight and the next they were alone together in the sudden dark.

When he lifted his face from hers she could hardly breathe. From the moonlight, from his powerful hands, the scent of his skin. A lot of cologne, but it didn't seem effeminate. Quite the opposite … It was the first time she'd ever kissed a man with a beard. She shivered, both from fear and sudden desire.

“Let's go to my apartment,” he said into her ear. “Let me show you how beautiful you are.”

“It sounds great, Harry. You seem like a nice guy….”

“All right, let's go.”

“Cobie,” Lourdes hissed warningly.
“Cobie!”

She suddenly realized how vulnerable they were. It was romantic, but she had no idea where they were, other than that they were alone, with someone who seemed important but whom they really didn't know and two armed men who'd never said much at all.