The Road to Damietta (24 page)

He led me a short distance down a maze of paths to an enormous black barge, draped with flags and guarded by a phalanx of warriors armed with scimitars, and then to his quarters, which took up most of the bow.

Half of the quarters was decorated with palm trees in pots and shoals of black pillows. The other half was filled haphazardly with bound and unbound books, stacks of yellowing manuscripts, and two large brass lamps that gave off but a feeble glow.

Once seated, almost hidden in the billowing mound of pillows, I was passed a salver of confections. The sultan ate most of them, picking out the nuts and slices of citron and leaving the rest.

"I like this Bernardone," he said. "He's the first Christian among the many I have seen who reminds me at all of Christ. He even tempts me to compare Christ with Mohammed. The two men are much alike. Bernardone in his sackcloth and bare feet must be the first Christian since Christ. And from what I have seen of the Christians here in Egypt, he may well be the last, for they seem bent upon destroying the laws they profess so loudly, destroying themselves as well."

He was silent for a while. In the glimmering dark his eyes rested upon me.

"How long have you known this man?" he said.

"Since I was nine."

"Are you one of his acolytes or whatever they are called?"

"No."

"But you go about with him. You're with him?"

"I am now."

"You must like this man to follow him around."

"I do."

"Is it possible that you're in love with him?"

There was no need of an answer and apparently he didn't expect one, for he said at once, "Has he ever shown the least love for you? Not Christian love, mind you—he seems to love everyone, even us infidels—but the love of a man for a woman?"

I have never been sure about what happened to me next. It could have been the hour—the royal barge, the
Libelcio,
floating romantically on the lake; the sea wind, smelling of faraway places; the sound of cymbals in the distance; the misty stars crowding the night. It could have been that I was overwrought after my long frustrations. Or a spell mysteriously cast by a man who had the gift of divination.

"Truthfully," I said, "never has there been a sign during the time I've known him. Nothing, though I have loved him with all my heart."

"And you love him now?"

"Now and forever."

"Knowing, as you must, that he's a man sworn only to God?"

"Yes."

"This could be his power over you. There are some who enjoy devoting their lives to the impossible, who prefer to fail at
the impossible than to succeed at the possible. You may be one of these prideful people."

Prideful? How many times had the word been leveled at me! A hundred times? Since the day I was old enough to totter around in my mothers shoes, admiring myself in every one of the twenty-one mirrors in our room of mirrors.

"Francis will tire of his burden," I said. "It's heavy."

"He'll break holy vows for you? Do you really believe this?"

"Yes—fervently."

"If he doesn't, what then? You're very young. Are you prepared to spend your life wandering after him in silent adoration?"

"He'll tire of the burden."

"When? There were no signs of it today that I could see."

"You don't know him."

"Perhaps not, but I shall before many days have passed."

There was a disturbing note in his voice, the tone of a man who was used to giving commands and having them obeyed.

"Where is Francis now?" I said. "Is he safe?"

"Safe unless he decides not to be. He's an agile young man. Adventurous. Imagine walking through a fire to prove something."

A servant came to announce that his guests had arrived. Taking his time, the sultan rose, searched through a pile of manuscripts, and came out with a thin volume bound in golden boards.

"
Secrets of the Egyptian Dance,
" he said, handing it to me with a bow. "A present to you from Malik-al-Kamil."

I spread the book on the rug and turned the sheets. There was much to read, sheet after sheet of illuminations, painted in garish colors.

"You'll find it of interest," he said. "We have a poor supply of oil for our lamps because of the siege, so you may wish to read by daylight."

"It's a wonderful gift, sir. I'll take it with me and read it when I get back to Damietta."

I met his gaze. He showed his dazzling teeth in a gentle, fatherly smile. For some reason a chill raced through me.

"I suggest that you read the book tomorrow morning," he said, "for tomorrow you will take your first lesson."

"Lesson in what?"

"In the charming dances of Egypt. Those first danced by the daughter of the beautiful Queen Nefertiti."

"But I am not a dancer."

"More reason for you to take lessons."

"And horribly awkward," I said, aware now that I was destined to take a place in the sultan's harem.

"Not awkward," he assured me, smiling his dazzling smile again. "Though you are somewhat tall and lacking in the matter of flesh."

Two servants came to announce at the same time, in the same words, that his guests had arrived and were waiting in the garden.

"Tomorrow," the sultan said, escorting me to the boarding plank and waving farewell.

I would have waved back, though I shook in every limb, had not a distraction taken place before my eyes.

Men were lowering an object into a boat, obviously a body wrapped in a winding sheet. As I watched, the boat crossed the lake and the body was carried toward the river. If it was one of the sultan's people it would be buried, not thrown into the Nile. The Moslems, I had heard, wrapped food in these windings, along with secret messages, which floated on the current into the beleaguered city of Damietta and there were fished out.

This scene further upset me and I carried it to dinner. After a meal in the company of the sultan's several wives, I tried to read the
Secrets of the Egyptian Dance
back in my tent among the mountains of scented pillows, by a feeble light that gave oft the smell of jasmine, and fell uneasily asleep to the far-off sound of the Nile rushing toward the sea.

The next morning, after a breakfast in the company of six
of the sultan's wives which dawdled along from dried dates and fresh pomegranates to turtle eggs and lamb couscous, all of which I was much too frightened to touch, I was given over to an instructress, a small woman with large Egyptian eyes who looked like an overstuffed doll.

"My name is Aimee Yusuf" she said. "You have read the book?"

"No, I have not. I was much too exhausted for frivolity." Then, seeing tears well up in her eyes at my harsh words, I added, "But I'll read it today."

"Do, please. There you'll find the arts that enthralled the sultan. It will be a guide for you."

"For what?" I asked, still not believing that I was fated to become an odalisque in the harem of Malik-al-Kamil. It was a dream. No, not a dream. I was awake and living in a nightmare. "What am I supposed to do?"

"What the sultan has asked you to do."

"But I am not a dancer."

"The sultan thinks that you will become a dancer. His thoughts are very strong. What he thinks comes to pass."

Eunuchs removed my hose and gown and took them away, even my shoes, leaving me half naked.

"Shoes make sounds that spoil the notes of the lute and tambouri," she explained. "Besides, with shoes you cannot grip the earth, the marble floor, the soft carpet, whatever you dance upon. It is necessary to do so, for otherwise it is not a woman dancing but a woman struggling."

She stood off and studied me. "You're too tall and too thin," she announced, echoing the sultan's words. "We can do little with this tallness, I am afraid. For the thinness, I have a special oil—it comes from the coconut and does magical things. In a dozen days you'll be plump as a pigeon."

While I gritted my teeth, she showed me how to stand, not stiff-legged but with one knee bent, arms raised and clasped above my head.

No one had ever complimented me on my dancing and I had never thought of myself as graceful. It was not difficult, therefore, to be awkward, to appear all arms and legs as I took the first position of the stomach dance.

As awkwardly as I could, I went through this exercise a hundred times, sweating in the searing heat, bewildered, frightened
out of my senses, until Aimee was forced to say, "From what I've seen this morning, you Christian girls must have your thoughts fixed only upon yourselves, upon food, the state of your health, whatever. Those of our faith are quite different. We dance for pleasure, to display the curve of an ankle, the shape of a breast, to woo the beholder, to please God and celebrate those things He has so generously given us."

She sent me back to my tent with the suggestion that I not return until the book had been read. I spent the rest of the day with it, torn between thoughts of what would happen if I did learn to dance and what would happen if I didn't learn.

The lessons lasted for eight days and on the ninth day the sultan came to see what my teacher had done for me.

Smiling, clapping his hands as I danced, he said, "You have learned much, and in such a very short time. It pleases me. It is a miracle. You remind me of the Persian girl—I have forgotten her name—who was so light, so graceful, she could dance on the bottom of a drinking glass."

He sighed at this memory and called the teacher to his side. "There's an occasion tonight," he told her. "It begins with the moon. With this one, whom you have taught so well. On our little Christian, use colors sparingly so as not to conceal her natural beauty. She's quite blond; therefore do not employ henna, and only small touches of kohl."

I was taken to the tent where the sultan's wives were bathed
and was left to a bevy of servants. At times there were two women and two eunuchs working on me at once. They handled my body carefully like some precious figurine, yet it's a wonder that any of me was left.

When a slender moon came out of a cloudless sky, I was swathed in veils, borne away on a litter to the deck of the royal barge, and set down in the center of a miniature glade. As in the gardens around the sultan's tent, palms lined a stream that wound here and there, and men stripped to the waist were toiling at a wheel, dipping water from the lake to feed it.

At the far end of the glade, Malik-al-Kamil sat in a nest of colored pillows. Behind him stood Ahmed, the ugly executioner. The sultan welcomed me with a remark in Latin but my throat was too tight to form so much as a single word in reply.

"As you may know," he said, "you are here to dance. Let me explain. It is not for my pleasure, unfortunately. For me you would be able to conjure up but a little fire. None, I am afraid. The dance is for our friend, the Christ-enthralled Bernardone."

I stared.

"We can't challenge him, not openly, of" course. It would put him on his guard. Forewarned, he would gaze at the moon, the stars, the lake, not at you. Or close his eyes and set his mind on holy matters."

A burst of light, the truth, struck me. All of the truth, at once in a blinding light. Malik-al-Kamil, the sultan of Egypt, was insane.
Pazzo! Pazzo! Pazzo!

"You have loved this Bernardone from childhood, which is a miracle I can't explain. But during these long years he has never shown the smallest sign of love for you. Now, at last, you have a chance to see if he can be tempted to lay aside these curious vows he has taken. If he ever intends to show a sign of love. If he's capable of one, which I doubt. Certainly you don't wish to trail along for the rest of your life after someone who aspires to sainthood. Or do you?"

"No," I cried. "No!"

"We'll soon learn whether he's a man or not. First, a word of wisdom. Think little, dance from the heart. Masked, you'll not be recognized until you wish to be. You're simply a dancer I have chosen from many to entertain him. Your name is ... Let's see. Will Zahira do?"

The wind caught my flimsy veils. They changed color as it whipped them about.

"Do you like the name Zahira? It sounds romantic."

When I didn't answer, he said, "Are you frightened? I hope not. Perhaps you wish to go back to Damietta and continue on the path you've pursued since childhood, worshiping Bernardone from afar? It's not too late. I grant you a safe journey. You can go now, though against my judgment. But speak. The river of time flows fast, faster than the Nile—the past into the present, the present into the future, the future into infinity. And all this, my friend, while you take one long breath."

"What music will I dance to?" I asked breathlessly.

"The same as you danced to when you were learning. And played by the same musicians."

Servants hid me away in a thicket beside the gurgling stream. Francis appeared, unfortunately with Brother Illuminato, and they were given places on either side of the sultan.

Tambouri and lutes began to play, so softly I could scarce hear them above the noise of the river. My Egyptian name was called twice. It sounded lively the way the sultan called it out, alive and commanding. I ran out of the thicket, catching a corner of a veil on a small thorn, and stood in his presence. In the torchlight I blinked and my knees shook.

The music changed its rhythm and grew louder. Taking a breath of the hot night wind and then another, forgetting most of what I had learned, I began a slow circle, my arms raised and beckoning, my eyes fixed gravely upon the sultan.

If only I had read more carefully the dancing book the sultan had given me. If only I had listened to my teacher and not wasted precious time. If I had not deliberately tried to look awkward, to be awkward. And if I had not succeeded in being awkward, graceless, unprovocative, leaden-handed, big of foot!

I dropped the first two veils at his feet. Clasping them to his breast, he cried out in his booming voice. "Good!"

The next two veils I strewed around the circle at the feet of imaginary guests. The fifth veil I unloosed before Brother Illuminato. Fluttering like a bird, it lit across his bony knees. He frowned, snatched it away, and hid it.