Three Rivers (18 page)

Isabel was thinking about the luncheon as she rode in one of Alexis’s Rollses back to Roda Island and the palace. Alone for the first time since she and Alexis had been together, there was time to collect her thoughts about all that was happening to her in Cairo. Alexis had told her that he would meet her at six o’clock, and they would have a few hours to talk before the guests invited for dinner arrived.

During lunch he had been charming and attentive, but no more so than to any of the other women at the table. In any event she had been kept busy by Magdi, Sama and the Saudi admirer, Abduhl. Still, when she had sat down in the car, Alexis had slipped in next to her, kissed her hand and said, “It was kind of you to wear the necklace. It is the scarab of Tutankhamen, part of the richest treasure ever found in Egypt — that is, until I found you. It gives me so much pleasure to see you wearing it. Go and sleep. I will stay here with my mother and have a small siesta, a meeting with the prime minister and then be with you as soon as possible.”

He touched her cheek and then left the car. He waved as her Rolls left the courtyard.

The traffic was down to a trickle since it was the middle of the siesta hour. Isabel kept thinking about the people at lunch. She was happy that at last someone had asked her what she was doing in Egypt. She explained that she was there consulting with Sir Alexis about the possibility of doing some work with him. That seemed to take some pressure off.

If anyone suspected that there was anything between her and Alexis, she now thought that their suspicions were diverted.

The ringing telephone pulled Isabel out of a deep sleep. It was Alexis.

“Hello. Did you have a good sleep?”

“Oh, yes, lovely.”

“Were you sleeping when the telephone rang?”

“Yes.”

“Were you having sweet dreams?”

“No, I was not having any kind of dream. It seems to me that my dreams are when I am awake since I met you.”

“Oh, that is nice, very nice.” He chuckled.

“Where are you?” Isabel asked.

“I am just going to leave the prime minister’s office. Why don’t you bathe and dress, and we will walk in the garden and have tea together, just the two of us.”

“Oh, I would like that, Alexis. Will I have time later to change for dinner?”

“Yes, just put something on for the two of us. We will not be bothered with other people until half past eight or nine at the earliest.”

“That will be lovely.”

“You know, Isabel, when I hear you so soft and warm and know that you are lying in that bed, I can hardly believe it is true.”

“Alexis, you are not the only one!” They both laughed.

“Now listen, Isabel. You are not to do anything. Ring for Gamal and tell him that you want to bathe. He knows what to do, and when it is prepared for you, he will call you.”

“I can manage a bath by myself, Alexis.”

“I know that, but I want you not to have to manage. All right, my dear?”

“Yes, Alexis,” Isabel said obediently, smiling to herself.

“I will be home in forty-five minutes, and he will bring you to me in my sitting room when you are ready. Good-bye, my dear.”

Isabel did as she was told and a few minutes later two young girls entered the room. They introduced themselves as Maryka and Juju, and Isabel thought them very sweet and pretty. One went to the window and drew the shutters open and the draperies back, while the other turned the covers down and helped Isabel out of bed.

One went to the bathroom and started to run the bath;
the other sat Isabel at her dressing table to clean her face. Isabel giggled at the luxury of it all. So this is what Elizabeth Arden tried to achieve with her lacquered red doors around the Western world. Juju pinned her hair up and tied a scarf around it very tightly, then cleansed and massaged her face perfectly. Isabel almost dozed off again, she was so relaxed, but just at that moment Juju bent forward and said softly, “Madam, come, your bath,” squeezing Isabel gently by the shoulders.

She left the dressing table and went into the bath, thanking the young girls and dismissing them. They laughed and said that she did not understand: They were there to bathe her. Isabel was delighted. She had had two bath ladies in Morocco when she stayed there and had never felt cleaner and more toned-up in her whole life.

Maryka opened Isabel’s kimono and took it away. Isabel felt embarrassed in front of the two girls and quickly got into the bath. As it was a marble tub in the middle of the grand bathroom, the girls were able to get on either side of her.

The two washed Isabel with loofahs and pumice stones, scented oils and foaming hot water. She lay there in the tub, her head resting on a pillow as Maryka worked on the left side of her body and Juju on the right. They massaged and washed her arms, armpits, the back of her neck and her breasts, releasing every fraction of tension. She was so relaxed that she felt as if she were floating in the bathtub. Finally Juju said it was getting late and they must dry her, for she must be ready for Alexis when he arrived.

Isabel stood up, and when she did, Maryka sponged off the oils and foam from the bath with fresh, clear, lukewarm water. Then, with the flat of her hand, in strong swift movements, she wiped away the water. As she worked her way down the front of Isabel’s body, Juju did the same down the back. After Maryka squeezed the water from Isabel’s pubic hair, she slipped her hands between Isabel’s legs, and with a very soft flannel washed high up into her vagina. For an instant Isabel panicked, but the girl used such tact and subtlety that a fuss could hardly be made. As Maryka worked on the front of Isabel’s thighs, Juju performed the same act on Isabel’s anus.

Finally the two women had finished working between her toes and asked Isabel to step out of the tub so that
they could towel-dry her. She was then dusted with powder and was as clean as she would ever be in her life. The girls helped her into her dressing gown after they had rubbed oils of tuberose, jasmine and gardenia into her body. Isabel thanked them both and told them that she would prefer to dress herself. They understood and were very sweet, touching her tenderly, as they took down her hair and brushed it out. While Maryka followed Isabel into the bedroom, Juju disappeared, to return with an enormous white dress box. In very bad English, she said, “Sir Alexis makes you one gift. One surprise, please to put on.”

Isabel ran to the bed where Juju had placed the box. She was terribly excited over Alexis’s gift. She had been with him for only a few hours, but there was no question that whatever he chose would be sublime.

She ploughed through the tissue paper as the two girls stood there giggling. She gasped as she pulled out a very pale, blue-gray, silk velvet galabia completely embroidered with tiny bumblebees in pure gold thread. The collar and the opening, which went down as far as the waist, were thick with gold embroidery and small buttons the size of a pea, each in the shape of a bumblebee.

Isabel thought it exquisite, and the girls helped her into it, arranging it as they thought it should hang. The collar and plunging neckline stood away from her body ever so slightly, framing her face and breasts. It had long, wide sleeves that were just the right length, and when she was looking at herself in the long mirror, she saw pinned between her left elbow and cuff a diamond bumblebee set on a spring attached to the pin — when she walked it moved as if it were buzzing or flying.

The girls watched her, and when she turned around to show it to them, Juju reached into the plunging neckline of the galabia and touched Isabel’s breasts, and kissed one.

Isabel was nonplussed to say the least. It was all too heady. They smiled and said good-bye, indicating to her that if they were wanted all she had to do was tell Gamal. She thanked them and they left. It was only after she was settled at her dressing table applying her makeup that she realized the girls must have been lesbians. Alexis had obviously told them what to do with her.

She put her makeup on perfectly. Very excited, she decided
to stretch out on the bed again for a few minutes before she would tell Gamal she was ready to be taken to Alexis.

She had always been a passionate sexual creature, and when she had first seen Alexis in that nightclub she had recognized that he was too. Now that she knew that he was a very erotic man who intended to lift her to the most sublime heights, she was overpowered with happiness and only waited to be taken.

Oh, God, the girls had aroused her again. When she thought of the bath and how they had treated her body, and how Alexis had arranged it all, her senses melted with desire.

There was a knock at the door and Gamal came in. Isabel stood up, and a broad smile spread across his face. She smiled back and followed him.

Isabel stood in the courtyard of the palace and waved good-bye to Alexis as his car pulled away. She watched it disappear down the drive and then turned to go into the house.

Contentment, joy, admiration and respect all seemed to be mixed within her. She could hardly believe that at this time in her life she was lucky enough to find someone like Alexis Hyatt.

Gamal, who had been discreetly standing in the shadows of the garden, stepped forward and opened the door for her. He started to lead her back to her quarters, but she stopped him and told him she could find her own way. Would he bring her another cup of coffee?

She went through her room and out onto the balcony that overlooked the love garden. She sat down and went over in her mind what had been one of the most wonderful nights of her life.

The day before, when Gamal had taken Isabel to Alexis’s rooms, she’d met another side of Alexis. He was dressed in a fine camel hair galabia, and he looked far more Egyptian than she had realized before. He was very flattering about how she looked in the magnificent dress that he had given her. They kissed, and arm in arm, wandered through the palace to the gardens.

She’d tried as best she could to express how overwhelmed she was by his generosity.

He’d kissed her and replied, “Oh, I like it! It gives me
such pleasure to spoil you, give you things, to surprise you, overwhelm you. Yes. I certainly do like that. I hope I
do
spoil you so that you will never be satisfied by any other than me!” He went on to tell her about the dress and the piece of jewelry pinned on its sleeve. How, when he heard she was coming, he was so overjoyed that he went out on a shopping spree.

He was such a romantic, sensitive man that at one point as they were walking through the garden, he’d made her stand still and then, walking a few yards away, asked her to come forward so he could look at her and how she moved. He watched her and when she was up close to him, she kissed him again with thanks.

She gazed out over the balcony, slowly sipping her coffee, and saw the very top of the love pavilion, off in the middle of the garden. She closed her eyes and tried to conjure back what had happened when they’d gone into the pavilion.

She saw again the octagon-shaped building with its veranda all around. All the mushrabiya doors opened out, making it look like a great ceremonial umbrella standing in the most luscious of tropical gardens. The floor was covered in layers of Oriental carpets, and on top of them were great mattresses covered in antique embroideries from Afghanistan. Dozens and dozens of small cushions in jewellike colors were scattered everywhere. The seating was arranged in the same octagonal shape of the pavilion, with places to walk through to the center. There were small ivory tables in front of each of the seating sections. From the center of the ceiling hung an enormous birdcage filled with white and yellow doves whose murmuring filled the air. Off a small section of wall between the open doors were fountains of marble in the shape of flowers that spilled forth water into small basins with lotus blossoms floating in them. Everywhere were old copper containers holding masses of tulips and hyacinths that were out of season everywhere in the world but here. They were grown in the hothouses continually, were always in the pavilion, and had been for as long as anyone could remember.

One of the small tables was filled with fruit, little plates and silver forks, tiny cups and saucers and a pyramid of glazed cakes. A narghile, or water pipe, stood close by,
and there was the scent of Egyptian jasmine, like no other in the world.

The two of them had lain down on a mattress against a big fat bolster, arranging a mass of cushions behind them so that they were in a comfortable half-lying, half-sitting position. Gamal appeared to pour coffee for them, adjust the charcoal in the narghile and place it at their feet. He passed the pipe to Alexis first, who drew deeply on it and passed it to Isabel. Hashish — and smoked through the narghile, it was marvelous, lifting them high with a feeling of breathing it instead of smoking it.

The two of them had puffed away, talking their heads and hearts out to one another. Never had Isabel felt so close to a man or, for that matter, that a man was so close to her.

They’d talked about their personal lives, their politics, their souls; her insecurities, his diplomatic career, her work, why she had never married, his divorce. They spoke about travel, about literature and poetry; he told her about how much he loved his sons, she told him about her mother and sister.

They’d told one another about their hopes, what they thought life meant to them. Occasionally they touched each other and kissed, making love with their heads and their hearts as they fondled each other’s bodies.

She remembered being terribly high, floating somewhere between the earth and heaven. They’d watched the sun go down. First everything seemed to go pink, then mauve, and suddenly the sun went out. There is no sunset in Egypt as there is in the West. One minute it is there and the next it has gone.

Gamal had continually gone back and forth with fresh coals and hashish, and just before the room had gone dark with night, he’d arrived with candles lit in antique copper lanterns of the sort used in the Bedouin tents in the desert. The lanterns were drum-shaped and made with sections of wavy glass. They had flat bottoms, domed tops and gave off a soft pink glow.