Three Rivers (20 page)

The sounds of Stan Getz and Charlie “Bird” Parker filled the room and their heads. They smoked a great deal. At one point he selected more music, and when he returned to her, he turned the covers down all the way to the end of the bed. He gazed at her in her sensuous nightdress and got onto the bed next to her. On his knees, with his legs tucked under him, he bent forward and kissed her hair, her lips, her breasts. Then, with both his hands, and in one stroke, he ripped her nightdress apart.

When she protested he told her to be quiet. He sat there looking at her, and ran his hands all over her body. He slipped what was left of her nightdress off her, and threw it on the floor. He held her close in his arms again while they listened to the music and lit up two more joints.

They spent the rest of the night that way, listening to music, and using their hands and mouths over each other’s bodies, more tenderly and lovingly than passionately. Some time during the early hours of the morning they fell asleep together, like two young innocents. They still had not fucked. It did not seem to be so important because they were making love to each other with their heads and hearts. Now it was the next morning, at nine, and Gamal appeared to say Madame Malek had arrived and was waiting downstairs for her. Dressed and ready, Isabel picked up her handbag, slung it on her shoulder and followed him down to the car.

Anoushka was delightful. She gossiped continually about everyone and explained to Isabel that it was not just the women in Egypt who gossiped. The men were marvelous at it too. It was a great part of the social life of
Cairo, but not as great a part as love affairs. Everyone had them, no one was faithful, but the men and women alike were very clever in their sex lives and rarely was there a tragedy.

Whatever that means
, Isabel thought.

Anoushka told her a little bit about herself. She was thirty-five years old, and Saudi Arabian. Her mother was the third wife of a high-ranking royal Saudi prince. She was his favorite wife and he denied her hardly anything. When Anoushka was born, she was named after a Russian princess who was a friend of her mother’s and the concubine of her uncle.

Anoushka herself was married to a minister in the Saudi government who was a royal Saudi prince as well. She had five sons, all in boarding schools all over the world. Her husband was at the moment in Saudi, and arriving today for the party. She would return with him in a few days.

“Isabel, you must promise to come and visit. Of course, there, if one were found an adulteress, one would be beheaded, or actually stoned to death,” she giggled. “But, darling, I am my husband’s favorite and am very discreet in all that I do. Rules, my dear — even in gossip and affairs there are rules.”

On and on she went as they were driven by her chauffeur and protected by her bodyguard, who never left her side. Anoushka was an excellent tour guide, obviously well educated. It was one wonderful experience after another. There was a quick visit to the Pharaonic Museum, but only to see the Tutankhamen rooms, because Alexis had told Anoushka that he would take Isabel there himself. “You know, Alexis is building a new wing now for them?” Next was the Coptic church and museum. Isabel fell in love with Coptic art yet again. As they walked through the City of the Dead she felt strange things: She knew some of the dead were walking with her. The sun was high now, and it was nearly noon as they walked through the streets and miniature buildings and palaces, through the fine sand everywhere and the dust that it raised. She looked up and saw a white moon as well as the sun, in a pale, yellow sky. Half a dozen little children followed them through the huge burial ground. They were from the poorest of the families who had nowhere else to
live, and so made makeshift dwellings among the tombs of the caliphs, their mosques and mausoleums.

Isabel would have liked to stay longer, but Anoushka said, “Enough, Isabel, Alexis will be angry if we are too late.”

The two women waited in the car, close to the entrance of the mosque, for Alexis to arrive. When the plum-colored Rolls pulled up, Isabel started to get out to go and meet him, but was held back by Anoushka. She sweetly adjusted a few of Isabel’s hairs that were out of place, and arranged her collar as well, saying, “Isabel, don’t be too Western. Wait for him to come for you. You know it is always better that way. I am your friend and I want you to come here to Egypt many times.”

Isabel understood. Gratefully, she smiled at Anoushka and thanked her for everything. That was the closest the two women ever came to talking about Alexis and Isabel.

As Alexis reached the car door the driver jumped out and opened it. Alexis helped Isabel out, asking the two women if they had had a good morning and inviting Anoushka to lunch with them. She declined, saying that she had to go to the hairdresser because she wanted to look ravishing for her husband and the party that evening.

They went into the mosque of Ahmed Ibn Tulun. The keeper of the mosque came forward and greeted Alexis, calling him Hyatt Bey. They spoke in Arabic; two more assistants of the keeper came along and bowed low to Alexis.

For a long time Isabel had heard about Ibn Tulun, and she had seen many fine photographs of it. Its simplicity and perfect symmetry made it one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. The mosque represented the purest of Islamic architecture, and it was this purity that Isabel loved so much in design. At some point she forgot about herself and Alexis, and was transposed and as high as if she were on hashish.

Alexis noticed her fascination and smiled. “Ah, my dear, what a woman you are. You understand everything.”

Isabel heard him, but then did not: She was only half there, so grateful was she to be alive and able to experience everything. Alexis wandered away from her, wanting to give her the privilege of experiencing it all on her own.
They met again at the far end of the mosque and walked through it once more together to the entrance where they had come in.

After that they drove to the Citadel and the Muhammad Ali mosque. They spoke about where she had been, what she had seen. She asked about his morning and all he said was that the best part had only started when they met.

The Citadel was on the slope of the Muqatta Hills and offered a breathtaking view of Cairo, the Nile, and in the far distance, her first sight of the Pyramids of Giza. The mosque, with its domed cupola and graceful minarets, was an extraordinary example of Islamic architecture. Its walls, both inside and out, were covered with alabaster.

They saw the tomb of Muhammad Ali, which was a mausoleum set in one corner of the mosque. Alexis told her that the Ayubites, the family founded by Saladin, who held Egypt for eighty years, had embellished Cairo with outstanding architecture.

“You see, working for my country is a big part of my life,” Alexis explained. “My mother was an Ayubite, with Muhammad Ali a close relation. You must talk to my mother about her family. They were magnificent and have passed down to us a great responsibility.”

Later Isabel wondered how she could tell him her father was a Jew from Bialystok, and decided not to.

After the Citadel they went to his mother’s for lunch. Sama Hyatt’s house was a two-story miniature
chateau
at the far end of the huge garden of the Sharia el Nil estate where Alexis had his home. Made of the same stone as the main house, it was a little jewel. It reminded Isabel of a small Malmaison. But once inside it was a Turkish sultan’s palace. There were photographs,
objets d’art
, paintings, and carpets of extraordinary quality and beauty, each with its own history. The two women had a wonderful time talking about it all.

Isabel was enchanted by Madame Hyatt and could not wait for the time when she might be invited again. She told her she hoped she would see her that evening.

Madame Hyatt explained that she was in semiretirement. She went out rarely, but received people, and Isabel was welcome to come again. Alexis would arrange it. They said good-bye, and Alexis and Isabel walked back to the main house. They had chatted and stayed through
the siesta hour and Alexis made it very clear that he was concerned that Isabel should not be too tired to enjoy the evening.

He took her up and showed her the rooms that she would stay in at the Sharia el Nil house. They were on the first floor and magnificent, but very different from the house on Roda Island. The house and garden reminded Isabel of the Rothschild house on the rue du Circe in Paris.

The bedroom that Alexis brought her to was painted pure white. The Aubusson carpet was in subtle shades of apricot, peach, beige, mauve and the palest of yellows. There were bergères French commodes and huge gilded mirrors that would have made poor old Cecil Davenport envious.

In the center of the room was a large, round, marble-top table on which rested a magnificent ancient Persian ceramic bowl, vibrant in pattern as well as color, filled with yellow lilies. There were a pair of matching chaise longues in the provincial style: walnut with simple carving, and caning. The cushions on them, big and feather-soft, were covered in silk Bokhara embroidery in a deep pomegranate color. Draperies of heavy, buttercup-yellow silk were tied back, revealing the sheerest of white silk undercurtains. The bed — a large four-poster with canopy — had its original hangings and bedcover of embroidered birds on the background material of the same yellow silk.

She saw that the dressing table already had her things on it, and her kimono was draped prettily across the bed. Alexis took her by the hand to show her the yellow-marble bathroom with its sunken bath. Then, leading her back across the bedroom, he opened a large pair of doors that led into a sitting room decorated in seventeenth-century French
boiserie
.

“Isabel, we will share this sitting room while you are here,” he said, as he walked her quickly through the room.

They came to another pair of doors, which led to his bedroom. Alexis threw them open, and she saw at once that it was yet another magnificently paneled room, but before she could look in detail, he put his hands over her eyes. Isabel had been telling him how wonderful the paintings were as he led her through their quarters. Between the three rooms she had had fleeting glimpses of
Renoirs, Cezannes, Matisses, Braques, Pissaros, Picassos, Rousseaus. Now, with her eyes very tightly closed, Alexis marched her to the bed. He put her in a sitting position, and when she started to open her eyes, he admonished her not to cheat. Then he kissed her lightly and said, “Now you may open your eyes and see the painting you will look at when we are in this bed.”

She opened her eyes and gasped. The enormous wall held only one painting. It was a Monet. The water lilies. It was the one that the Jeu de Paume in Paris did not get. She estimated that it was about twelve feet wide and eight feet high. She had only seen it once in a traveling exhibition at the Louvre, and at that time she knew that it was privately owned, but not who the owner was.

The day before, when they had been very stoned in the pavilion, they’d discussed art, and she had told him about this very painting, and how if she owned it, she would never need to see another. He had kept the secret that it was his, and now all she could do was sit there and gaze at it. Alexis laughed and kissed her again. “Stay there, darling. I will call down for some tea and we will have it here. While you are looking, I will have to rush around doing some things.”

When the tea came, he returned from the sitting room, where he had been talking with his secretary, and closed the doors. He lay down on the bed next to her and said, “Well, what do you think?” They spoke about the painting for a few minutes and then he asked her to pour him another cup of tea. She rolled on her side with her back to him and picked up the teapot from its silver tray.

She felt him slowly raise her dress, exposing her. He moved his hands across it, and she melted from his very touch. By the way his stroking became more aggressive she could tell that he was getting excited as well. It felt wonderful. She replaced the teapot on the tray and just lay there letting him do what he wanted with her.

With one hand he kept playing with her ass. Sometimes just massaging her round and round, at other times kissing her. Once he bit her hard, and she called out. He told her to be quiet, his secretary was in the next room. She could tell by his voice that he was very excited. He gave her a very hard spank, first across one cheek, then pushing her flat on her stomach, hard across the other.

“Oh, Isabel, I like you like this. You are divine.” He
lifted her to her knees and she lay there with her bottom raised high, her face in the pillows, all dressed except where she was exposed. She heard him take his trousers down and get back on the bed behind her. He moved her legs apart until he had a full view of her from the rear, and continued to stroke and bite her. With one hand he wet the crack between her cheeks with saliva and used his finger around her opening. With the other hand he played with her vagina, slipping two fingers deep as he could inside her, and one on her clitoris. She started to come, first slowly and then, as the orgasms grew stronger, she moaned with pleasure.

Alexis was delighted that he could do this to Isabel and kept telling her that. He kept talking to her, telling her all the other wild things that he wanted to do to her. Isabel said yes, yes, oh yes, to everything, unable to help herself. That seemed to excite him more. He told her to stay just the way she was and left the bed for a minute. When he returned it was with his alligator belt. He whipped her lightly across both cheeks a few times, until she begged him to stop. Then he bent down and kissed the pale pink marks across her ass.

Alexis was erect, and Isabel was exposed and wet. He spread her lips wide open and drove deep into her. She let out a whimper of pain mixed with pleasure. He told her not to move a muscle, he could wait no longer, he had to get inside her; but he refused to give her a quick, cheap fuck. He asked her to please let him stay inside her and told her that when he withdrew, they would stop until they could be together all the night. She tried to understand. She wanted him now. She was mad with desire to have his sperm inside her, but she said nothing.