In the Kingdom of Men (31 page)

“Nothing that is not true.” Yash ticked an eyebrow. “She may have fallen under the rake’s spell, although it’s most likely that she tripped him first.”

“She’s the manager’s wife,” I said, wondering whether Linda knew. “I can’t believe she would do that.”

“It is convenient to believe that we are above all vices but our own.” He listed his head to the side. “Do you know,” he asked, “that to test his vow of celibacy, Gandhi brought his virgin grandniece to his bed, had her remove all her clothing, and lay with her through the night? His followers were shocked.”

“I wonder what the grandniece thought,” I said.

Yash smiled. “He was an old man by then. Perhaps she teased him cruelly.” He took a drink of his coffee, drew back into himself. “But I’m sure that this is not the kind of story you wish to
hear.” He rolled his mouth. “It is difficult to compete with your friend the Bedouin.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. I pinched a piece of chapati. “What else you got?”

“Perhaps adventure.” Yash looked into his coffee. “Or maybe a love story.” He ran his fingers along the tablecloth like he was reading Braille. “You have asked me about my wife.”

“You must miss her,” I said.

“I do.” He furrowed his brow. “She died giving birth to our son.”

“Oh, Yash,” I said, “I’m sorry.” I waited a heartbeat, the bread going dry in my mouth. “But your son, he lived?”

“Yes, he lived.” Yash’s shoulders bunched, released. “But I couldn’t bear to see her face in his and drank to blind myself. I lost my commission in the army, our home, and when they took my son from me, I lost everything.” He inhaled through his nose, let it out slowly, as though trying to regain his control. “When I read of the call for servants in Arabia, it seemed a way to escape my sorrow, which is how I have come to be here, a sober man but no more happy.” He paused for a moment, then rose to gather our dishes. “
Sahib
will be home soon.”

I didn’t say what I was thinking, which was that it hardly mattered. Mason and I had spent the days since the war in mutual disregard, as though we were the ones in détente. Each morning, I waited until he left before rising, kept my nose in a book if he showed for lunch, went to bed early when he arrived back home. He seemed happy enough to ignore my sulk, and I was counting the hours until he would leave again. The truce between us might have held if not for Candy Fullerton.

I came home from my swim at the pool that Saturday to find Mason in the bathroom, freshly shaved and showered. I watched him part his hair, combing the wave from front to back.

“Another meeting?” I asked, but he shook his head.

“We’re going to the Fullertons’ for dinner,” he said.

“But it’s your last night home,” I said. “We could go see a movie.”

“A movie isn’t going to tell me what I need to know.” He pulled on his shirt and buttoned the cuffs. “Better get ready,” he said.

Just do this, I told myself. Tomorrow, he’ll be gone.

I showered, put on makeup and fixed my hair, then pulled on the little black dress that I had bought at Fawzi Jishi’s when Ruthie had insisted that every girl should have one. I stopped in the living room long enough to pick up the photo taken that day we had boarded the pearling dhow. Despite his disparaging comments about Carlo’s talents, Yash had mounted the photograph in a lovely bamboo frame. It made me happy to see Ruthie beside me there, both of us laughing into the sun.

I rode in silence as Mason drove the Volkswagen to the Fullertons’, the engine chattering to a stop in front of their flat-roofed bungalow lush with flowering shrubs, its veranda spiked with tiki torches. He pulled the emergency brake, turned his face without looking.

“Let’s not rock the boat,” he said. “This is important to me.”

I sat with my hands in my lap. “I know,” I said.

He took a deep breath and stepped out to open my door. When his fingers brushed my elbow, I felt a little shock—the first touch we’d had in a week. Before we could make the porch, I heard a dog yapping, and Ross came booming out.

“Sit, sit,” he commanded, and directed us to a circle of wicker chairs arranged around a low table, then motioned to the Syrian houseboy. “Bring it on, Henri.” Henri came with mint juleps, a bowl of nuts, and a layered tray of tiny cucumber sandwiches alternating with red radishes pared into petals and filled with dollops of dilled mayonnaise, bacon, and olives. “Candy’s putting on her war paint,” Ross said. He adjusted his crotch and crossed his
legs. “You’re looking mighty nice tonight, Ginny Mae.” Mason glanced at me, as though he had forgotten to notice.

“Thank you,” I said, and pulled my wrap over my bare arms, relieved when the conversation turned to baseball. I surveyed the porch, remembering the summer nights when my grandfather had moved our chairs outside to take relief from the heat. The cooling air, the coming darkness, all gave comfort to the concerns of the day, and he would take up his fiddle, pull the bow, tune his voice to the note, begin slow and easy. He sang out into the open of the cotton fields, sang with the cicadas’ chorus, and I would watch the lightning bugs star the sky, the happiest I ever was in his company.

“Ever been to the Derby?” Ross didn’t wait for our answers but doubled his chin, took a sip of his julep. “Fastest two minutes in sports. Proud Clarion came out of nowhere to take it this year, thirty-to-one odds. Made somebody happy, but not me.” He held a lighter to Mason’s cigarette. “Bet you’re not a gambling man, are you?”

“No, sir,” Mason said, “can’t say as I am.”

“Just as well.” Ross bit the end off a big cigar and squinted up at Mason from the folds of his cheeks. “Guess Doucet’s the one’s got that vice.”

Mason looked down, rubbed a thumb against his glass. “Guess we all have to have one,” he said.

“Wife like yours, I might not need any other.” Ross kinked his lip my way, then reared back when he heard Candy come out the door. “Here’s the girl. I was beginning to worry. Your drink was losing its ice.”

“I had to put Pebbles and Ross Junior to bed.” Candy flounced down in a drift of White Shoulders. “We’re going to dine al fresco,” she cooed at Mason. “Won’t that be romantic?” She turned to scowl at Ross. “Are you going to smoke that before supper?”

“And after,” he said, bellowing his cheeks.

“It stinks.” Candy pursed her mouth at the lip of her julep, sipped, and frowned. “How’s yours, Gin? I can have Henri make you a new one.”

“It’s fine.” I took a quick swallow, tried not to wince at the bite of raw alcohol.

She lit her cigarette, blew a stream of smoke. “Is Ruthie still in Rome?”

“Another week or so,” I said.

“She’ll have all new clothes.” Candy cut her eyes at Ross, pulled a pout. “I wish someone would take me to Rome.”

“You got more clothes than you know how to wear.” Ross motioned to the low table. “Have some nigger toes.”

“Brazil nuts,” Mason said, but kept his voice light. I obediently took a handful and busied myself cracking their thick shells, grateful for the distraction, until Henri stepped over to tell us that the first course was about to be served. We moved to the table covered with Irish linen and set with Nippon china straight from Japan, more crystal and silverware than I’d seen in one place. While Henri filled each of our bowls with a ladle of mushroom soup seasoned with sage that smelled like the rain-swept desert, I kept Candy at the corner of my vision, following her lead: this spoon, that fork. I bladed a pat of butter and moved it to my smallest plate before cutting it to spread on my roll. When she lifted her spoon, dipped it into the soup and away, brought it to her mouth in a precise trajectory, I did the same, resisting the urge to slurp, take in a savory mouthful. She tapped the corners of her mouth with her napkin.

“I recognize that dress,” she said, and waved her spoon. “I had my eye on it, but Fawzi wouldn’t barter.”

“I got a good deal,” I said. “He threw in a slip.”

“You must have had Ruthie with you,” she said. “She knows how to Jew them down.” She squinted a smile as Henri positioned our salads and then an elongated silver platter holding an entire fish garnished with lemons and surrounded by onions and small
red potatoes, a currant where its eye once had been. “It’s only hamour,” Candy said, “but it was all that was fresh.”

We watched as Henri skinned and filleted the fish with the skill of a surgeon. I looked at Mason, who was sopping his soup bowl with bread, intent on his conversation with Ross about a new spike camp that had been pitched deep in the Empty Quarter. I touched his leg, but he ignored me.

“Men,” Candy said sotto voce. “They’re animals, I swear.” She sat back as Henri filled our plates. The fish course was followed by miniature cups of lime sorbet, and I was relieved that the meal was coming to an end, until Candy eyed the way I ate the icy scoop in two bites. “Better slow down,” she said smugly. “We’re only halfway through.”

Henri made room for the standing rib roast, a steaming boat of au jus, creamed horseradish, potatoes au gratin, new peas and pearl onions floating in cream.

“Pile it on there, Henri,” Mason said, smacking his lips in an exaggerated fashion.

“You’re liking that, aren’t you, Mr. McPhee?” Candy said.

Mason swallowed a mouthful of potatoes. “Best meal I’ve had since leaving Texas.”

“You’re just saying that.” Candy leaned toward him and offered her cleavage. “I’m sure that Gin is the best cook in the world.”

“Gin’s got other things going on,” Mason said. “Yash is the one who takes care of the kitchen.”

Candy fluttered her hand. “Houseboys just get in the way of good home cooking.”

“I like Yash’s cooking,” I said. Something about the way they were talking made me feel like I wasn’t even there.

“I’m a meat-and-potatoes man myself.” Ross leveraged his belly, patted it fondly.

“We’ve still got dessert,” Candy said. “Cream puffs and fresh berries.”

Henri dutifully appeared with the pastries, each powdered and wearing a little skirt. I worried mine around its lacy plate, sure I couldn’t eat another bite, but Mason licked at his so lewdly that I blushed. He washed it down with black coffee and took the cigar Ross offered, biting off the end and spitting it away as though it were an everyday thing.

“Bring us some more of that hooch, boy,” Ross said to Henri. “Don’t bother with the fancy stuff.” He leaned in. “I’ve got a joke for you. So this Texan walks into a bar …”

“Oh, God,” Candy groaned, “not this one again.” She held her hand to the side of her mouth. “Don’t listen, Gin. It’s nasty.”

Ross squared himself up. “Texan goes into a bar and hollers, ‘Drinks all around! My wife just gave birth to a twenty-pound baby boy!’ ”

Candy rolled her eyes and looked away.

“Now,” Ross said, “everybody in the bar is happy as hell, congratulating ol’ Tex, marveling at the size of that baby, saying, ‘We sure do grow ’em big in Texas!’ which is true.” Ross chomped down on an ice cube. “Week later, here comes Tex back for a beer. Bartender says, ‘Tell me, Tex, how much does that boy of yours weigh now? Must be big as a bull.’ Tex shakes his head, all sad-like. ‘Down to twelve pounds,’ he says. Well, now the bartender is worried. ‘Is he sick?’ he asks. ‘Has he had the diarrhea?’ Ol’ Tex takes a big swig of beer, wipes his mouth, and smiles a proud-daddy smile. ‘Nope,’ he says, ‘just had him circumcised.’ ”

Ross rocked back, laughing so hard he choked, but Candy repositioned herself, cocked her shoulders. “I thought we were going to be civil tonight,” she said, and tipped her chin toward Mason. “Ross has big news, you know.”

Ross’s guffaws lapsed into a winded
whoosh
. He reached into his back pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, and wiped his eyes. “That’s right,” he said, and blew his nose. “Thought we might talk about what comes next for you and your little gal here.”

Candy looked at Mason, the shadows of her face flickering into a flirty smile. She drained the last of her julep and motioned to Henri for a refill.

“Now”—Ross buckled his brow, grew more serious—“some might say you don’t have the experience. Some might even say you should have been the one sent out instead of Swede Olson.” He grunted as though pained. “Burt Cane, he thought you were something special, and that’s worth a lot in my book.”

Mason took the drink that Henri offered, set it down.

“I know you’ve got your sympathies,” Ross said. “You’ve told me your concerns, but you know as well as I do that productivity is our top objective.” He worried a molar with his toothpick, sucked it clean. “We’re training the Saudi boys, getting them educated, easing them in. Bring them along too fast, they’ll founder like a horse on spring grass.”

Mason worked his jaw, looked at me, then back at Ross.

“Well,” Candy said, “are you going to tell him or not?”

Ross pulled a big puff from his cigar. “McPhee, I’ve made my decision. I’m putting you up for promotion to assistant drilling superintendent.” He reached out, slapped Mason’s shoulder. “Play your cards right, son, and you’re on your way to the big house.”

Candy bounced and clapped. I attempted a smile, but all eyes were on Mason, who broke into a wide grin and raised his glass before taking a long pull on his cigar. In that moment, he wasn’t the man I had married but somebody else—a man on his way somewhere I wasn’t sure I wanted to go, someone I wasn’t sure I could trust anymore. I sat forward in my chair.

“Maybe we should take some time to talk about this,” I said.

Mason’s grin faltered, but Ross crooked his cigar. “That’s right,” he said. “I want you all or nothing, McPhee.” He cocked his mouth. “And you don’t want to be letting this little girl get too far away from you. Young bucks will be on her before you can say scat.”

Candy stared at Ross like he had dropped in from outer space, then broke into movement all at once, pushing back her plate, tipping her glass until the ice hit her teeth, lighting a cigarette, and waving it at me.

“I can’t believe,” she said, “I can’t believe you have to think about it.”

“Now, sugar.” Ross gave a sideways smile. “I’m sure they’ll make the right decision.”

Candy pinched her lips around her cigarette, the tick of her shoe coming faster. “Maybe it’s Gin who thinks she can do better.”