Pretty Wicked (7 page)

A sideboard covered with a
crimson throw held large crystal bowls full of fruit, nuts,
colorful sweets and dates. Two gilt and ebony
Au Jeune Nègre
floor candelabras
stood on either side of the staircase throwing their circles of
flickering light into the space.

She turned into a doorway where noise,
laughter and music were coming from. There were a lot of people
there. Many of them waved and called out to Miko, but Mysha
imperviously plowed through the crowd pulling us along into a
conservatory where a dapper, small man in a dark evening suit, a
yellowing shirt and a red bow tie was nursing a goblet of red wine
and holding court over a circle of elegant people. His pale blue
eyes noticed us and lit with joy.

‘
Miko, Miko, Miko,’ he
sighed like a child.

I looked up at Miko and he was smiling with
an expression of tenderness I had never thought to see in his face.
Surprised, I stared at him.

‘
Sobhi,’ Miko said
softly.

The man turned toward me. ‘Ah,’ he intoned.
‘Ah, but she is beautiful, Miko. Absolutely beautiful.’

Everyone turned to look at me and I blushed
furiously.

‘
Come, come,’ he cried
genially. ‘Join us. Yusuf here,’ he waved his thin, pale hand in
the direction of a tall bearded man, ‘was just saying that the
great poet Rumi was a coarse fellow because he wrote bawdy stories
of women copulating with donkeys. What do you think,
Miko?’

Miko shrugged. ‘I admire Rumi,’ he said. ‘He
refused to corrupt the language no matter what the provocation.
Telling the truth is often a revolutionary act. If an act can be
conceived then it can and should be expressed.’

I stared at Miko, suddenly aware that both
of them were speaking in metaphors. I had no idea who Rumi was or
what they were talking about.

Sobhi fixed his eyes, quick but full of old
sorrows, on me. ‘If I had had a son I would have wanted him to be
like Miko.’

I reached out to the warmth and kindness in
his eyes and forgot to be shy. ‘Why?’ I asked curiously. It seemed
incongruous that a man in a frayed shirt and a theatrical bow tie
would desire a barracuda in a city suit as his progeny.

‘
Because if there were
more men like him there would be no more wars. Earth would be a
paradise.’

Miko turned to me. ‘Lexi, meet Professor
Sobhi Ageel, a member of the faculty of Palestine Studies at the
University of Alberta, Edmonton. Professor, meet Lexi, a beautiful
contradiction.’

Professor Sobhi Ageel smiled ruefully at me.
‘Indeed, she is that. If I was twenty years younger I’d fight you
for her. And I’d win too.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Alas, I am twenty
years older. You, my dear, must not stay with us old fogies. You
are young and beautiful. Time is passing. You must dance and be
merry.’

He made a shooing gesture with his hands and
Miko laughed and took my hand. For the first time since we met at
the coffee bar the gesture was natural. I looked at him, surprised
by this glimpse into the other side of him. He smiled at me and my
heart jumped crazily at the possessiveness in it.

‘
Let’s go get a drink,’ he
said.

I snagged a glass of white wine and Miko was
given a glass of brandy. He swirled it slowly in his hands.

‘
What were you talking
about back there with the professor?’

‘
Professor Sobhi is
Syrian. We were talking about the state of his country. The truth
that is never told. What peace can there be when we claim to use
the ultimate human injustice, war, to instill peace? War after war
after war and we never learn that there is no excuse to be
inhumane.’

A brown-skinned man came running up to us.
He clasped his hands together and bowed his head toward Miko.

‘
Thank you, thank you for
everything you have done. May God shower blessings upon you…’ He
glanced at me and added, ‘And your lovely wife.’

I cringed and would have pulled my hand out
of Miko’s, but he tightened his hold on my hand and smiled at the
man.

‘
It should never have
happened this way. I’m sorry it did.’

‘
Thank you. Thank you,’ he
said as he moved away.

‘
What was
that?’

‘
He is from the Free
Palestine society. I guess I am their major donor.’

I frowned and touched his arm, instantly
aware of the steely muscles underneath the soft material. ‘But you
are Jewish,’ I said.

‘
I am, and proud of it,
but I am also a human being. When my grandfather dug tunnels to
smuggle food and weapons into the Warsaw ghetto, it was an act of
justified resistance. How can I condemn the tunnels dug by the
Palestinians to smuggle food and weapons as terrorism?’

Dust motes danced in the space between
us.

‘
Many years ago I made a
mistake that changed me forever. It made me the man I am today. It
made me seek out injustice and the dispossessed wherever in the
world they may be and try to do what I can to alleviate
them.’

I stared at him, stunned. How he had
changed? Where was the spoilt boy in the sports car? His
aspirations were grander than anything I had ever known. In
comparison I was nothing but a petty, messed up woman with a taste
for revenge.

Yes, it had been a cruel
prank, but look at what I had done to myself over the years.
Instead of forgiving and moving on I had limited and narrowed
myself. I knew right then that I didn’t want revenge. But I also
knew that I could
never
tell him who I was. It would be the ultimate
humiliation for me to let him see me for the petty liar and schemer
I had become. We would have our affair and then we would move apart
and I would forget him and start again.

We moved into the large living room where
Arabic music was playing. A woman in a red dress swayed up to us.
She was as beautiful as a gypsy with charcoal hair and flashing
dark eyes that she had thickly outlined with kohl. She turned them
upon me. ‘Miko, you have brought a friend.’

‘
Lexi, Layla,’ Miko said
shortly.

‘
You don’t mind if I have
one dance with Miko, do you?’

I felt a stab of jealousy, but I shook my
head automatically. He did not belong to me. Not now, not ever.

She looked at him beseechingly. ‘They are
playing our song. Will you dance with me?’

Miko looked at me. There was a strange
expression in his eyes. I ignored it. ‘Go ahead,’ I threw out
carelessly, coldly.

Miko nodded slowly and followed the woman to
the edge of the dancers. As I watched him leave I felt a painful
tightness in my chest. I wanted to turn away but I could not. I had
to see for myself that I was chasing a mirage. This man was not
mine. He never had been and he never would be.

I watched Layla throw her head back so her
long hair gleamed like dark water on her back and slowly,
sensuously begin to gyrate her hips. The movements were hypnotic,
her limbs molten. She raised her hands slowly over her head and, as
if she was making love to Miko, placed them seductively on his
shoulders. Her nails were long and red against his black shirt. I
knew I could not watch anymore. I stumbled away blindly and almost
walked into little Mysha.

‘
Sorry,’ I said
automatically.

‘
Come,’ she said, her eyes
dark and full of secrets. Again she took me by the hand and led me
away from the party. I followed her past the ebony and gilt
Au Jeune Nègre
floor
candelabras and up the stairs to a bedroom. It was pink and gold
and very feminine.

‘
My daughter’s room. She
is in America now,’ Mysha explained.

I nodded. The civilized sounds of a party,
music, clinking glasses, voices, and laughter in the garden rose up
into the sultry summer air and floated in through the open
window.

Mysha opened a cupboard and pulled out a
costume made entirely of fine black netting and thickly embroidered
with green and yellow sequins over the breasts and groin and
buttocks.

‘
Try it,’ she
invited.

‘
Why?’ I asked.

‘
You know why.’

I didn’t, but I didn’t argue further. I
undressed quickly and put it on. It reached my ankles. There were
two deep slits on either side of the dress that ended at the hips.
When I moved it showed the entire expanse of my bare leg.

‘
This is a belly dancer’s
costume. It belongs to my daughter,’ Mysha said, and fitted on a
thick belt made of green beads, tassels and coins around my hips.
‘Twist your hips,’ she instructed.

I moved my hips and the belt tinkled,
shivered and shook.

She smiled approvingly. ‘Now you must let
your hair down.’

I pulled the pins from my chignon and shook
my hair loose. It fell down my back. She walked around me teasing
and spreading my hair over my shoulders and back. She made curls in
her small hands and pulling them forward coiled them around my
neck.

‘
Look in the mirror,’ she
invited.

I looked and gasped. I had never seen myself
look like that before.

‘
How do you know Miko?’ I
asked her reflection.

‘
He is our savior,’ she
said simply. ‘This party is in honor of him.’

I felt sad suddenly. Soon he would be gone
from my life forever.

‘
That man is yours, not
hers,’ she said in a firm voice, and opened the door. ‘Now go get
him.’

I opened my mouth to tell her he was not my
man at all, but she put her finger to my lips. ‘All the men dream
of the beautiful belly dancer.’

~~~~~

I
followed her down the stairs in a daze. It was all so
strange. The woman, the house, the dress, the music, the people. I
entered the room where I had left Miko, and almost instantly our
eyes met. He had been looking for me. Layla stopped her boneless
gyrations and turned around to stare at me, but I was not looking
at her. I was staring at Miko. His eyes. They were alive. Blazing
across the room at me. Devouring me. For a while I could not move
and we simply stared at each other. Then he left the woman and
walked toward me.

He had a red lipstick kiss on his cheek. I
raised my hand to his cheek and rubbed it away. The flush of
excitement in his dark eyes dazzled me. I felt a fever start up
inside me. Unspoken desire crackled between us like magic, and
itched deep inside like a curse. It would only get worse if
something was not done about it. He was the hunter. I was the prey.
That was the story anyway. The night could belong to the hunted.
The blood hummed in my veins.

‘
Will you run away again,
if I tell you how beautiful you look?’

Flustered and unable to speak, I shook my
head.

‘
You are the most
beautiful woman I have ever seen.’

I licked my bottom lip and he stared,
transfixed.

‘
It’s our dance, I
believe,’ he said softly.

I had drunk only a sip of wine, but I felt
light-headed suddenly. As if I had drunk half a bottle of something
very strong. He took my hand in his and it was as if the world was
right again. Everything was the way it should be. Warm, right,
safe. He looked down at me and at that moment I knew. I was in love
with him. I always had been. Tears brimmed in my eyes. I blinked
them away and moved my hips in the way the other women were doing.
Slowly, sensuously. We were all snakes on that dance floor.

For a moment he watched me and then he
pulled me close and fitted me between his hipbones. His erection
was unmistakable.

‘
Who is Layla?’

He looked searchingly at me. ‘Who is
Nigel?’

‘
No one.’

‘
So is Layla.’

‘
She
seemed…potent.’

‘
Try deadly,’ he said
dryly.

So I snuggled closer to him and wished with
all my heart that it was not just one night in Miko Barokas’s arms,
but forever.

That dance was like a dream. I luxuriated in
the way his body felt, molded to mine as the music flowered around
us and his warm breath stirred the tendrils of hair at my temples.
It felt as if he would never let go. What an illusion.

‘
I like your hair like
this,’ he whispered.

I lifted my head and looked up into his
eyes. They were dark and full of unspoken desire. He bent his head
and lightly kissed my lips. It was so chaste I was surprised.

‘
I’m not a fan of
audiences,’ he said, with a self-deprecating smile.

I glanced around and indeed many people were
looking at us, some smiling indulgently, one or two curiously.

He broke away from me. ‘Come to the garden
with me.’

We walked to the garden, lost in each other.
He led me away from the long table heaped with food and the people
standing about in groups. We stopped under an apple tree.

‘
Tell me, what if I pulled
your panties down and tasted you right here, in this garden of
Eden?’

I took a sharp intake of breath, my mind
stumbling, dizzy.

He pressed his advantage. ‘I already know
what you will taste of.’

‘
What?’ I
asked.

‘
Honey. A sweet taste that
will stick on my tongue as I fall asleep.’

‘
I…’

‘
Just one taste…’ His
voice was low and husky, a promise of pleasure.