Mother Nile Read online

  Then it happened. All three tables won at once. The din was electric with tension as the three croupiers counted out the winnings. Then two tables hit again and more chips passed in front of the king. Messengers from the other tables carried handfuls of chips and put them on the table in front of him and, for the first time, the king relaxed, smiled, unclasped his hands, and caressed Farrah’s arm.

  “All good things come to him who waits,” he said, the jowls on his face rearranging themselves into a broad smile. Then he stood up, and while the eyes of the players turned, walked slowly out of the club, Farrah on his arm. Zakki scowled at her as he moved ahead of them to the exit.

  Back in the car again, the king moved closer to Farrah and put his arm around her, stroking her shoulders. They did not drive for long. The door opened and they stepped into the star-filled night to a little dock that led to a small yacht whose motors were already revved up, anticipating the king’s arrival. He led her to a divan in the stern where a uniformed waiter brought two cups of Turkish coffee and the inevitable pastries.

  The air was cool, and the king threw a fur wrap around her shoulders and held her hand as the boat moved effortlessly forward. She saw the dark hulks of Cairo’s tallest buildings, the lights brighter than stars. A few cars moved soundlessly along the Corniche. For some reason she wanted to shout out to them. Look at me, she wanted to tell them. I am with the king.

  The air was soft, scented with the moist sweetness of the river plants.

  “You don’t see it from here,” he said softly, his voice youthful and melodious. The night hid his grossness.

  “What?” she asked.

  “The corruption. I am the fifth king. The King of Merde.”

  His attitude confused her. He giggled like a child.

  “There is the King of Hearts, the King of Clubs, the King of Diamonds, the King of Spades, and the King of Merde.” Reaching out again to the tray of pastries, he took one, and she could hear the chewing, like that of an animal secretly munching away in the darkness. The thought brought an image to her mind of a restless bull, circling his pen in frustration, greedy with ungratified impulses.

  “We will see who wins,” he whispered to himself.

  “Wins?”

  He turned and looked at her in surprise, as if it were the question he were asking himself.

  “It’s a race. Will they do me in? Or will I? The question is who will derive the greatest pleasure.” His hands caressed hers and he moved them over her breasts, opening the wrap and the front of her dress. She offered no resistance, moving her body to help him, looking downward, watching her breasts glow in the delicate light of the stars, their fullness the color of pale ivory. She felt the steady movement of the boat, the faint splashing as its bow cut through the calm Nile waters. He lay his head against her naked breasts and she stroked his cheek. For a long time, he did not move. She felt like his mother, felt the sadness of him, the lost boy.

  The boat moved gracefully upstream beside the Corniche, then turned and moved again toward Cairo’s center. In the distance, she could see the lights of the bridges, like a string of pearls.

  In the soft air, Cairo seemed like some slumbering princess, the Nile a quilt of silk. It was not the Cairo she knew. Not the squalid crumbling pen of the old city with its faded minarets and the perpetual sounds of its street merchants and pajama-clad boys taunting each other in the alleys. Not the Cairo of her parents’ misery. Perhaps what she saw now was the Cairo of her father’s hashish-induced dreams. She was surprised to be thinking of her father.

  He once said, “When I smoke, the minaret rises high into the blue sky. And when the smoke is gone, it crumbles into the filth.”

  How she loved him! His grandfather had been a French major who had passed through their village briefly, leaving a pair of green eyes. Perhaps it was that legacy in her that had made them so close.

  She breathed deeply, trying to chase the thought. Her father was lost, another dead dream. The light heave of her chest stirred the king, who had dozed. Then the boat drew close to the dock and she covered her breasts.

  Zakki, who apparently had been in the cabin, was the first to reach the shore, opening the door of the Rolls while the king helped her inside. The stars were fading, and in the east the faint glow of dawn’s beginnings could be seen, outlining the jagged edge of minarets.

  The Rolls moved through the empty tree-lined streets, preceded by the two cars of the Albanian guard. They honked their horns at the mass of donkey carts that had already begun the early morning scavenger ritual through the streets of Cairo. The automobile caravan reached the gates of the Qubbah Palace, which opened quickly, and the Rolls veered off and sped past the guardhouses along a winding road that snaked through the property’s manicured gardens.

  As familiar as the Nile, the palace was a city landmark that had become anonymous in her mind. It was simply there, barely noticed in the daily routine of the ordinary Cairene. It occurred to her how isolated it was from the Cairo she knew, and she felt herself entering a foreign land.

  Doors were opened automatically for the king by bowing, ever-present servants. He still held her arm, followed by Zakki, a ubiquitous shadow, like the dog that slavishly follows its master. Detesting him thoroughly, knowing what was really going on in his mind, Farrah had the impression that her role here was being totally manipulated by him, recalling again the derision of her fellow dancers. The king’s pimp. As for Farouk, he seemed kind and gentle. She hoped he liked her.

  He led her up a wide staircase, through endless corridors, passing through high mahogany double doors engraved with plaques bearing the royal crest, to what was obviously his private apartment. They moved through the main foyer of his quarters, to a series of adjoining rooms. She followed him past vast rows of books, art objects, displays of stamps, coins, paintings, and prints.

  “He collects,” Zakki whispered. The words were expelled with heavy contempt, as if to influence her judgment of the king, to characterize him as a mad fool. “Coins, books, stamps, matchbook covers, even metal household objects, like scissors.” He jabbed her in the buttock. “And pussy.” He disgusted her. She refused to show any reaction.

  The king moved ahead, lost in contemplating his various collections, touching the books lovingly, stopping occasionally to ponder a case of coins or stamps. After a while, he rediscovered her presence, and patiently explained the significance of many of the objects, describing their history and commenting on the value of each. She had already borne witness to his greed for food. It seemed quite natural to see it again in his passion for collecting.

  The glow of dawn was brightening the eastern windows and she was beginning to feel fatigued. But the king was still wound up, pacing the length of his collection rooms, a mass of restless energy.

  “But I must be boring you…” She felt that he was trying to remember her name, groping in his memory. She followed him back to a low divan in an alcove and he leaned back and removed his fez, revealing his nearly bald head covered with a thin mist of perspiration. Without the hat, he looked like a dimpled fat pink baby.

  “Will you be needing me, Majesty?” Zakki asked, winking at Farrah. So he was still playing his little game, she thought.

  The king looked at Farrah, perhaps waiting for some reaction, as if she had the option to leave on her own. But the thought of having Zakki take her back to the nightclub, and all that it might entail, made her cling to the king’s arm. He smiled, and patted her shoulder, enjoying the display of affection.

  “Crawl into your hole, Zakki,” the king snickered. It was obvious that one of his enjoyments was to ridicule his chauffeur. It seemed to form the true basis of their relationship.

  Zakki fawned, but beneath the pose was not devotion, but the hard steel of hatred. Pamper the fat bastard, his eyes told her. Zakki takes his commission.

  When Zakki left, she relaxed, nestling into the
soft flesh of the king’s chest. He shifted slightly and pulled a draw cord, which operated a curtain that swept back, revealing a shelf of books. He slipped one out and opened it on his lap. The subject matter startled her, drawings of naked bodies in various stages of sexual activities. He held her in the pit of his shoulder and eagerly turned the pages, occasionally stroking her hair but saying nothing. Sometimes he pointed to a particularly bizarre performance and sighed.

  “I envy them their pleasure,” he finally whispered. She looked at the pictures, curious but indifferent. He seemed wistful, like someone revisiting the pictures in a family album. He loved it, showing his pleasure. “This is the best of it,” he said. She had no illusions about her role. She nodded.

  “Will you dance for me?” he asked, looking up briefly. He had opened the front of her dress again and was caressing the nipples of her full breasts. They had hardened, but she felt nothing. “Naked?”

  She discovered then that she had actually been jealous of his concentration on the pictures, and while she might have protested coquettishly, she somehow welcomed the idea, as if he had set up a competition between her living flesh and the picture-induced fantasies. He watched her as she undressed, his eyes wide-open and glistening as they roamed, caressing her body. She began the dance to a rhythm tapped out in her mind, watching his face, determined that her undulations would monopolize his concentration. He was, after all, the King of Egypt. Farouk! Or was it merely a romantic image in her mind? What she saw was a sad, lonely man, unable to concentrate on anything but pleasure.

  As she danced, he stood up and slowly undressed, kicking away his clothing, then sitting down again. He seemed a white mass of rippling flesh, cascading in long rolls that looked like dripped candles. A flaccid, half-erected organ peeked out from under his huge belly as he began a rhythmic manipulation of it with his fingers. Watching her, he was a sad, ridiculous Buddha-like figure.

  She enjoyed his attention, exhibiting the full range of sensuality that the dance implied. The rhythm of his hand grew more frenetic, sending a deep flush to his face as perspiration rolled down his cheeks. His expression seemed glazed, joyless, although the organ rose finally to a more erect state under its shelf of flesh.

  She did not feel demeaned by his actions, but rather strangely proud, although she felt tentative in her role, not knowing what to do beyond the undulation of her movements.

  “Please,” he cried, suddenly, a pleading whine, as he beckoned her closer with his free hand. “Like this,” he whispered, pointing to a picture in the opened book at his side, showing a man mounting a woman from the rear. Obeying the request, she kneeled on her hands and knees, feeling his weight against her buttocks as he entered her. She felt the pressure of his wheezing bulk as it moved against her, forcing a painful contortion of her body, although she ignored the pain, hoping, as she always did, that it would end quickly. The sheer physical difficulty presented by his demanding, enveloping flesh, was tormenting and she bit her lip to prevent herself from crying out.

  He was relentless in his attempts to squeeze a maximum pleasure out of the activity, and when it finally came, he fell against her. His pores had opened and his perspiration felt like mucilage on her body. Yet it was not disgust that she felt. Nor abuse. A woman’s body was meant for this, she told herself. He was, after all, the king.

  When he disengaged, he lay back against the divan’s pillows, gasping and spent. The flush had paled to ghastly whiteness. His eyes were closed and his huge belly rose and fell with the effort of his breathing. She was surprised by her overwhelming sense of compassion for him, and she moved closer and curled beside him, feeling an odd comfort in the proximity to this mountain of human flesh. She had heard stories that he was a sated, evil man. He is just a man, she thought.

  Chapter Six

  When she awoke, she discovered that someone had covered her with a soft woolen blanket. Farouk was gone. A yellowish brightness penetrated her closed lids. Someone, she sensed, was watching her. She deliberately kept her eyes closed. From the sweetly sickening odor of his cologne, she knew it was Zakki. He made no move to disturb her, but even this quiet inspection seemed an obscene violation. She prepared to scream if he should touch her. As if to protect herself, she opened her eyes.

  “Sleeping beauty awakes.” She saw Zakki’s thick-featured face, his greased hair glistening, his bull neck bulging with heavy whiskers.

  “The king?” she said, rubbing her eyes, feigning sleepiness.

  “The tub of lard is restoking the fires,” Zakki snickered. He held a silver kettle, from which he poured heavy black Turkish coffee into a small white cup. He handed it to her.

  “You must need this,” he said. His clumsy attempt at ingratiation only added to her revulsion. “Once he’s fucked himself out, he hates to sleep with anyone.”

  She resented his coarseness. Sitting up, she threw off the blanket, exposing her nakedness. His gaze washed over her like a bath of corroding acid. She ducked under the blanket again. Zakki clicked his tongue.

  “Such modesty,” he said.

  A door opened, and a liveried Nubian servant passed through the room, ignoring her, nodding at Zakki. She sipped the scalding coffee and tried to reconstruct her sense of place. The events of last night seemed to have occurred to someone else, although the soreness of her body denied it.

  “You had better get dressed. It’s nearly five in the afternoon. This is not a rest house. I have to get you out of here. He hates to see the night’s dung in the daylight.”

  She ignored the obscene image, surprised that it was so late.

  “In his world, everything is backwards.” He seemed delighted by the pun. “Come on. He will be up soon and he will expect you to be gone and me to be ready.”

  “Ready for what?”

  “For anything. For the night. Egypt”—he swept his hand through the air as if to indicate the entire country—“is a contrivance for his gratification.”

  “Does he know how much you despise him?” she asked between clenched teeth. He threw his head back and uttered a croaking laugh.

  “You saw him. All he thinks of is his stomach and his cock.” He grabbed his genitals. “Zakki does a far better job of it.” He had put the kettle down and moved toward her. Jumping up, she grabbed the kettle and raised her arm. He backed off, looking at her malevolently. Then, rearranging his features, he lifted both palms toward her.

  “I wouldn’t dirty myself in his leavings,” he said, pausing. “But don’t get any ambitious ideas. He collects things. You are a thing and he has collected you.” He shook his head. “You have a high opinion of yourself.”

  “Much higher than of you,” she snapped, getting up and searching for her clothes.

  “You could at least turn your eyes,” she said, assuming the arrogant air that typified the king’s abuse of him. But he did not turn away. She collected her clothes and began to get dressed. Watching her, he grew silent. She hoped he was titillated. Let him wallow in his deprivation. The king might command her, but this monster had no rights to her body.

  When she was dressed and had made herself presentable in one of the numerous mirrors—the king apparently collected mirrors as well—she followed Zakki through a maze of unfamiliar corridors to a rear entrance. She passed more Albanian guards and armed soldiers who watched her impassively. It hurt her sense of dignity to speculate what they must be thinking. Another whore being spirited away after a night of forbidden pleasure for the sated king. The imagined slight depressed her.

  In her heart, she was not a whore. Indeed, she took little pleasure in it. But she could not deny that she enjoyed attention and kindness. The king had been kind and she had repaid that by providing herself for his pleasure. She must not find guilt in that, she told herself. She hoped she had pleased him.

  Zakki made her sit beside him in the front seat of a small car, an arrogant reference to her status without the kin
g’s favor to protect her. Gunning the motor, he maneuvered the car through the palace gate and inserted it into the languid traffic.

  “So you can tell your children that you have experienced the great Farouk,” he said, sarcastically, eyes darting periodically toward her.

  “I don’t intend to have children,” she replied, though her lack of precaution the evening before now assaulted her memory. “I was amused and he was very kind,” she said, dismissing both her fear and her involvement.

  He became silent as he drove the car through the wide streets toward the Giza Road. She welcomed the silence, although she was curious.

  “So it is like this every night,” she said. It was obviously a question begging for an answer, although she feared anything that might set up an involvement with him. He did not respond for a long time.

  “He is like a locomotive,” Zakki said finally, as if her presence were superfluous. “Always on the same rounds. Night after night. Sometimes he changes nightclubs. Sometimes he gambles all night, until everyone else is exhausted. But on he goes. Round and round. The same in Alexandria. He moves from the Ras El Tin Palace to Montazah. From Montazah to Ras El Tin.”

  Farrah nodded to acknowledge that she was listening.

  “When he was sixteen years old, he rode in an open carriage through the streets of Cairo. He was the boy god, the great king come to deliver this filthy land from all the plunderers. I saw him then and I cried with joy. I was twenty and I vowed then that I would dedicate my life to his service.” He looked at her suddenly. “You don’t think it is possible for me?”

  She couldn’t tell whether or not this was another attempt to slyly pose as a human being or merely to paper over beastliness with a pose of dedication. For a moment, she decided that both conclusions must be correct and, briefly, her attitude softened.