Well In Time Part 6

As evening approached, the ladies were still working over her. They arrayed her in a caftan of fine vermillion fabric and painted her face by lining her eyes with black kohl and rouging her cheeks and lips. They had braided her wet hair in tiny braids in the morning. Now these were released and her hair fell in a sheet of wavy gold, past her waist. To me she looked like a poor, silly doll. It was clear, however, that the ladies of the harem found her lovely.

As the sun fell below the horizon, a servant brought in a silver tray bearing one single cup of tea. This was administered to Agnes and although she complained mightily of its bitterness, the ladies compelled her to drink it all. It was, Fatima explained to me, a draught to bring lethargy and to release in a woman her sensuality. Having drunk this opiate, Agnes was escorted from our sight by one of the senior women of the harem.

I am relating all this as dispa.s.sionately as I am able, these three years hence. You must know, however, that in that moment I was consumed in horror. Often had my dear mother spoken to me of the sanct.i.ty of marriage and the honor of a woman who goes to that bed unsullied. From that hour I vowed to eat meagerly, consuming only enough to sustain my life, so that I should never be appealing to this infidel who held sway over my fate.

I vowed, as well, that beginning that very night while others slept, I would explore these confines, seeking any way of escape. I knew that it was well nigh an impossible task that I had set myself, for the compound of women was surrounded by high walls that were themselves contained within still higher walls surrounding the buildings and properties of Ali Abu'l-Hasan. Nevertheless, I preferred death itself to the fate I now knew awaited me within the seraglio.

Well after midnight when the sleeping quarters were at last filled only with the deep breathing and snores of sleeping women, I arose from my mattress and slipped into the corridor. I intended to move toward the back of the building, where the kitchens and laundry were situated.

I had only gone several feet, however, when a sharp whisper brought me to a halt, with my heart beating in fear as if to break from my chest. From behind a curtained doorway, in the dim light of the few oil lamps situated in wall niches, I saw the wan face of another of my companions, Marguerite. Slipping a hand from behind the curtain, she beckoned me with silent urgency.

Quickly, I darted into her room and the curtain was drawn behind me. Marguerite clutched my hand in terror and pointed toward the floor. There in the dancing shadows of the oil lamp lay a bundled heap that, on examination, I discovered to be none other than Agnes!

Marguerite told me that a servant had just brought her thence, completely insensible, and dumped her upon her mattress. I bent quickly toward her in concern. Her fine dress was no longer upon her body, but merely wrapped about her like a blanket. Her round face was smeared almost beyond recognition with the remnants of her once glad makeup. Her hair was twined about her in disarray like a net about a large fish.

I set to work to straighten her, pulling straight her legs that were crumpled beneath her and smoothing her arms. I set her head aright upon her pillow. Then I began to pull the caftan from around her and that was when the full horror of her situation was revealed to me!

As I pulled away the dress, I saw red welts and scratches upon her torso. Bending closer in the dim light, I saw to my grief that her poor nipples were mauled, as if gnawed by rats. Worse sights awaited me, for as I removed the gown completely, I saw that this young girl, too young for her first bleeding, was yet flowing with blood from between her legs. I drew back from her in fright. You may be sure, I felt so ill I could scarcely breathe!

Beyond thought, I rushed from the room to the sleeping chamber of my friend Farah. Without even pausing to knock, I threw aside the curtain and das.h.i.+ng to her bed, began to shake her awake without ceremony.

Begging my sleepy friend to accompany me, I dragged her, still half-clothed, down the corridors to the chamber where Agnes lay. Farah had only to glance at the pathetic child on the mattress. She made a clucking sound universal to women when they have seen something that is a great shame and injustice. My own mother used to make such a sound. Telling Marguerite and me to wait with Agnes, she disappeared from the room.

It seemed forever that we waited. Marguerite and I held one another, to give ourselves courage. Agnes lay moaning upon her bed, while the blood flowed endlessly from her, soaking into the mattress in a stain almost as black as ink.

At last Farah returned, drawing behind her the senior lady of the harem, one of the master's first wives, who had taken Agnes away earlier in the evening. The two stood but a moment speaking in low and hurried voices, and then the older lady bent toward Agnes and Farah again departed.

The woman made clucking and sighing noises, as if it were her own daughter who lay before her so cruelly violated. She gently opened the legs of my companion and with the hem of her garment, began to wipe away the blood.

Soon Farah returned bringing towels and a basin of water. The two women first ripped one towel into strips. One of these they gently began to push within the orifice of my poor friend. Gentle as were their ministrations, Agnes began to moan and cry out, as if they were causing her the greatest pain. Terrible as this scene was, I could not tear my eyes away. My only thought was that, but for the sacrifice of Agnes, I myself or another of our company would now be suffering this terrible anguish.

The two women worked long over Agnes, wiping her clean until the basin of water was as red as blood itself. When they had sufficiently cleaned her, they discovered that her second orifice in her bottom was bleeding as well. The two women pa.s.sed a dark look containing purest outrage.

At this moment, the curtain was drawn aside and a man entered. I had seen him before, for he was the doctor who ministered to Ali Abu'l-Hasan's harem. He bent quickly to the bed and having taken but one look, turned and shooed all but the oldest woman from the room.

Marguerite and I stood shaking in the corridor until Farah emerged from the chamber. She embraced us both most gently, then shepherded us back to my room. There she put us both in bed together, as we were so frightened that we could but cling mindlessly to one another.

Farah sat beside our bed, singing and crooning to us until through sheer exhaustion we slept. When I awakened in the morning, Farah was still there. In answer to the first question that sprang to my lips, she answered sadly that Agnes had departed this earth during the night and that she rested now in the loving care of Allah.

I was unhinged by this report. I shrieked, asking Farah how such a terrible thing could have happened in a house where we had all otherwise felt so welcome. It was then that Farah, treating me as an equal and one far older than I was in fact, told me a dark story.

During the last Crusade, she said, Ali Abu'l-Hasan had gone to Jerusalem to fight. While there, he witnessed atrocities visited upon local women by our own invading force. Women were raped, mutilated, and killed. The brutality of this treatment fairly undid him. When he returned from the Holy Land, he was a different man, dark of countenance and dark of thought. His treatment of Agnes obviously reflected his wrath regarding the treatment of Musalman women by the Crusaders.

This line of reasoning I could understand, if not condone. But then, I protested, how could it be that Irene, she who taught Farah the French language, was a favorite of the master? Why did he not brutalize her, as well?

Farah gave me a long look, as if a.s.sessing my ability, at so young an age, to understand. There are certain women, she explained delicately, whose temperament and physical form outfit them in such a way as to make them irresistible to men. This dispensation makes them invulnerable to the affairs of the world. Politics, philosophies, religions, and enmities mean nothing when faced with such a woman.

Irene had been one such as this. Despite his hatred of the Crusaders, Ali Abu'l-Hasan could not hate Irene. In fact, her physical attractions and abilities made of her a soothing balm to his fevered psyche. Doubtlessly, because Irene was no longer available to catalyze his emotional intensity, poor Agnes had borne the brunt of it in its raw and virulent form.

From that moment forward I became a different person. Where before I had languished, eating the food provided me and whiling away the hours conversing with Farah and Fatima, I now pulled together all my wits. I still conversed with my new friends but I now asked questions of a more pointed nature. I found out how food was delivered into the compound of women and how and when the laundry was collected and delivered. Slowly, I formulated a plan of escape.

About two weeks after the death of Agnes, I put this plan into action. During my nightly forays, I had discovered that the laundry contained huge baskets. These were filled with freshly washed bedclothes of the harem and then transported outside to be spread in the suns.h.i.+ne to dry.

Early one morning, I crept into the laundry where the servants were just starting to be busy at their tasks and crawled into a basket already half-filled with was.h.i.+ng. I pulled a wet sheet over me and curled up tightly beneath, still as a mouse.

Soon one of the servants brought another batch of wet laundry and threw it in on top of me. I thought I would suffocate beneath the hot, heavy weight of it. As more and more sheets and towels were added, I was sure that I had chosen my coffin instead of my escape route!

At last the basket must have been full. I felt the load being lifted. I heard the servant grunt, as if from the unexpected weight of it, and I held my breath, for I knew that this could be the moment of my discovery. The burden was shouldered, however, and I felt myself being carried and jostled.

I was blind beneath the smothering load and saw nothing of what surrounded me. My sole hope was that as the laundry was unloaded, I might find an undiscovered moment in which to hide myself away outside. Then, it was my plan to await the cart of the vegetable sellers that daily delivered goods to the harem kitchens and to stow away thereon.

As with so many other plans in life, this one was destined for failure. The basket was dumped out without ceremony and as I lay gasping beneath the steaming load, some part of my body, my foot or elbow, must have lain exposed. Of a sudden there was an outcry and I felt the laundry being pulled from above me with alarming rapidity and force!

I gathered myself to spring into action and when the last sheet was pulled away, I saw two stout old women, who grabbed at me. I leapt to my feet, dodged to the side, and began to run, I knew not where. But the sure knowledge that an attempted escape from the harem was punishable by death and that to stay in the harem was a living death acted like twin spurs to my ambition.

I found myself in a walled yard of sun-baked bricks. Everywhere were bedclothes and towels hanging on lines, stacks of baskets filled with produce, and carca.s.ses of meat swinging from hooks. I darted into this confusion.

For all my speed, however, my quest was hopeless. The old women had raised such a hue and cry that every servant was soon alerted and as I rushed past, would grab at me and then take up the pursuit.

Soon, I found myself running down the center of the yard with a full army of servants at my heels and ahead of me, only the firmly closed gates in the high walls. My situation was hopeless. Only one obstacle remained between the walls and me, and that was the well, which rose before me with its heavy wooden bucket swinging from an iron wellhead.

Preferring death by drowning to being rent into pieces by the mob that pelted after me, I gathered my strength, placed my hands on the stone lip of the well, and vaulted into its yawning black maw!

4.

Rancho Cielo

Oh dear!" Calypso stifled a big yawn and stretched her arms over her head. "That's got to be it for tonight. My voice is going."

Hill, slumped down in his chair and staring into the embers of the dying fire, shot upright. "What? Right when she jumps down the well? You can't quit now!"

"I have to, Walter. Look at the clock. It's after one in the morning."

"If this was Scheherazade's tactic, I'm surprised the king didn't kill her from sheer frustration."

"Now, Walter. Try to curb your narcissism and remember that this isn't just about you. I'm telling you, I won't be able to talk in the morning if I don't quit now." Calypso shuffled the pages into a more orderly lump and dropped them into the ma.n.u.script box. "To bed with you now!"

Hill's lower lip curled down petulantly, but he rose and then pulled Calypso to her feet. "You're one h.e.l.l of a storyteller, you know that?" He bent and kissed her lightly on the lips. "Until tomorrow. You promise, right? That you'll read more tomorrow?"

Calypso smiled and nodded. "I promise."

Morning light was just seeping into the kitchen as Calypso lit the stove, put on the kettle and ground coffee beans. Lonely for Javier, she smiled to hear a male voice in the house.

"Walter?" she called. "Can that possibly be you?"

Hill shambled in, tousled and disheveled. "I was so tired last night I forgot to undress." He slumped into his chair by the fireplace, where embers still winked among the ashes.

"That's because 'last night' was really this morning. We didn't get to bed until after one." She threw him a compa.s.sionate glance. "And it will be a few minutes before the coffee's ready."

Hill groaned and ruffled his hair with his fingers. "That d.a.m.n story will be the death of me," he said, and then bent to throw kindling on the coals. "It's good, you know. I mean, you've got all the details right, but you've improved on Berto's telling. My advice is..." Bent double using bellows to fan flames from the sleeping embers, he was interrupted by the shrilling of a siren of ear-splitting intensity. He jerked upright. "What the h.e.l.l?" he shouted.

Calypso stood in the middle of the kitchen floor as if paralyzed, her face gone suddenly ashen. "Oh, G.o.d!" she mouthed over the din.

"What is it?" Hill shouted again.

She turned to him then, like a woman sleepwalking, and shook her head as if denying to herself what she knew to be true. "The siren," she said.

"Well obviously!" Hill jumped from his chair and moved toward her, alarmed. "What the h.e.l.l is going on, Calypso?" He took her by the wrist, unsure what to do. She looked at him but appeared unable to speak. Hill began to guide her toward the couch but she resisted.

"No!" she cried, pulling back and turning as if to go outside.

Just then, the door burst open and Pedro raced into the kitchen. "Boss Lady!" he shouted, das.h.i.+ng to her. "You've got to get out of here. They're coming!"

"Will someone please tell me what's going on?" Hill bellowed over the incessant wailing of the siren.

Pedro turned to him, still clutching Calypso's arm. "We're about to have visitors. The lookout's started the siren. Everyone from the village'll be coming to take shelter."

Hill grinned, unable to help himself or to register their alarm. "Well, I realize how isolated you are but surely there's a better way to welcome visitors."

Calypso rounded on him. "Not funny, Walter! He means them, the cartel. We're under attack!"

Hill was instantly sober. "Oh." He looked to Pedro. "What can I do?"

"You can take Boss Lady outta here."

"No!" she shrieked, outraged.

Pedro turned on her, impatient. "We talked with the Boss about this. You know what you gotta do. I can't fight, worrying about you. You're my responsibility 'til he gets back. You have to leave!"

"What does leaving mean?" Hill shouted. The rising and falling shriek of the siren was making him a little crazy.

"Boss Lady knows. She'll show you. She's in your hands."

Calypso was hanging on Pedro's arm with steely fingers. He pried her hands loose, his face grim. "You have to do this for the Boss."

There was pounding on the door and he thrust Calypso from him. "I have to go. This is it, Boss Lady. Do your part." He strode to the door and opened it to find Juan, his next in command, on the doorstep.

"They coming! About a mile away now. Coming fast."

"Is everyone in from the village?"

"They're coming, too. Almost all in."

"Good. You go organize the men. You know your job, Juan. Don't fail me. I'll be there in just a few minutes."

"You got it. Good luck!" Juan turned and raced away, and Pedro closed the door. He turned to look at Calypso. "So" he said, "this is it. You gonna do what we planned?" He held Calypso in a firm and questioning stare.

Hill watched her hanging there, mid-kitchen, as if suspended on a string, wavering indecisively. Pedro stepped toward her and she held up a commanding hand to stop him. Slowly, her face galvanized into a mask of resolve. She took a deep, ragged breath and squared her shoulders.

"All right," she whispered, her voice inaudible above the siren's continued wail. "Here we go"-then, turning toward Hill with regal poise she said-"come, Walter. It's time to leave."

Calypso ran to a closet, threw the door open, and reaching inside, withdrew an empty backpack that she threw at Hill. "Go to your room and put only necessities in this. A coat, socks, your pa.s.sport, money, credit cards, whatever. Think survival. You have two minutes."

Hill stood rooted in indecision. "But-"

"Go!"

Hill went, taking the stairs two at a time. Calypso turned again into the closet and brought out her own pack.

"Is it loaded?" Pedro asked.

"Always." Without turning and with her shoulders braced she asked, "How bad is it?"

"Bad. Ten SUVs. Comin' like bats outta h.e.l.l."

Calypso slung her pack over her shoulder as she went to the foot of the stairs. "Hill!" she shouted. "Time's up. Let's go!"

Hill came clattering down the stairs, the pack swinging from his elbow. "Now what?"

"Now for a little adventure." She jerked her chin at Pedro. "We're ready. Let's go."

Pedro opened the courtyard door and ran out with Calypso on his heels. Hill followed her, then on impulse, turned back into the house.

"What are you doing?" Calypso shouted, glancing back at him as she ran.

"Forgot something," Hill called, opening his pack as he darted into the kitchen.