Grains of Truth (8 page)

“Julia, you are the first and only woman I have danced with since my marriage, seven years ago.”

She had to swallow and wet her lips before she could speak. “Well, you must think of me as an ‘immoral infidel,’ but you’re wrong about that.”

“Oh, no, Julia, no, no. I would never think of you in this way.” Finally, he turned to face her. “You are a fine and gracious lady, like a goddess. Tonight you are so beautiful, I simply could not resist.”

What does one say to something like that? She breathed deeply of the mystical night as she turned away. “And you, Mohamed, are a charming and handsome man. But you realize, of course, that we can be no more than friends. I admit that I’m attracted to you—very attracted. But surely this kind of thing happens to you all the time. Women must fall in love with you on every tour.”

She shook her head. “Even if we wanted to go further it would be a mistake. What good could come of it? You’re married and we’re here together for a short time; then we go back to our different lives on opposite sides of the world. I’m not interested in a casual romance. I like and respect you too much to allow the physical attraction between us to spoil our friendship. And we are friends, Mohamed. I hope we always will be. I know you feel that, too.” Again, she shook her head. “No, it would only make us unhappy. Let’s leave it with a dance.”

The words came spilling out. She had no control over them and was taken aback at her own bluntness. Poor man, she thought. He probably thinks I’m insane.

“I don’t know what to say, Julia.”  He looked down at his hands, wrapped around the rail. “You’re right, of course. I cannot go further. It is haram: forbidden.” He raised earnest eyes to hers, declaring fiercely, “But I, too, hope that we will always be friends.”

“I know we will,” she said, her relief tinged with more than a little disappointment. 

They then spoke of other things. She asked about his work and about his family. He confided how he lived in two completely different worlds, moving from his job where he spent much time with people from Western cultures to his other life, deeply rooted in Islam. Sometimes it troubled him that he managed this with such apparent ease. But it was not easy. After touring with a group, enjoying the freedoms and luxuries, he often experienced conflict in returning to the strict structure of his religion and the financial constraints of his everyday life. And life had changed dramatically for the worse since the terrorists had begun their global Jihad, with many tours cancelled.

This Julia understood. She saw how hard life was for the people here. Societal norms dictated that the man worked, usually either for the government in the monstrous bureaucracy that shackled progress, or in the massive field of tourism, which comprised the largest sector of the economy. The wife stayed home, raised the children and cooked the labor-intensive meals expected each day. 

There were, of course, exceptions to these norms, but mainly within the minute minority of the wealthy class. They generally took their religion less seriously and lived much more lavishly, embracing Western ways. The fellahin, Egypt’s poorest class, made up the vast majority of the population and lived the most basic, primitive existence, much like their ancient ancestors. 

Mohamed, coming from an educated, hard-working family, but not one of marked privilege, fell within the middle-class. His intelligence and charm, along with fluency in several languages, should have opened many professional doors. His degree in Egyptology would entitle him to a high-level position in academia in most other countries. After graduation from university in Egypt, he’d spent a year in England and a semester in America. In Egypt, university positions were rare and difficult to attain. 

As the unlikely friends spoke quietly in the peaceful, dark night, Julia caught a glimpse of the depth of his character, and the conflicts he faced daily. The insight only drew her even more fully under his spell, going far beyond the physical or the obvious.

This is all very nice, she admonished herself sternly, but completely irrelevant. He’s not the man for you. Besides, she knew that Egyptian society frowned upon promiscuity and infidelity. “Frowned upon” was putting it mildly. Islam decreed sex outside marriage as a sin—a crime. And, although this country was supposedly a secular state, the Egyptian government was strongly rooted in Islamic law. The authorities had been known to take action when they found evidence of improprieties, even to the point of jailing or deporting unmarried offenders who flouted the customs.

In due course, they became aware of being alone on the deck. Looking at her watch, Julia was shocked to see the time. “Oh. It’s late. We’ll be dead on our feet tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, Julia? It is already tomorrow.”  

She felt completely at ease as they headed for the stairs. Then, in the stairwell where no one could see—like a bolt of lightning—his arms enveloped her and his lips were crushing hers. She had no time to even think of resisting. Releasing her even more abruptly, he wordlessly retreated down the stairs, leaving her astounded and alone.

Damn! Everything had been under control. And now this. Julia wanted this man. She wanted him more than she could remember ever wanting anything—to feel his arms around her, his body pressed to hers. It was impossible. They could not. She would not.

~

The next, and final, night on the boat found them once more up late on the deck. One last time, in the seclusion of the stairwell, he impulsively pulled her into his arms. This time she returned his kiss, with a passion she’d never known. His hands ran hungrily over her body, leaving impressions that would ache for years.

On her last day in Cairo, they met in the garden of the Egyptian Museum. He extended a hand, taking hers in a firm grasp—the only proper public gesture of greeting his society would allow. Those two brief hours burned like a torch in Julia’s memory. They wandered through the less popular areas of the hot, dusty, noisy building, murmuring now forgotten words and touching whenever they dared.

The next morning Julia left Cairo. Left Egypt. Left Mohamed.

Chapter 11

“It’s impossible,” Julia confided to Sarah. “You have to help me find the antidote.”

  Back in San Francisco, each day she told herself resolutely that the overwhelming feelings she’d experienced in Egypt were more about self-discovery and long dormant passion than about the object of that passion. It was the sensible thing to do. Oh, but the nights. The nights plagued her with longing and devastating desire. She tossed and turned while reliving—over and over and over—that haunting dance, often waking with the tantalizingly memory of the heat from their entwined bodies, crushed to discover it only a dream. It was obsession. Torture. Sweet, delicious torture. 

Sarah, and everyone else Julia could draft, embarked upon a campaign to “fix her up” with eligible men. She even joined one of those social clubs for singles in a desperate attempt to ease the longing she felt for her Egyptian “friend.”

After three weeks, there’d been no word from him. He hadn’t answered her studiously breezy email, sent as soon as she got back. Julia had an illogical feeling that something was wrong. Maybe he’d simply chosen to forget her. Just when she thought she’d explode with frustration, a response finally came. Sight of it brought a dizzying lightheadedness. Reading it caused her heart to plummet: something had been wrong. The day after she left, Mohamed was hospitalized for almost three weeks. In addition to the pain and discomfort of his infirmity, she instinctively knew what a hardship it was for him to have been unable to work all this time. Abandoning all caution, she called.

“I knew something was wrong.”

“We are connected, Julia, you and I. From the moment we met, an unbreakable bond formed between us that will last our lifetime. You are my angel.”

She couldn’t speak. She’d never been anyone’s angel before.

Later, as Julia learned more about life in Egypt and about Islam, she discovered something that gave her pause. What she’d thought a mere term of endearment actually carried a much deeper meaning. Belief in the existence of angels was one of the fundamental articles of faith in Islam, where angels carry out God’s commandments in nature and the universe. They were often fierce, and avenging. One of their jobs was to watch over people. This made her feel both good and bad—thrilled to be so important to him but frustrated to distraction by her inability to help solve his problems.

~

Sarah became aggravated as Julia failed to find a suitable male to transfer what she called her “sexual fixation.” After a while, aggravation gave way to serious concern.

One day as they hiked in the East Bay hills, Sarah rounded on her. “Talk to me, Julia. In all the years we’ve been friends, I’ve never seen you like this. You have the strictest standards for date-material of anyone I’ve ever known. Compromise just isn’t in your vocabulary. This guy doesn’t even come close to your famous litmus test. Are you actually in love with him?”

In addition to their many differences, in the whole of her life, Julia never remotely considered becoming involved with a married man. Apart from anything else, she hated the idea that there might be even the slightest possibility of her causing the break-up of a family. In Egyptian society the family was everything, coming first over all else. She could never be a part of that. What did that leave for her? 

“You are my angel,” Mohamed would say. “Somehow, Julia, I feel that I can speak to you of anything. Never before have I felt this closeness with anyone.”

Later, when they returned to Sarah’s house, Julia followed her wordlessly across the split-level back deck and in through open French doors. A wall of windows and a skylight flooded the state-of-the-art kitchen with sunshine. She sat on a stool at the center island to rest her forearms on its cool granite surface as Sarah pulled two bottles of water from the fridge. With cheeks a rosy glow, partly from the climb, Julia made her quiet announcement. “I’m going back.”

Sarah’s jaw dropped. “Have you completely lost your mind? What if you go all the way back there and find out that you really do love him? What will you do then? Where can this relationship possibly go?”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. All I know is that I have to try and find out. Find out the truth about my own feelings. I have never felt this way about anyone, Sarah, never. It may be, as you say, infatuation and…and lust. Maybe. But I need to know, to try and understand.” She straightened her shoulders. “And he needs me. By going there I can help him, help his family. I know you care about me,” she said as she hugged her friend fiercely, “but this is something I have to do, something I need to discover about myself.”

~

Julia planned everything, for their “vacation together from life.” Mohamed met her at the airport at midnight. Seeing him waiting, dignified and patient, near the end of the agitated crowd, should have brought relief. Instead, she tensed with alarm, asking herself for the thousandth time what the hell she was doing here. 

He held out a hand. “Welcome back to Egypt, Madame Julia.”

They drove to a hotel not far from the airport and, after checking in and frowning over her tired, travel-worn reflection, she joined him in the coffee shop. Her nerves stretched like violin strings wound to the verge of snapping. After going through the ritual of prescribed greetings—inquiring about her journey, one another’s health and family—they moved on to the more practical matter of the schedule. As they sipped strong, sweet, mint-flavored tea, he delivered the first bombshell.

“There has been a change of plans. I have been given work in the morning.” He looked away, clearly uncomfortable. “We must meet at the train station.” 

In her overwrought state, this was bad news. She’d forgotten how the best laid plans changed here, like the shifting desert sands. “All right,” she heard herself say. “I can do that.”

“I’m sorry, Julia. I could not refuse the work.”

She nodded, dreading the thought of making her own way to the famously chaotic Cairo train station. When he started to say goodnight, she remembered to take the thick envelope from her purse. Thoughts of this moment gave her considerable trepidation. Mohamed was a proud man. She worried endlessly on how best to handle the subject of the money. In the end, she decided on the direct approach.

“This is for you, for our tour.” She went on hurriedly as he sat back, away from her, in his chair. “And please listen to me for a moment. You’re taking these two weeks to spend with me and won’t be able to accept other work. It’s fair and right that you should be compensated for your time. This is not debatable.”

With lowered eyes, he shook his head before reaching for the envelope. “Thank you, Julia. Thank you for being you.”

~

After a ten-hour train ride, finally at the hotel in Luxor, she pulled a white cotton galabeeya over her head and glided down the hall. Answering her knock at once, he reached for her hand and drew her into his room. A breath of blissful release escaped her lips as his arms wrapped around her, as they did time after time in her dreams. His mouth came down on hers and they kissed like two lost souls, at long last reunited after centuries apart. 

Thus they stood for the longest time in the dark room, with the night breeze ruffling sheer curtains through an open glass door to the balcony. He lifted the robe to reveal her naked body and his hands began to explore the smoothness of her skin as he left a trail of smoldering kisses along the way. This was what they’d waited for, longed for. It was a perfect moment.