“Don’t dance for me, Aynur,” he protested with a heavy tongue. “Go to sleep! Leave me alone!”
But already he heard the melodious sounds of the al rababa coming from behind the screen, accompanied by Tamra’s voice, deep and raspy. Aynur moved toward André. Her arms moved like snakes, her breasts bobbed, and her hips swayed to the music. He watched with fascination as the tips of her hair swept along the floor as she bent back her supple and immaculate body.
At this moment, he was anything but lethargic and dazed. All of his senses were keen. Tamra had now put the al rababa aside and was beating the darbouka, still hidden behind the screen. Despite the thud of the drum, he could hear Aynur’s feet, beating the ground to the rhythm. Her breath reverberated in his head. Her scent filled the room and aroused his desire, unexpectedly and overwhelmingly. The silver threads of her tunic flashed like shooting stars, and the notion that she might have colored not only her nipples with henna but also the triangle between her thighs aroused him.
Thoughts of Sibylla dissolved into nothingness. When Aynur danced directly in front of him, he reached for her. She dodged with such speed that his hand grasped only her tunic. The thin material tore and fluttered to the floor. Now all she was wearing was silk harem pants. The flickering light glittered on her shoulders, her breasts, and her stomach.
“Come here!” he commanded hoarsely.
“Of course, my master.” She slowly sank to her knees before him, placed one hand on his trousers, opened them, and clasped his hard member.
He sat up with a groan, but she placed her other hand on his chest and pressed him back onto the cushions.
“Are you comfortable, my master?” she asked softly. “Yes? Then stay as you are. I will take care of everything.” She leaned over his lap.
Late the following day, André staggered across the courtyard. Qasr el Bahia was deserted and quiet except for a few doves cooing on the rooftops.
“Salam, master.” The stable boy was hauling a bucket of water.
André suppressed a groan. At the slightest movement, his head felt ready to burst. Overwhelmed with nausea, he could not remember his stable boy’s name.
“You!” He beckoned the boy. “Come here!”
The boy shyly obeyed. André took the bucket and poured its contents over his head in one motion. The water was ice cold. He gasped for air, but at least he felt more awake now.
“Where is Feradge?” he asked the stable boy. “Where are the Chiadma and the workers?”
“The caravan with the workers and the sultan’s eunuch left for Marrakesh at the break of dawn, and the Chiadma have returned to their tribe. The sheikh said that you would keep Aynur. If not, he said you should send for him,” the boy reported.
André stared at him. His memories of the previous night ended with the moment he had entered the room where Aynur was awaiting him with the farewell meal. Everything after that was shrouded in blackness, but he did not have a good feeling. He squinted at the sky, felt a sharp pain behind his eyes, and quickly lowered his head again. “What time is it?”
The stable boy also looked up. “The sun will set in two hours, master.”
André groaned once more. What had Aynur and Tamra done to him? And where were they now? He would confront them, both of them! But first he needed some strong tea. Maybe he would also manage to eat some dry flatbread. He was about to return to the house when he heard horses’ hooves and turned around painfully. Two riders were trotting through the gate. Two women.
“Hello, André! Your directions were excellent. We had no trouble finding Qasr el Bahia.”
He was stunned. “Sibylla, what are you doing here?”
“For not having seen me for six weeks, you don’t seem particularly pleased that I am here!” She turned toward her companion. “Perhaps my idea of visiting Monsieur Rouston was not such a good one after all, Nadira.”
“Mais oui! Of course it was!” André hurriedly replied. But his head throbbed.
Sibylla looked him over. “You look ill. I’ll make you some tea and some good strong broth.” She was about to dismount but suddenly froze.
He slowly turned around. There was Aynur, young and beautiful like the rising sun, wearing a pearl-studded garment with a thin red veil over her black hair. Her brown eyes flitted back and forth between Sibylla and André.
“Who is that, dearest?” Aynur asked softly. “Is she your other wife? Or just a concubine?”
The pain in André’s head suddenly became like a thunderbolt. He looked at Sibylla and tried to remember the previous night, vainly searching for words.
She scrutinized him icily. “Now I see what has kept you from visiting me! Come, Nadira, we don’t want to intrude any longer.” She pulled her horse around and galloped away through the gate.
“You surely know it yourself, don’t you, my lady?” Nadira said three days after their return from Qasr el Bahia. “You are expecting another child.”
Sibylla, who was sitting at her desk brooding over Benjamin’s list of suppliers, placed her head in her hands. “I have tried to tell myself that it was only an upset stomach.”
Since Benjamin’s death, she had been so busy ordering her life anew. She had attributed the intense fatigue, the need to sleep all day, and the queasiness to all the work she had taken on, or at least to the heartache over André. He had been such a bitter disappointment. For the first time in her life, she had opened up to a man, given herself to him with body and soul. And while she was still flushed with happiness, he had wasted no time in taking another woman into his bed!
“I wished for another child,” she said quietly. “But now . . . I feel absolutely nothing.”
Nadira carefully placed the tea tray on Sibylla’s desk. “A new life is always a gift, my lady.” She pushed a steaming glass toward her. “Will you tell Monsieur Rouston, my lady?”
Sibylla looked at her, aghast. “You know that the child is his?”
Nadira lowered her head. “I do, my lady.”
“Who else knows, apart from you?”
“The other servants don’t suspect. They don’t even know that you are pregnant.”
“But you noticed.”
“It is my job, my lady!” Nadira sounded hurt. “Of course, I noticed the symptoms. And after we went to see Monsieur Rouston, I understood.”
Sibylla found herself smiling against her will. “I am so grateful to have you with me.” She grew serious once more. “We share a secret now, Nadira. No one apart from us must know it, do you hear? No one! As far as other people are concerned, even my family, Mr. Hopkins is the father of this child. Can I trust you, Nadira?”
The servant’s face seemed carved in stone. “My lips are sealed, my lady.”
Once Sibylla was by herself again, she devoted herself to the papers on her desk. For the first time since her return from Qasr el Bahia, she felt her despair subsiding. It felt good to confide in Nadira. Now life would go on. She would forget André!
She was again engrossed in Benjamin’s lists when loud voices came from the street in front of the house.
Sibylla banged the desk with the palm of her hand. Was there no peace for her? She angrily pushed back her chair and rushed out of the room. As she neared the door, she heard André’s voice. “Why will you not let me in? What is this nonsense? Open the door!”
“I am sorry, sir. But I am not allowed,” was the gatekeeper’s reply. “My mistress has forbidden it.”
He was about to close the hatch, but André prevented him. “The hell you will!” he panted. “Let me see her unless you want the whole street to know that I am here!”
The nerve of this man! First, he stole her heart, then trampled on it, and now he even had the effrontery to show up and harass her! Sibylla stepped in front of Hamid and looked through the door hatch, straight into André’s face. He looked awful, unshaven, and pale.
“Sibylla!” he wailed. “Let me in, my love! I must speak with you.”
He looked so utterly devastated that it almost broke her heart. But then the images of Qasr el Bahia reappeared in her mind, how he had stood in the courtyard, burning with guilt. And the terrible moment when she realized he had just left the arms of another woman. And that child, who did not even deserve to be called a woman yet, had insulted Sibylla, fully cognizant of her youth and beauty, while André had stood by and done nothing!
“I don’t want to talk to you or see you ever again!” she hissed. “Why don’t you go back to your . . . your . . .” She wanted to say “Berber slut.” But she held her tongue and slammed the hatch in his face.
Part Two
The Red Gold of the Maghreb 1859 to 1862
He who has never hunted, never loved, never sought out the fragrance of a flower, and never quivered at the sound of music, is not a human being but a donkey.
—Arab proverb
Chapter Twenty
London, October 1859
Big Ben gloomily rung seven times. Rain fell from the evening sky and drummed on the wet leaves covering the sidewalk on the southeast side of Hyde Park.
Directly across Piccadilly Street was Spencer House, the impressive three-storied villa in which Oscar Spencer, owner of the Spencer & Son Shipping Company, resided with his family. A landau pulled up. Footmen with opened umbrellas ran to the carriage door to lead the guests through the majestic portal to the warmth inside, while the coachman guided the carriage to the end of the long line parked along the curb.