In the Kingdom of Men (7 page)

Sandy hair clipped into a crew cut, brown eyes, a chip-toothed smile that made him look younger than he was, Lucky, tanned brown as a beechnut, rolled toward us, a slight limp in his stride. He shook my hand gently, as though he were afraid he might hurt me.

“My husband …” I said, and cast about for Mason.

“… is already taking his job too serious.” He chuckled the kind of laugh that could turn into a full-bellied guffaw without notice, his words fast and thick, their staccato rhythm both strange and familiar. He motioned to where Mason was deep in conversation with Burt Cane. “I can see we’re going to have to loosen that guy up.”

Mason worked his way to our table, shaking hands as he came. When he saw me with the cigarette in my hand and hiked an eyebrow, I smiled and took another drag. Ruthie introduced him to Lucky, and the two men began discussing their jobs as drilling foremen, Lucky over a crew of Arabs in the desert, Mason a new recruit on the sea—and then moved easily into banter about the recent formation of the New Orleans Saints. I leaned in closer to Ruthie, nodded to where the man with the camera stood near the door as though trying to steal away.

“He looks like a pirate,” I said.

Ruthie followed my eyes. “Carlo Leoni? He’s Aramco’s official photographer,” she said, then in a low whisper, “and gigolo.”

“Here?” I asked, my mouth gone slack.

“Where better?” Ruthie gave a knowing smile. “Boredom is the desire for desires, you know.” When Mason turned our way, she drew back. “Let’s have lunch on Monday,” she said. “I’m dying to see what you’ve done with the place.”

I hesitated, wondering whether I had done anything at all with the place and what I would fix for our meal. I’d never learned to make the little sandwiches Houston wives favored, cucumbers
sliced paper-thin, cold soup alongside. Each luncheon, each tea, I’d find myself reaching for the salt, spooning more sugar, just to taste something. I’d go home, put on a big pot of brown beans, boil up a ham bone, cut in a slab of bacon, bake cornbread in a cast-iron skillet, sheen it with lard. If it was cucumber I wanted, then chunks of it with rings of sweet onion, floated in vinegar and oil, doused with salt.

“I’ll bring dessert,” Ruthie said, and was off to chat with a group of wives. I missed her immediately.

Abdullah waited for us after the meeting, leaning against the Land Cruiser, talking with a few other Arab men, who lowered their gazes and moved away as we approached. I stopped until Mason touched my arm.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“They make me feel so strange,” I whispered, “like I’m poison or something.”

He lifted his shoulders. “I think they do it out of respect.”

I forced a smile for Abdullah as I ducked into the back of the Land Cruiser. I looked around at the other women coming from the building, most dressed in light summer clothing that showed their arms and legs, and wondered whether the Arab men who worked inside the compound believed themselves in heaven or in hell. I flapped my program against the heat, imagining that Abdullah had been talking about me. Mason sat quiet, lost in thought, but Abdullah motioned to the horizon as though he could see something brewing in the clear blue sky.

“Tonight, there will be one last rain,” he said.

“In the desert?” I asked. “How do you know?”

“Because I am Bedu,” he said, and looked at me in the rearview. “You will learn.” I recognized a hint of teasing and grinned back until Mason began quizzing him on the correct pronunciation and meaning of Arabic phrases—the early salutation
morning of light
, the night’s greeting
evening of goodness
. I listened without hearing, Abdullah’s promise still ringing in my ears.

Back home, the rooms were redolent of … what? Something I had never smelled before. Yash greeted us at the door. “Dinner at six,
memsahib
.”

I followed him into the kitchen. “Ruthie Doucet is coming for lunch on Monday,” I said.

“Perhaps I will make a cold carrot soup,” he said.

“You will?”

He lifted his eyes at my surprise. “I am your houseboy and your cook,” he said. “I prepare your meals, clean your rooms, do your laundry, and run your errands.” He saw the look on my face and allowed a thin smile. “You will get used to it, believe me.”

“Ruthie says she will bring dessert,” I offered.

Yash waved the thought away. “Her houseboy is from Pakistan. What does he know of sweet?” He turned to the sink. “Besides, he is leaving the country, as she will discover soon enough.”

I stood for a moment, watching him rinse the vegetables, before moving to our bedroom, where the blankets were smoothed, the pillows tucked. Yash had unpacked the rest of our luggage, ironed and hung Mason’s shirts, slacks, and my dresses, and folded away our underwear. I stood staring into the drawer, imagining Yash’s handling of what my grandfather had called my unmentionables. When Mason came in, I showed him the clothes neatly stowed.

“Even my panties and garter belts,” I whispered.

He gave a one-sided smile. “Not bad work if you can get it.”

That evening, I found the table set with small bowls of sliced bananas, dates, and nuts, a tureen of chicken stew that smelled of bay leaves, garlic, cinnamon. I sat across from Mason, folded my hands, and felt something like a prayer coming on. And maybe a prayer is what I should have offered right then, some gratitude for the grace of that moment. Instead, I dipped my finger into the stew and sucked like I had been starving all my life. I looked up to see Mason watching me.

“You just go ahead, Ginny Mae. You go right ahead and
enjoy.” He spooned the rice and curry. “The pool looks nice. You can get your tan.”

“I don’t own a swimsuit,” I said. He knew I never had.

“I bet Ruthie’s got one you can borrow.” He tapped a few more raisins into his stew. “I’ve been craving a cobbler. Make me a pie, why don’t you?”

“I’m thinking I’ll plant a garden,” I said. “The backyard is nothing but sand. Maybe I can bring in some manure.”

Mason focused on his coffee, stirred in a spoonful of sugar. “You heard what Ross was saying today. Maybe it’s best if you stay in the compound while I’m gone.” When he saw the look on my face, he raised his hand. “Just this first time,” he said. “Two weeks isn’t so long.”

I lowered my fork, tried to keep my voice steady. “Two weeks?”

“That’s my shift,” he said, “my tour. Two weeks on the rig, but then a whole week back here in camp with you.”

Two weeks, I thought. I had never been separated from Mason for more than the few nights I had spent in the hospital. When Yash stepped in with more coffee, his mouth arched in dismay, I forced a smile.

“Is it not good?” he asked, and hovered over the tureen, sniffing.

“Very good,” I said, “thank you.” But all I could think about were those hours without Mason.

When Yash disappeared back into the kitchen, Mason reached out and placed his hand over mine.

“Listen,” he said. “There’s plenty to do right here in Abqaiq. Get to know some of the other wives, play some cards, find your way around.” He ducked his head to catch my eyes. “Okay?”

I lifted my shoulders.

“Good girl.” He gave my fingers a final squeeze. “I’m going to check out that study,” he said. “Makes me feel more important than I am.”

I moved into the living room and turned on the television. Channel 3 was showing the
Alfred Hitchcock Hour
, but the sound was distorted, as though a storm were blowing through the studio. When Yash came to tell me he was leaving for the night, I rose from the couch, not sure what was appropriate to say.

“I will return in the morning. Sleep well,” he offered, and quietly pulled the door closed behind him.

I joined Mason in the study, where he was surveying the large framed map of the Middle East hanging on the wall, one corner pulled away as though someone had tried to peek underneath. “See where it broke the landmass,” Mason said, and traced the country’s boundaries, the shorelines on either side like the pieces of a puzzle, perfectly fitted, the peninsula straining at its borders as though it might let go its tenuous connections, set itself adrift. He thumb-shined the already gleaming heads of the brass horses that held up a matching set of red leather books, each scripted in gold Arabic.

“You’re wondering the same thing I am,” I said, “about the Bodeens.”

Mason nodded. “Maybe they just needed a change of scenery,” he said.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” I said. “Having servants?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s strange.”

“I hate that you’ll be so far away.”

“Not so far.” He pulled me into his lap, and I rested my head on his shoulder, felt him lapsing into thought. “Burt Cane says he’s going to be retiring soon. Hate to see him go. I can tell he’s one of the good ones, open to new ideas.” He stroked my arm. “When I get back, let’s take a little trip. Abdullah says the desert is full of ruins. Maybe we can dig up some old pots or something.”

“Ruthie’s coming for lunch on Monday,” I said.

“See?” he said. “You’re already finding stuff to do.” He rocked forward, hefted me into his arms. “Time for our Arabian honeymoon,” he said, and carried me to the bed.

He made love to me, then, in that slow way he had of letting me know he was sure, our rhythms familiar, not so different from that first night in the back of his sedan when we fit together, he had said, like tongue and groove. He tucked me up against him, the heat between us cooling in the refrigerated air. I clung to him for a long time, as though I felt he might be torn away. I didn’t want him to leave me behind, not the next day, not ever.

“You are my anchor,” I whispered to him.

“You float my boat,” he said, and kissed me so deeply I fell out of myself and forgot I had meant to hold on.

I listened to his breathing even and slow, and then I heard it—the rain hitting the roof. I slipped from bed and walked down the hallway, stepped out the back door of the kitchen. At first, it was like standing downwind of a sprinkler, a mist of warm water, and then it came hard enough to hurt.

I tucked back under the eave, closed my eyes, breathed in the smell of what had been nothing but now was peat and dung, new grass, the smell of my grandfather’s rifle shot for rabbit, the blood of the rabbit itself. When I opened my eyes, the flare in the distance burned a hole in the night. My gown hung cold and wet at my shoulders, slicked to my legs, but I didn’t want to go in.

I need to remember this, I thought. By morning, every drop would be gone.

Early that Sunday, the first day of the Muslim workweek, I helped Mason pack his duffel and saw him to the door. I waved to Abdullah, who waited to drive him sixty miles north to the port at Ras Tanura, where he would catch the launch that would ferry him more than one hundred miles to the drilling platform. I had no sense at all of what it might be like to work, eat, and sleep on a mechanical island in the middle of the sea. None of it seemed real as I watched the Land Cruiser disappear down the street, fighting the flutter of panic in my chest. I was too shy to consider calling some of the other wives, joining them for card games that I didn’t know how to play. Yash seemed busy in the kitchen, raising his head only once to smile at me pleasantly, and I turned back to the empty house.

I rearranged the living room furniture, moved it back again, then spent twenty minutes at the linen closet, refolding the bath towels the way my mother and grandmother had taught me—three times down, three across—and then the sheets, each corner
pocketed, creased tight. I moved to the study and surveyed the operating manuals and old atlases that lined the shelves, but not a single novel.

In the corner sat a small chair and worktable, a large lighted magnifying glass clamped to its edge, and a shallow drawer full of long-handled tweezers, picks, and scalpels as fine as the tools of a dentist. An empty whiskey bottle, mounted on its side, contained the half-finished body of a ship, its masts still tucked, strings leading into the bottle’s mouth as though, at the very moment the sails were to be sprung, the maker had been called away, dropped his instruments, and left the schooner in limbo. Next to the small jars of paint and miniature brushes lay a pipe still redolent of sweet tobacco. I set the stem between my lips, and the bite brought water to my mouth. I picked up the framed photo that anchored the table’s corner: an older couple, lifting glasses of champagne in front of a pretty red speedboat that looked like it was about to be launched, painted along its bow,
Arabesque
. His hair a wispy ring of silvery gray, hers a short mass of ash blond curls cut tight to her head, both of them smiling—the Bodeens seemed happy enough, leaning into each other. I studied the photo, looking for clues. Maybe one had taken ill, I thought, or maybe there had been a death in the family, or maybe they had simply had enough of the desert. I laid the picture in the drawer with the bits of sailcloth and compact spools of thread, slid it out of sight.

I sat in Mason’s chair and opened the first of the red leather books, ran my finger along the gold script like I was reading Braille. I wondered what the intricate pattern of dots and swooping dashes had meant to the Bodeens, or maybe the set was nothing more than decor. The lush illustrations indicated an epic tale or maybe ancient history. I put the volume back, then pulled out another, let it fall open. I rubbed the paper between my fingers—like the diaphanous pages of a Bible—then flipped through the illustrations until I came to the end, where I found several pieces
of ledger paper glued over the last pages, just like my grandmother had pasted the cutout recipes from ladies’ magazines to the pages of
Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette
. I read down the columns of penciled numbers, but the equations were as indecipherable to me as the Arabic script, and I placed the book back with its mates.

I walked a circuit through the bedrooms, then back down the hallway to the living room, where I frumped down on the couch and read through a dated stack of
Aramco World
magazines, the pages filled with colorful photographs of Arabs and Americans, building, paving, extracting, standing back to admire the progress they had made. Arabs raising radio antennae, Arabs driving drilling rigs, Arabs in the classroom and the laboratory—the harmony and utility perfectly captured, the desert no more impossible than any frontier had ever been, the ingenious Americans and their Saudi allies headed for sure victory over whatever lay between them and the massive fields of oil. “If it’s there, we’ll find it,” one explorationist proclaimed, and who wouldn’t believe him? Spread across the centerfold, a sleek supertanker rested at anchor near Sidon, its streamlined efficiency set against the clear beauty of the sea. A portrait of its smartly uniformed captain, pipe in hand, handsome as a movie star, filled the next page. “A big man,” the caption read, “with broad shoulders, hair the color of brass, a lopsided grin, a lively wit, a taste for strong tobacco and Dutch gin, and a gift for running a taut ship with a minimum of effort.” I was halfway in love with him myself and maybe even more so with the journalist who had dared to embed such titillating details and somehow sneak them by the censors. I read cover to cover, hard and too fast, soaking up every word, forgetting to save some for later. When I looked at the clock, I saw that it wasn’t even noon.