Egyptian Short Stories

StoryGlossia, September 2009

Lily of the Night rode in on a white stallion. Her gartered legs dangled bare over his flanks. I had used an Edwardian white sheer corset as a model for her costume, but the black laces zigzagged, like a spider web, across her chest. And yes, oh yes, we had pulled the laces tight to push up her boobs. A black mask covered her eyes as if for a 19th century costume ball—a tantalizing rendezvous with the Marquis De Sade imminent. Lily's long, straight black hair had been teased high and powdered white. Our well-heeled guests from all over the world roared.

The pink, jagged mountains of Sinai rose in the distance. A gargantuan red tent had been erected on the grounds of the Marriott for this three-day wedding at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Egyptian waiters in turbans and starched white galabiyas hovered with trays of French wine.

The noise from the clapping and the lights from the blinking cameras had made the stallion jumpy. God, that's all I needed now: a runaway horse. When I glanced behind me at the tables facing the stage, I noticed the bobbing of scalloped gold hats.

"Waiter!" I needed a drink. Stella local beer would do just fine.

Our last crisis had been the lost suitcase at Sharm el-Sheikh airport—the costumes for the show. Lily was pissed. "Luv," she said in her Manchester accent, "You're fuckin' dead, if you don't find it." I was sick of her foul-mouthed temper tantrums, although Hollywood was much worse. Maybe I needed a lower stress job, like a Walmart greeter.

Bunny Tushman Rasheed, the Texas heiress who had commissioned us to do this gig, waved at me in the distance. She was fingering her pearl choker—fancied herself Grace Kelly. She affected a French accent, but little phrases like, "Just because a chicken has wings doesn't mean it can fly" sneaked into her speech.

The horse was about to bolt. I had told Lily she shouldn't get the cheapest horse at the Pyramid stables, but she had not listened: she could squeeze blood out of a stone. Unlike me, she was a shrewd businesswoman. If Lily hadn't wired me the money for a plane ticket to Egypt, I still might be sleeping in my Volkswagon van in L.A. Production companies didn't pay their bills.

The stallion trotted toward the guests' tables. Shit! We had not rehearsed it this way. The Egyptian waiters made themselves scarce.

This was my second stint in Egypt. The first time, I had moved to Cairo because of my Egyptian husband, Kamal, a specialist in diabetes. We had met at tango dance lessons at the Stairway to the Starz Dance Studio in Hollywood—he was finishing up his residency at U.C.L.A.

I craned my neck to see if Lily had made it to the stage. She was waving to the crowd. Easy. Just get off that stallion! Last week the two guys posing as a horse, on whose back Lily was riding, had galloped right into the pool at the Movenpick. Our gig had to be good. Millions of pounds were being spent.

Bunny Tushman Rasheed had wanted spectacle. Fantasy. Something big for the third marriage of her sister. I was dying to ask her if we could have a steel phallus on stage. Instead, I had spent days on every kind of kinky website searching for oriental spectacle. Did I think we could hang Lily by her nipples upside down?

When it comes to spoiled bitches, Lily even beat Bunny. Marry me or I'll cut your oxygen supply off! Lily looks good—maybe not real, but she still looks good. Silicone boobs, tummy tuck, ass job, botox face. Bunny had also had some adjustments. The day Lily and I had had our planning session at Bunny's villa, every time Bunny crossed her legs, her mouth snapped shut.

A tiny gnome-like lady suddenly appeared in front of my table. A tuft of hair stuck out from her head like a white feather. She was probably around eighty-seven. "Mind if I join you?" she asked.

"Go ahead," I said. My table was empty.

She leaned her ebony cane against the white tablecloth. The eyes of the carved lion on the handle seemed real.

"Golly, would you look at that. Lord!" the shriveled woman said.

I laughed.

"Don't you wish you had a body like that?"

"It's carefully constructed," I said.

"Of course it is!" She pulled out a long cigarette from her packet of Benson and Hedges. "You belong to the bride or groom?"

"I made the costumes," I said. "Designed the set. It was my idea to put those huge blocks of pink marble on stage. It's supposed to be a Turkish bath."

"You're mighty talented." The old lady guffawed. "You sure don't get your ideas from Ladies Home Journal!"

"Underwear advertisements on the internet. Are you one of Bunny's relatives?"

"No. I'm on a package tour. This looked like more fun than the Pharaoh party. I sneaked away. Holy Moly! That horse is well-endowed."

She was right. The horse had a fat red cock. Some of the Texans in cowboy hats in the front row, were pointing at it, as if they were fourteen-year olds. "Jeez Louise!"

Lily was sliding off the stallion. She wobbled slightly on one of the black stilettos. She almost lost her balance.

I took an unfiltered Camel cigarette out of my pack. "God, why did I insist on the stilettos! Too risky!"

"It's obvious. Sex appeal!" the old lady said. Under her droopy eyelids, were a pair of mischievous blue eyes.

But as soon as Lily straightened up, she took off her stilettos, kissed each one and tossed them to the middle-aged men in the front row, as if she were a rock star. A howl rose from the audience. Two men were fighting over a stiletto.

"That wasn't in the script!" I said. Everything was always improvised. Time to drink a little more. Why didn't I relax?

The old lady laughed. "She knows how to egg on the crowd."

More than twenty Nubian men with ostrich feathers, fanned around her in an arc on the stage. She turned around to face the audience and raised her arm, like Cleopatra, hailing her army.

One of the Nubian men stood behind her and untied her mask. Some drunks in the front row whooped. She threw the black mask out into the crowd.

"She's a pistol," the old lady said. "I ran a high school drama club a hundred years ago. Some people are just natural hams."

"Yeah," I said. "She's a drama queen, alright." Why didn't I get another profession? I had no life.

"Is she a wild cat off-stage?" the old lady asked.

"Well," I said. Why was I confiding in this cute little old lady? "Getting ready for this show was no cakewalk."

Bunny Tush had changed her mind a million times. My seamstress had disappeared. I had to sew on the beads myself. Lily hated the costumes. We'd auditioned over a hundred Nubians to get the right guys for the show. We struck a deal with an Egyptian ostrich farmer, who tried to pick me up.

"I'm sure she's no angel," she said.

Those rescued by Lily should understand they were small dill pickles on the side of a juicy leg of a Persian lamb. Besides her cats from the street, (Swink, Pout Face and Julia Childs), there were more wounded: me, Jimmy Doyle, the Irish lush; Clyde Honeydew, the crazy American business professor; and Gabriella, the penniless Italian painter.

Suddenly, two turbaned men in Arabian nights style costumes appeared on the stage. Lily beckoned to the one with the bigger muscles. The other feigned displeasure and drew his sword.

The audience yelled, "Kill him. Kill him."

"A tale of betrayal. That'll make a good story," the old lady said. "Yes, sir."

"If you're not the one being had," I said.

I had heard about Lily poaching men from wives and girlfriends. After all the intrigue I had seen in the biz, why should I be surprised? Maybe I was one of those people who remained perpetually naïve my whole life.

Late one evening last month, after Lily had danced in front of a crowd of fifty at her own apartment, she said to Fathy, Gabriella's lover, "Love, would you mind filling this tub up with water. My feet are so tired. I'm asking you," she said, leaning forward in her black lace-up camisole so he could see her nipples.

"Wallahi," he said. "Seriously?"

"Fathy," Gabriella said, pulling at his hand. "Absolutemente no."

Lily sighed and said, "Gabriella, when he's finished massaging my feet, he'll come to your bed. I need his services more than you."

"Massage services?" Gabriella asked. She was a talented painter who drew charcoal sketches of haunted faces of Pharaohs from the Egyptian Museum, but her English was broken.

"I'll make it worth your while," Lily said, to the young man who was an impoverished painter.

He smiled.

"For crying out loud, Lily. Can't you control yourself?" I said. Did she have to prove to us that she could seduce every man?

"Why should I?"

When Gabriella realized at last what was happening, she stamped her feet and said, "Putana."

"Gabriella, of course, we're still friends," Lily said, smiling. "I'm just borrowing him for a short time."

"Porca! Fill your belly. Stuff your mother! Putana! You cheat me!"

"Let's be European. This is called swinging partners," Lily said. "There's no need to be uncivilized about this."

"Porca! Putana!" Gabriella screamed. "Aaaay. Aaaay." She was wailing. She had enjoyed the attention of Fathy; her first lover since her divorce. I felt sorry for her.

"Gabriella . . . " I said, extending my hand to her. What could I say to her? "Be reasonable. Lily is stealing your man!"

She brushed away my hand. "Everyone of you a cheater. Liars! I stay in this garbage country for my son, Marcello."

"Please . . ." Lily said. "Spare us."

"You're a garbage person," Gabriella said.

The shattering of glass made a deafening explosion. Gabriella had overturned Lily's goldfish tank on her way out.

"Claudia, save my darlings! Ringo Starr! Benny Hill! John Cleese! There's a bucket in the kitchen. Underneath the sink." Lily said. "Don't forget to sweep up the glass."

I was on my hands and knees picking up those helpless goldfish which flopped between shards of glass. Why didn't Lily get off her ass and do it herself? No dummy, she didn't want to work in her parents' inn. From Safinaz Modirzadeh, an Iranian from Manchester, she had transformed herself into Lily of the Night, a Cairene performer. I studied my hands—I needed a manicure badly. Aquamarine pebbles had crusted under my nails.

Why had I elected myself maid? I was under her spell, like everyone else in her life. When I went to report that John Cleese, the angelfish, had died, she was no longer sitting in front of the tub, soaking her feet. Her bedroom door was shut. I put my ear to the door: ecstatic moans of pleasure. A few drunken guests lingered in the living room. They were interested in mooching the last of the Scotch and couldn't care less about the coupling in Lily's bedroom.

Unable to stand it a minute longer, I had gone downtown to the bar, El- Horreya, Freedom, which specialized in salted Lupine beans and local beer. I had gotten plastered. The last thing I remember was Jimmy Doyle quoting Yeats to me in a slur: "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."

Did it matter that much if Bunny's wedding was a fiasco?

Now, Nubian men swirled around Lily, fanning her with large ostrich feathers. The man who won the sword dance had disappeared and another admirer sprang up.

"Are you married?" the old lady said.

"Twice divorced."

I wanted to forget the past. Neal, a drummer for the Doors who spent a summer at Hazelton rehab, had gone cold turkey off of heroin. And Kamal, the doctor, who loved to dance, ran off with a female teenage clerk at a 7-11. In the beginning of our marriage, he had led me across the kitchen floor, in a tango. I was not a good judge of character—that was my problem.

The old lady put her liver—spotted hand over mine—such a tender gesture for someone who didn't know me. "You've just gotten some bad apples, my dear. Some day you'll meet a nice man."

I started to cry. My life had been full of bad apples.

"There, there," the old lady said, patting my arm. "You're probably just exhausted from your work on the show."

"No kidding. I did twenty designs before I got the right costume."

Lily was unlacing her corset. The men in the front row were almost jumping up and down, like monkeys.

I felt the tears rolling down my cheeks. The old lady continued to pat my arm. "Anything underneath Lily's skimpy corset?"

"Silicone." I said.

The old lady giggled. "That's the fashion these days. I was horrified to hear that my granddaughter had implants when she was seventeen. She was just precious before that . . . "

"Traveling by yourself?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "My husband's been gone a year. Spinal cancer. Be a lamb and pour me some more wine, would you?"

"Happy to." I filled her glass.

"I'm so tiny that I can't drink the way I used to," she said. "I have osteoporosis. Terrible disease. Your bones crumble. Don't forget to drink your milk."

"Was your husband a nice man?" I asked.

"Oh, Lord, yes. He was a doll," she said.

"How did you meet?"

"Patrick was good people. Originally from West Texas. He was doin' graduate work at Chapel Hill—History. One day he was sitting under a tree with some other students, talking about the Trail of Tears—which was quite serious. I covered my mouth and started whooping like an Indian. He didn't think I was very funny," she said, giggling.

I laughed.

"My, he was handsome. He had a fine physique. Montgomery Clift except with red hair and green eyes. So proud. Stood tall. He wasn't afraid of anyone or anything."

On stage Lily was arranging the wine glasses for her next act. She would balance on her bare feet on wine glasses. Yeah, so? I'd seen the act hundreds of times. Why was I so uptight?

"At first, we were going to get married in a year. And then six months. And then we just couldn't wait any longer. Young people in the heat of passion."

I had also ended up with Neal at the courthouse after a six-week romance, but our marriage had lasted only two years. And before he left, he had taken all of my Suzanne Vega tapes, my favorite beaded lamp and my ten-speed bike. Really, why did I care now?

"How long were you married?"

"Forty years," she said, sipping off her wine. "It wasn't all roses. There is bound to be a few roadkills in the middle. How does your dancer keep from breaking the glass?"

"It's a trick."

"Yes, sir. Life can throw you off balance. Of course, when we moved to West Texas from North Carolina I cried for a year. There were no trees and my hair went flat," the old lady went on.

"Your hair went flat?"

"It's dry in West Texas. And it wasn't easy being married to Patrick. He was a good man, but he never could say he was sorry. One day we had a fight. Instead of saying he was sorry, he bought me a refrigerator. I said, you know, honey, money doesn't grow in the bathtub. Wouldn't it be easier to say you're sorry? At that time, we were both teachin' school in Lubbock. That was the Depression. And our salaries were in script!"

"One of Lily's lovers bought her a refrigerator," I said. "An Italian arms dealer bought her a white Maserati . . ."

"An arms dealer!" the old lady exclaimed.

"Lily has a lot of admirers," I said.

"Expect so. She's an attractive girl." The old lady smiled, but seemed distracted. "You know, I don't care about things anymore."

"Surely . . ." Did she know that she was going to die? "Are you okay?"

"For now," she said. "I love tearing the house down. When I was in boarding school, I got punished for dancing all night."

"Bunny says that the secret to a good marriage is marrying an Egyptian playboy."

The old lady snorted. "Who's Bunny?"

"She hired us to do the show. You're from Texas. Maybe you know of her. Bunny Tushman. Her family founded Exxon Oil."

"Don't know the name. We lived in a tiny town near Lubbock called Loop. After the war, we moved to South Texas. Way down next to the Mexican border."

"What's the secret to a good marriage?"

"Oh, pooh. There are no formulas," the old lady said and sucked on her cigarette. "But there might be a few key ingredients, just like making good buttermilk biscuits. First, there should be chemistry—that's your butter. That's what holds you together. Being a straight shooter. Being kind. Being able to say you're sorry."

The crowd was stomping their feet. While Lily was standing on the wine glasses with her bare feet, she was balancing a flaming sword on her head—old hat for Lily. She could do the act in her sleep. Why was I worried?

The old lady's blue eyes suddenly welled with tears. "To have to feed him with a spoon. We even had a pulley lift to get him into bed when I couldn't lift him anymore."

"How terrible," I said.

When I looked up though, her tears had vanished. "I have to say, I didn't have any tears left when he died," she said. "When I go, I want to go in my sleep. Like a lamp that suddenly blinks out."

"It's better not to suffer," I said. It was a cliché, but I didn't know what else to say.

"My son wanted to give me the money for a facelift, but I said, 'Son, if I've got a little time left on this earth, I would like to see Egypt,'" she said. She leaned forward and whispered, "Don't tell anyone. I'm on the loose. My son forbade me to leave the U.S. I ran away. No one knows where I am."

Why didn't I go on the loose? Just disappear?

"After Egypt, I'm headed for the Comoros Islands."

At last, Lily took her bow. The crowd was clapping. She waved her hand toward the band and bowed again.

"Of course, I miss Patrick, but life is for the living, my dear. The brave ones," the old lady said, picking up her cane. I glanced down at her swollen ankles.

I had always thought I was a brave person, but now I was not so sure.

On stage, the band was packing up their instruments.

A posse of middle-aged men surged toward a triumphant Lily. She was most herself in an audience's gaze. She hated silence. If she were alone in her apartment, she turned up Jerry Springer at full blast. Her favorite show was Secret Mistresses Confronted. She loved it when the wives threw chairs at the secret mistresses on stage.

Lily was snapping her fingers at me. You are treading on thin ice. Lily never said, "Please." She could wait.

"Why don't you have breakfast with me tomorrow?" I asked.

But when I turned around, the old lady was being escorted out of the tent by an Egyptian waiter. Her white hair bobbed in the crowd.

I moved toward the stage. Bunny rushed toward me. "Claudette, the show was fabulous!"

"Glad it went well," I said. I was tempted to say, "Bun."

A man with an enormous belly was saying to Lily, "Pleased to meetcha, Lily. I'm Chairman of Oil Rig Tools. Could I have a picture with you, sweetheart?"

"Of course," Lily said, giving him a wink.

Bunny whispered in my ear, "Just between you and me, hon, he thinks the sun comes up to hear him crow." She was off her head on something.

The next morning, I searched for the old lady everywhere. At last, I recognized the Egyptian waiter at the front desk, who had escorted her out of the tent the night before. "The old lady from the wedding? What was her name?"

"What?" he asked

.

"You helped an old lady out of the wedding last night."

He looked confused. "I'm sorry, madam. But I didn't help an old lady. I was serving drinks."

"But I'm sure of it. She was sitting at the table with me."

"I never saw an old lady. I served you many times," he said.

Was I drunk? Had I lost my mind?

"There was an old lady sitting with me. I swear to God, you escorted her out of the tent."

"Wallahel Azeem, I never saw any old lady," he said, cupping his hands together. "Have a nice time," he said

.

I spent the rest of the morning by myself at the pool. The place was attractive, but felt artificial—bar stools, shaped in the form of tree trunks in the pool. Lily was riding horses with some of the wedding guests in the desert.

Later that afternoon, I had to give Lily a fitting. She was going to dance again for the wedding party. At the performance she was wearing a more conventional belly-dancing outfit: a simple bra-bodice for a top with a short skirt—decorated with shiny, red beads.

"I look like a pig. Look at this cellulite. Do something!" Lily said.

I dared myself not to flatter her. All I had to say was, "You're beautiful. Wonderful. Of course, you're not fat. You're the most beautiful woman in the world."

"You thought the costume was fine before," I said.

"Take the bloody beads off."

"We don't have time," I said.

I could always make costumes for the other belly-dancers in Cairo. The famous belly-dancer, Lu'lua', Pearl, had called me the other day, begging me to make her a costume. I had put her off. She might be worse than Lily. The bitch you know, better than the bitch you don't know . . . Suddenly, I heard, "Life is for the living, my dear. The brave ones." I could have sworn the old lady had whispered it in my ear. But there was no one in the room, except for Lily.

I was adjusting the thin spaghetti strap over Lily's shoulder in the mirror. If I didn't like it, why didn't I get out? I had a pin in my teeth. I glanced in the full-length mirror. Lily was admiring the curve of her neck. I got another pin from my pincushion. When I looked up, she was smiling at me.

"Kiss. Kiss," Lily said. But when she smiled, her face did not move, as if it were a mask. "Don't you think you should go on a diet? You've really let yourself go."

I remembered how the tiny, wizened lady had described her love for her husband, Patrick, the night before. "For better and for worse." Debilitating illness fell on the side of "for worse."

"You know what," I said, handing Lily the scissors. "I think I'm going to throw in the towel."

More than anything, I wanted to spend a month on the Egyptian peninsula of Sinai in one of those Bedouin camps—where you get up early and sit on the white sand all day long, eat fresh, grilled snapper when you are hungry, let the sand run through your toes, pick up driftwood and pieces of curled shells, bob in the water like a cork. The salty water buoys you up when you float—makes you feel light. Carefree. And when your ears are under the water, you are soothed by a slight hum.

Lily said, "You're being ridiculous. We haven't finished the job."

"This is the last show," I said. "You don't need me. The costume is fine."

"Claudia," she said. "You can't skive off. Not after all I've done for you."

"We're more or less done," I said.

"I'll dock your share if you walk out now," Lily said.

I shrugged. I had a stash in my drawer at home. Money under the tile, as the Egyptians would say. Enough for six months in a Bedouin camp.

"You're nothing without me," Lily said.

"Fuck off!"

"You'll do what I tell you," Lily shouted.

My ears were under water. I was in my swimming suit, floating on my back, buoyed up by salty water. I heard Lily's cursing, but this time it didn't touch me. She threw the scissors at me, but I jumped out of the way.

I slammed the door behind me and skipped like a kid down the red carpet of the Marriott hallway—no more bordellos. No more shiny red beads. No more flattery. No more cursing.

Instead, I was bobbing in the Red Sea.

Copyright©2009 Gretchen McCullough
Published StoryGlossia, September 2009