CAIRO AT LAST, WITH LIZZIE
The plane came in to a fine, smooth landing. We taxied slowly towards the airport buildings and, as usual, before the airplane stopped impatient passengers ignoring the crew's protests stood up and started pulling their affairs from the overhead racks. We were amongst the last to leave and when we reached the door of the plane, the chill hit us. It was one past midnight, the coldest hour of the coldest period of the Egyptian winter. Lizzie was lightly clothed and started shivering. We rushed to the bus and I opened my jacket, pulled her to me and closed it again as far as possible around her back to warm her with my body, indifferent to whether we were shocking our neighbors.
The bus moved off. We were standing and swaying as the driver used all his skill to throw us off balance but I held fast to the bus and to Lizzie, breathing in her smell, getting intoxicated. It stopped with a screech. Perhaps the driver was testing his brakes. We descended and rushed inside the airport building. Lizzie was shivering again. We stood in line for passport control. Holding hands. The desks were empty. A few minutes passed then a crumpled, sleepy group of police officers emerged from an office, sat at their desks and started inspecting the passports.
Our turn came. The officer leafed through our passports creasing the pages carelessly. Exit visas present, reentry visas in order, a look at me to match face with picture, three looks and a smile at Lizzie. A smile from Lizzie to keep him happy for a week. 'Maa Salama, go in peace.' You too, you nice man. Off to the spot where they were unloading the luggage from a truck. Conveyor belts were still in the future. Lizzie sticking to me, holding my hand, holding my arm, smiling, distracting my search of our suitcases. Acting as if she were really in love. I believed her. I loved her too, utterly, implacably. I spotted them, moved off, picked them up and carried them to the customs' bench. Lizzie followed. I gave the official our passports. Another inspection and this time I declared my dollars so I could take them out of the country again without risking jail. He asked me to open the bags. Good, I was going to open them, anyway. He searched them from the sides and then even before I shut them he scribbled on them with a piece of chalk and moved to another customs' customer. I shut my bag and from Lizzie's bag retrieved a red-brown coat I bought for her.
'Here, Lizzie, put on your coat.' A delighted smile. Put it on and looked at herself as best she could, checked the length bending slightly, leg outstretched. She came up to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
'It's very nice. Thank you. My second present today. After my freedom.'
A porter helped us with our luggage to the taxi stand and we entered a rickety, creaking caricature of a car. I gave him the address and off we went at a breakneck forty, draughts coming in from everywhere. The air of freedom. The traffic was practically non-existent. In the early sixties Cairo used to take time off to sleep. Not too many years later, with the breathless tripling and quadrupling of size, housing, population of humans and vehicles it entered the period of permanent insomnia. Lizzie brought my hand to her mouth and kissed it.
'I wouldn't change this cab for anything in the world,' she said. 'It has symbolic value. It personifies my freedom. It is a contrast to my last visit here in private planes, limousines and luxury hotels, and my first suspicion, especially after I saw you that this was not happiness. What is the good of money if it only provides the security for infinite boredom? What is the use of a luxurious prison? That is why I now think keeping animals in cages is a perversion. Having zoos is unethical. Abdullah turned out to be unethical. Keeping his loose change may be unethical too but I consider it my due compensation for his selfishness and inconsideration.'
Even forty kilometers an hour is good enough in an empty city. In any case, in that cab greater speed would have been suicidal. Half an hour later, we were below Pavlo's family home. I told Lizzie that this was not my home but one borrowed from a friend. I paid the taxi and we carried our bags to the elevator. Closed the doors, pressed the button and in the slow ascent to the eighth floor Lizzie pressed her body to mine and her tongue teased my lips. I held her tightly inhaling her fragrance, marveling at her complexion, satiating my soul with beauty.
'It seems we are destined to start our erotic foreplay in elevators,' she said smiling.
I kissed her with the same awe and passion as in that other elevator three years ago but with the unbearable foreboding of parting absent. We stopped at the eighth floor and kept on kissing, lost in bliss when suddenly the elevator started descending. I pressed the stop button and returned to the eighth floor and we entered the flat. I switched on the lights. It was warm inside. It was one of a handful of buildings in Cairo that had central heating. We peeled off coats and jackets and Lizzie snuggled again into my arms, her smiling face searching for a kiss.
'Let me show you the house, my love. It's a lovely flat.'
'Just show me the bedroom, my sweet.'
We kissed again, her tongue hurrying me up, reaching for my throat. My Goddess of love was aroused and so was her worshiper. I led her down the corridor to the master bedroom and switched on the light. Lizzie looked at the room, the bed and bathroom.
'How very comfortable we are,' she said. 'What a spacious bedroom. A nice solid bed too. Able to stand considerable punishment.'
'Do you plan to punish it considerably?'
'Break it to bits if I can help it. Can't do it alone though. You'll have to lend me a hand'
She took off coat and jacket then her shoes and her trousers and walked to the bed in her silk shirt. Being absorbed in the adoration of her face, I had forgotten the perfection of her body. Those luscious breasts and perfect legs, the tapering calves and thin ankles. She moved to the bed, made as if she were testing it with her hands, her pantied bottom giving me a peak and turned to me with a grimace of approval, then got on it and stretched her arms to me. I sat next to her and turned to kiss her. She captured my head for an interminable kiss and another and another.
'Take off your clothes, baby.'
I did, fast, and turned to her again. She got off the bed. Moist, breathless kisses punctuated the removal of her shirt, bra and panties. Then on it for the primordial struggle, breathless and agonizing. Oh, the deliciousness of those first wild and tender caresses, the impulse to possess and touch every part of her body. A Goddess was writhing in my arms bidding me to enter a mysterious gate open between two legs of consummate beauty. Under what lucky star was I born to have merited such a fate? Kiss me my love. Let me caress you. I love the way you handle me. Yes, I am in a hurry too. Here I am, Lizzie. Oh yes, oh God, now we are one. Two persons fused in one. I have become a God inside you. Yes, yes, I shall move, my love. I want to make it last, this bliss. I want to stay inside you forever. To be with you in heaven forever. We're taking off. I love you, I love you. Yes, you love me, too. I believe you, I feel it. I know you love me. I love the way you move, a Goddess beyond the slightest doubt. Yes, move, move. Oh my God, the quake is coming. Lizzie, I love you. I love you, desperately. You are my life. Nothing else counts. Oh, Lizzie. Oh my God.
We collapsed in a devastating explosion.
Quarter of an hour later we started stirring. A hand ruffled my hair and smoothed it down again. I opened my eyes, two eyes next to mine on the pillow, mainly green, a hint of gray with hairline radii of yellow, barely noticeable, spreading outward from the iris. Eyes with the air of vulnerability from a slight cross-eyed suggestion, concealing their predatory nature, the tearing to pieces of my heart, now elongated and crinkly at the edges, assisting a smile of Mediterranean warmth, of red, full lips and pearly white teeth. Above, the hair disturbingly disordered. Below, the naked body of my dreams, perfect to a tenth of a millimeter. I smiled back and we were drawn to a kiss. Two human magnets, two opposite charges pulling at each other. Our bodies enlaced autonomously. We were too tired to try, too tired to resist. I slid into my hungry beauty and for a time, on our sides, only our lips and tongues kept our arousal on edge until the buildup of energy and tension urgently needed a release. The Goddess mounted her captive to lead him at a gallop in the green fields of her eyes, the warm springs of her loins, to bathe him with the love he longed for in a dreamland of sensuous exaltation.
Lizzie did not recover from her second orgasm. She did not wake up again that night. In any case, it was already past four in the morning. I managed to pull back the covers and tuck her in like a baby. I switched off the light, went to the other side of the spacious bed and slipped inside the bedcovers, snuggled next to my naked, satiated Goddess, caressed a body dead to the world and prepared to spend our first night together inhaling her odor mingled with that of our sweat, her secretions and my semen.
In the morning, I heard a noise in the house and got out of bed to investigate. I put on a pair of trousers and went to the kitchen. I recognized a servant girl from the few Pavlos kept in his flat. A pleasant looking, dark girl of thirty-five with a ready smile. Pavlos never employed a man, never an ugly woman. He paid his domestics well and spoke to them atrociously, mostly in good humor. The girl, called Karima, had cleaned the flat the last few days and Pavlos instructed her to continue in our service throughout our stay and prepare our breakfast in the morning. One good turn deserves another and sometimes it does happen. For ages, I was annoyed with Pavlos because of the indifference he showed when I took care of his horses for long periods. He took for granted the expense I incurred, the trouble and the time consumed. Now he pays it back in one go when I need it most.
I went to the bathroom, had a refreshing shower and wrapped in a towel brought our bags in the room. I opened the curtains, letting in the sunshine of a clear blue sky.
Then I woke up Lizzie with a kiss and she gave me a smile.
'Lizzie, my darling, good morning. Please get up, we have work to do.'
'Good morning my lover. We are in Cairo! Incredible!'
'Do you want to take a shower?'
'I should think so. I stink.'
'It's not that bad; it's the smell of love.'
She threw off the covers, got out of bed with the spring of a gymnast, walked just as she was barefoot and nude, tousle-haired and beautiful, to the bathroom and sat on the toilet bowl, regal as on a throne. What an apparition. I closed the bathroom door and heard the trickle of liquid from the throne. By the time I dressed, she finished her shower and came out wrapped in a towel, holding a hair drier. 'Can you help me, Michael?' She sat facing the mirror of the makeup cabinet and I began drying her hair, which curled and shaped up on its own as it dried. Smiles swapped through the mirror.
'Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?' A smile.
'Okay, your hair's almost dry. It doesn't even need to be combed. Just brushed a little.'
She got up, after brushing her hair and applied a little makeup she kept in her small handbag. I smiled to think she had escaped from Arabia in just the clothes she was wearing and this tiny handbag packed with the few cosmetics she was now using. The Goddess was, of course, a woman.
'Hey, Michael. I have no clothes and no clean underwear. I shall have to put on the coat you gave me just as I am, naked underneath. Do you think it will be noticed?'
'Well, perhaps not, if all buttons are buttoned up. Relax baby, Uncle Mickey has thought of everything. What about this bag I have been lugging to Arabia and back packed with your clothing. Didn't you notice?'
I put the bag on the bed and opened it. Lizzie curiously pulled the clothes out one by one. With exclamations and smiles and laughs. She found her underwear and put on a bra and panties. Then she selected a skirt, a shirt, a pullover and a jacket. She also found some nylons to keep her warm. She started dressing. Chuckling all the while.
I went round the bed to the cupboard, swung open its leaf and opened the drawers.
'Come Lizzie, come see the rest of your wardrobe and if you see anything in bad taste please don't laugh at me.'
She came to the cupboard with a surprised smile and looked at its contents.
'Oh Michael, I am speechless! Look at all that! A regular trousseau. You really are a darling!'
'Funny, how life is. Usually women get their trousseau for their impending marriage. You got it due to a separation and an impending divorce. In any case, it's just a stopgap. You'll probably throw it all away once you'll be able to buy your own clothes.'
She finished dressing in a few minutes and we went out to the dining room. Karima had set breakfast on half of the huge dining table, with orange juice, hot tea, a selection of cheeses, eggs and foul medammes. She came out of the kitchen as we were coming in the dining room, smiled at Lizzie and told her, 'Hamdella bil Salama.' Lizzie smiled back sweetly and said, 'Marhab,' a greeting used by the Gulf Arabs. We were both famished and set out to raze the food. Karima hovered in the background being useful, collecting a used plate or refilling the teapot, unable to take her eyes off Lizzie, giving her smiles whenever their eyes met. Later she tried to communicate with her but discovered the language barrier and they both reverted to an improvised sign language accompanied by innumerable smiles.
'Lizzie, my love, will you stop smiling at Karima and pay attention. We shall now go to the American Embassy. It is next door, only a few hundred meters away. We shall go to the Consulate section to get you a tourist visa for the States. We have to tell them a fib. A credible story so we'll not only get a visa but get it fast.'
'I suppose it is out of the question to tell them my true story.'
'Absolutely. We shall get into a dangerous mess and give Abdullah a fair chance to get you back because you will not be able to leave Egypt for months. The Egyptian courts might prevent you from leaving the country and eventually may hand you back to your lawful husband. We are in the Middle East where the incredible is not only possible but also very often probable. Let alone the complications I shall get into for forging a false passport. No, as I told you before, we must get a visa on this false passport to get you out of here fast. So give me a good story. If I'm correct, you shall be interviewed by the vice-Consul.'
'What good story?'
'Why you want a visa to the States.'
'Okay, I'll try. I am Evangelia Makris, am I not?'
'Correct. You are not Lisa, the girl I am head over heels in love with. You're my wife and, incidentally, probably I am starting to get a little bored with you. Go on.'
'Stop being nasty.'
'Okay, go on.'
'So I have family in the U.S. and I want to visit them.'
'Okay. Fair enough Mrs. Makris, come back in two weeks' time. Your visa will be ready by then.'
'Two weeks?'
'Sure, what's the hurry?'
'My aunt is seriously ill. Last stages of cancer. She is dying and I must hasten and see her before she passes away.'
'Aha! Why didn't you say so?'
'I didn't think your visa would take so long.'
'Mrs. Makris, where were you born?'
'In Egypt.'
'Oh? And from where does that authentic Bostonian accent derive? With the dropping of R 's and all? Quite like our president Kennedy.'
'Ah, ah. Oh, yes. When my mother died, I went and lived until I was eighteen in Boston with my mother's sister, my aunt. She brought me up. She was a real mother to me. I love her very much, so you understand my anxiety to see her one last time alive. Boo hoo hoo. So please, please, please, speed up my visa.'
'Terrific Lizzie. There you have a credible story. But you'd better leave the boo hoo hoo out. The Epilogue is that you came back to Egypt at eighteen because your father was getting old and had health problems and, here, you met this wonderful young man, Michael G. Makris, fell madly in love with him, married him and lived in sexual bliss ever after.'
'Until he started getting bored of me.'
'Oh my love, you know that's inconceivable.'
'I didn't like it. Even as a joke.'