In the Eye of the Storm

  Maybe we should turn and…

  Nonsense! Get a grip! You didn’t get where you are today by being afraid of a little bit of sand!

  ‘Please, Effendi!’ At the shout, I glanced around to see Youssef galloping towards us. To judge by the look on his face, he didn’t share my determination. ‘Please, let us stop! We have to stop moving! The storm isn’t dispersing, it’s headed right towards us! We cannot…’

  Cannot?

  Cannot?

  That word did not appear in my vocabulary. Turning to face the storm again head-on, I urged my camel forward, heading straight for the heart of the howling maelstrom of sand.

  *~*~**~*~*

  Darkness.

  Absolute darkness, and roaring, tumultuous silence.

  Hot sand was burning my face. And my hands. And other places. Around me, devils were dancing in the wind, spitting fire, laughing at me. Faint images danced in front of my inner eye. Water, shimmering in the distance. A maul with great fangs, opening, ready to swallow me up.

  Memories? Visions?

  I had no idea. Right then and there, I didn’t care.

  ‘Mr Ambrose!’

  That voice… that face. I might not be too sure about everything else, but that face was no figment of my exhausted imagination. Never in my life would I dream up a female this tenacious, stubborn, and… beautiful.

  Wait a minute - what did you just think there?

  It had to be the dehydration. I was starting to lose my mind.

  ‘Mr Ambrose!’

  Even as a hallucination, she was darn persistent. I could have sworn her voice was coming closer…

  The next moment, the figure of a muffled Arab appeared next to me. What the-

  It took me a moment to realize that the face behind the white cloth was not the dark-skinned face of an Arab. Oh no.

  ‘Mr Ambrose, Sir! Are you alive?’

  ‘Go away,’ he growled.

  What were the chances of her actually doing what I told her, for once in her life?

  ‘Why on earth should I?’ she demanded.

  As I thought. Zero.

  Memories were slowly started to come back. She wasn’t a hallucination. She had followed me into the storm - against my express orders, of course. And then… the rising winds, the fall from the camel… and then, blackness.

  ‘It’s not safe wandering around in this kind of tempest!’ I growled up at her.

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, you’ve only just figured that out, have you?’

  ‘I told you to stay where you were!’

  ‘And I didn’t listen. Now come, get over here.’

  This was intolerable!

  ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? Go!’ I tried to push myself up, tried to push her away from here, back where it would be safe - but my body seemed to have different ideas. It sank back down, sending a bolt of pain through me. An indistinct noise escaped the back of my throat. ‘Go, I said! My lungs are being shredded! You have a camel; maybe you can make it out of here alive. Leave me to die in peace!’

  Emphasis on in peace.

  ‘Not a chance in hell! If you’re going to die, I’m going to make sure your last minutes on this earth are as miserable as possible!’

  ‘How very kind of you!’

  Something tugged at me. Apparently, my dear semi-wife had decided that there was a better stretch of sand for dying on than the one I was currently occupying. I looked up at her - for the first time really looked and, underneath the stubborn mask, saw the fear flickering in her eyes. Fear for me. I tried to reach out to her - in vain. My hand wouldn’t move. ‘No! Leave me! Save yourself!’

  In a flash, the fear was gone from her eyes. She stared at me suspiciously. ‘Are you being unusually noble, or do you simply not want a girl to save your stony behind?’

  Interesting question.

  And the answer?

  Both.

  She seemed to take my silence as an answer, though. Her eyes flared hotter than the desert sand.

  ‘So that’s the way it is, is it? Well, I’ve got news for you, Dick, my darling.’ She gave a firm tug on my arm again. Suppressing a groan, I slid a few inches in her direction. ‘I’ve still got a wedding ring on my finger, and so do you, however temporary it may be. Do you know what that means? That means that right now I vow in the presence of God, a camel and a buttload of sand, to be your faithful partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, in happiness as well as in sadness, and even when you behave like a bloody arrogant idiot!’

  Well, thank you very much, darling.

  ‘I promise to hate you unconditionally, to support you in your aspirations as long as you pay me for it, and to honour and respect you as long as I get a free day off every week. This-’ she gave another violent tug, and I slid closer to the shelter of the camel, ‘is - my - solemn - vow!’[31]

  I cleared my throat, spitting out sand.

  ‘How moving.’

  ‘You think it’s moving? Then move your behind! We have to get over there, pronto!’ She pointed to the dark outline of her camel, which was lazily snoring through the sandstorm a couple of yards away. ‘At least Ambrose will give us some shelter from the storm!’

  ‘You,’ I rasped, somehow managing to stagger to my feet and stumble over to her mount, ‘are going to change that camel’s name!’

  ‘Oh, I am, am I?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘We’ll see about that.’

  Exhausted, we slumped to the ground next to the erroneously named camel. My dear wife started rummaging in the camel’s saddlebag and, a second later, pulled out - of all things! - a headscarf, pouring some of the remaining water from her flask over it.

  ‘Here!’ She held the thing out to me. ‘Put that over your mouth and nose!’

  I gave her a look - the same kind of look with which I had sent gunslingers, highwaymen and aristocrats running for the hills.

  ‘That is Arabian women’s clothing! I will most certainly not-’

  Smack! The rest of my words were drowned in wet cloth. I choked, trying to pull the thing from my face - then stopped. Somehow, even with the cloth over my face, it was suddenly easier to breath.

  ‘Leave it on if you do not want to choke to death!’ came the voice of my beloved wife from beyond the moist barrier. ‘If you do, be my guest and remove it.’

  ‘What was that about honouring and respecting me?’ I enquired from behind the wet cloth.

  ‘You remember the conditions, don’t you? I haven’t gotten a day off since we started on this accursed trip!’

  ‘Well, then I have good news for you.’ Reaching up, I pulled the infernal effeminate cloth off my eyes. But, as discreetly as possible, I left it over my mouth and nose. To some degree, she appeared to be right. It was easier to breathe with the thing on.

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Oh yes, indeed.’ I swept my arm around, gesturing at the storm raging around us. ‘I give you the rest of the day off.’

  ‘Thanks so much, Sir!’ Her voice was dripping with sarcasm. For some reason, in the safety of the wet headscarf, I felt one corner of my mouth twitch the tiniest bit in some kind of muscle spasm. ‘I’m going to the nearest café right away to enjoy a nice cup of tea and a piece of apple pie!’

  ‘You’re welcome!’ I rasped. ‘And don’t forget-’

  Whatever I would have said was cut of by a bellow of storm wind. Darkness descended around us, closing in from all directions, cutting off the sunlight as efficiently as a guillotine cutting the heads off the French aristocracy.

  Hm.

  Interesting.

  ‘What in God’s name…!’ I heard my dear wife’s voice out of the darkness. ‘What is going on?’

  It is going dark, my dear. You can tell that from the lack of light everywhere.

  ‘Holy Moses and macaroons!’

  ‘Ha!’ Sometimes, she had quite an interesting way with words.

  ‘What is happening?’

  I decided that her limited fema
le mental capacity could probably use some help in assessing the situation. ‘The sun is dying,’ I rasped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look.’ I stretched out my arm. It hadn’t moved far before its end disappeared in a dark fog, thicker than the smoke from the biggest of my factories. And that was saying something.

  ‘This… this can’t happen! A storm can’t block out the sun like that! It would have to be…’

  I nodded. ‘Several miles high.’

  ‘No! No, that can’t happen! It simply can’t!’

  Females! Impressively talented when it came to ignoring reality.

  ‘Apparently, it can.’

  I felt her shifting around in the darkness. ‘Bloody hell! No!’

  Was she still in denial? Women!

  She moved again. I felt her slide closer, and then-

  ‘Ouch!’

  A hand grabbed hold of my ear - and not gently either. This was intolerable! It was the second time on our journey she was trying to rip my ears off. Was she going to make a habit of this kind of thing?

  Grabbing her arm, I pulled her up against the camel. If she wanted to grab hold of something to sooth her feminine fears, she could just as well use it, and not me. Particularly not parts of me that I still intended to use for the purpose of hearing.

  ‘I would advise you,’ I told her, keeping my voice cool and calm, ‘to let go of my ear immediately.’

  ‘Ah.’ To her credit - in the non-banking sense - she did sound apologetic. ‘Sorry.’

  She let go, and I pulled her farther up against the camel, where she would have the best company and comfort available. It didn’t seem to work as intended, though. After only a few moments, I heard a low whimper out of the darkness.

  I felt a sudden tug in my chest, and before I knew what was happening, I found myself asking, in a half-shout, half-whisper: ‘What’s wrong?’

  What the… Why on earth would I want to know?

  ‘I… I’m alone.’

  The voice coming out of the darkness didn’t sound at all like her usual voice. It didn’t sound at all like a little fiery ifrit. It sounded soft and… scared?

  I felt that tug in my chest again. What was the matter? Had I pulled a muscle?

  ‘No, you’re not,’ I told her briskly. ‘The camel is here.’

  That should clear up the matter.

  ‘The camel hates my guts!’

  ‘Intelligent animal.’ Though I couldn’t see how personal feelings entered into the matter under discussion. I thought we had been talking about aloneness versus company.

  ‘You… you’re doing this on purpose!’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Making me angry!’ Came a growl out of the darkness. It sounded much more like her usual self. ‘So I won’t be afraid.’

  In the safety of the darkness, I felt my lips tremble, wanting to shift into an almost-smile. I clamped down on the urge, hard.

  ‘Is it working?’

  ‘Yes, blast you!’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘That’s all you’ve got to say? You are a bloody bank-vault-like, close-mouthed bastard!’

  Ah, yes. Now she sounded very much like her usual self. Why was it that her insults made me want to reach out and pull her closer? Usually, when people insulted me, they didn’t live past the next dawn. But she… she was a different matter.

  How to respond?

  ‘I see.’ I paused, again struggling against the incomprehensible urge to reach out into the darkness. ‘Or rather, I don’t see. Anything, in fact.’

  ‘Ha, ha! That’s so funny!’

  Silence fell between us. Or, at least, the absence of words. The whirling darkness battered against us, making the lack of words painfully loud in my ears. I had never minded silence. But right now…

  ‘Mr Ambrose?’

  Her voice broke the roaring quiet, tentatively.

  ‘Yes?’

  She hesitated. What in God’s name would make my dear, temporary wife hesitate? This had to be good. Or, more likely, very, very bad.

  ‘I… feel alone.’

  Bad. Worse. Terrible. I felt an iron fist clench around my heart. Definitely a pulled muscle!

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I don’t want to be alone right now.’

  Her words hit me like a fist. No, that wasn’t right. I was very adept at dodging fists. But this I couldn’t dodge. It hit me like a bullet. Fast. Hard. Unavoidable.

  And before I could think of anything to say, there was her hand, brushing over the sleeve of my tailcoat. My whole body stiffened under her touch. She had touched me before - more than just touched, in fact - but this was different. There was meaning in every tiny movement. A meaning that I didn’t entirely comprehend. I wasn’t even sure whether I wanted to.

  Her fingers slid down my arm. When they reached the bare skin of my hand, I sucked in a quick breath, lost in the storm. Cautiously, almost tenderly, she brushed away a few grains of sand and stroked the skin underneath.

  What in the name of all that is profitable…!

  I wanted to say something, wanted to order her to stop, to never stop, but something was lodged in my throat, blocking any words from escaping. When I finally managed to squeeze a few syllables past the blockade, I didn’t recognize my own voice: ‘I thought that sort of thing between us was reserved for the dark of the night.’

  Her voice came out of the storm, sweet and soft. ‘It looks pretty dark to me.’

  A pause. Then… ‘Yes. You’re right, it does.’

  My arms came up, and, without asking for my permission, reached out towards her.

  *~*~**~*~*

  During the course of my life-long struggle for economic world-domination, I had visited a number of considerably dark places. The fur-hunting grounds of Alaska during the polar night, the catacombs of Rome, even the coal mines in my own native country—they all ranked quite high on the darkness scale. However, not one of them, it was my studied opinion, could compete with the utter and oppressive darkness that was now pressing in on us from all sides, battering us with sharp whiplashes of sand. If I were able to bottle this darkness, I could make a fortune selling it to countries suffering under prolonged heatwaves.

  The something in my arms shifted, and I wondered if similar thoughts were going through its mind.

  It. Yes, definitely it. I didn’t dare think of it as ‘her’. Not now that my arms were around her, and she was pressed up against me in a way that was… very distracting. Intolerably so.

  ‘What’s that?’ a soft voice asked from somewhere below my chin. A voice that most definitely belonged to a ‘her’, not an ‘it’. Damn!

  A cautious hand touched my neck.

  ‘That’s me. My neck.’

  Was it only the sand that made my voice sound so rough? I tried to believe it, but…

  The cautious hand stopped being cautious. With soft fingers it took hold of my neck and pulled me down, demandingly. I didn’t resist

  ‘No, I mean that smell,’ the it that was a she whispered. ‘Has the camel had something bad for breakfast?’

  I felt a nose tickle my armpit, and had to fight the instinct to… what? Flinch away? Grab hold of her and pull her closer? This was infuriatingly illogical! How could one thing motivate you to wish to take two different kinds of actions?

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I stated, shoving those enervatingly illogical thoughts aside. ‘That smell might come from the fact that you have your nose buried in my armpit.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Oh? Oh! What’s that supposed to mean?

  A pause. The storm roared on. She didn’t remove her nose from my armpit.

  You just thought ‘she’. ‘She’, not ‘it’. You’re done for!

  ‘Um…’ Her voice was softer than ever before. I could hardly believe this was the same creature that had harried me like a little devil since the moment she had first stepped into my office. Like a little ifrit. My little Ifrit.

  ‘It’s a nice armpit.’
br />   My breath caught—and not because of the sandstorm. Her words stirred something inside of me. For a long moment, I couldn’t figure out why. They were not particularly impressive words, after all, whether seen from a contentual, poetical or linguistic point of view. But then I realized that those words, spoken by that soft voice, were the first compliment I had received in years.

  Oh, people had complimented my wealth, my achievements and even, if they felt like risking their lives, my noble parentage. But no one, as far as I could remember, had ever complimented anything that was essentially me. Granted, my armpit was perhaps not my most stunning feature, but still…

  Instinctively, I felt my arms tighten around the creature in my arms that I could not think of as a ‘she’, and that still was so soft, so feminine…

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Feels good.’ The soft voice from the dark hesitated for a moment. Then, lower, so low I almost couldn’t hear it anymore, it added in a whisper: ‘All of you does.’

  I felt like all the breath had left my body. But that didn’t matter, because plenty of blood was still there, pumping hot and hard, shattering the ice in my veins.

  What is the matter with you? What is happening?

  I tried to remove my arms from around it, but they wouldn’t let go, instead closing tighter around her, for yes, she was a her, all softness and curves in my arms that pressed into me all over my body, setting me on fire. I had to let go! Had to! Had to! Had t-’

  ‘So do you.’ The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

  Suddenly, the black wind around us slammed into us hard. There was a cry from the dark and something soft and warm slammed into me. No - not something. Someone!

  Dear, merciless King Midas…

  Once more, my arms tightened instinctively and, inwardly, I cursed. God had really made an abominable construction error when he invented instincts.

  ‘Oh God…’ The sound of her voice, trembling, hardly audible in the roaring dark, tore at something deep inside me. ‘I… I’m scared!’

  ‘So am I.’

  What the…?!

  What had I just said? I was never scared, as a matter of principle. Never! And, even if by some insane fluke of nature I were at some future point in time to become scared of something, I would never be so gormless as to actually admit it!