She closed her eyes. There was the long ridge she’d climbed once, she was sure, and the tree covered with flowers like long feathers of the palest, most delicate pink. As she went beneath it, the bright, innocent voice of a young man said, “Only an hour,” and she cried, for she had been hearing that promise, it seemed, since before the beginning of time itself. “Where are you?” she whispered into the dark, “Please, where are you?”
Her eyes grew heavy, and sleep came upon her. She dreamed of a little town snuggled in a gap in the flower-tossed ridges, with stone houses and sheaths for roofs. And she was a new bride, and he was there, a shadow among the bright shadows. He said, “The ringer stands by the bell.” In his voice she could hear his smile.
Then another voice spoke, rough and quick. It said, “Allah be praised, there’s already a corpse in here.”
Another said, “That can’t be.”
Light flooded her eyelids. She was disoriented. It felt as if absolutely no time had passed at all. Then she remembered that she’d been sleeping here, and dreaming, and it had been such a good dream, she hated, oh, hated coming back from it.
Wallowing up from the formless, timeless sleep of her kind, she first felt her healing and knew that she had slept for hours, and the hours had served her well. Then she opened her eyes into two twisted, glaring human faces.
She fought for composure, but her heart was breaking. “I am sleeping here by the will of God,” she said in her archaic, painfully formal Arabic. She’d been discovered! Now, she would know the terror of destruction.
The older face disappeared. His voice said, “Bridge? This is the coffin room. We have a stowaway. No, in the coffin we were going to use for Emil. She looked dead, but her eyes opened. She’s looking around. Listen to me, with God’s help, send First Officer Tahrir please.” Then he whispered: “With a gun. There is something that is strange.”
She sat up, her eyes flickering toward some direction of escape. There was only the one door, which they were blocking. They manhandled the stinking remains of their fellow crewman into one of the coffins.
As they were completing this, another man came in. He was wearing an open jacket of dark blue and a white, rumpled shirt. In his right hand he carried a black, mean-looking gun.
The man said, “Who are you? Can you speak?”
She thought it better not to.
“Hear, then? Can you hear?” He turned to the others. “Has she said anything?”
“It’s the djin that was in Cairo.”
“What djin?”
“Eating people and leaping over buildings. Up two stories, five stories. It was all over the television.”
“I didn’t see anything about it.”
“You officers, you only watch CNN. It was on Al-Jazeera every day.”
“Al-Jazeera. So it’s an absurdity. But this girl is—look at her. Under all that grime, she cannot be twenty. And certainly she’s not the Monster of Cairo.”
“Then you did see.”
“Of course I saw, you fool. Do you think we live in a mosque because we’re officers? I am an Egyptian just like you.”
“I’m Yemeni.”
“That’s right, Mahmood. Yemeni.” He picked up a black object and held it against his face. “Captain, yes. I am escorting a stowaway from the morgue.” He glanced over at Lilith, who gave him a tiny, hopeful smile. “No, no, you will be surprised,” he said into the object. He looked again at her. “You will be in amazement, Captain.” He replaced the object onto a hook. “Come,” he said, “come out of there now, girl. What is your name, please?” His hand was laid upon the butt of the gun.
She could reach over and take it, but she wasn’t sure how to make it expel the darts. She had never held a gun, but she wanted very much to hold one and examine it, and understand the workings. Not now, though. If she did it now, she would soon have others with more guns coming in while she tried to duplicate the hand movements she’d seen them use on the things. So she said instead, “My name is Lilith.”
“Oh, the djin of the night! You are not Arab, not Egyptian. Are you a Jew, then? Lilith was the demoness of the Jews, yes?”
What was he saying?
“Adam’s first wife, yes? You must be rather old, Lilith. But you look rather young.” He chuckled.
She could not mistake his leer, but she also could not answer him. She didn’t know how.
“Not talking, eh? Well, that’s understandable. But it doesn’t matter. He’s not turning back for a stowaway, not this far out. You’ll make it to New York, all right.” He laughed. “Then they’ll put you in INS lockup. That’s a pretty way to see America.”
Not much of this made sense. This “America” was apparently the Egyptian colony to which the ship was being sailed. But what the “INS” might be, or how a lockup worked—these things were not clear at all.
“Come on, silent beauty, let me introduce you to the man who’s going to spend the rest of the trip fucking your brains out.” He laughed again, higher this time—she thought, with a little madness in it. “Captain’s a blondie, too.”
They went into a small room that hummed. There they stood for some moments. Lilith was aware of the sensation of movement, but could not tell the direction.
“My God, have you been shitting yourself in there? You smell like the sewers of fucking Lagos.”
“I thirst.”
Now they passed down a corridor, and the man threw open a door into a bright room with a large wooden chest in it. On the top of the chest were piled papers and a machine with a panel on it that glowed. A man in white clothing sat behind the chest, using an instrument that was easily recognizable for what it did. He had a stylus, and was writing with it, or scribbling, rather, like a child. There was no ink pot.
“Now you have me a stowaway, Mr. T., how nice. How very nice. Have you informed the company?”
“No, sir, I brought her here first.”
His head came up from his doodling. “Well.” Their eyes met. She saw his pupils dilate. In a low, strained growl, he said, “And here you are…God…”
“I thought it best to inform you first, you see.”
“Abdel, thank you.” He arose from behind the chest, came around it. He drew back her hood, which she had raised to conceal her filthy hair. “My, my, an innocent girl. Are you from home? Or perhaps Sweden?” He turned to his friend. “Does she have any ID?”
“She calls herself Lilith.”
“Ah, the famous demoness. How promising. Are you fancying yourself a demoness, Lilith? Or, look at you—are you maybe the real thing?”
She could not think how to answer him. He was a commoner, and would not know the language of the rulers. Nevertheless, she tried. “I am the Lily of the Valley,” she said in pharaonic Egyptian.
“That’s not Swedish,” the man said with a smile. He waved his hand before him. “Get her a shower, for God’s sake. And something to wear—oh, let me look at that.” He came around the chest and took the hem of her cloak. Then he met the eyes of the other man. “This is very fine,” he said. “Lilith, you must have a family. Am I wrong about your age? Are you a runaway? Because you know that this calfskin, it’s not cheap, this.”
“Why would she be dressed in a cloak? And look at the dress, Captain. Of linen.”
“You’re an interesting specimen, Lilith. Let’s get her cleaned up, Mr. T. You can use my bathroom, Lilith.”
She was directed through a mean little apartment of rooms where there was a bedstead and table and some chairs thickly covered with cloth. They came into a cell of tile and metal. She smelled water here, but could see none. “I thirst,” she repeated in Arabic.
“You know, you speak Arabic like someone out of the Thousand and One Nights. Where did you pick up antique talk like that? Your teacher must’ve been an ass, Lilith.”
“How could an ass teach a language?”
“Not well. Look, I’d love to hang around, but I’ve smelled better smells coming from under the tail of an over
heated camel. Please avail yourself of the captain’s incredible generosity in allowing a stinking stowaway to use his beautiful bathroom.”
From this garble of words she gathered that water would be brought here. First she would drink, and then allow the servants to bathe her. So far, she had seen only males in this place, but that was of little concern. There would be serving women, of course. The men were all fed, clean, and dressed, so there had to be women somewhere about.
He went out, drawing the door closed behind him. It became dark. She waited, but did not hear him speak or leave the outside room. His breathing was steady. From the shadows under the door, she could surmise that he was standing, listening. But why? What would there be to hear? She had nothing to do except wait.
After some moments, there came a hesitant tap upon the door. It was him. Did he wish to enter? If so, why not simply do the thing? The tapping was repeated. “Are you decent?”
What a strange question. She was the essence of decency, the most decent of all the beings on the earth. This man would not even exist had it not been for her work. She had given eons of service here. Of course she was decent!
He opened the door, then stood looking at her. Then he turned and went away. Soon he returned with the other one, whose pale face was now flushed red. He had the skin of a northern tribe, this one did. He looked her up and down. “Look, hey—do you speak English?” This was the speech of the Englishmen, which she had heard in Cairo two hundred years ago. She recalled little of it. “Parlez-vous français? Sprechen sie Deutsch?” He looked her in the eyes.
She saw that he needed proper nutrients, and was lacking in body water. They had very little pure water, it seemed to her. She hadn’t really tasted any since she left home. Without pure water, the human body could not thrive.
“You know, Mr. T., I think that this is an autistic. Do you know this, autism?”
“They’re withdrawn. The Arabs call them blessed of God.”
“You and your God.”
“Hey, it’s not my deal. I’m an atheist, as you know very well.”
“Well, this is an autistic. She’s run away from some rich family. My guess, Swedes or English or Americans. That cloak was worth—” He kissed his fingers. “Did you see the stitching in that lining? And that silk. Plus the leather. I believe it’s that incredible Moroccan that’s made from the split skin of unborn calves or something. That thing must have cost in the thousands of dollars U.S.” He regarded her again. “So who are you, sweetheart, and how did you come to be aboard the Seven Stars? I’m going to squawk the company about her. There’s probably some fat cat looking for her across half the world.”
“A reward?”
“It’s certainly possible. By the time we get to New York, the INS will have her all sorted out, would be my guess.”
“Unless her fat cats want to come get her.”
“That’s their privilege, as long as they can connect with a moving supertanker in midocean. Now look, we’d better treat her with kid gloves. And bathe her, Abdel, if she will not bathe herself.”
“I can’t bathe somebody! A girl of twenty, Kurt! Come on.”
“I thirst.”
“And give her a Coke, if she’s so damn thirsty.”
The one called Abdel glared at her when Kurt left. Then he disappeared, returning again with a large phial containing dark brown liquid. He handed this to her. “Drink,” he said.
She lifted it to her nose, smelled it. Coming from the bottle was a sizzling, as if it was hot. But for some cunning reason, it was instead cold.
“Drink, come on, and take off that rag if I’m going to get you showering.”
Drink. But how? Where was a cup? Where was wine, beer, or water?
“Drink!”
“I thirst.”
“For the love of God, you’ve got a Coke!” He grabbed her hand, held the phial to her lips. “Drink the Coke.”
Out of the thing there came something strange indeed, candied water full of dancing bubbles. The sweetness had been married to some sort of a fruit. The water was pure enough, though. She was to take it into her mouth from the phial. She did so. A moment passed. She felt gas building within her. But she could not burp, for that was only to be done at the end of the meal. Surely this was not a meal now, among the humans.
He came behind her and drew off her cloak. So he was a servant, after all. He had spoken to her in an ungracious manner. Pharaoh would have had such an impudent servant whipped. But pharaoh was not here.
He manipulated handles, and water came spitting out of an opening. She went to it to slake her thirst, but it was unexpectedly warm, too warm to drink. She stood in it, enjoying the feeling of it upon her face, dreaming with her eyes closed of when the rain would come to her little valley, and she would watch her lilies dance, and raise her face to the weeping sky, and let the pure water soak her skin and make her as fragrant as the clouds.
“No, no, take off the damn dress! Holy God, how did you ever end up on an oil tanker? Were you dropped from Pluto?”
He handled her most roughly, trying to remove her garment. Well, then, she stepped out of it. He gasped, his eyes blinked, he turned his face away. Her beauty could shock her own children. A human being, it could stagger.
She stepped into the room of rain and lifted her face. The waters flowed strongly. He went away.
Abdel was in a state of some sort of sexual fever. He’d never known anything like it before. But seeing this filthy, crazy runaway naked had caused him to almost explode with desire. He dashed down the companion way and into his own stateroom. He was bursting. He’d never even known that such feelings were possible. He pulled off his trousers and stood in his shirttails, naked from the waist down. And there, all over his abdomen and running down his leg, was what he could not believe he was seeing. Just like that, the instant she was unclothed, he had ejaculated.
He was damned if the Lybian pigs who did the cleaning and laundry were going to see this mess. He went into the john and washed the trousers under the tap until he was sure there was nothing more than a water mark visible. Then he put on fresh pants and went up to Kurt.
“Captain, we have to do something about this woman. You know, the men say she’s a demon. They say she’s wanted by the Cairo police for killing people.”
“Oh, come on. That’s an autistic child. She couldn’t swat a fly. Or if she did, she’d probably eat it.”
“Have you e-mailed about her yet?”
“Sure. Athens says to keep her in confinement. They’ve already informed the INS and put out a description to Interpol. Her people will undoubtedly be sending us a congratulatory bottle of champagne on arrival.”
“Nothing about turning around?”
Kurt looked up, his eyebrows raised. The instant he’d said it, Abdel had realized that the question had carried with it the gulf of difference between a man of the East and a man of the West. “The men call her a devil,” he repeated hastily. “I think that we’re going to have problems.”
“I’m sure we are. But she’s here, and I hardly think that we’re going to go off schedule for her. So that’s it. She’s your responsibility, Mr. T. I don’t want her stealing anything or sleeping in any more coffins.” He leaned back, lit a cigarette. “That’s something—a long black cloak, sleeping in a coffin. No wonder the men are concerned.” He laughed. “The vampire of the Seven Stars.”
“They’re all believers in djin. It’s a bad business.”
Lilith drank by laying her mouth open to the stream, and slowly took her fill of a water that had in it the thickness of various chemicals and was not a really good water. But it would do, it was slaking her thirst. The fruit-gas water had not been satisfactory.
A great deal of desert dust went down the drain at her feet, so much that the water in the bottom of the closet became slow. She would have rubbed herself with sand, but there was no sand, only a block of green clay. This clay was obviously intended for a servant to use in washing, but she used it he
rself, and found that drawing it along her skin was really a rather pleasant thing to do. Embossed on it were letters in the Roman alphabet: IRISH SPRING. She wondered if they were words, or the initials of an association, like SPQR, Senatus Populusque Romanus, the Senate and People of Rome. They had all sorts of associations, the Romans. Perhaps this was a Roman ship.
She began to enjoy the clay. The idea of this bath was to melt it by the heat of the water. She needed only for a serving woman to be here with her. But no, in this little closet you must bathe alone. She put it all over herself, and when she ran it in her hair, a great deal of dirt came out.
Again, she raised her face into the swarming rain. Steam rose around her as if from a bubbling pot, or from the water in the calidarium at Alexandria. She let the water roll off her skin until she felt well and truly clean. Then she went out into the larger part of the room, but there was still no servant there. Finally, she laid what appeared to be a part of a toga around herself and dried her skin in the manner of the Romans.
Dropping the cloth to the floor, she stepped out through the door. The man was there, but he leaped up and rushed away when she appeared. She went into the corridor, and then saw through a glass panel the single most magnificent sight that she had beheld since she had cruised with Hadrian and his boyfriend up the Nile. It was so vast, and so vastly blue, this water. She went a short distance to a doorway, then walked out to the front of the row of windows through which she’d first seen it. From here, the ship was almost unimaginably huge. A thousand of Hadrian’s most magnificent ships could have been laid out upon this deck, had it not been complicated with pipes and machines.
She raised her arms and cried out to the sea, “You child of earth and sky, O leap, leap to the sun, you waves!” The words were from the hymn to Poseidon that Hadrian’s child-friend Antinous had composed one afternoon when the ribs of their ship were creaking from the slaughter of the waves.
Hadrian had been the last of the human beings she had thought of as pharaoh and treated accordingly. There had been jealousies. One of her own people had devoured Antinous, then said he had fallen into the Nile.