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And he turned there, arms folded, leaning his weight back on the archway, smiling triumphantly at her.
‘Well, I want to speak to Dabeeb, and I am glad she is coming. But I’ve got no idea why you are behaving like this.’
‘Perhaps you fancy having Dabeeb yourself? Who knows what you and your filthy lot get up to.’
‘Having. Having. What is this word of yours, having. How can one have another person. No wonder you can’t —’ but she had been going to say, ‘No wonder you can’t make love when you think in terms of having—’ but of course had to check it.
‘You had better get the shield to protect her, or something like that,’ she said. ‘She won’t be able to stand up to the air in here.’
‘Thank you so much. It had occurred to me, you know. How do you suppose all these arrangements were made here?’
And he indicated the devices for the protection of the people who had worked, or who still worked in here from time to time — in this case, large clasps or brooches, which were for fastening at throat level.
Soon the sound of squelching feet, and Dabeeb appeared, wrapped in a vast dark cloak, one of her husband’s old army cloaks. She stood in the entrance, not looking at Ben Ata, but very closely, and shrewdly at Al·Ith, who smiled at her. She accepted from Ben Ata the brooch — which was of a yellow dull substance, very heavy — and pinned this at the opening of her dress at the throat, and stepped lightly in, dropping the wet cloak outside the arch on the floor of the portico.
She still did not look at Ben Ata, but was waiting for Al·Ith. Who had suddenly understood what was the probable cause for all the drama. Dabeeb had not looked at Ben Ata. In this awful place, with the antagonisms inseparable from being with — from sex, as they put it — this probably meant they had had each other. She had had him, or he had had her — however these barbarians saw it — but she was not disposed at this particular time even to wonder.
Seeing Dabeeb, the neat, handsome, capable matron, with her air of shrewd humour, standing there waiting for direction, Al·Ith decided to make as much as she could of the situation.
‘Please sit down, Dabeeb,’ she said, nodding at the chair Ben Ata had left empty. And now Dabeeb did glance at Ben Ata. The real danger of this situation — as she had momentarily seen it — had not been enough to allow her to raise her eyes to him, but now that she needed an order, a direction, she did look towards her lord.
But he had left it all to Al·Ith, and stood like a sentinel, watching the scene.
Dabeeb sat.
‘In our country we are going to have a great festival of songs and of stories. We have them often, but this one will be different.’
Already Dabeeb was alert and on guard: the eyes of the two women had engaged, and Dabeeb’s were warning. Al·Ith very slightly nodded, saying, ‘I understand, don’t be afraid.’ Ben Ata did not catch this minutest of nods, but he had seen that he had been mistaken. The sight of these two women, sitting opposite each other, both ready to catch from each other the best they could, did not fail to soothe him, and at the same time to disturb him. Their instant understanding made him feel left out, shut out.
He exaggerated his sarcastic look and soldierly straightness.
‘We want to try and find out if there are songs which perhaps we have forgotten or half forgotten that can tell us things.’
‘I see, my lady.’
Again the two pairs of eyes searched each other.
‘But there is no need to be afraid …’ here Al·Ith paused a moment, and then continued, ‘if you don’t remember any. That is why I asked Ben Ata if you would come up to talk to me. You really mustn’t worry …’ here Al·Ith paused again, and waited until Dabeeb had, in her turn, given the very slightest of nods, ‘about it. It is just an impulse I had. A whim!’ And she put on the look of one who was subject to whims and to having them indulged — a bit fatuous, self-congratulatory.
‘I see, my lady.’
‘I wish you would call me by my name.’
‘It is hard to remember.’ This was in an apologetic voice, almost a plea.
‘We have all kinds of songs, but for instance only the other day listening to some children some of us realized that parts of songs might have been forgotten, or changed — or something like that. And perhaps it is like that with you.’
‘Perhaps it is.’
‘There is a song I believe I heard the other day when I was here. The beat is like this —’ And Al·Ith rested the heel of her hand on the table’s edge and tapped with her fingers:
Dabeeb had caught it and nodded.
‘Perhaps it is a woman’s song?’
‘All manner of people sing it, my lady.’
‘Perhaps it has a tune that different words are set to, at different times,’ said Al·Ith casually.
‘I think that sometimes is so, with us,’ said Dabeeb.
Meanwhile, Ben Ata was as awake as he had never been in his life.
He knew quite well that this encounter between the two women was accommodating levels of understanding he did not, at the moment, in the least grasp. But he had every intention of doing so. But strongest in him, raging among thoughts and intuitions of a quite different character, was suspicion. And he was as forlorn and excluded as. a small child that has had a door shut in his face.
‘Is it something to do with light?’ suggested Al·Ith.
‘Light? Oh, I don’t think so. I haven’t heard that one.’
But her eyes had said yes, and begged and pleaded for Al·Ith not to betray them. Al·Ith was seeing that her idea about the women was not only correct — but had been far from adequate. She saw that here was something like an underground movement.
‘Shall I sing one of the versions for you? It is very popular.’
‘I wish you would.’
‘It is a very old song, my lady.’ And Dabeeb cleared her throat, and stood up behind the chair, holding on to it with one hand. She had a clear strong voice, and evidently used it often.
‘Look at me, soldier! He’s looking!
It’s at me he is looking!
Soon I shall smile, not quite at him, That’ll catch him!’
And now both women heard Ben Ata’s breathing, thick, angry.
Neither looked at him: they knew they would see a man in frenzies of jealousy. Everything was now perfectly clear to Al·Ith. She marvelled at her own clumsiness; and also at the aptness of events, which always pleased her, so inevitably and satisfyingly proceeding from one thing to another, turning facets of truth, the possibilities of development, to the light one after another.
She knew that Ben Ata had wanted to have this woman, and that she had not wanted to be had. She knew that Ben Ata’s mind was inflamed with jealousies and suspicions. There was nothing for it but to go along with whatever was happening and — and wait and see.
Dabeeb was singing:
‘Eyes shine— His, mine …
I know how to please him. Simple and tease him.
I’ll make him hunger. And languish and anger. And give me his pay, A corporal’s pay.’
Her strong voice left a strong silence, supported by the hushing rain.
‘We sing that at the women’s festivals — you know, when women are together.’
Seeing that Al·Ith was smiling and pleased, she said, obviously daring and delighted with herself — and even looking at Ben Ata and allowing herself a half-humorous shudder at the black rage on his face — ‘There is another version, but of course it isn’t fit for your ears, my lady.’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said Ben Ata. ‘Don’t run away with that idea. If you knew what they get up to in that Zone of theirs …’
Dabeeb had winked at Al·Ith, then blushed at her audacity, and had begun the song.
‘Come husband! Smooth out my — cushion … ’
‘You are not to sing that,’ said Ben Ata. He was now sustained by a calm, moral loftiness.
‘Perhaps the lady Al·Ith would like to know the worst of us as well as the best, my lord,’ said Dabeeb, in a cosy comfortable voice, motherlike. As Ben Ata did not persist, but merely strode about, snorting, she began again:
‘Come husband, smooth out my — cushion. Quick, get a push-on …’
Dabeeb interrupted herself, and drummed rapidly on the table’s edge.
‘I’m hungry as — winter.
No sin to …’
She drummed again:
‘Warm me up Fill my cup …’
She drummed.
‘Now—go. Quick. Slow.’
She drummed. She winked at Al·Ith again and, animated with the song, winked at Ben Ata, too, who could not suppress a brief appreciative smile.
‘Hard as a board this Good old bed is …’
She drummed.
‘One two three four One two three four …’
She drummed, smiling, alive with challenge and invitation.
‘That’s how we do it. That’s how we do it.
That is our way. That is our way.’
A long sustained drumming, while all her white teeth showed.
‘A fine idea you’ll have of us, my lady.’
Ben Ata was standing with arms folded, feet planted, smiling. As a result of this song, the current was running strong between him and Dabeeb, whose looks at him were confident, inviting.
Al·Ith watched with interest. Rather as she would have done the mating approaches of a couple of horses.
‘There’s a song we have …’ she began casually, and Dabeeb allowed the tension between her and Ben Ata to slacken, and she became attentive to Al·Ith.
Who was thinking that this lie she was telling would not have been possible in Zone Three at all. Occasions for lies did not arise.
Now she was saying: ‘There’s a song we have …’ when they did not, nor anything like it.
‘How shall we reach where the light is. Come where delight is …’
‘Oh, no,’ Dabeeb broke in, ‘we have nothing like that. We don’t go in for that kind of thing.’ She was obviously afraid.
‘You don’t think it might be a good idea if you had a song festival here?’ said Al·Ith.
‘Oh, a very good idea. A very good idea indeed,’ said Dabeeb enthusiastically. And her eyes pleaded with Al·Ith.
‘Perhaps we’ll talk about it, Ben Ata,’ said Al·Ith, and at once went on, speaking to him. ‘Dabeeb was kind enough to agree to give me one of her dresses. I’d like to give her one of mine.’
‘But she has dozens of dresses. She had all those that weren’t good enough for you. What did you do with them, Dabeeb? Flog them?’
‘I sold some of them, my lord. They didn’t all fit me.’ And to Al·Ith, ‘I’d be so grateful. If we could — I mean, I could, have one of your dresses …’
‘Then come with me,’ said Al·Ith, on her way to her rooms.
‘My lady, if I could have the one you have on now? I’ve never seen anything like it …’
The two women went into Al·Ith’s rooms and Ben Ata bounded across and leaned to listen. He could hear the two women, talking about clothes, weaving, sewing. Al·Ith was taking off her dress and Dabeeb was exclaiming over it.
‘Oh, this is too fine for me, oh, it is so beautiful, oh, oh, what a beautiful …’
‘When you make dresses for ordinary wear, do you always make copies for special occasions?’
A brief pause.
‘Nearly always. Al·Ith.’
‘It must be nice wearing a plain dress and thinking of the one that you’ll wear on a special occasion.’
‘Yes, it is. But, of course, we don’t have all that many special occasions. We are poor people here.’
Oh, we are, are we? Ben Ata was thinking. And he returned rapidly to sit down at the table, where Dabeeb had been. He was tapping out rhythms on the table. He had not been fooled. He did not know what was going on, though he knew something was. He would get it all out of Dabeeb. If he had not got it out of Al·Ith by then.
The two women returned to find him sitting and smiling, the picture of good nature.
He was stung into admiration by both of them. Dabeeb’s swarthy and energetic beauty was well accommodated by the tawny silky dress Al·Ith had just taken off. Al·Ith had on her bright yellow dress that seemed to take in all the light there was in the great softly lit room — and to give it out again. Her loose black hair shone, her eyes shone, she was full of mischief and gaiety. Ben Ata was thinking, frankly, to himself, of the pleasures there would be in having them both at once — a possibility that had not entered his head until recent instructions with Elys. He remembered Al·Ith’s scorn of the word have. He sat head slightly lowered, looking up from under his brows at the two — and his mind was full of a painful struggle suddenly, as if it were trying to enlarge beyond its boundaries. He was having a flash of understanding —into the way Al·Ith scorned him for using the language he did. But it did not last. A gloomy suspicion came back, while he watched Al·Ith go with Dabeeb to the arch, and Dabeeb wrap herself tightly in the old dark cloak, and then with a smile at him and something intimate and quick with Al·Ith, run off to be enclosed in the pelting grey of the rain.
Al·Ith watched her go, and smiled. And turned to him, and smiled. In her sunny yellow, she was lovelier than he believed — at that moment—he deserved. He could see that she was a quick, volatile, flamelike thing, and understood how he subdued and dimmed her. But jealousy was undoing him.
She was inviting him. Everything about her, as she stood smiling, enticed him. He got up clumsily and heavily and rushed at her. She evaded him, not out of coquetry, but from real dismay. ‘No, no, Ben Ata, don’t spoil it …’ And she was trying to meet him lightly, and gaily, as they had not long ago, during hours which now to Ben Ata seemed so far above anything he had thought and been since that he would not believe in them, any more than he was able easily to lift his gaze to the vast mountainous region that filled all the western skies. He grabbed her, and she withheld him. ‘Wait, wait, Ben Ata. Don’t you want to be as we were then?’ Oh, yes, he did, he did very much, desperately, he was all inflamed with wanting just that and nothing else — but he could not help it, or himself, or her — he had to be, just then, all grab and grind, and he extinguished all the possibilities of sweetness and the playfulness, and the slow mounting of the exchanges. He had her. And then, all the light gone out of her, she had him. It was not a new experience for him, since Elys, but all the time he was remembering that other time and he made this one obstinate and heavy because, simply, that other time had gone and was not here. This time Al·Ith did not weep, or allow herself to be pulverized into submission. She gave as good as she got, words which she chose, carefully, out of many, and handed to him, with a smiling air of indifference, scorn even.
