27

After today, she definitely needed a rest. She had been tired to start with, and her meeting with her father had pushed her from fatigue into exhaustion.

The hotel lobby was crowded with tour groups, both arriving and departing. She slipped her card into the door and when it swung open, the room smelled strongly of a wonderful perfume. She went straight into the bathroom for a hot shower—just what she needed before she went to sleep. She reached for the robe and found that there were two of them, one pink and the other white. What if he were here with her, sharing this comfortable room? The soft light, the paintings on the walls, the comfy armchairs, the gauzy curtain over the window fluttering to reveal the Eiffel Tower lit by night—everything about it
was romantic.

After her shower, she flung herself down on the bed and started flipping through the TV channels. She found her favorite song by Dalida, “Nostalgia,” playing, so she turned up the volume and sang along. Suddenly, there was a soft knock at the door. She turned down the sound. Oh, no, she thought, I must have disturbed someone with the noise. She raised her voice without getting out of bed. “Who
is it?”

No one answered. She got out of bed and stood by the door. “I said, who is it?”

There was still no answer. She opened the door a crack. Through the narrow opening, she saw a bouquet of flowers. She flung the door open to find him standing there.

Her heart nearly stopped to see him. He looked even more handsome in a winter coat and black sneakers, a purple scarf around his neck. Was it really him standing there or was she imagining it? Could her incessant thoughts of him since her arrival in Paris have summoned him here? When we want some things and wish for them sincerely, they can come true—and here he was before her in the flesh, with his subtly handsome features and slim build. She cast every caution to the wind, took leave of what remained of her senses, and threw herself into his arms.

He held her tightly and kissed her hair and face, his lips seeking out hers. She wished she could stop time and keep this moment forever. It was the most wonderful surprise. At last they drew apart, and he smiled at her as he shrugged his way out of his coat and scarf. He sat on the chair by the window. The curtain rippled, revealing more of the view. He looked at her. Her hair was still wet, her face innocent and fresh without makeup, like a flower when it first blossoms. She perched on the arm of his chair. He pulled her hand to him and buried it between both of his own, then pulled her into his lap. She leaned her head against his chest. He was so close that she could hear the beating of his heart.

“So,” he said. “What have you found out?”

“Not,” she matched his playful tone, “until you tell me what you’re doing here.”

“I needed a break. It’s been a hard few months at work.”

“But why Paris in this miserable weather?”

His smile was his only answer. She wanted him to throw caution to the winds and tell her straight out, “I had to come, I missed you, I’ve thought only of your face since you left, you’re the only one I think of, you’re the only one in my heart.” He didn’t say a thing, but there were other ways to express these words.

Their bodies melted together in the soft glow of the lamplight. They sank down together, eyes closed, fingers interlacing, letting go only to clasp again desperately. Their lips met, parted, met again. Whispered words, endearments, moans. The world erupted into bliss. There was nothing more to say: in this moment, a single word would have been too much.

Afterward, he stood, adjusting his clothing and putting his coat back on. He said, voice still rough, “I’ll wait for you in the hotel lobby. Get dressed and we’ll go to dinner.”

“Now? I’m tired, I was just going to go to bed.”

“It’s only ten o’clock, and we’re in Paris.”

“Why not eat here?” she suggested. “Look out. History and beauty around us everywhere.” She pushed the curtain aside to show him the view: the Eiffel Tower, the Seine, and the winding roads. “Isn’t it enough?”

“Of course it is,” he said, “or it would be if I were staying indefinitely. Darling, I’m only here for two days. I’ll wait for you downstairs.” He left the room.

She went through a tumult of emotions after he left: joy, bemusement, shock. Then she remembered that he was waiting for her and that she had to get ready. What to wear? She had never wanted to look beautiful and sexy more than she did at that moment. She reached for a dress she had brought with her to attend the closing ceremony of the conference. It was long and black and completely open at the back, revealing her pale skin. Should she wear her hair up or down? She tried piling it up onto her head and pinning it in place with a rhinestone pin: that looked good. She pulled on glossy tights and a pair of high heels, and made herself up like a woman going on a date with her lover. She put on her black coat, and a perfume that she loved.

He smiled and his eyes sparkled admiringly when she came down. He put an arm around her and led her into a limousine provided by the hotel that was waiting for them. She sat close to him, engulfed in his energy and surrounded by his scent of perfume and tobacco. She laid her weary head on his shoulder. The rain was falling down in sheets, and her heart was beating out of her chest. She wanted the ride to last forever, or time to stop; but every dream ends with waking.

Ten o’clock in Paris means that only the main thoroughfares are still busy. The other streets were filled with silence and calm. In a dark, deserted street, the driver stopped outside a bookstore. She looked around: perhaps there was a café or restaurant she hadn’t noticed? But there was nothing. He took her hand and opened the door, leading her bemused into the bookstore. “Sherif, what’s this? It’s a bookstore.”

“Yes. You like bookstores, don’t you?”

“I do, but what bookstore is open at this hour? What’s going on?” She added, “I’m not dressed for a bookstore! Who wears a cocktail dress to a. . . . ?” She looked around. “You said we were having dinner out. . . . Are they serving dinner in bookstores now?”

He stood there, calm and cool, which only made her more agitated. She looked around again, casting about for any clue. Her eyes fell on the cover of a book. It was a new novel by her favorite French author, Patrick Modiano. In spite of herself, she picked it up and distractedly leafed through it.

He smiled. “Now,” he said, “are you still mad at me for bringing you here?”

He took the book and replaced it on the shelf. “Let’s go.” Taking her by the hand, he led her down a long corridor ending in another passageway. Along one wall were bookshelves.

“Wait!” she said. “I wanted to buy that book.”

Ignoring her, he stopped in front of a shelf, pulled a book toward him, then replaced it. The bookshelves immediately parted; he took her by the hand, they stepped through, and it closed quietly behind them once more.

She walked behind him in a state of shock, only coming back to herself when he invited her to sit down. Purple, green, and orange spotlights flashed; house music pounded so loudly she could barely hear him. Waiters came and went with drinks; the dance floor was packed with couples pressed together, some kissing, in a world of their own. The strangest thing was that such a staid and sedate bookshop could conceal such a noisy and vibrant world. “How?” she managed to yell over the music.

“This is one of the top ten hidden bars in the world!” he yelled back.

“Why hidden?”

“It helps keep it mysterious and attract customers,” he explained, moving closer to make himself heard. “It’s a throwback to Prohibition in the US, but of course nowadays they don’t have to fear law enforcement.”

“We could have gone somewhere quieter,” she yelled. “I never knew you liked cloak-and-dagger stuff!”

“I figured it would be exciting for a change,” he said. “Instead of a door, you pick up a book, or dial a secret number in a phone booth. The first time I went to a secret bar was in Hong Kong. A friend took me to a bar hidden in a store that sold used umbrellas. You had to open an umbrella to activate the secret door.”

“Does this place have a name?”

“Lulu Whitesmith, after an African-American lady who ran a brothel.”

She looked around her, frankly impressed. “When did you plan all this?”

“I didn’t plan anything. Fate plans everything.” She was aware that he was an absolute fatalist, and that this was the source of the equanimity with which he took blows and setbacks. “Have you heard about the butterfly effect?”

“Butterfly effect?” she repeated, shaking her head. “No, I haven’t.”

“It’s the theory that if a butterfly flaps its wings in one place, it can result in hurricanes and volcanic eruptions on the other side of the globe.”

She gave him a slightly mocking smile. “Really?”

“It’s a metaphor for chaos theory. Edward Lorenz made it famous. It basically says that every big event that happens in our lives resulted from some very small thing that happened to us a long time ago.”

“I still don’t get it.”

He lit a cigarette. “A simple example. I got very high grades when I graduated from school, enough to qualify me for a top college. My dad wouldn’t allow me to let the opportunity go to waste, or that was what he said, and he made me study architecture. I graduated and started working. We have a bunch of consultants in baroque art and architecture that we always use, like Dr. Khalil. One time he couldn’t do the job and recommended you and that was how we met—you remember he introduced us at that conference?”

She gave him a sly smile. “Of course I do.”

“Look at the way things lead to other things. If I hadn’t gotten top grades, I wouldn’t have gone to the Faculty of Engineering. I would never have been in this field, so I would never have met Dr. Khalil, and if he’d been available, he wouldn’t have recommended you to us.” She was still mulling over what he had said when he added, “And I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you and not known how to fall back out of love.”

She was flustered; she was reassured; she was overjoyed. He had confessed his love again. What could she say to him? What was the appropriate thing to say to make up for all the pain and defeat she had put him through? Perhaps, “I love you too, I never stopped loving you.” Would that be enough?

He smiled; they chatted a while; they laughed; they were filled with joy. The evening passed like a dream, and he said good night at her door with a hug. Embracing him was like having everything in the world she wanted in her arms, filling her with warmth and tenderness, and what was more, the security she had never had.

*

When he turned on his phone the next morning, he found a text from her. Gone to the conference, will call as soon as
I’m done.

He was disappointed; he would have loved to have shared the Paris morning with her. He sat in the hotel lobby, drinking his coffee and reading the newspaper. Then he decided to take a walk.

At noon, Yasmine’s phone rang. “I’m ready to show you the lab results.”

“They’re out already?”

“Yes. I just got the report and there are amazing surprises.”

She raced out of the conference hall and hailed a taxi. On her way there, she called Sherif. “I’m on my way to the Musée de l’Armée. I have an appointment with the director of the Military Archives. He’s had the painting analyzed and I’m going to get the results.”

“Shall I come with you?” he asked.

“The man’s an eccentric. He wouldn’t allow you to be there. To him, every conversation is a military secret and classified. If I hadn’t been introduced to him by a close friend of his, he wouldn’t even have agreed to help me.”

Andrea received her with a polite smile. He handed her the report to read. She skimmed down to the conclusion:

The colors in the painting of the Oriental girl match the colors used in the paintings of Alton Germain, and the canvas it is painted on is the same type and characteristics as that used in the artist’s other known works. As in this painting, the artist was not in the habit of signing his work, only initialing it.

Based on all of the above, this constitutes a positive confirmation that the painting is the work of Alton Germain.

She felt her shoulders relax and her face melt into a smile. “It is him,” she breathed.

“Yes,” the man responded, “just as you expected. Your hunch was right. I’d bet the girl he painted was his sweetheart. He painted her and hid her away from everyone’s eyes, not to hang in a museum, but only on the walls of his heart.”

Her eyes sparkled. “Yes, I think so too. Not only because her face found its way into more than one of his paintings, but because there was something in this portrait that that made me feel he was in love with his subject. It was in his brushstrokes, in the way he painted her.” She paused. “But it was strange, a French artist falling for an ordinary Egyptian girl. What attracted him to her?”

Andrea gave a sly smile. Getting up from behind his desk, he came around to sit opposite her as he had done before. “The simple, innocent girl you’re referring to is the same girl who was the lover of Napoleon Bonaparte.”

“Bonaparte’s. . . ?” she stammered, her eyes betraying her shock.

“Yes. It’s the same girl. Zeinab, daughter of Sheikh al-Bakri, the Azharite imam, the one I told you about earlier.” Watching her staring, he went on, “When Napoleon learned that the girl fell in love with the artist, he was furious. How could the artist have dared to presume to love a woman who belonged to Napoleon? That was one thing. The other thing was, when he saw his works and found that Germain had painted him as a heartless, merciless thug or a cowardly weakling, that was the final straw. He had his paintings expunged from the Description of Egypt, and banned them from being hung in museums.”

The words fell upon her ears like a thunderbolt. An Egyptian girl, of no particular importance, with two rivals fighting over her, one of them the most powerful man in the world and the other a painter? One with an overabundance of military power and a mind preoccupied with strategy and military maneuvers, and another filled with the sensitivity of a true artist—what could ever bring them together to want the same woman, no, just a girl with her
braids and striped gallabiya?

Andrea handed her the painting and the report and they shook hands. She thanked him profusely for his assistance. Before she left, he stopped her and went to his bookshelf. He pulled out a book and handed it to her. “I recommend you read it. I think you’ll learn a lot. It has answers to a lot of your questions about Napoleon’s relationship to the girl.”

All the way home to the hotel, she was preoccupied with one question: who was Zeinab al-Bakri that she had captivated not one, but two men of such stature?