CAIRO, EGYPT
May 1949
Tamara threw back her head and shrieked into the wind, her bare feet over the side of the sailboat, racing water smacking her toes. Spray stung her cheeks, her long dark hair flew like a cape. Pascal, in shorts and shirt, pushed the rudder hard into the wind. She gripped the gunwale as the little boat spun and shot back toward the western bank of the Nile, toward the Pyramids and the Sphinx, into the setting sun.
Tamara studied Pascal with his back arched, straining to hold the rudder. His chest swelled, his biceps bulged, his feet were planted wide, every sinew fighting the wind. She tried not to look between his legs.
This is the last time, she thought, enjoy it while you can. She kicked at the water, as if to annoy her mother, who had warned her for eighteen years against the bilharzia virus that lived in the murky brown waters. She felt like kicking her mother, and her father.
Tomorrow they would leave Cairo for good. She would never see Pascal again. She glanced down at him, at his shorts, and quickly looked away. She felt herself flush. If only she could kiss him, just once. Should she do it, just slide over and kiss him? Here, right now on the boat. Free the sail, release the rudder, bob with the waves, do as he wanted, as she did too. Should they? Now? Here? In the clutch of the mighty river. What a memory! The sun would sink in minutes, night would quickly fall, they would be alone in the dark, drifting with the current, in each other’s arms.
She squirmed at the thought and found herself leaning toward him. But did he want to kiss her too? There was only one way to find out. But no, she didn’t dare. The wind dropped and they settled into a gentle glide toward the bank. Pascal’s chauffeur, Suleiman, waited at the jetty, holding open the back door of the black Mercedes.
Instead of driving home, they strolled one last time beneath the sycamore trees that lined the Nile. Children played at the edge of the water, couples sat on benches, impatient for the dark. Lights twinkled across the dark water. Only when dusk enveloped them did Pascal take her hand. “This is it, then,” he said with a heavy sigh.
“Don’t say that.”
“Will you write?”
“Yes, yes.”
But could she? Could she send letters from Israel to Egypt? There would be no way to communicate. She would lose him. She would lose everything. She loved Cairo, her home, her friends, the fragrances of tamarind and jasmine, the roasting of shawarma and river fish, the music and drumming of the night. And especially Pascal. She knew it wasn’t true love. They’d hardly touched. It was the tension of discovery, the fear of it too. The unknown, the forbidden. He was a year older, nineteen, a boy, really, but what a boy. Tamara squeezed his hand and looked around. Could she for once be brave? Be foolish? In the darkness of a tree she stopped and at last pulled Pascal to her. Why hadn’t she before? His lips were warm and firm, he tasted of the pomegranate they had shared, she liked it. They kissed, searching, and then, with the craving of a first embrace, a kiss of desperation, their last, their only kiss. She felt him tremble.
How jealous her friends were when she had met Pascal in the open-air cinema. He was dazzling in his tight black shirt. Later they had all gone to Groppi’s for pistachio cassata, where he had said, “This ice cream is sweet and creamy, just like you.” Her friends had howled with laughter. Creamy! Stop! It hurts!
“We’ll meet again. In Paris. Or I’ll come to Jerusalem,” he said, his heart beating against hers. “Nothing will change.”
Oh yes it will, she thought, everything will change. Who would she be in six months, in a year? Who knew what would happen in her new home? But the uncertainty emboldened her too. Instead of words, she felt herself pressing against him, she felt his body responding in turn, felt him growing against her belly. Her skin quivered, she felt a thrill. Move away from him! But no, why? She’d probably never see him again. She pushed against him, feeling the shape of him, while he held her tighter. Only after moments passed and her senses were on fire did she pull back.
If only she could stay, even just one day more.
It was her father’s fault, though she shouldn’t blame him. He was a Zionist, rounded up with a thousand others. After ten months’ detention, beaten and starved, he had emerged a sickly man.
He had only been freed from the camp on condition he left the country, and that was fine by him. Being a Jew in Egypt was hard enough before the war with Israel, but since then it had become unbearable. The Jews were all but annihilated in Europe, her father said, we can’t wait like fools for the same to happen here.
No, she couldn’t blame her father; there was no life here for a Jew, not since the Jews won the war and had a country next door.
* * *
Through the window’s lace curtain Moïse watched as the Mercedes drew up. The one good thing about losing everything, he thought, was that his daughter wouldn’t see that boy again. He should never have sent her to that Catholic school. They had turned her head with all that money, the car, the boat, the villas. His parents were Catholic bankers, loud and ostentatious, as far from his world of academia as a camel from the ocean. True, the Collège du Sacré-Coeur had given her a good education, and thank God she had just graduated, so she could go to Israel with her diploma. It would help her go to college there. But that boy …
He suspected they had kissed, and God knows what else.
His wife took his hand. “Are they still in the car?” Rashil asked.
“Yes.”
She felt his fingers ball into a fist, and she squeezed. “Stop it. Tomorrow we go to Israel. Thank God.”