Alexandra Singer (19 page)

“At least the men there never bother me.”

“But you must admit that the relationship between the man and the woman has lost all of its playfulness, all of the energy of seduction? It simply does not exist for you anymore. I would
be willing to wager that sometimes you wish it would.”

Maia thought about this. She saw the men here as inadequate, loitering indolently in the cafés and on the street corners, unable to control their urges. But perhaps he was right; in her
own country, almost everything had become sexualised. Men did not stare at her in the streets, but on the television, and in the clubs and the bars, in all the confined spaces the heavy charge of
sexual expression was unavoidable. Romance had been replaced by freedom of expression, and Maia wondered if her way was any better.

Eventually the Historian spoke, and when he did, Maia noticed a smile playing around the edge of his lips, “But the Mona Lisa looks out at us, with that knowing smile upon her face.”
He taunted her, learing. “I bet you too wish that you were viewed so sexually. This perverse desire of yours... this perverse desire of all women.”

Maia shrugged. “Perhaps you are right. There is no freedom from the eyes of men or women. But it is the asymmetrical gaze I am talking about, the exhibition of a totally unequal power
relationship. Then, it is only women who fit the ideal of feminine beauty who enjoy this gaze. I think that men are upset about the veil because a woman can look at you, but you cannot see
her.”

“Upset me? How does it upset me?”

“The man is superior in society. He does not like to be watched.”

“I do!” said Konstantin, in an attempt to lighten the conversation.

Maia laughed, and patted his arm. “I know you do.”

The Historian was smoking a long, thin cigarette as he watched their exchange. “But still it persists, this notion that the male looking at a painting is the intruder. Ridiculous. Women
look too, do they not?”

“They do, but I don’t feel it’s in the same predatory way.”

“Are all the women in your paintings beautiful?” asked the Professor.

“Certainly not. Sometimes unattractive women have the greatest character. They have had to learn to be interesting, to earn the right merely to be noticed.”

The Professor laughed. “All cats are black in the dark, I suppose.”

They ordered dinner, and as they ate, the Historian and the Professor became particularly vocal on the role of women in art.

“I prefer the buxom woman.” de Farcas said, staring obviously at Maia’s chest.

With a certain yearning, the Historian sighed, “Michelangelo’s David, is incomparable.” And Maia was beginning to see where his preferences lay.

De Farcas leered at a passing waiter, and asked him for more wine.

“
De suite, monsieur,
” said the waiter, bowing obsequiously.

“There is something, Maia, that you ought to know about men here,” said the Professor, “they never mix love and sex. You may find that the two are mutually exclusive. And sex,
you see, may be performed with anything from a goat to a dead salmon!” He laughed heartily and felt for Maia’s thigh underneath the table. She pulled away sharply, and looked at the
Historian to see if he knew what was happening, but he gave no hint.

“You will betray those ideals of yours. It is inevitable.” The Historian spoke as if he was tasting, savouring the words as he spoke them.

As she sat there, watching the men contemplate her in their varying ways, Maia toyed with the possibility of contacting the Professor who had sent her here. In her head, she composed several
letters, which she already knew that she would never send. In any case, what could she say? That he had misled her; that the Historian was not the man he had known, that he had forced her into an
arrangement? Could she accuse him of enslavement, or even corruption? There was nothing to say; there was no proof of intent or even of involvement, direct or otherwise. It was all of her own
accord, it was all suspicion, and she had allowed herself to be lured in.

An announcement was made. Mahmoud was in his element, “Make way for my dancing girls,” he shouted, “make way!” The belly dancers passed by their table, shaking their hips
to the beat of the drums, strings of coins hanging loosely around their waists. Maia had anticipated youth and beauty, but instead she marvelled at the expansive girth of the women who passed by
their table, bearing plates upon their heads as a trick for the tourists. When they brushed past Maia, she smelt not perfume, but decay.

Now they lay back on the velvet couches, drinking sweet mint tea and cocktails. Here, just outside the medina, alcohol was easily available, intoxication almost immediate. Cigarette smoke hung
in the air, as dense as fog, as thick as her thoughts. Yet despite their age, the belly dancers pulsated with sensuality.

“This pandering to the male fantasy of the eastern woman is absolutely pathetic,” Maia said, derisively. Immediately, the men were on their guard.

“Do be more specific, if you don’t mind,” said the Professor.

“It seems to me that men want to control the female body. For you lot, a woman is either hypersexual or completely asexual. In your minds you have this strange, contradiction between the
sexual belly dancer and the constrained, covered woman. She is demure in public, but a slut in the bedroom – all forms of disguise for the object of the male fantasy. Just look at these
women. Their only reason for existence is to cater to your whims!” Her tirade had exhausted her, and she sat back in her chair.

The Professor sniggered. “And what do you think is wrong with that? Perhaps they enjoy it.”

“Nothing, I suppose.” Maia decided to exude graciousness. But she despised the male fantasy of the eastern woman. She saw that it was slavery that he desired, slavery without any
responsibility. “If you see how shallow it is.”

“Depth! Ha! Depth has never been my concern,” said the Professor, and he sneered at her.

Tariq was lighting the lanterns, and flickering on the tables they illuminated the guests with the ghastly glow of green. The men questioned Maia on her opinions on the role of women in art, but
she feared that the alcohol had made her less articulate, and that they were mocking her. Maia could not help but despise the men she met here. Deprived of opportunities for employment, men young
and old, crammed themselves into crowded cafés that were off limits to their wives, mothers and sisters. Here they sat on the terraces watching people go by as if the city was their own
theatre, downing syrupy mint tea by the gallon and sucking incessantly upon cigarettes. They had nothing to do but argue and engage in their own favourite parlour game: politics. A game in which
they would forever be utterly ineffectual. Maia felt that when she walked in the city streets, these men made her want to erode her own beauty, to become a gargoyle, if only to spite them. Maia
looked at the men sitting before her.

I am simply an image for them to look at. Yet I breathe, I rot, I emanate stench just like you, Maia thought. They only wished to perpetuate the image they had formed of her. They looked at her
to assess her quality. Maia attempted to describe this to the Historian and de Farcas, but they both laughed at her.

“You should be flattered,” de Farcas admonished her. He genuinely believed that she should be grateful for their harassment of her.

Konstantin joined them and Maia sensed he was feeling particularly promiscuous. He was drunk and recalled in vivid detail the indulgences of a time when he lived in Cairo.

De Farcas leant over to whisper to Maia, “You know he prefers boys. Platonic, of course,” he said, and giggled horribly. It was a stage whisper, and Maia was embarrassed. She raised
her eyebrow. He made the gesture, just below the table, to indicate their height. At that moment she glanced at Konstantin, and somehow he knew that he was the subject of their conversation. He
lowered his head, but just before he did so, he caught the brief flicker of dislike flash across her face.

Maia was filled with dread, and an even newer horror about the workings of the city. She wondered who these people were, who walked in the dark, who longed to purge themselves of the former
lives that cling, and what it was about this place that afforded them such refuge.

“Excuse me,” said Maia, hoping that they did not catch the look of disgust on her face. She walked inside the twisting bowels of the hotel and found an empty room in which she could
prepare her ritual in piece. She always carried the usual paraphernalia with her; the belt, cotton wool and the stained silver spoon. The craving had by now come to dominate her life, but still she
never failed to find the act itself shocking. She pumped her arm in frustration and the syringe broke her creamy skin. She watched the vein fill with her red, sticky blood breathing a sigh as
relief took hold of her.

Afterwards she stood a while in the foyer hoping Armand would pass through, but he was nowhere to be seen so she went up the staircase, and lost herself in the hallways, roaming along through
the foul smelling passages, passing the tiny, recessed rooms. In these grim corridors, there lingered a palpable odour of dried sweat, and she heard low voices coming from one of the rooms. Pushing
open the heavy wooden door, the walls were covered with an artistic series of black and white photographs depicting various areas of Rome. Even from a distance she was able to see the
photographer’s yellowing card; ‘Blake Cram, Roma, 1976,’ read the inscription proudly.

On the faded, psychedelic carpet, with its brown and yellow swirls, Cassandra’s shoes were placed neatly against the wall, and for a moment Maia stood perfectly still in the rancid,
airless corridor. On all sides, the plaster walls rose above her, in an apparently ceiling-less gloom. Then there came Armand’s voice. Opposite the door was an old mirror, through which there
ran a large crack. Flames shot up through her as she saw herself reflected; an open mouthed, ivory skinned woman, the lips a little too thin, black wide eyes placed far apart, more the face of an
unadorned Venetian carnival mask than that of a human. Unable to help herself, Maia slowly turned round and saw them struggling with one another. As she stood there breathless, frozen and appalled,
she felt her ribs contracting with misery and a hot sick feeling rising in her chest.

She walked over to the gilt edged mirror, a tribute to Mahmoud’s taste, and as she heard them move, her blood pounded deafeningly in her ears. She looked at her face a soulless, grotesque
mask, ash white, with the consistency of moulded clay. She took a crimson lipstick from her bag, which she ran thoroughly over her trembling lips. Wondering how she appeared to others, she compared
herself with Cassandra again, the exquisite, mysterious Cassandra who now lay sprawled beneath Armand on the bed, giving little gasping sighs. Maia looked at Cassandra quite differently, now that
she had viewed her in these soiled surroundings, her glamour somewhat tarnished.

Walking purposefully, Maia went back outside and descended into the courtyard to join the Historian, the Professor and Konstantin. When she returned to the table, her face remained like a
mask.

She sat detached and still in her chair, aware of their eyes resting upon her.

“You have become very quiet, Maia,” said the Historian. “Have you nothing more to add?”

Still she found that she couldn’t speak, and suspected that they were fully aware of her humiliation. She felt the shame was discernible through her clothes.

Strangely, the Historian appeared sympathetic. “He is a useless man,” he said. “Armand has his weaknesses. He likes to imagine that he is tortured, but never has a young man
been so lucky, or had so many opportunities offered up to him. He is cold blooded, an egotist,” he went on, not fully realising the irony of his statement. “He sees himself as a
wanderer. But at the same time he is anxious.”

“How?” asked Maia, intrigued by the Historian’s analysis of her lover’s psyche. “You speak of him so disparagingly.”

“He is worried about the fate of his masculine freedom in a world full of feminine distraction, tossed around upon a sea of lustful breasts.” And at this vivid image conjured up by
his master, Konstantin laughed politely. Unlike his master, however, Konstantin did not despise women. Rather, he envied their feminine allure. It was the incense of women, their gentleness and
softness that he sought to emulate.

“You are sad, my dear,” said the Historian gently. “Besides, all life is ephemeral. Armand, for instance, is himself a very transient character. He was just another young Arab
man in Marseilles. I met him many years ago, and I helped to educate him. He reinvented himself. And then he saw what we have here. That is what you imagine you love, Maia – a mere
creation.”

“But we are all creations of our circumstances,” said the Professor, who was in turn ignored by the Historian. These were callous men, and with a lurching passion she resented them
and hated herself. They had opened a cesspool for her and then welcomed her in. Out here in Morocco, nobody could reach her. She had allowed herself to become stranded. She had welcomed it.

“Very well, then. I think we might have exhausted this subject already.”

Maia could not answer. She was sweating and shaking. Soon afterwards, Armand and Cassandra joined the table, and Maia watched the Historian as he arranged his mouth in a careful smile. The air
was thick with tension. Her companions wanted to see her reaction, to have the evening’s entertainment, but she would not show fear or distress before them. With her sweaty arms sticking to
the chair, their eyes clung to her, her neck, her calves, her ankles, searching her any small morsels of emotion, dissecting her for any betrayal, any muscle reflex in her face or her body which
would reveal her unhappiness. They were all of them inescapable.

An image of being with Armand flashed up in her mind, and the taste of acid flowed up bitterly into her mouth. Maia hated him, but hated the fact that someone else could have him, even more.

Konstantin prodded her. “Are you alright Maia?”