time:”
“I know no one here, Abdel. I am hoping you can help me. You said you have influence. I would like you to introduce me to someone who knows the security situation in Morocco. A scholar, perhaps, or someone with ties to the military or the police:”
“But why? Morocco is a liberal country by Muslim standards. There have been no terrorist attacks here. You will find nothing:”
“Then that will be the story.”
This time Lahani’s smile was one that Megan at first thought was meant to humor her. But her new friend had a way at times of smiling only with his mouth, as he did now, of keeping his eyes flat and emotionless, a trait much more attractive to her than mere expressiveness. In her experience, it took very little in the way of either time or prompting for most men to express their feelings, which usually centered around what they thought was love but was usually lust or the need for mothering.
“I have a friend at the university,” Lahani said, his smile gone, his eyes meeting hers without a hint of humor or condescension. “An Islamic scholar. If I speak to him first, he may be willing to speak to you. I am going there tomorrow. I’ll ask him.”
“Thank you:”
They were sitting at a wrought iron table in the tiled courtyard of Lahani’s walled house in the heart of Marrakech’s old city. A woman in a floor-length hooded djellaba, her veil down, her eyes averted and impassive, had served them a late afternoon dinner of couscous steamed with lamb and vegetables and a bottle of Bordeaux that Megan knew from her many adventures with rich Frenchmen was worth about two hundred dollars American. Afterward came dates, cheese, nuts, thick coffee, and conversation. Close at hand were tile-bordered gardens bearing lemon and acaccia trees and a small, gently splashing fountain whose pedestal and bowl bore mosaic images of Moorish Spain. Megan wore comfortable white linen pants and a white silk tunic with a diamond pattern embroidered at the cuffs and waist. At her neck was a thick eighteen-carat-gold chain given to her by Alain Tillinac in one of his futile efforts to win her back. Its burnished surface captured the late day sunlight to form a ring of fire against the finely spun red wool at her neck. On the Zagora trip she had pinned her hair up and worn a baseball cap, layered tee, and sweatshirts, but tonight she had on decent clothes and light makeup.
Lahani, who had been away himself in Europe, seemed delighted to receive Megan’s call, and even more delighted to see her as she exited her taxi at the massive front gate of his house. She had used his first name and asked him for a favor, chips in a game of arousal and anticipation that she had played many times before. This one promised to be very exciting. There was, in Megan’s experience of them, a feral look to the faces of many, if not most, Middle Eastern men, a facade painfully appropriate to their seemingly universal inner desire to subjugate their women. There was an elemental wildness, to be sure, about Lahani, with his chiseled face, thick black mustache, even thicker black hair, and burning, deep-set black eyes. And there was an undertone of power, even menace in his deep baritone voice. But there was also a refinement about him, what might almost be called a learned effeteness in his movements, as if in a deliberate attempt to conceal or suppress the rawness beneath the surface. This combination of power and grace had been rare in Megan’s men, nonexistent actually until now. It was a heady combination, one that required her, in turn, to play her part carefully so that she could stay in control. In truth it was this very tension, the thrill of losing control-which to her amounted to subjugation—that so attracted her to Lahani, that made the game dangerous and worth playing.
Before either of them could speak again, the serving woman arrived and, still passive and withdrawn to the point of
“I know no one here, Abdel. I am hoping you can help me. You said you have influence. I would like you to introduce me to someone who knows the security situation in Morocco. A scholar, perhaps, or someone with ties to the military or the police:”
“But why? Morocco is a liberal country by Muslim standards. There have been no terrorist attacks here. You will find nothing:”
“Then that will be the story.”
This time Lahani’s smile was one that Megan at first thought was meant to humor her. But her new friend had a way at times of smiling only with his mouth, as he did now, of keeping his eyes flat and emotionless, a trait much more attractive to her than mere expressiveness. In her experience, it took very little in the way of either time or prompting for most men to express their feelings, which usually centered around what they thought was love but was usually lust or the need for mothering.
“I have a friend at the university,” Lahani said, his smile gone, his eyes meeting hers without a hint of humor or condescension. “An Islamic scholar. If I speak to him first, he may be willing to speak to you. I am going there tomorrow. I’ll ask him.”
“Thank you:”
They were sitting at a wrought iron table in the tiled courtyard of Lahani’s walled house in the heart of Marrakech’s old city. A woman in a floor-length hooded djellaba, her veil down, her eyes averted and impassive, had served them a late afternoon dinner of couscous steamed with lamb and vegetables and a bottle of Bordeaux that Megan knew from her many adventures with rich Frenchmen was worth about two hundred dollars American. Afterward came dates, cheese, nuts, thick coffee, and conversation. Close at hand were tile-bordered gardens bearing lemon and acaccia trees and a small, gently splashing fountain whose pedestal and bowl bore mosaic images of Moorish Spain. Megan wore comfortable white linen pants and a white silk tunic with a diamond pattern embroidered at the cuffs and waist. At her neck was a thick eighteen-carat-gold chain given to her by Alain Tillinac in one of his futile efforts to win her back. Its burnished surface captured the late day sunlight to form a ring of fire against the finely spun red wool at her neck. On the Zagora trip she had pinned her hair up and worn a baseball cap, layered tee, and sweatshirts, but tonight she had on decent clothes and light makeup.
Lahani, who had been away himself in Europe, seemed delighted to receive Megan’s call, and even more delighted to see her as she exited her taxi at the massive front gate of his house. She had used his first name and asked him for a favor, chips in a game of arousal and anticipation that she had played many times before. This one promised to be very exciting. There was, in Megan’s experience of them, a feral look to the faces of many, if not most, Middle Eastern men, a facade painfully appropriate to their seemingly universal inner desire to subjugate their women. There was an elemental wildness, to be sure, about Lahani, with his chiseled face, thick black mustache, even thicker black hair, and burning, deep-set black eyes. And there was an undertone of power, even menace in his deep baritone voice. But there was also a refinement about him, what might almost be called a learned effeteness in his movements, as if in a deliberate attempt to conceal or suppress the rawness beneath the surface. This combination of power and grace had been rare in Megan’s men, nonexistent actually until now. It was a heady combination, one that required her, in turn, to play her part carefully so that she could stay in control. In truth it was this very tension, the thrill of losing control-which to her amounted to subjugation—that so attracted her to Lahani, that made the game dangerous and worth playing.
Before either of them could speak again, the serving woman arrived and, still passive and withdrawn to the point of
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