KU-chuk HA-nem. Golden creature, instrument of pleasure.
Like other Arabs, she called him Abu Chanab —Father Mustache. Why, she asked, did he cover such a fine mouth? Twice she offered to shave it off, taking his face between her warm, oily hands to appraise it. Peering back at her, he had glimpsed her most alluring feature: a small rotten incisor amid an otherwise dazzling smile.
The day they met, she had declared her importance by sending an emissary named Bambeh to the cange when they docked in Esneh. Did they wish to see dancing girls? Though she also was an alma, Bambeh looked not like a trollop, but a pretty sprig of a girl. She had brought her mistress’s pet lamb with her. Hennaed with polka dots and muzzled in black velvet, the animal followed her like a dog. The sight of the two of them had brought tears to his eyes. They did wish to see dancing girls, Max told her, but they had plans for the morning. She’d waited two hours while he and Max visited a shop above a school to buy ink and scouted two more monuments. When they returned at noon, they found her perched demurely at Rais Ibrahim’s elbow, the crew at her feet, a trail of sheep pellets on the deck.
Attracting stares and cries for baksheesh from Arabs squatting outside mud huts, they followed Bambeh to a courtyard as different from the town that surrounded it as a dream is from waking life. Instead of the dust and mud of Esneh, the courtyard was tinted withconfectioners’ hues—the pink of desert roses and the brilliant scarlet of two flowering pomegranate trees. Walls painted pale aqua set off the vibrant green of plants in colorful glazed pots.
The first moment he saw Kuchuk Hanem something inside him had melted and not solidified since. The sensation was identical to looking at certain paintings. The plasm of his being streamed invisibly toward the canvas, completing it, as though the painting had been waiting for him since the artist finished it.
Clad in pink silk trousers, she was perfuming her hands. She had just completed her bath, Joseph explained. He caught the odor of rosewater and something like turpentine as she bent to replace a water jug, her bronze arms rippling in the sunlight. Through the filmy purple gauze wrapping her torso, he saw the clear outline of her breasts and felt himself stir.
A statuesque, coffee-colored Syrian, she embodied his fantasy of the East. Her eyes were dark, painted with antimony, her eyebrows black, her nostrils wide and flaring. Her costume was straight from the seraglio. On her head sat a tarboosh ornamented with a gold disk and fake emerald; a blue tassel fanned out over her shoulders like a cockade; and a spray of artificial white flowers was fastened to her hair from ear to ear. And what hair!—as elaborate as the wigs of the ancient Egyptians. Thick, black, and wavy, it was parted in the center into two long, bushy pigtails that were braided together at the nape.
She stepped toward him, accompanied by the faint tinkling of her gold jewelry. Bangles collided on her wrists, while her necklace, a triple rope of beads, whispered like brushed cymbals. Above this sea of sound, her hoop earrings swayed silently. A golden aura enveloped her, as if she had been dipped in that metal or fashioned directly from it, embellished with a goldsmith’s granules, globes, and darts to complement the iridescent undulations of her skin.
She greeted them in French. He took her hand and kissed it, noting a fine line of blue writing tattooed on her arm, which he later learned was a verse from the Koran, though not what it said. Afterperfuming his and Max’s hands with attar of roses, she asked if they would like some entertainment. Before he could answer, Max took her arm, and the two vanished down a staircase.
Minutes later, Max shouted, and Gustave followed his voice to the lower level, where Kuchuk lay on a kilim-covered divan. After Max left the room, Gustave entered her for a rapid coup more like a greeting than
Like other Arabs, she called him Abu Chanab —Father Mustache. Why, she asked, did he cover such a fine mouth? Twice she offered to shave it off, taking his face between her warm, oily hands to appraise it. Peering back at her, he had glimpsed her most alluring feature: a small rotten incisor amid an otherwise dazzling smile.
The day they met, she had declared her importance by sending an emissary named Bambeh to the cange when they docked in Esneh. Did they wish to see dancing girls? Though she also was an alma, Bambeh looked not like a trollop, but a pretty sprig of a girl. She had brought her mistress’s pet lamb with her. Hennaed with polka dots and muzzled in black velvet, the animal followed her like a dog. The sight of the two of them had brought tears to his eyes. They did wish to see dancing girls, Max told her, but they had plans for the morning. She’d waited two hours while he and Max visited a shop above a school to buy ink and scouted two more monuments. When they returned at noon, they found her perched demurely at Rais Ibrahim’s elbow, the crew at her feet, a trail of sheep pellets on the deck.
Attracting stares and cries for baksheesh from Arabs squatting outside mud huts, they followed Bambeh to a courtyard as different from the town that surrounded it as a dream is from waking life. Instead of the dust and mud of Esneh, the courtyard was tinted withconfectioners’ hues—the pink of desert roses and the brilliant scarlet of two flowering pomegranate trees. Walls painted pale aqua set off the vibrant green of plants in colorful glazed pots.
The first moment he saw Kuchuk Hanem something inside him had melted and not solidified since. The sensation was identical to looking at certain paintings. The plasm of his being streamed invisibly toward the canvas, completing it, as though the painting had been waiting for him since the artist finished it.
Clad in pink silk trousers, she was perfuming her hands. She had just completed her bath, Joseph explained. He caught the odor of rosewater and something like turpentine as she bent to replace a water jug, her bronze arms rippling in the sunlight. Through the filmy purple gauze wrapping her torso, he saw the clear outline of her breasts and felt himself stir.
A statuesque, coffee-colored Syrian, she embodied his fantasy of the East. Her eyes were dark, painted with antimony, her eyebrows black, her nostrils wide and flaring. Her costume was straight from the seraglio. On her head sat a tarboosh ornamented with a gold disk and fake emerald; a blue tassel fanned out over her shoulders like a cockade; and a spray of artificial white flowers was fastened to her hair from ear to ear. And what hair!—as elaborate as the wigs of the ancient Egyptians. Thick, black, and wavy, it was parted in the center into two long, bushy pigtails that were braided together at the nape.
She stepped toward him, accompanied by the faint tinkling of her gold jewelry. Bangles collided on her wrists, while her necklace, a triple rope of beads, whispered like brushed cymbals. Above this sea of sound, her hoop earrings swayed silently. A golden aura enveloped her, as if she had been dipped in that metal or fashioned directly from it, embellished with a goldsmith’s granules, globes, and darts to complement the iridescent undulations of her skin.
She greeted them in French. He took her hand and kissed it, noting a fine line of blue writing tattooed on her arm, which he later learned was a verse from the Koran, though not what it said. Afterperfuming his and Max’s hands with attar of roses, she asked if they would like some entertainment. Before he could answer, Max took her arm, and the two vanished down a staircase.
Minutes later, Max shouted, and Gustave followed his voice to the lower level, where Kuchuk lay on a kilim-covered divan. After Max left the room, Gustave entered her for a rapid coup more like a greeting than
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