Sweet Revenge

mother’s knee, her eyes lazily narrowed against the smoke of the incense, Adrianne watched her cousins dance. The long, hot afternoon stretched out ahead. She had hoped to go shopping, perhaps to buy some new silk or a gold bracelet like the one Duja had shown her the day before, but her mother had seemed so listless that morning.
    They would shop tomorrow. Today the fans stirred the incense-laden air while the drums beat out a slow rhythm. Latifa had smuggled in a catalog from Frederick’s of Hollywood. The women were pawing over it and giggling. They talked as they always did, and the talk was of sex. Adrianne was too accustomed to the frank words and excited descriptions to be interested. She liked to watch the dancing, the long, sinuous movements, the flow of dark hair, the twists and turns of bodies.
    She glanced over at Meri, the third wife of her father who, smugly content with her swollen belly, sat nearby discussing childbirth. Leiha, her face pinched as she nursed her youngest daughter, surreptitiously eyed Meri. Fahid, a sturdy five, trotted over and demanded attention and without hesitation Leiha passed the baby away. Her smile held triumph as she took her son to her breast.
    “Is it any wonder they grow to abuse us?” Phoebe murmured.
    “Mama?”
    “Nothing.” Absently, she stroked Adrianne’s hair. The beat of the drum pounded in her head, monotonous, relentless, like the days she spent in the harem. “In America babies are loved whether they are boys or girls. Women aren’t expected to spend their lives bearing children.”
    “How does a tribe stay strong?”
    Phoebe sighed. There were days she no longer thought clearly. She had the pills to blame, and to thank, for that. The latest supply had cost her an emerald ring, but she’d gotten the bonus of a pint of Russian vodka. She hoarded it in the most miserly fashion, allowing herself one small glass after each time Abdu came to her room. She no longer fought him, no longer cared to; she endured by focusing her thoughts on the solace to be enjoyed from the drink she would have when he was done with her.
    She could leave. If she only had the courage she could take Adrianne and run away, run back to the real world, where women weren’t forced to cover their bodies in shame and submit themselves to the cruel whims of men. She could go back to America, where she was loved, where people crowded into theaters to watch her. She could still act. Wasn’t she acting every day? In America she could give Adrianne a good life.
    She couldn’t leave. Phoebe shut her eyes and tried to block out the sound of drums. To leave Jaquir a woman needed written permission from a man of her family. Abdu would never give it to her, for as much as he hated her, he wanted her.
    She had already begged him to let her go, but he had refused. To escape would take thousands of dollars, and a risk she was nearly ready to take. But she would never make it out of the country with Adrianne. No bribe was large enough to tempt a smuggler to give illegal passage to the daughter of the king.
    And she was afraid. Afraid of what he might do to Adrianne. He would take her away, Phoebe thought. There would be nothing she could do to stop him, no court to pleadto but his court, no police to go to but his police. She would never risk Adrianne.
    More than once she had thought of suicide. The ultimate escape. She thought of it the way she had once thought of lovemaking, as something to be desired, treasured, lingered over. Sometimes on hot, endless afternoons she stared at the bottle of pills and wondered how it would feel to take all of them, to drift finally, completely, into the fuzzy world of dreams. Glorious. She had even gone so far as to pour them into her hand, to count them, to fondle them.
    But there was Adrianne. Always Adrianne.
    So she would stay. She would drug herself until reality was bearable, and she would stay. But she would give Adrianne something of herself.
    “I want the sun,” Phoebe said abruptly. “Let’s walk in the gardens.”
    Adrianne wanted to stay where she was, lulled by the scents and the sounds, but she rose dutifully and went with her mother.
    The dry heat surrounded them. As always, it hurt Phoebe’s eyes and made her long for a Pacific breeze. Once she’d owned a house in Malibu and had loved sitting by the big, wide window and watching the water swell with waves.
    Here there were flowers, lush, exotic, and dripping with perfume. The walls rose