Sweet Revenge

high, to prevent a woman who walked there from tempting any passing man. Such was the way of Islam. A woman was a weak sexual creature without the strength or intellect to guard her virtue. Men guarded it for her.
    The air in the garden oasis was alive with birdsong. The first time Phoebe had seen this garden, with its tangle of rich blossoms and heady scents, she had thought it straight out of a movie. All around the desert sands shifted, but here there were jasmine, oleander, hibiscus. Miniature orange and lemon trees thrived. She knew their fruit, like her husband’s eyes, was bitter.
    Irresistibly, she was drawn to the fountain. It had been Abdu’s gift to her when he had brought her to his country as his queen. A symbol of the constant flow of his love. The love had long since dried up, but the fountain continued to play.
    She was still his wife, the first of the four his lawsentitled him to. But in Jaquir her marriage had become her prison. Twisting the diamond circle on her finger, she watched the water tumble into the little pond. Adrianne began to toss in pebbles to make the bright carp swim.
    “I do not like Men,” Adrianne began. In a world as restricted as a harem, there was little to talk about except the other women and children. “She pokes out her belly and smiles like this.” She screwed up her face and made Phoebe laugh.
    “Oh, you’re good for me.” She kissed the top of her head. “My little actress.” She had her father’s eyes, Phoebe thought as she brushed the hair back from Adrianne’s face. They helped her remember the time when he had looked at her with love and warmth. “In America they’d line up for miles to see you.”
    Pleased with the idea, Adrianne smiled. “The way they did for you?”
    “Yes.” She looked back at the water. It was sometimes hard to remember the other person she had been. “They did. I always wanted to make people happy, Addy.”
    “When the reporter came, she said you were missed.”
    “Reporter?” That had been two or three years before. No, longer ago than that. Perhaps four years. Strange how time was blurring. Abdu had agreed to the interview to silence any gossip about their marriage. She hadn’t expected the child to remember it. Why, Addy couldn’t have been more than four or five then. “What did you think of her?”
    “Her talk was strange and sometimes too fast. Her hair was cut very short, like a little boy’s, and it was the color of straw. She was angry because her camera was allowed only for a few pictures, then taken away from her.” When Phoebe sat on a marble bench, Adrianne continued to throw pebbles. “She said you were the most beautiful and most envied woman in the world. She asked if you wore a veil.”
    “You don’t forget anything, do you?” Phoebe remembered as well, and remembered spinning a tale about the heat and dust and using the veil to protect her complexion.
    “I liked when she talked about you.” Adrianne remembered, too, that her mother had cried after the reporter had gone. “Will she come back?”
    “Maybe, someday.” But Phoebe knew that people forgot.There were new faces, new names in Hollywood, and she even knew a few of them for Abdu allowed some letters to be delivered to her. Faye Dunaway, Jane Fonda, Ann-Margret. Beautiful young actresses making their marks, taking the place that had once been hers.
    She touched her own face, knowing there were lines around her eyes now. Once it had been on every magazine cover. Women had dyed their hair to match hers. She had been compared to Monroe, to Gardner, to Loren. Later she had not been compared to anyone; she had set a standard.
    “Once I almost won an Oscar. That’s the very biggest prize for an actress. Even though I didn’t, there was a wonderful party. Everyone was laughing and talking and making plans. It was all so different from Nebraska. That’s where I lived when I was the age you are now, darling.”
    “Where there was snow?”
    “Yes.” Phoebe smiled and held out her arms. “Where there was snow. I lived there with my grandparents because my mother and father had died. I was very happy, but I didn’t always know it. I wanted to be an actress, to wear beautiful clothes, and to have lots of people love me.”
    “So you became a movie star.”
    “I did.” Phoebe rubbed her cheek against Adrianne’s hair. “It seems like hundreds of years ago. It didn’t snow in California, but I had the ocean. To me it was a fairy tale,