Sweet Revenge Read Online Free PDF Page B

glass while the smells of animals and spice hung in the still air and the
matawain
roamed in their straggly henna-tipped beards ready to punish any infraction of religious law. Adrianne never feared the
matawain
when she was with Jiddah. The former queen was revered in Jaquir. She had borne twelve children. When they shopped, the air would be crowded with sound, the squawks of bargaining, the bray of a donkey, the slap of sandals on the hard ground.
    When prayer call sounded, the suqs would close. Then the women would wait while men lowered their faces to the earth. Adrianne would listen to the click of prayer beads, herhead bowed like those of the other women. She was not yet veiled, but no longer a child. In those last days of the Mediterranean summer, she waited, poised at the edge of change.
    So did Jaquir. Though the country struggled against poverty, the House of Jaquir was wealthy. As the first daughter of the king, she was entitled to the symbols and signs of her rank. But Abdu’s heart had never opened to her.
    His second wife had given him two daughters after Fahid. It had been murmured in the harem that Abdu had flown into a rage after the second girl and nearly divorced Leiha. But the crown prince was strong and handsome. Speculation ran that Leiha would soon be pregnant again. To insure his line, Abdu took a third wife and planted his seed quickly.
    Phoebe began to take a pill each morning. She escaped now into dreams, sleeping or waking.
    In the harem, with her head comfortably nestled on her 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