But they did not talk much. There was a killing awareness between them, so powerful she felt she might explode with it.
The tarmac was practically steaming in the heat, as if it would melt the tires, and when they turned onto the unpaved road that led to the cottage dust billowed up around them in an impenetrable cloud.
‘Like my country,’ Salah said. ‘Like the desert.’ And Desi half closed her eyes and dreamed that they were there, that he was driving her across the desert to his home.
‘I wish I could see it,’ she whispered. ‘It must be so beautiful, the desert.’
‘Yes, beautiful. Like you.’
He might as well have punched her in the stomach. She had never dreamed love would be like this, gasping for air, every cell of her body ready to burst.
‘Am I?’
‘I will take you to see it one day,’ he promised. ‘Then you will know how beautiful you are.’
‘Yes,’ she said softly, and they looked into each other’s eyes and it was as if the promise were sealed with a kiss.
The kiss came later, as they sat on the dock, wet from swimming, watching as the sunset behind the trees painted the lake a rich gold.
‘In my country I will show you an ocean of sand,’ he said. ‘The shadows at sunset are purple and blue. And every day it is different, because the wind—what do you say?—makes it into shapes.’
‘Sculpts,’ she offered.
‘Sculpts, yes. In the desert the wind is a sculptor. I wish I were a sculptor, Desi,’ he breathed, and his hand moved up to explore the line of her temple, cheek, chin, and then slipped behind her neck under the wet hair.
It was her first kiss, and it was unbelievably, piercingly sweet. It assailed her body as though a thousand tender mouths touched her everywhere at once. With Salah bending over her, their mouths fused, she melted down onto the dock, and the sun-warmed weathered wood against her back added its mite to the overwhelming sensation that poured through her.
Her hand lifted of its own volition to the warm skin of his chest, his shoulder, and a moment later Salah lifted his mouth to look at her. His face was gold and shadow, the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. They gazed into each other’s eyes.
‘Desi, I love you,’ he said; she breathed, ‘I love you, Salah,’ and all around them was perfection.
She had never seen real desert so close before. Mountains and sea were her natural background; from her childhood she had never questioned the rightness of that.
Until now. Now, as she watched an eternity of dusky sand pass, smoky tendrils of longing and belonging reached out from the stark landscape into the vehicle, into her being, her self, and clasped her heart.
‘So,’ Salah said, in a harsh voice that immediately brought her back to the now. ‘So, Desi, you come to my country at last.’
She could feel her emotions rising to the bait, and fought down the impulse to rake over their ten-year-old history.
‘Well, I guess you could…’
‘After ten years, what have you to say to me?’
‘I didn’t ask you to meet me, and I’ve nothing to say to you,’ she said, forgetting Sami, forgetting everything except basic life-saving procedures.
‘You lie. What do you come for, if not this?’
This?
‘What are you talking about?’ she demanded.
He looked at her for an electric moment, his eyes blazing as if he were struggling against some powerful impulse, and she held her breath and awaited the outcome.
‘You know what I mean.’
She licked her lips. ‘Didn’t your father tell you why I’m here?’
Salah snorted. ‘My father’s work! Even the immigration official knew better than to believe it. Why do you come to me now? What do you want? What do you hope I can give you? You are too late.’
She couldn’t believe this. What was time, then? Ten years since they had spoken, but here they were, picking up the argument as if scarcely an hour had passed.
‘I don’t want anything from you! Who told you I wanted—?’
He pulled her sunglasses off, flinging them down on the seat between them.
‘Do not hide behind darkness and tell me lies.’
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ She grabbed the glasses up again, fumbling to unfold them.
‘When women veil their hair it is to protect their modesty. When they veil their eyes it is to conceal deceit.’
It was impossible to put the glasses back on, after that, impossible to leave them off. She glared at him, anger rising in her.
‘And when men accuse women it’s to avoid facing their own guilt. What do you want?’
‘We will discover. But I did not go to you, Desi. You came to me.’
‘That’s a Napoleonic ego you’re nursing there, Salah. I came to your country.’
The flesh on his face tightened. ‘To visit my father,’ he said, measuring every word.
‘Exactly!’ she said. ‘I think we’re back where you started, aren’t we?’
He was not fazed.
‘Why do you deny it? There is no shame in returning to your first love when other men are unsatisfactory. If your first love has waited for you, all is well.’
‘Do you have any idea how pompous you sound?’
‘Do you regret our unmatched passion, Desi?’ His black eyes burned into hers. ‘That day in the cabin—do you remember it? What could ever reach it, if we lived a thousand years? Is that why you are here?’
The memory of that summer welled up in her at his words. Heat burned her blood. That incredible, bone-deep, never-to-be-repeated yearning for the touch of another human being—it was as if she had sat by a fire she thought was ashes and dust, and with one measured kick he had set it roaring into an inferno again.
‘I regretted it for a while,’ she said. ‘And then not. What about you?’
‘Your hair,’ he said. ‘I want to see your hair.’
Her head twitched back. ‘Don’t touch me!’
‘Ten years.’
She could not prevent him. He reached out to grasp the brim of her hat and slowly pulled it off. At his bidding, the ash-blond hair came tumbling down around her shoulders. It was like being undressed by any other man.
‘Still
