“Happy birthday, dear.”
Wake shook himself out of his reverie. “What?”
“Peter, it’s June twenty-sixth, your thirty-fifth birthday. Good Lord, you can’t have forgotten that!”
He had forgotten completely. “Thinking about everything else, dear. But it’s been a great birthday. Incredible.”
They rode along the bay front, dimmed gaslights across the city allowing the stars to show in the moonless night. The warm summer breeze and night sounds of the city accompanied by the horse’s lazy hoof beat. Linda snuggled close to him and was so soft. He breathed in her perfume, caressed her hair and let the awful memories of the ShaaTaan Taalib and its terror mastermind fade away.
“She’s very beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Who?” he asked, but he understood her question.
“The lady you rescued, Peter. Your friend Catherine. Who else would I be talking about, silly? She’s very nice. We talked and she told me you met her in the West Indies, then she and her husband in Italy, and then you helped to track her down and rescue her in Africa. An amazing story, Peter. She’s quite an admirer of yours. Said I was lucky to have a gentleman like you. Described what you went through, but stayed sane and decent throughout it all. She called it ‘an affair of honor,’ but I got the feeling she meant more than the part in Africa.”
His mind went to that New Year’s Eve on Martinique. Was it only six months ago? It felt like a lifetime ago.
“Catherine’s a good person and a friend, and yes, she’s beautiful. We were lucky to be able to save her and most of the others. Her husband saved my life.” He saw Linda still looking at him quizzically. “And yes, our friendship was, and is, an affair of honor. No problem there, dear.”
She held him tighter, neither saying anything further. It was such a wonderful evening he didn’t want the drive to end, so when they reached the hotel he promised the driver an extra hundred lira to take a slow drive into the hills so they could overlook the city lights below, telling Linda that the children were surely asleep anyway and that he’d kiss them in the morning.
As they crested the top of one of the hills surrounding the city to the north, Linda pointed to the northwest sky. “Oh Peter, just look at that! Have you ever seen anything like that?”
Wake was awestruck. “No. I’m not sure anyone has, Linda.”
Low above the Maritime Alps in the distance, across the inky black void just to the right of Cassiopeia and the constellation Camelopardalis, was a brilliant blaze of amber fire covering fully sixty degrees of sky across the northern horizon. It was the most incredible comet Wake had witnessed or heard about—so bright and huge as to be unreal.
Then Sokhoor’s final words came to him. “Peter, you’re shaking, shaking badly. Darling, are you all right? What is it?”
“Nothing’s wrong. Just remembering what a friend told me when I left Africa. He said that Allah would soon show me a cosmic celebration in gratitude and that everything would be better for me. Somehow he knew.”
Linda held his trembling hands and saw tears in his eyes as he stood and looked away to the southern horizon, over the dark Mediterranean—toward Africa.
“Shukran bezzef, Sokhoor. As-salaamu alaikum,” he murmured.
Wake sat back down and told the driver to take them to their hotel. Pulling her closer, he kissed Linda slowly, savoring her taste, her scent, the feel of her body.
“What was that you said, Peter?”
“Just a thank-you to my friend Sokhoor. I asked that peace be upon him.”
Wake decided then that Linda never needed to know the horrors he had seen and been through—she’d been through enough herself, trying to raise a family alone, wondering where her husband was and if he was even alive. He thought of Sokhoor again—Porro et Sursum. It was time to look forward.
Under the light of the comet Peter and Linda’s bodies molded to each other under the carriage blanket. There was so much he wanted to ask, to say, but it wasn’t the right moment. Stroking Linda’s soft auburn hair, holding her in his arms, he knew everything was all right now. They were going to make it.
Words weren’t needed anymore.
Acknowledgments
What an adventure it was to write this novel. After researching the background material for five months, I embarked upon an eleven-thousand-mile trek by ship, car, van, and plane, from the languid tropics of the New World to the urban complexity of the Old World—finally ending up in mysterious Africa. Many people on three continents, eight islands, two seas, and one very big ocean assisted me along the way in English, Spanish, French, Italian, Latin, and Arabic. Here are my thanks to some of those who really went beyond the call of duty.
Thank you to Calvin Kelly and Hal Ulrich, the can-do guys at Computer World on St. Thomas, for efficiently solving my cyber dilemma so I could get this book started.
My respects go to Caswall Richards, one of Antigua’s finest sons, for showing me his island and convincing that bus driver to wait for me. The ship wouldn’t have waited.
Merci to Audrey Jason, who led me back in time through the interior and along the coasts of enchanting Martinique—where so many cultures have blended so deliciously.
Thank you to the charming Martineve Browne and the imperturbable Steve Bryan, for sharing their love of Barbados’ past, its people, and its beauty.
To Susana Pérez, one of Spain’s most delightful daughters, mil gracias, mi amiga, for immersing me into the magical world of the ancient Alcázar and the cathedral, in the heart of one of my favorite cities in the world—Sevilla.
Señor Tony Muñoz, el historiador of Palma de Majorca, gets a thank-you for teaching me who was
