Sil Curtain

Just over three years had passed since John had last seen his wife that fateful day in Izimir. Local police, the American embassy, even the FBI had all failed to find the pretty American teacher who had vanished into thin air on that warm summer night in Turkey.

As the years past, people had simply forgotten. Constance had vanished from the front pages. She had gone from being a beautiful, vibrant woman to being a cold case in a file in a basement of some office.

John was a wreck. He hadn't gone to bed sober in months, but this last month had been brutal when Constance's life insurance company had contacted him to ask if he wished to begin the process of declaring his wife legally dead so he could move on.

John didn't want to move on. He wanted his wife back. He had gone through life in a stupor, his vision always hazed over by the memory of his wife.

That September, three months and two years after Constance had vanished, John had decided to visit the Harvard Museum of Natural History to celebrate what would have been Constance's 26th birthday. They had met at Harvard and their first date had been at the museum. Constance had wanted to see the Glass Flower Exhibit.

John wandered the museum, staggering slightly. A few Harvard students pointed at him and whispered, but he was beyond caring. He stopped abruptly at one of the exhibits of Neanderthal man and woman. I'm never going to see Constance again, he thought to himself and suddenly uncontrollable tears welled up in his eyes.

Without Constance I might as well not even go on living, John thought despairingly. Oh God, if you're out there, please give me a sign. Better yet, give Constance back to me, or at least make her alive and well.

John stared at the Neanderthal mannequins, sniffling and wiping his eyes. After a few moments, no sign seemed forthcoming.

"Fuck this," John muttered bitterly. "I'm going to get drunk. Happy birthday, Connie."

John began to stride out of the museum, eager to crawl back into a bottle.

"John? John, ez dat yoo?" a voice called from another exhibit.

John barely noticed and continued walking.

"Eh, dat ez yoo! Hold on, John!" the voice called; a few footsteps later a hand grabbed his arm. John dispiritedly allowed himself to be halted.

"Eh, don't yoo remember me? Et ez Alex, we met, on vacation, in Turkey! How are yoo?!" the annoyingly gregarious voice went on, penetrating the fog around John's brain. And sure enough, there he was, the sleek Frenchman that John had disliked so much for his leering gaze.

"W... what are you doing here?" John stuttered, surprised and off balance.

"Eh, I am 'ere in Boston to talk to a man aboot imports to France. But while I am not working dere ez still time to see diz great museum, yes?" Alex said expansively, holding his arms wide as if he could embrace the entire museum. "But come! 'Ow are yoo, John? Yoo do not look so good, no? Yoo need very much a hair cut, my American friend?" Alex chattered as he ushered John towards the exit.

John grumbled something, half in response, still dazed at the surreal moment.

The two men walked across the campus. If John was silent except for a grunt or two, Alex seemed determined to carry both ends of the conversation with a day-by-day recap of his life since they had seen each other in Izimir.

"And 'ow is yoor beautiful wife, my friend?" Alex chattered on and John halted, staring at him dazed at this needling reminder of his missing wife.

"I swear, I saw 'er some time ago, but of course I did not," Alex rambled.

"What?" John interrupted the Frenchman sharply, seizing the other man's arm in a fierce grip.

"Eh? Nothing, et ez nothing," Alex said, squirming his arm a bit.

"Tell me what you meant!" John insisted, eyeing the man murderously.

"Et ez just I saw someone who looked very much like your pretty wife and I was reminded of yoo too. 'Ey, let me go!"

John let Alex pull his arm free. "Where did you see her?"

"Tripoli, in Libya. As I said, et ez nothing I did not see her only saw someone who looked like 'er and was reminded, eh?"

"Where in Tripoli?" John continued fiercely, eyes burning with new found intensity.

"Et ez..." the Frenchman stumbled.

"Where?" John snapped, dangerously.

"A...a place called the Silk Curtain. Et ez a... tavern," Alex replied.

"The Silk Curtain," John growled, feeling more alive than he had in months... maybe even years.

John didn't even bother to say goodbye to Alex, turning off and sprinting home. He had to call his father, Constance's parents, the whole world!

But John found his family less then receptive. His father told him bluntly, "It's just another false lead like we got from the reward offer." Constance's father was much more interested and quickly called his friend in the FBI, who called John back personally to explain that there was nothing that could be done. "We don't even have diplomatic relations with Libya, for God's sake, son!" the man had told him.

John knew then that if no one else was going to do anything, he'd have to do it himself. He immediately went to the airport. Within 12 hours he was on a flight to Tunis, from where he could catch a bus into Libya.

The bus ride from Tunisia to Tripoli was hellish. It was one thing to have heard about the Northern Sahara. It was quite another to experience it. The sun was so hot that the metal sides and leather seats of the bus heated to the point where John could not bear to touch either. There was no air conditioning and on he went through half a dozen bottles of water on the trip. The water was almost as warm as bathwater but it was the sweetest thing John had ever tasted after a few hours rumbling through the sands.

Tripoli loomed over the coastline. From the bus ride in, John could see a few towering skyscrapers that dominated the horizon of the city, but that was where the resemblance to Boston ended. As they drove closer, a massive sea wall, a remnant of the medieval days clung to the harbor and buildings of adobe and sand coloured brick mixed in with modern concrete and asphalt. Every other building had a picture of Qadhefi, the Libyan President, and soldiers ambled the streets, bored looking men who chatted mostly with each other, but who nonetheless had guns at their sides. John was devoutly glad he had nothing on his clothes or duffel bag to mark him as an American.

A few inquiries around Tripoli turned up a cab driver with a basic understanding of English, but that man claimed to know nothing before driving off. A quick stop at the central bus terminal didn't reveal the location of the Silk Curtain and the telephone books were in Arabic.

After half a day of wandering the streets, it became painfully obvious to John that he was not going to find the Silk Curtain without a guide. He went into the Bazaar, wandering amongst the stands with a camera hanging from around his neck, clearly a tourist. After thirty minutes a boy approached him. "Mister, you are tourist? I am guide, show you all of Tripoli for 5 American dollars."

John smiled. "I'm trying to find a club called the Silk Curtain. If you can take me there, I'll give you 10 dollars."

The boy laughed impishly, revealing a mouth with several broken teeth. "You big man if you want to go to Silk Curtain. Big man can pay more than ten dollars!"

John felt a rush in his spirit. The urchin at least seemed to know what John was looking for. "Take me there and I'll give you 50."

The boy seemed to consider it, and then nodded. "Follow me Mister, follow me."

The olive skinned boy led John through the twisted and winding streets of Tripoli, from the modern downtown to the adobe slums that had stood for centuries and further still. John began to fear that the boy was leading him to a mugging or worse.

After a good hour of walking, John saw looming up ahead an arching dome. As they drew near, it became clear that the dome was the center of a massive, graceful building. "There it is, Mister. The Silk Curtain."

John stared in awe. He had expected the Silk Curtain to be a club of some sort, or a bar. It was a palace, delicate and beautiful yet imposing and proud. Men patrolled walls and each one had a rifle in his arms.

John approached nervously. A shaven headed man in a business suit stood by the door, but even he carried a rifle. "Invitation, please?" the man said in accented English.

"I'm looking for the Silk Curtain," John said nervously, looking past the man.

The man shrugged his heavy shoulders, the late afternoon sun practically reflecting on his smooth scalp. "This is Silk Curtain. Silk Curtain is members only. May I see invitation?"

"I don't exactly have one, but perhaps..." John began, reaching for his wallet.

The shaven headed man stiffened, swinging his rifle up and pointing it at John coldly. "It is not money. It is invitation. If no invitation, no Silk Curtain. Members only."

John took his hands out of his pocket, raising them and taking a few steps back, wide eyed and staring at the leveled rifle. "I don't want trouble..."

"Then you go. Go now!" the thug said sharply, sliding off the safety of the rifle. John suspected that in this city, the man could gun him down in broad daylight and not be prosecuted.

"Come, Mister. Come now," his guide said anxiously, tugging at the back of John's shirt. Obviously, he too thought the situation was dangerous.

John let himself be tugged away by the guide.

As they walked down the street, the guide said in a low, tense voice. "You very foolish, Mister. I told you, Silk Curtain is for Big Men. To go there, very bad, if not a big man. The guards, they are not afraid to shoot little men, because the big men say them too."

John mulled it over. "Alex had said he had gotten inside," he murmured to himself, trying to think how he could get past the guards.

"Maybe he had invitation or was guest of man who did," John's guide chimed, sounding once more like a boy.

John snapped his fingers. "Take me to someone, a big man, but not someone so big that he wouldn't talk to me."

The boy arched his eyebrows and seemed about to refuse, but then suddenly grinned. "I know just the man, Mister. But for $50 dollars!"

John paid it without hesitating.

John didn't think much of the big man's accommodations. It was a large tent on the outskirts of the city, in the middle of a shanty town of hovels and tents with hard eyed men and women glaring at the passersby.

The guide had told him that town was Bedouin, a nation within the nations of the Middle East. Desert nomads who never became civilized and clung to the old ways of herding and traveling the desert, often on camelback. Seeing the shantytown, John could believe.

A quick conversation in Arabic between the guide and two men outside led to the tent flap being opened and John received a brisk nod to enter. The inside of the tent was dark and had that peculiar odor of sweat and human skin, like a cave of a man.

The big man was sitting cross legged on a pillow, watching John enter with dark, hard eyes under an Arab headdress.

"Salaam, wala, aleikum Sheikh of the Bedouin," John said in halting Arabic that his guide had drilled him on during their walk over to the shantytown.

"Actually, old boy, I'm Jewish," the robed man said in a crisp, English accent, then motioned for him to sit.

"I thought the Bedouins were Arab nomads," John said in some surprise as he took a seat on a pillow opposite the fellow.

"For the most part, they are. Money, however, has no religion." The man grinned briefly. "And the opportunities life with the Bedouin provides are... innumerable. My name is Gabriel."

"I'm John," John replied politely. "And I..."

"Want to get into the Silk Curtain, your boy said." Gabriel leaned forward intently, staring at John with black eyes. "But he did not say why and that is most curious."

John hesitated, trying to think fast and come up with a reasonable explanation on the fly. "I've heard rumors about the place and wanted to see it myself. I'm a writer, you see."

Gabriel snorted, leaning back, resting a hand on his belt, near the curved knife that every Bedouin seemed to wear. "And you no doubt believe that this is the Paris of the roaring 20s? You are sadly mistaken, sir, and I'll thank you not to take me for a fool."

John was taken aback, but Gabriel wasn't finished. "My curiosity is the only reason I have not seen fit to have you shot, but my love of the truth is much stronger than my desire to indulge my curiosity. Now, the truth, old boy."

John had felt his heart rate increase in a unique mix of anger and fear. He was not used to being threatened and didn't like the experience at all. But he needed this nomad. "A woman I once knew, who vanished, I heard from someone who knew her, that he saw her here," John said haltingly, trying to give enough information to convince the other man without giving too much away.

Gabriel seemed a bit amused, definitely less annoyed... and perhaps a bit interested? He leaned back, hand inching away from his knife hilt. "Women of all sorts can be found in the Curtain. But I don't believe I'll help you with this."

"Why not?" John demanded, frustrated at being so close and denied.

"You seem like a man intent on causing trouble, friend," the robed nomad said, studying John's face intently. "And I'd rather the men you trouble not trouble me in return, you understand?"

"You don't understand," John blurted out in a rush. "This is the woman I love... and I'll pay you... 1000 dollars, American, to get me in, one night."

Gabriel didn't react immediately. The man would have made a masterful poker player. Nothing touched his face, or his eyes. He simply sat silently, as if he had turned off everything but his mind to contemplate John's offer.

Finally, slowly, Gabriel smiled, a sharp gash of a smile that revealed more than a few teeth. "Perhaps I'm a romantic at heart, but I cannot say no to your love. Nor your money. I shall take you to the Silk Curtain, this very night."

A few hours later, at around ten, the two men clambered into the back of a beaten-up old Cadillac driven by a veiled Bedouin. Gabriel said something to the driver in Arabic and the man nodded once before pulling the car out.

"What is the Silk Curtain, if you don't mind me asking?" John said, full of nervous energy that only grew more intense the closer they got.

"It's a ... night club, strip club, brothel, and more." Gabriel said comfortably, leaning back.

John stared at the man. "What do you mean? And what does and more mean?"

Gabriel shrugged easily. "In Libya, money is stronger than laws, my friend, and the Sahara is all but impossible to patrol. Tripoli is a natural meeting point for gun runners, drug runners, rebels and whatnot."

John thought that over for a minute, and then said slowly, "You mean, the Silk Curtain...?"

"Is a place where men can go for utter privacy to do whatever business they need to do," Gabriel continued smoothly, "and be entertained while they wait."

John nodded slowly. That made some sense at least. "What business is it you do, if you don't mind?"

"I do mind," Gabriel said sharply. "You'll forgive me, but I don't trust you so much as to discuss my affairs with you."

The rest of the trip the men made in silence. John stewed, muddling it through in his mind. Drug runners, gun runners? Terrorists, as well, probably. He briefly wondered what kind of mess he was stepping into.

The car pulled up to the front of the Silk Curtain and Gabriel opened his door, stepping out. John leapt out of his side of the car, coming around to follow tight on Gabriel's heels.

It was a different man at the door this hour, a curly haired man with a neatly trimmed beard. The suit and rifle were the same though. Gabriel just nodded and the doorman nodded in reply as the nomad breezed past him, John in tow.

They walked to the front of the Palace, where a massive, ornate double door waited them. Two guards swung the door open as they approached and Gabriel lead John inside the Silk Curtain.

The Silk Curtain was vastly different from any American club John had ever been to. There was DJ, nor immediately obvious music, though John could hear the beat of a tambourine. There was no bar in sight.

The center of the courtyard was dominated by a massive fountain, large enough that the term pool might have been more appropriate. Dozens of women sat on the granite edge of the bowl of the fountain, women of every different colour and shape. All of them were beautiful and most only half dressed, in swimwear, or lingerie, or topless. The left and right walls of the courtyard were dominated by large, dark alcoves, all veiled off for privacy. John peered at one veil, till Gabriel seized his forearm sharply. John got the immediate message that being seen prying was a very bad idea.

Gabriel walked around the fountain, not even glancing at the beauties who eyed them as they passed. Several of the women were playing in the fountain, splashing each other and giggling wildly like seductive nymphs.

John was lead away from the fountain and into the next room. This room was more conventional to John's mind. Two large stages centered the room, each with a pair of tall golden poles. Lining the walls were small alcoves, each consisting of a semi-circular couch and a low table. But here, the numbers were more visible and most of the alcoves were claimed by three or four men in conversation.

An olive skinned, dark haired woman in a low cut black dress came forward, opening her mouth to say something to them, but Gabriel interrupted her with a few quick words in Arabic and then stalked past her, heading to one of the couches. John trailed after him.

Gabriel flopped down on the couch, stretching his arms out expansively. John sat down, hands in his lap as he stared around. "What did you say to the girl?"

Gabriel raised his eyebrow as if confused, then shrugged. "Oh, the greeter? I told her we wanted to be served in English. I didn't bother to ask for a specific girl."

John opened his mouth to inquire further, but at that moment, a woman approached their table. She had midnight black hair that framed a very pretty oval of a face and fell along her shoulders and down her back. Her skin was fair, almost pale. She wore a tight black corset that emphasized her round breasts and narrow waist. Her rump was shapely in black lace panties and lacy stockings barely concealed her long, shapely legs. Her high heels made her long tall, thought John thought she might have only been 5'6 without the four inch spikes.

She smiled at them wickedly, lips a soft red, sweet as blood. "Good evening, Masters. I'm Chase. How can I serve you this evening?"

"Scotch on the rocks," Gabriel ordered calmly.

"Ah, I'll just have a Budweiser," John said a bit more nervously.

The woman nodded, turning to go, and Gabriel called after her, "Oh, and extend my compliments to table fifteen."

Chase nodded over her shoulder and continued off. John couldn't help but notice the gorgeous sway of her hips, the way her round rump rolled with her steps. He hadn't been with a woman since Constance disappeared, and he felt an immediate if guilty ache for Chase.

On the stage, a flame haired beauty with creamy skin and freckles that screamed 'Irish' danced, accompanied only by the beat of a tambourine held by an olive skinned Middle Eastern woman beside the stage. The dancer combined a mix of belly dancing with strip tease, rolling her hips as she slowly slid down her panties and kicked them off, then leaping up the golden pole, spinning around it, agile as a Minx.

John couldn't help but watch enraptured for a few moments, interrupted only as Chase returned, setting a tall, cold Budweiser before him and a glass of amber liquid in front of Gabriel, who nodded to her brusquely. "The gentlemen at table fifteen return your compliments, Master, and invite you to join them," Chase said in her low, throaty tone before turning and padding off again.