Virgins of paradise by Wood Barbara

Author:Wood, Barbara
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Women
Publisher: New York : Avon Books
Published: 1994-08-18T04:00:00+00:00

286 Barbara Wood \

every day. "And have you seen this, Lili? Read it!" •

Camelia read aloud the newspaper article Yasmina had circled: "The lovely Camelia, new to the Cairo club scene, is a dancer of unsurpassed excellence, possessing the suppleness of a serpent, the grace of a gazelle, and the beauty of a butterfly. This reviewer predicts that one day Camelia will surpass even the great Dahiba, her mentor.'* The piece was written by Yacob Mansour, whose reviews Camelia had never read before.

Yasmina laughed. "He is in love with you, Lili! You have a secret admirer!"

Camelia already had several admirers, men who made enquiries of Hakim Raouf about his wife's protegee, and who sometimes sent flowers and messages backstage. But twenty-one-year-old Camelia was not going to allow herself to fall in love. She was going to devote herself to becoming the greatest dancer Egypt had ever known, and a husband or a lover did not figure in her plans.

When Camelia saw the shadow behind her sister's smile, and how Yasmina's hands trembled, she led her into the dressing room, picked up the phone, and asked for tea to be brought, then turned to Yasmina and said, "What's wrong, Mishmish? You look so tired."

"It's nothing. I just have . . . something on my mind."

"You are trying to do too much," Camelia said as she pinned her long black hair on top of her head and proceeded to remove her stage makeup. "Being a nK)ther to Mohammed, taking classes at the university, working in Father's office as his nurse." But when she saw her sister's stricken look in the mirror, Camelia turned around and said, "Mishmish, I know something is wrong. Please tell me."

"I don't know how to say it, Lili," Yasmina said quietly. "A terrible thing has happened."

"What are you talking about?"

"I did something, no, what I mean is, something happened to me, the day after Suleiman Misrahi died. I haven't told anyone, not even Mother. There's no one I can confide in, Lili, except you. And I don't even know how to tell you."

"Just tell it, like we used to when we were growing up. We never kept secrets then, did we?"

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