No More Lonely Nights by Nicole McGehee Page A

expression, “perhaps another time.”
    “Trouble’s brewing,” Stephen confided to Dominique.
    Dominique looked up from the file cabinet with an expression of alarm.
    Stephen, at his desk, held up the cable he had just finished reading. His brow was creased with worry. “There were demonstrations yesterday in front of the British embassy. The mob was quite abusive.”
    “But that’s right near my house!” Dominique cried. She hurried to Stephen’s side and leaned over his shoulder to read the wire. She had to know more! She hadn’t spoken to her mother in over a week and she hadn’t seen her since a month before in January.
    Stephen swiveled to face Dominique and handed her the dispatch. Her expression grew frantic as she read it. “Don’t worry,” he soothed her. “It’s just a crisis we have to weather. It will turn out all right in the end.”
    Dominique looked up sharply. “That’s not what the newspapers say,” she argued. Things were getting worse, not just in Egypt, but in all of North Africa. A few weeks before, mobs in the nearby French colony of Algeria had launched a random attack against Europeans. Victims had been ripped from their cars, then slashed with knives and razors. Dominique had read with nausea of a terrorist attack on a French family that had left a pregnant mother disemboweled, her unborn baby torn from her womb and placed in the empty cavity of her stomach.
    “They hate us!” Dominique cried. She threw the wire back on Stephen’s desk. “They want their country back! And I’m not sure we can blame them.”
    Stephen exploded. “Can’t blame them!” He shoved his chair backward and stood up. For a moment, they were nose to nose. Then he began pacing. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Why, we’ve brought this country into the twentieth century!”
    “Whether or not that’s true, they want us out now!”
    Stephen whirled to face her. “And we’re complying for the most part. But the Suez Canal is vital to our interests—the entire world’s.” He threw his hands in the air in an uncharacteristic gesture of agitation. “We must maintain at least a presence here.”
    Dominique’s eyes shifted to the map on the wall. “I don’t know as much about politics as you do,” she said uncomfortably, “just what I read and hear.”
    Stephen stopped pacing and looked at her. The expression on his face turned gentle. He sighed and jammed his hands into his pockets. “Dominique, I may as well admit it. Things
are
serious. I’m going to have to go back to England for consultations.”
    “Oh no!” Dominique took a few steps toward Stephen, then stopped, remembering their rule against contact in the office. “When?”
    Stephen looked down and sighed. “End of the week.”
    Dominique swallowed. “For how long?”
    Stephen lifted his head. His gaze was tortured. “I don’t know. Maybe…”
    Suddenly, the significance of what Stephen was saying hit her. She felt sick to her stomach. “How long, Stephen?” she repeated hoarsely.
    “I… don’t… know.” He struggled with each word as though loath to pronounce it.
    That evening Stephen took Dominique to his villa on the base. They needed to talk privately, he told her. Seriously.
    As Dominique entered the cool, white building, she knew her first peace of the day. Though she and Stephen had spent no significant time at his home, each time she entered it, she was struck anew by its simple beauty. It was furnished in the ultra comfortable British colonial style, a mixture of fine down upholstery and artifacts native to the host country. Cool floors of marble, teak, and tile lent an air of serenity to the sparsely furnished rooms.
    Stephen showed Dominique into the main salon, the most Arabian of all the rooms, with its groupings of low, fluffy sofas and small brass-topped tables. A manservant brought in a tray of sweet mint tea and cakes. He set it on one of the small tables beside the couch, then withdrew.