Melika of the Nile

A many years ago bedtime story for my grand-daughter, one of several in which Melissa (a tiny girl who lives in a tiny house in the forest near Blaine, Washington) is magically, and not always conveniently, transformed into the stylish Principessa Melika Kitchi Koukala of Paris and New York, known to the readers of People Magazine as 'MK'.

**** 

The sunny weather lasted so long that, for once, Poppa and Mr. Smith had time to finish their summer work before the rains started. They did some extra work, just to be sure, but the rains still did not start. They were about to do still more work (just to be absolutely certain) when Melissa’s Momma said, “That’s enough work! It’s time for a holiday.”

“Hooray!” said Melissa. “What are we going to do?”

 Her mother was perplexed, “Why. I don’t quite know. Poppa, do you have any ideas?”

 “Ideas?” he asked. “No, I don’t believe I have. Not ideas. No.” He thought for a minute or two, “Well, perhaps we could go to that traveling circus…”

 “Hooray!” said Melissa.

“A circus?” asked her mother, “Honestly, Poppa, have you heard about a circus, and never said a word? We shall certainly go to the circus. Melissa, put on your pink dress, and Poppa, hitch up Clunker. I shall carry my parasol, since the sun is still so warm.”

Along the way there were signs,

                                                        Direct from ancient Memphis 
                                                        Madam Desdemona’s
                                                        Egyptian Extravaganza
                                                        And Wild Animal Show!

Melissa jumped with excitement. “What’s an Extravaganza?” she asked. But before her parents could answer, she asked, “Are the animals REALLY wild?”

“Most likely,” her father said.

“I shouldn’t think so,” her mother said.

“Oh! I hope they are!” said Melissa. “The wilder the better!”

Some were pretty wild. Some were tame. There was a wonderful parade of clowns, acrobats, wild weasels in cages, and a giant raccoon. Melissa cheered loudly.

As the parade left the tent there was a puff of purple smoke. Madam Desdemona appeared. She snapped a whip at three fierce weasels, who snarled back at her.

The audience cried, “Oh!”

Madam Desdemona made the weasels dance on their back feet, and leap through rings of fire. The crowd cheered madly. Melissa most of all.

The band played again. In a flash of red smoke Madam Desdemona reappeared—dressed as an Egyptian Queen. The crowd was silent. Melissa held her breath.

“For this event,” Madam Desdemona announced, “I shall need a volunteer. Someone small. Someone… dressed in… PINK!” Madam Desdemona looked round and round but Melissa knew who the volunteer must be. She stood up, “I’m quite small,” she said, shyly, “And I am dressed in pink.”
 
Suddenly she was alone in the spotlight. It was a little embarrassing.

Madam Desdemona spoke in a strange and silky accent, “Welcome my dear. I have been searching for you, oh… it seems like centuries… and all around the wide world. I had quite given up hope. But here you are at last. Are you ready?”

Melissa was puzzled, but she said, “Sure.”

Madam Desdemona announced, “Ladies and gentlemen. Soon I will snap my magic whip, and this lovely child will disappear. She will return to us, here in this very tent, three minutes later, after being in ancient Egypt for a week!”

The audience laughed.

Madam Desdemona snapped her whip,  “You laugh? We’ll see about that!” The audience was silent. Melissa’s mother was very nervous.

Again, Madam Desdemona snapped her whip. Melissa’s pink dress turned into a royal robe, and Melissa had that funny feeling she gets sometimes, as if she was really somebody else. Actually, she was somebody else.

Madam Desdemona whispered, “That went pretty well. I hope the rest works.”

“Me too,” replied the highborn Principessa Melika Kitchi Koukala.

Madam Desdemona winked. “And now,” she announced, “I will ask the young lady to stand on the magic crystal, and turn counterclockwise three times.”

M.K. jumped onto the crystal and just as she spun backwards the third time, Madam Desdemona snapped her whip. Suddenly Melika was alone in a boat among the stars. Far, far in the distance she could hear a circus band, and a woman with a strange accent saying, “We’ll see her again in exactly three minutes… (I hope.) In the meantime, I direct your attention to The Flying Guzendas!”

Hours passed. Frogs croaked in the papyrus. The sun rose. She was in Egypt.

“Gosh!” she said, paddling toward shore, “This is so exciting.”

Seeing her royal robes, the villagers bowed low and worshipped her. It was like being a fashion model. ‘It is Princess Ahknari,” the villagers muttered, “… the lost one… the governor’s daughter…”

“Actually,” she said, “I’m Princess Melika. I live in Paris, or sometimes Blaine, Washington. I’m just here for a visit.”

The villagers paid no attention. Paris and Blaine had not been invented. “We must fetch the governor…” they murmured.

When the governor came the villagers shouted, “We found your lost daughter. Please may we have the reward?” The governor looked at her carefully.

“Yes…” he said, finally. “Perhaps you have.” He spoke to M. K., “Get into the palanquin, dear, and we’ll go home.” Then he spoke to the villagers, “Many thanks. I will send the reward before sundown. Meanwhile, return to your work.”

M.K. got into the palanquin. She was lifted by four soldiers and carried back to the palace. The governor walked beside her.

“I’m not really your daughter, you know,” she said politely.

“I thought not; but one can never be sure. I have so many daughters, and all of them very like you.” They trudged along. “At any rate, you are welcome to stay with us. I suppose Madame Desdemona sent you.”

“Yes, from Blaine, Washington—or just nearby it.”

“Would that be in the future, or the past?”

“Far in the future. Four thousand years, more or less.”

The governor nodded morosely, “That tiresome woman. She misplaced my real daughter, you know.”

“Oh dear!” M.K. replied, “… by magic, I suppose.”

“Exactly. She can’t remember whether Ahknari went backwards or forwards. She has been searching everywhere. Every now and then she sends somebody who looks like Ahknari.” The Governor looked at Melika again. “Yes. I must say, a remarkable resemblance.”

“Well… I am a Princess,” M.K. replied, “My grandfather was…”

“Yes, yes.” the governor said, in a kindly, but impatient, way, “I’m sure you’ll do very well for now. But parents (in general) prefer their own children. If Madam Desdemona does not find Ahknari by Saturday I shall be quite vexed.”  

At the palace the governor clapped his hands. Servants appeared. “This is a visiting Princess,” he said, “to take Ahknari’s place for a few days. She will have Ahknari’s rooms, her clothes, her… well, whatever Ahknari, has.” He nodded to M.K. in an absent minded way and said, “Enjoy your stay, my dear. If you want anything, clap your hands. It seems to work, most of the time.”

The next morning they went boating on the Nile. The governor’s boat went first. Six others followed, each with a captain, twenty rowers, a cook and three helpers, a chief fisherman and two assistants, four or five royal daughters (perhaps some were cousins) with nannies and maids, musicians, and a dancing teacher. They sailed upriver, and rowed back down. There were crocodiles and hippopotami. There were ibises and beautiful ducks. It was lovely.

On the second morning M.K. taught Ahknari’s sisters to play soccer. When it got too hot they sat in the shade and talked. Servants brought them fruit juice. It was fun.

The next day the governor took his whole family, and fifty soldiers, to a horse race. M.K. rode in the royal chariot. The governor’s horses always won. It was exciting.

The fourth day was a holy day. They all went to the temple. M.K. learned about Amun Re, and the other gods of Egypt. The long prayers made her sleepy.

On the fifth day the governor consulted a wise woman. He sent for M.K. “The day after tomorrow we will climb the highest pyramid and try to exchange you for Ahknari. Is there anything you would like to see before you go?”

So, the sixth day was spent at a famous temple, still being built. It was all columns and gigantic statues—but instead of tourists with cameras, there were real people, doing real work, stone masons cutting heavy stones, scribes writing inscriptions, and painters decorating the walls. Hundreds of cooks made dinner, and dozens of brewers made beer for the workmen. It was really interesting.

On the last day they woke early to climb the pyramid. It was cold. M.K. dressed in Ahknari’s warmest robes, with Ahknari’s beautiful necklace around her neck.

It was just a small procession; the Governor, twelve or thirteen daughters, three nannies, a company of soldiers, a six-piece band and five people to serve lunch.

The governor asked the princesses if they wanted to climb the pyramid. Most of them said, “No, thank you papa.” Some said, “Been there, done that.”

Melika and the governor climbed the pyramid all alone. It was still new and slippery. They were tired when they got to the top. The old wise woman was waiting.

The governor asked, “Any word from Madame Desdemona?”

The old woman muttered, “That Dessy will be the death of me—girls scattered all over history.  It will be a miracle if I can get them back where they belong. Yes, we’ve found Ahknari, in Scotland, in 1431. She’ll be glad to get home, I’m sure.” She looked at M.K. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer this one, she seems perfectly satisfactory.”

Before the governor could think about it M.K. said, “I’ve had a wonderful time, thank you, and I’d love to stay, but I should get Melissa home to her parents.”

The old woman understood. “Well then,” she said, “let’s start.” She put her hand to her ear and seemed to listen. “Roger that,” she murmured, “On three, over.”

“Let’s see, dear. We should be connected, but not touching. Take off your necklace. Hold tight to one end. I’ll hold the other.”

Melika took the end with a ruby scarab. The old lady counted, “One…” the sky darkened and the stars came out… “Two…” it was suddenly quite cold… “Three!” A horrible sandstorm blew Melika off her feet. The old lady shouted, “Hold on!” M.K. held on as tightly as she could as she swung from the end of the necklace.

It broke.

She fell through the starry night, faster and faster for thousands of years all in an instant, hanging on to one end of the broken necklace. She noticed a girl in a kilt being blown in the other direction.
Just as M.K. wondered whether she could possibly fall any further she was caught by a Flying Guzenda, and lowered into center ring. The trumpets played, “TA DA!!!!!”

M.K. was confused. No… she wasn’t Melika, she was Melissa. Momma ran into the ring.

“Oh Momma,” she cried, “I, … or, I mean M.K…. or … yes, both of us… We’ve had an amazing adventure. We were in Egypt for a whole week. And then I climbed up on a pyramid to bring Ahknari home… and I was blown off by a sandstorm, but I held on by my necklace, I mean by Ahknari’s necklace, and then… ”

“Yes, yes…sweetheart.” Her mother shushed her, “Hiram! We are leaving this outrageous show right now! I’m sure magic is not allowed in the State of Washington!”

Madame Desdemona called after them, “Wait! Wait! Did it work? Show me.”

Melissa held up the jewel. She shouted, “I’m Melissa! Ahknari is in Egypt!”

Madame Desdemona smiled. She waved and snapped her whip. In an instant the circus and all the wild animals, the spectators, and the Flying Guzendas disappeared.

“By golly…” said Melissa’s father, “… that was odd.”

Melissa slept on the way home and did not wake up until Dr. Brown shook her elbow. He looked in her eyes, and listened to her heart, murmuring to himself, “Hmm. Yes. Hmm. Yes.” He rolled up his stethoscope, “A slight fever. Give her a cool bath and put her to bed.”

Momma gave her a bath, and a fresh nightgown, and also changed the bed. It felt lovely between the crispy sheets.

Her mother kissed her Good Night, and closed the door.

Melissa looked at her scarab. The last rays of the sun shown through the red stone. She smiled to herself and put the jewel under her pillow.

Velvet jumped onto the bed.

Melissa and her pet went to sleep, not in a faraway place, but in her own room, in their cottage in the forest.

Deli Treat

A possibly too lengthy excerpt from FRANKIE HILL [the Memoirs of an Object of Desire]:

Adela Golosina

_________________________________________

After some weeks as a test subject in the cosmetics laboratory I was assigned a room mate, a woman who bore the name ‘Adela’ or sometimes ‘la Golosina’ (surely not her real name, so I do not hesitate to use it.) She was a small woman, perfectly formed, with a complexion like coffee ice cream. She was fragile. Her history as an object of desire was scarcely to be believed--for she lacked a coherent narrative of her life.  

What we learned of her immediate past was that she had been seized by the Immigration Service in New Mexico in a raid on a wildcat drilling operation. They found her locked in a shed, where she was kept for the use of the roughnecks in the adjacent bunkhouse. It was assumed she was an illegal migrant, and a case was begun to return her to her own country. But this was impossible, for nobody, including Adela, knew where she was from. In the course of  interrogation, however, she repeatedly pointed to a place behind her ear, insisting ‘Here is where I belong.’

This was thought to be evidence of madness, but when a jail matron finally parted her hair and looked, she found a tattooed telephone number. The number was called. The phone was answered with a gruff instruction to leave a number. Immediately upon hanging up the Immigration Service received a return call from an untraceable phone, evidently belonging to a far more powerful and secretive federal agency. Without either confirming or denying that the prisoner, known as ‘Adela’ or ‘la Golosina’, or any variant of the foregoing, was in any way connected to that ineffable agency, the Immigration people were directed to detain her, but warned against further questioning, and advised that she would be picked up within forty-eight hours. 

Reluctant to be ordered about by shadowy fellows on the East Coast, the Immigration Service dismissed its proceedings and turned the woman over to the Sheriff. She spent a day at the Albuquerque jail, but as she had not been arrested for any state or local violation, the Sheriff waived objection when presented with a writ of Habeas Corpus. The judge further declined to hold her for a mental hearing, observing that however confused she might be, she was no worse off in that respect than many other homeless persons (or, for that matter, several lawyers in the courtroom) who were allowed to walk the streets of  Albuquerque without let or hindrance. 

“Dismissed,’ he ruled, and she left the courtroom as free as the Mayor. 

However, she neither walked the streets, nor slept under a bridge, but waited patiently on the steps of the courthouse until two fellows dressed in suits and wearing dark sunglasses, drove up in a black Escalade with darkened windows. She accepted a ride to Reno, and was delivered to ‘Sher Khan Oasis’, an expensive facility for executive-level addicts. From there she had (by means as mysterious and convoluted as my delivery from the Nevada Women’s Prison) become another test subject at the laboratory of Desire Cosmetics, LLC. 

The test subjects, all of us women known for our desirability (and who had suffered for it) lived together in what we jokingly called the ‘bunny cages’, cheerful dorm rooms, each with two beds, and two chairs, two closets, a bathroom, a tiny refrigerator and a microwave. We could come and go as we pleased within the dorm, but not outside. I was (officially) still a prisoner of the State of Nevada, and if Adela was not exactly a prisoner, she was, at least, in protective custody.

We didn’t call her, ‘Adela’ or ‘la Golosina’. The names were obviously phony. Instead we renamed her ‘Deli Treat’ (or sometimes, ‘Roofie’ because of the unexplainable blanks in her history.)

Like the rest of us, she was allowed to choose a small wardrobe from a ‘company store’ on the premises. These were clothes such as might be found in a mid-price catalogue, simple but very much nicer than orange jump suits. The day she arrived was the bi-weekly ‘shopping day’ a happy occasion for the inmates. I helped her ‘shop’ and in turn she helped me pick out a nightgown. For herself she chose a modest and fuzzy flannel, and for me the fanciest thing the store had going, a shift of cotton voile with some embroidery on the bodice. We modeled them for each other that night, then lay on our beds to talk while waiting for lights-out. 

 

Or rather, I lay on my bed, and she sat on the edge of hers, leaning toward me with an anxious look, too far away for the intimate disclosures she evidently needed to make. She raised her eyebrows (a way she had of asking permission.) I patted the edge of my own bed. She crossed the room and sat down next to me, taking my hand, as if she needed the additional assurance of human contact to tell her story. She seemed to me a precious and fragile vessel, her mind jumbled and incomplete, the fragments of it sharp and painful. Her memories were of brutality and exploitation, but more terrifying still were the months, and even years, missing from her story.

She told me what she remembered of her childhood--a village in one of those countries south of Mexico (she wasn’t sure which.) Nights threatened by guerillas, days by soldiers. There had been a battle wherein the men of the village were killed, and the women driven into the jungle to be used by the guerillas, or sold to traffickers. There was a long blank in her memory, until she popped into consciousness at fifteen, a slave herself, trafficked from remote ranches to lumber camps and border outposts. 

From that first awakening until the night we talked, she had flashed in and out of consciousness, only intermittently aware of the horrors of her life. Amnesia was a safety zone. When her life became too severe, she would drop into dark interludes, only to pop into consciousness again, suffering other horrors, in a different place.

We often talked so while waiting for lights-out, and her anxieties were so great that she could rarely return to her own bed without a kiss, a caress or some tender reassurance, all of which I was happy to furnish, for I have never met anyone more in need of disinterested love. 

When she had been with us in the ‘bunny cages’ for a few weeks, she began to recall things from her blank interludes, and curiously, they were often better memories, not happy exactly, but neutral, moments of safety, times when she was not afraid. I had the eerie sensation that what to me appeared to be a time of consciousness, was the reverse for Deli, one of her periods of amnesia—a time of safety and quietude that might implode at any moment. 

And yet, she was philosophical: “Keokuk...” she mused one night, touching my hair, and then repeating the strange word as if it was the name of a distant star, “Keokuk...  in Iowa, no? And Iowa is in America? So for you it is the normal place. O.K. But think how strange for most women to wake up in Keokuk? For billions of women it would be the strangest thing. But for you, normal. So... why?” 

She took my hand, and raising it to her lips she kissed my fingers, her eyebrows lifted in inquiry.

“Why?” I repeated, uncertain what she was asking. I lifted my head to get a better look at her. She took this for permission and stretched out beside me, so that we were talking at the same level, horizontally instead of up and down. 

She still held my hand as she looked into my eyes, “I think because that place... Keokuk...” she smiled again, taking a childish delight in the strange sounding word, “Keokuk... was the first place you woke up and said to yourself, ‘I am Frankie--here I am.’ The Big Surprise, no? And then every day afterwards you opened your eyes and it was the same, a little boring maybe but not scary. And if you happened to wake up somewhere else, you’d remember how you got there, and you could say, ‘Ah, here I am. Frankie, from Keokuk. Still here.’ But what if tomorrow you wake up and you are not lying on this soft bed with Deli, who looks so pretty and smells so good...” She smiled, gazing into my eyes (her own as dark as the space between the stars) and raising her eyebrows again in her peculiar gesture of inquiry, she smoothed the hair from my brow and kissed me on the lips, “... but in a bunkhouse in Argentina. All aroun’ you are vacqueros (no wait, they say gauchos) who don’ smell so good as Deli, and who will not be kind. You are confused, terrified. ‘Wasn’t I just talking to Deli? In a hospital?’ (or whatever this place is?) ‘But no, I was in Calgary. The men smelled different, but they didn’ act no better. Was it last night? Last month? A hundred years?’ You don’ know. All you know is, ‘Here I am--but where is this?’”

“Ah, Deli,” I sighed, “That is so sad.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “Deli is a sad person. But no, wait. Why should she be sad? She just woke up, and again it is the Big Surprise, ‘Oh! Here I am! I am Deli!’ This isn’t where I was.” She looked around in surprise, “It’s nicer.”

She put her arms around me. I felt the heat of her, glowing through our gowns. I raised my hand, whether to caress or fend her off. She caught it and pressed it to her breast. I could feel her heart (her newly-awakened heart) fluttering like a captured sparrow. Then she raised my hand to her lips to kiss my palm. “So, here is Deli, and here is Frankie, also beautiful, who also smells like a flower.” She frowned, “How did they get here? Why are they? Never mind, never mind. Here they are. They should make love quickly, while they still have someone pretty. Someone who smells nice... who will be kind.” 

Who could argue with that?

The next morning she was gone.

***

I was so angry. When Ram visited later in the day I launched into one of my tirades, “Where is she? What have you done with her?”

He waited for me to calm down—an annoying tactic which actually made me angrier, so it was several minutes before his calm prevailed over my agitation. 

She was, Ram explained, engaged in research. “Something like what you are doing.”

“You mean she’s a test animal--a bunny? A monkey? I thought Indians liked monkeys.”

“No, no, Frankie, don’t be silly. I’ve never known you to be so irrational. Of course she’s a human being, and she’s doing valuable work, dangerous work... by agreement, just as you agreed to help us research desire and cosmetics.” 

He looked around at the visitor’s room where we sat on nice leather couches and could order soft drinks or wine. “All freedom is relative,” he said, and somehow the Indian cadences of his speech made the explanation even more aggravating. I love Ram, but like any man he can be intolerably masculine. “Unfortunately for you, Frankie, you’re not free to leave until your sentence is completed. But you are free to quit the experiment. Deli is also free to leave her employment--and she left here by choice, to go back to work. She’s involved in another sort of study. She’s always free to quit. I often urge her to quit, but each time she’s been asked she’s chosen to return to the task.”

“So what is this ‘task’, Ram?”

“Well, I’m not supposed to discuss it, and maybe I don’t understand all the implications, but because you were friends, I’ll tell you this much. She’s a ‘monitor’.”

I must have given him one of my rare blank looks, because he continued, with an exasperated sigh, “It’s a job, Frankie. It’s dangerous. But she volunteered, and she’s well paid.”

“A monitor... So what’s she monitoring?”

“I can’t discuss it--there are security issues, safety issues, not just for her, for anybody who knows anything about it.” He looked around nervously, “Well, if you can keep quiet you’re probably safe in here.”

“Ram!”

“Seriously Frankie, for whatever I tell you now somebody may decide to kill you later. Somebody official.”

“Ha, ha, ha... I’m waiting, Ram.”

He was silent again. We each set our jaws, determined to out wait each other, but as my sentence had two years to run we both knew who could last the longest. He sighed, and shrugged, “O.K. I’ll tell you that she has chips imbedded in her shoulder blades, like a pet cat, but far more sophisticated. They aren’t just locators. We can track her by satellite, and whenever she passes one of our sensors, in bus stations, airports, border crossings... places like that, we can download certain information. But if she’s taken somewhere by truck or mule, bypassing the usual routes, the information she’s accumulating gets lost, or there might be an overload that causes a feedback error.”

“A what?”

Ram was decidedly nervous now, but whether because he was revealing official secrets, or because he was concerned about my reaction, I couldn’t say. He chose his next words carefully. “These chips are also memory chips--or that’s not quite right... it’s more like they allow us access to her memories. When she’s with us, in a place like this, where we have the necessary equipment, we can ‘download’ her memories, like a CCTV system. It’s not evidence because she can’t testify about it. Whatever’s downloaded is pretty much gone--it leaves a blank.”

“Oh God, Ram. That’s so horrible.”

“She won’t remember you. But that’s a good thing. She’s not like you, Frankie. She wasn’t in ‘custody’. For her this was just a safe place, a resting place. And now she’s gone back to work. She didn’t have to--she agreed to. The work she does is important to her. She’s not just a woman, she’s also a system--her eyes are television cameras, her ears are microphones, her brain a storage device. What she sees and hears can become part of our database.”

“She’s a robot?”

“No, no. Maybe a cyborg, if you like. A bit primitive compared to Captain Picard, but valuable.”

“Valuable...” I wondered, aloud. “Valuable to whom, Ram?”

“To law enforcement. Interpol.”