The Twelve Rooms of the Nile (12 page)

The price of passion was death; he had always known that.

The sky, a depthless painted-on blue, brightened as the slave boat loomed closer. Several of the women stood to get a better view of the
cange
and him. With the exception of bead necklaces and short grass skirts attached to a string pulled tight around their hips, they were naked. Just the day before, Joseph had cautioned him to avoid the poisonous castor bean plants growing wild along the swampy fringes of the river. Only the Nubians, he said, had found a use for it. Indeed. These slaves had soaked their hair and skin with the oil. In the clear morning light, they gleamed like polished wood.

As the boat veered closer, he locked eyes with a girl whose coiffure resembled a black jester’s hat. He had never seen such profuse tresses, except in wigs. Her hair was plaited in fine braids that were bunched together all over her head into points. She lifted one hand and waved shyly at him. He reciprocated. As the boat overtook the
cange,
the women looked back at him, turning their heads over their shoulders in unison, like a flock of birds, and trilling to him with high-pitched voices. The next moment, in one of the many tricks of light Gustave had observed on the Nile, the boat vanished into a blinding explosion
of glare where the sun caught fire on the mirrored surface of the river. The avian calls of the Nubian girls hung in the air briefly, and then the river was still again except for the wind and the creaking of the
cange
as it seesawed in the wake of the slave boat. Gustave watched the water until he could no longer distinguish the pattern of the wake from the random figures of the current. A papyrus island, which he had thought firm land, drifted past, with birds chittering among the tall green stalks.

Gustave switched his attention from the river to the meal being assembled nearby. Max had already taken his place at the table and was stirring orange-flavored sugar into his water. “Quick! Eat something,” he called out. “We should get an early start today at the rock temples.” Was he imagining it, or were they always in a rush to eat and then to leave? He liked to dawdle over his food, but Max hated wasting time. Max was lecherous, but he was no voluptuary, like dear dead Alfred.

Hadji Ismael hurried to arrange Gustave’s folding stool beneath him. This one-eyed man never lost sight of his employers, yet didn’t move his head excessively, as if his eye could migrate at will to the back of his skull.

Set before Gustave was breakfast: a piece of flat bread and three quail eggs, steamed in their shells. His mouth began to water as he lifted an olive to his lips.

• • •

Gustave and a new assistant, Achmet, the youngest crewman, made molds by lamplight that morning in one of the gloomy halls of the great temple, spared the direct sun, but nearly suffocating in the dead air of the cavernous space. It felt to Gustave as if an eternity of repetitive labor had passed since breakfast. He raised his head and peered about in the dim light of the chamber. There were enough bloody inscriptions to keep him busy for a year. At least he was free to choose which ones he copied. The only limitation was that they be contiguous, which assumed that the walls shared something in common with books—that the narrative flowed from left to right or right to left. He
had already made squeezes of the inscriptions on the eight columns in the main hall. As for the total number of squeezes, he was completely at the mercy of Max. The longer Max stayed at Abu Simbel taking photographs, the more squeezes he was obliged to produce. There were no diversions nearby to seduce Gustave from his task—no brothels, taverns, or restaurants—nothing but the Nile, and the towering cliffs on either side. Still, his mind was not free while he was required to apply wet paper to unyielding stone.

He looked forward to the time when he had only to supervise Achmet. One of the few literate crew members, Achmet understood that he was preserving the wisdom of his ancient forebears who, until now, had excited no curiosity in him. Gustave had explained that a scholar in France might spend years studying Achmet’s squeezes. So, despite the tedium, the man was meticulous, brushing the inscriptions clean as Gustave had demonstrated, wetting the paper, then pressing it into the reliefs with a finer brush. Since taking on the job, Achmet carried himself among the crew with the pride of the anointed, certain that making squeezes was preferable to excavating the head of Ramses or swabbing the decks of the
cange
.

From time to time Gustave clowned and pantomimed for Achmet, who cackled loudly at his japes, clapping his hands over his mouth.

Achmet carefully peeled off two dry squeezes and placed them in their cardboard box. Carting the molds around was like transporting eggs—anything could ruin them. He looked to Gustave for further instruction. Gustave responded with a rolling movement of his hands.
“Continue, mon ami,”
he said.
“Fais un autre.”
With that, he picked up one of the lamps and set off toward the entrance to get a breath of air. The cavern stank of burning lamp oil, sweat, the staleness of the ages, and the fine-bore shit of scorpions and beetles.

The next room was bathed in a dusky orange glow. Around two more corners, daylight leaked in. He hoisted himself up the sandy ramp to the entrance, squinting against the stinging onslaught of windblown sand.

Standing in the doorway, he contemplated the scene before him.
Because of the height of the temple, he could not see the river below or its banks, only a glittering streak of blue-silver in the distance, where the Nile snaked away through the cliffs. It looked small and insignificant, like a misplaced piece of a jigsaw puzzle. Closer by, tourists were picnicking and lounging under the stunted acacia trees. There were always tourists camped by the rock temple, but he had no desire to meet any of them and remained in mufti.

Directly before him was the gigantic hill of sand that had swallowed the fourth Ramses up to his nostrils. It was wide as well as steep, always difficult to negotiate. If they did take the caravan to Koseir, he expected they would encounter dunes that would make this one seem a piker.

As he eyed the sand ramp from the top of it, an indistinct vision appeared at the bottom. A mirage, he first thought. But it lacked the illusion of water, the sparkling waves he’d often observed hovering above the desert, especially early in the morning. Was it, perhaps, another sort of mirage? Fata morgana, he recalled, the name of the storied mirage off the Strait of Messina, which had been spotted for hundreds of years, like clockwork. It appeared to passing sailors like a wooded hillside or a ship, the images hanging high on the sky like unfinished paintings.

As he stared, something blue and slender, like a fishing float, bobbed into view. Above it, a scintillant blur the pink of a seashell stretched wide and narrowed again. Then dark dots formed beneath the blue stripe, like clumps of soil hanging from the root of a flower. The entire assemblage moved again. Perhaps it was going sideways; perhaps it was advancing. Long moments passed as the blue stem widened to an oval. And then, as if bursting through a curtain or an invisible membrane, the colored slices merged and a small party climbing the hill led by a woman in blue resolved into sharper focus. He watched the woman’s small, foreshortened figure toil uphill. Though she was only halfway along the ramp, he could now see that she wore a pink bonnet. The blue of her dress was the color of a summer day, tender and hopeful. Feeling as if he had witnessed a birth, he slumped down, exhausted and exalted, out of her sight.

He remembered another summer sky, another blue dress. It was July, a few months after Caroline died. He was taking her death mask and a plaster cast of her hand to James Pradier, who had recently made his father’s memorial bust. The atelier was immense, one of those airy, high-ceilinged rooms favored by artists, with columns instead of walls, like a ballroom. Close to the windows, alongside a pedestal laden with clay, James stood, dashingly attired in red velvet tights embroidered in gold. Over a white shirt with an extravagant lace jabot he wore a brown canvas apron. His hands were gray with dried clay. He greeted Gustave, pointing to a sofa and one of a pair of overstuffed chairs. In the magical light of the atelier, the chair, with its loosening down stuffing, seemed not shabby, but as if it were sprouting feathery wings.

A woman sat upon a stool with her back to him and James. Blond sausage curls dangled on pale pink shoulders. She was wearing a blue dress. No, blue was not the word.
Azure
. For such a creature with golden tresses, the gown must be azure. Bunches of fabric—smocked sleeves, and a wide gathered skirt—conveyed plenitude, as if the sky had wrapped itself around her for the pure pleasure of
azure.
She sat stock still while Pradier daubed clay from the amorphous lump beside him to the emergent bust on the revolving table.

“Who is your visitor?” the woman asked, her face still hidden.

“No one who would interest you,” James answered. “A mere provincial, a young writer from Rouen.”

“Oh?” the voice said. “I have heard his footsteps. May I hear his voice?”

“As long as you do not move a centimeter.” James nodded at Gustave, giving him permission to speak.

“
Je m’appele
Gustave. Gustave Flaubert.”

“Oh, Flaubert. I’ve heard of you.”

“No, you haven’t!” James said.

“I certainly have,” the voice insisted, rising with irritation. It did not seem attached to the inert figure on the stool.

James turned to Gustave. “Louise will never admit that anyone is unknown to her.”

“Perhaps you’ve mentioned me to her,” Gustave said, enjoying the cooling effect of a breeze that blew through the open windows.

“Why would I do that?”

“The death of my father, perhaps?” Gustave conjectured. “He was, after all, a well-known surgeon. Could you have shown her his bust?”

James shook his head and began to throw small pinches onto the head where the hair would go. The clay sat up in tufts like beaten egg whites.

“I shall meet him soon in any case,” Louise said. “I must take a break. My neck is aching.” She swiveled on her stool and in the next instant was extending an alabaster hand to him. He rose from his chair and, bowing formally, gathered her hand in his and kissed it. “A great pleasure, I’m sure,” he mumbled. At twenty-five he could still be flustered by a beautiful woman, and the glimpse of her face, not to mention her shoulders and hair, had undone him. He hoped he was not blushing.

James completed the introductions. “Madame Colet is a poet of some repute.” He turned to Louise. “And Gustave is a promising young writer.”

“A poet also?” she asked. She moved toward the furniture, sorting out her voluminous skirts behind her, like an exotic bird preening its tail feathers. The neckline of her dress was fashionably low front and back. He tried not to stare.

“I am not a poet, madame. I am a novelist.”

Louise arranged herself upon the worn loveseat, taking up most of it. “Have these novels seen the light of day? Who is your publisher?”

After he quit law school, he had revised
Novembre,
but did not intend to publish it yet. He considered it the draft of a novice. Too personal to share with anyone but his closest friends, it aged in a drawer at home, alongside the manuscript of
Smarrh,
the novella he wrote when he was thirteen. He could not mention that to her, either. Nor was it safe to talk about
The Temptation of Saint Anthony,
which he had just begun to research. “I am still a virgin, madame, when it comes to publication. I am revising, awaiting the right opportunity.”

She tucked one foot under her petticoats and turned sideways to face him. “That is very wise. Reviewers have memories like elephants, and the first work published must set the standard. Revision is good. Though I myself”—she paused to secure his gaze—“am known for writing rapidly.”

James carefully draped a damp canvas cloth over the bust. “Louise cranked out one poem in three days to meet a deadline. Isn’t that correct? They say you wrote it in one sitting of fifty-five hours.”

“Indeed. I never changed out of my housedress. That was my first prize-winning poem from the Academy. Do you know it,
monsieur
?” she asked Gustave. “‘Le Musée de Versailles’?” She dropped her glance to pick a piece of lint off her bodice, giving him an opportunity—almost inviting him—to stare at it himself. Her rib cage was small and firm, perhaps from boning, a perfect complement to the lavish softness of her breasts, which rose majestically above the neckline and bobbled slightly, like twin puddings, as she moved her arms. The lady, he was pleased to note, was delectably feminine in every regard. The blue satin shoe that peeked from her lacy underskirts might have been a child’s slipper. Her face was bright, her eyes oceanic, her features regular, with plump cheeks that lent a petulant pout, even when her face was in repose. He set upon fixing her in his mind until the time when he might request a portrait from her as a keepsake.

“I regret that I do not know the work,” Gustave replied. “Could you furnish me with a copy?”

“But of course. It would be my pleasure. Shall I fetch it now? I shall give you a copy of my first book as well,
Fleurs du Midi
—”

“No!” James bellowed. “You are posing for me, are you not?

“It would only take a few moments.” Louise explained to Gustave that she lived two blocks away, on rue Fontaine Saint-George. She made sure to mention her husband, the composer Hippolyte, and her daughter, Henriette. This information, Gustave understood, was offered as the bona fides of her availability, not to discourage his interest. As he well knew, everyone in Paris who was anyone took a lover. If he were going to have a sex life despite the risk of triggering
a seizure, it would be best on many counts with a respectable married woman rather than a prostitute. He could form a loving and long-term relationship; a pregnancy could be finessed as legitimate progeny.

James compromised. “A few more minutes, Louise, until I finish the hairline, and we’ll be done for the day. Perhaps Gustave will accompany you to your flat to save you the return trip.”