The Twelve Rooms of the Nile (22 page)

He noted again the watery silence—cloistral, somber, imbued with a ritual purposefulness, though the ritual had been lost in the sweep of time. He knew that as the Egyptian religion moved south from Abydos to Thebes to Karnak, it became more specialized, and that the temples at Philae were dedicated to the worship of Isis and her mate, Osiris, the god of the underworld and afterlife. Whatever the lost ceremonies were, they had inspired a gorgeous setting—façades carved in intricate relief, rocks exquisitely hewn and fitted—a model of perfection for the perfect eternity to follow.

Just then, something cream-colored protruding from the nearest wall caught his eye. It reminded him of the straw pigeon nests that stuck out from the upper stories of homes in Cairo. Closer up, he saw it was a scroll of paper jammed between two blocks. He pulled it loose and unrolled it.
Dear God,
it read in a familiar and handsome hand,
take me to you. I do not wish to live. Your faithful servant.
Stunned, he wiped his brow and stuffed the paper into the pouch of his robe.

Around the corner he spied another note, rolled tight as a cigarette, and forced into an intaglio of Ra in his bark. His heart began to pound.
I am no use to You or myself. I do not think I am a human being but a deviation from Nature.
Despite the English, he understood the gist: desperation.

Rossignol’s handwriting was neat and diminutive, marked somehow by
inwardness,
by containment, claiming scant space on the slip of paper as if not to offend, or as if she might be graded on her copperplate in a note pleading for a quick, painless, and passive death. Such politesse was, he hoped, the mark of a pious soul afraid to take her own life, or perhaps convinced she would go to hell if she did.

Miss Nightingale had departed Abu Simbel on her blue-bannered craft a week before he had.
Parthenope,
that was the name on the pennant. Her sister’s awful moniker. Like naming a woman “Veritas” or “Fido.”

He had never heard of leaving notes to God in temple walls, but away from good, gray England, it might be an acceptable substitute for a church prayer box.

He heard a whimper followed by a sob. Folding himself in half, he bent through the low doorway to investigate. Inside, he was able to stand. The floor was hard-packed earth dappled with sunlight.

He heard a gasp edged with high squeaks, like the harmonics of a violin bow, and recognized the terrible restraint of someone determined to avert all-out caterwauling. She mumbled a few words between the stifled sobs.

With a hand on either side, he groped his way through the glutinous dark of a stone passageway and down a short flight of stairs until the wall on one side ended in what he presumed was the entrance to a room. Cushioning his head with his hand, he stooped into a duskier realm with pinholes of light leaking through the roof. The air was so stale and arid it stung his lungs, like the heavy, pungent atmosphere of a disused root cellar. He sensed more than saw a figure huddled on the floor.
“Bonjour?”
he called. “
Est-ce-qu’il-y-a quelqu’un?
Rossignol?” He stepped forward.

“Go away!”

“
C’est moi,
Gustave. Please, let me come in.” He took a step and stretched his hand into the muzzy, desiccated air.

“No.” The shape squirmed into the corner, revealing the outline of an arch, like a saint’s niche within a cathedral. He recognized the pretty curve of her bonnet brim.

“Please, Rossignol.”

“Don’t come any closer.”

“All right.” He retracted his hand. “I shall stay where I am.” He peered into the room without success for her face. “Do you mind if I visit a while?” It would take a few more minutes for his eyes to adjust to the dismal light.

“What? What are you saying?” She seemed befuddled by the mundanity of his question.

“I’m just going to take a seat now.” He was overcome with a rare compassion, the same tenderness he had felt for Caroline, and also, oddly, for Louise’s little pink slippers—a hollowness in his chest that radiated out, turning his hands and feet rubbery. He had to keep a
calm head, for it occurred to him that the notes might be more than requests to be whisked heavenward. Perhaps she had brought the means of her liberation. A knife. Or poison. Dahabiyahs were notoriously vermin infested, with poison casually stocked alongside coffee and chickpeas. He decided he would not leave her. Eventually Max and Joseph would search him out; then the three of them could chivvy her into returning with them, or, if necessary, gently overwhelm her. He had merely to keep her engaged and talking. Above all, he must show no alarm, despite the rapid throbbing in his neck. He must cultivate an offhand attitude when in reality he wanted to rescue her, hurling himself forward like the lifeguards at Trouville to breast the waves, his heart about to burst, every muscle burning with the effort. Instead, his limbs tingled with unspent urgency.

“What are you writing, Rossignol?” He could distinguish her more clearly now, scratching on a pad of paper, a lady’s aide-mémoire that dangled from a cord around her neck. A cord. A noose!

“Nothing much,” she managed, her voice unsteady.

He had crossed his legs Indian-style, but now he stretched them out in front and leaned back against the stone. “If I were guessing,” he said mildly, “I’d say you were praying.”

She turned and looked squarely at him, her face blank with astonishment. “How did you know?” Curiosity seemed to calm her; she sounded more normal.

“I found some notes outside the temple.” He gestured toward the corridor behind them.

“You didn’t take them, did you?” Her voice tightened with concern. He could see her features clearly now.

“I read them. Would you like me to replace them where I found them?” He felt the pebbled earth pressing through the damp wool homespun of his robe. His buttocks were starting to itch.

“Oh, yes,” she said solemnly. “I would appreciate that. I chose the placement with great care.”

“Let’s do it together,” he proposed. “I have them in my pocket.” He patted the pouch where he’d lodged them, imagined mounding
his body around hers in a soft fortress. Was the poor girl mad? Was he? In fact he thought he was, but she was mad in a different way, too much sincerity and care for other people, while his madness had to do with detesting almost everyone.

“Just give them to me.” Her voice was still shaking. “I can do it on my own.” She began to collect herself, her skirts shushing along the rock and sand. Rising to a squat, she braced herself with one hand on the wall.

“I shall help you with them outside and then escort you to your boat.” What more could he say that would not call attention to the seriousness of his concern?

“All right.” She straightened up with difficulty, wedged the newest note in a crevice, and moved closer, standing above him. He didn’t budge. Into the freighted silence between them, she at last lowered herself onto the floor alongside him, primly covering her knees with her dress. He thought of reaching out to pat her arm, but she was wary as a wild animal and might interpret the slightest motion as a threat and vanish into the gloom, there driven to some drastic act.

She stared at him unabashedly. He watched the wisp of a smile solidify into a blithesome grin. The instant he offered a smile in return, she metamorphosed into a different person: her shoulders lowered; her neck softened from a post into a slender curve; her arms settled against her torso, relaxed as wings. She seemed to be sane again. He was pleased that he had managed to soothe her with his cleverness and rationality.

She covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a giggle, but the hand flew up, as though yanked on a string, and she exploded with laughter. Unlike her sobbing, she did nothing to fight the impulse, producing guffaws and snickers limited only by the necessity to draw breath.

He shivered in the oven of the chamber. Was she laughing at him? Surely she
was
mad. What would she do next, especially if she
had
brought a knife or poison? Didn’t the insane cackle at the most unlikely moments—while setting buildings afire, diving from rooftops, stabbing their husbands with pitchforks?

“Oh, Gustave,” she said with a sigh, “I am sorry to have worried you, for you
are
worried, I see it in your face.” She leaned closer, inspecting him.

Her eyes glimmered, wet with tears of hilarity. Although she was small with a flat chest, she was distinctly feminine, her torso rising like the stem of a water lily from the circular pad of her skirt. “I have been through this before, this . . . hopelessness. I shall recover.” She picked up one of his hands balled into fists in his lap. “I never thought anyone would find my letters. They were intended only for God.” She pried open his fingers and sandwiched his hand between hers. Her face turned serious again, the veins at her temples suddenly prominent, blue pentimenti of the keening woman he had found moments before.

Was she going to cry? He hated it when women cried. His mother cried daily, not that she lacked a reason to be in perpetual mourning, but he could not abide it. Each of Mme. Flaubert’s tears pierced his heart like a sliver of glass. Louise’s tears had been largely histrionic, intended to melt his resolve, to provoke pity followed by guilt. In the end he had become immune to them.

“Gustave,
dis-moi que tu me pardonnes.
Forgive me especially for frightening you,” she added. She held his hand in hers. Rather surprising for an Englishwoman, but in her case not coquetry, simply the sign of an openhearted and trusting nature.

“Of course,” he heard himself say, “I forgive you. But only if you swear you are not so despondent as the notes suggest. No, disregard that.” He erased the words with his free hand from the air. He
knew
she was desperate, and that suicide might beckon again even if her crisis had passed for now. He started over. “Promise me that if you
are
so melancholy, you will take me as your confidant here, away from home.”

She nodded. “I am not, and I shall.”

Had they just been married? The order and brevity of her words sounded like vows. He withdrew his hand, then thought better of it, and took both of hers. From his mouth (his best feature, everyone
said, and his favorite body part after his prick) poured words that bypassed his brain. “My dear Rossignol, I sensed I would be your friend from the moment we met. Fate has brought us together in Egypt for a purpose.” He stood outside himself, marveling at the florid declaration.

“Oh,” she said, glancing down demurely, “if only that were true. But even if it were, we shall soon be parted.” She ignored the tears spilling down her cheeks, as if they were someone else’s, or droplets of rain. He was happy to ignore them, too. “In any case, you may not find me a worthy friend,” she continued. “I am, I’m told, too intense. Too serious. Too ambitious. Oh, and too talkative and I have an impossibly deep, passional nature that
will
find its outlet. I have loved music too much and friends too much and my family insufficiently—”

“
Arrête,
Rossignol!” A tender pity surged in him. Beneath the cleverness, candor, and humor, she was shattered by self-doubt. “You must defend yourself first from yourself, for the world will be all too eager to find fault with you.” The rock upon which he sat might have been proclaiming, oracle-like, for all he felt connected to his words, though he intended them sincerely and, to tell the truth, found them moving and sage.

She shifted her weight, copying his position, her feet extended in front, her back against the wall, next to his. She sighed. “As a woman, I am unnatural.” She measured her bony hand against his meatier one. “Everyone says so. I wish to be of use, but to my family I am only a burden, which I loathe. Since I cannot change my sex, I would be better off dea—”

“Don’t say it! Or if you must, consider it only philosophically.” Their hands were still palm to palm. He locked his fingers around hers and squeezed them, shaking her hand with conviction for both of them.

“All right,” she relented. “Let’s consider it philosophically. Which of us shall be Socrates and which the questioner?” She turned toward him and removed her bonnet, which had flattened her hair into two shining wings plastered to her head. Between them, the white of her
scalp was startling. A bead of sweat slid down her forehead. He regretted that he did not have a handkerchief to offer her, only the fetid hem of his robe.

He rarely confided in women. Certainly not his dear mother, who, given more information, fretted more, fluttering around baby Caroline’s nursery in paroxysms of dread and grief with her arms upraised and her hair in a tangle. She’d always been a worrier with a gloomy disposition, and who could blame her? Long before the recent tragedies, she’d borne inordinate losses. When she was nine days old, her mother had died, and her father when she was five years old. In the eight years between Gustave and Achille, three babies had died in her arms. Tragedy had shaped her into a woman who suffered in anticipation as much as from outcomes. No, he told her only ebullient news. As for women of his class, they were untrustworthy gossips who viewed him as a potential investment, like a bank bond. Louise had used his confidences to taunt him.

“I have a question, then,” he told Florence. “Shall I give up, too, as you wish to? I’ve already told you that I am a failed novelist—”

“What a noble undertaking, the pursuit of art,” she interrupted. “How I admire you.”

He wanted to disabuse her of the naive veneration he heard in her voice. “The truth is that I am fit for nothing else, least of all ordinary life. I wish to write, but that will require all my resources, my will and bodily strength, my time and affections, and yet I may fail again.”

To his annoyance, she still looked starry-eyed, as if in the presence of Rousseau, Molière, or even a lesser light like Lamartine. “I hate conventionality,” he added, determined to give her a taste of his soured reality. “People are sheep. Sheep-mayors and sheep-grocers. In the esteemed Academy, immortal sheep! I shall never marry, never have children. I hate all that. I refuse to become the standard-bearer of all that I despise for the sake of offspring.”