The Twelve Rooms of the Nile (34 page)

“Well, just a knuckle away, really,” Charles said approvingly, swirling his brandy before plunging his nose into the glass.

“The crew will be specialists, of course, who’ve made the crossing tens of times,” said Max. “Hundreds, I daresay.”

“And Père Issa’s brother is, by chance, the French consular agent in Koseir,” Gustave added. His face gleamed in the tender pink light. Later, he might fatten (for he seemed inclined to fleshiness) and lose his hair. But now, perhaps out of gratitude for his presence, Flo imagined pressing her lips against his. (Was that all there was to a kiss? In which case, why did people keep at it for more than a second?) His lips would be soft and yielding, she expected, like flower petals, dry and warm as the center of fresh-baked bread.

“How fortunate,” said Selina.

“Dandy,” Charles agreed.

“My brother, Elias, he has a villa by the sea,” Père Issa explained, motioning with both hands. His palms, Flo noticed, were several shades lighter than the rest of him, like the chalked hands in the posters for the Ethiopian Serenaders, a minstrel show that played London every year. “He will be honored to entertain you as his guests.”

“Well, isn’t that grand?” Selina clapped her hands. “Isn’t it, Charles?”

“Indeed.” Charles turned to Flo in English. “After crossing the desert, a good bed will, I’m sure, be most welcome.”

At this mention of beds and lackings thereof, Trout looked up and began listening.

“You have made the trip yourself, Père Issa?” Selina inquired.

“Many times.”

Charles set his snifter on the table and removed a leather pouch from his frock coat. “What I want to know,
monsieur,
is how remote, how out of the
way
the road is.” He fiddled with his tobacco and pipe. “For instance, have you encountered other caravans on your trips? Are there highwaymen? Bandits?”

“Many pilgrims cross at this time of year.” Père Issa licked the rim of his glass delicately, like a cat. “And no, no bandits. It is quite safe. Protected by the Bedouins.”

Safe compared to an omnibus? Flo wondered, or to a trek through the Australian outback? She knew the desert was forsaken, lacking in life-sustaining food or water, and thus a test of will and endurance. Brigands had never entered her mind.

“Excellent.” Charles leaned back in his chair and drew on his pipe. Looking equally content, Selina gave his arm a knowing squeeze.

Was that it, then? Had it been decided? Flo trembled at the thought. Had Charles agreed, just that easily?

“What’s this about, mum?” Trout asked in a hushed tone that Flo had come to detest, a tone that tugged at Flo’s sleeve without exactly asserting itself.

“We were just speaking about the villa of Père Elias, M. Issa’s
brother,” Flo said carefully, forcing a smile. Levity was called for—mirth—a touch of fancy. “M. Issa says it hangs on a cliff high above the sea, with cooling winds. And it’s white as sugar.” Now she was in the swing of it. “With feather beds in every room. He says we’ll be treated like royalty.”

Trout’s stilled crochet hook protruded between her fingers like the beak of a baby bird. “And the desert?”

Behind Trout’s head, the sky had turned a molten orange; while along the shore, the palms had darkened into fringed, black paper cutouts. The air was empty, eerily silent. There were so many birds along the Nile that when they roosted at night, the quiet was sudden and almost disturbing, like that afternoon she thought she’d gone deaf, before hearing the Voice. “We’ll traverse it, of course,” Flo answered.

“What desert would that be, mum?” For an instant, Trout’s eyes flashed red, like a dog’s, reflecting the sun as it smoldered at the horizon.

“The same desert you’ve already romped through, dear Trout. The eastern Sahara, which some call the Nubian—”

“But where are we going? What’s at the other
side
of the desert?” Resentment was etched all over Trout’s face—in her furrowed brow, her skeptical gaze and pinched mouth.

“La Mer Rouge!”
Gustave cried, leaping from his chair and lowering himself on one knee before Trout.

“The Red Sea?” Trout ignored the man kneeling before her and strode over to the map, trailing her yarn. She had no idea where she was, had she? Flo dreaded the moment of her recognition. For though Trout had felt free to complain profusely about all manner of irritation, up until now she had followed Flo blindly. Flo wondered if Trout knew she had the power to refuse, to wreck everything. Would she dare?

“Here is the destination,” Selina said, tapping Koseir, “and here is where we are at present. And all of
this
”—she swept her hand from the narrow funnel at Suez to the Gulf of Aden—“is the Red Sea. The Red Sea of Moses and the Hebrews!”

“Heaven protect us!” said Trout. “It’s the other side of the world.”

“Il est à l’autre extrémité du monde,”
Paolo repeated for the Frenchmen.

“Non, mais non,”
Gustave wailed. “It is en
Égypte.
”

“Is it then?” Trout ran her tongue over her lips, which were dry and cracked.

“Mais oui, madame.”
Gustave approached once more, lifted Trout’s hand, and gently moved it from Kenneh to the coast.
“C’est notre voyage. Il sera merveilleux.”

Trout looked dubious. “Where will we sleep, mum?”

“In tents,” Flo said. “We shall be quite comfortable. We shall have our own cook. And travel by camel in a caravan.”

Incredulous, Trout turned to Selina. “You don’t mind riding one of those beasts, mum?”

“No, I don’t. Though I shan’t be going. Mr. Bracebridge and I are staying in Kenneh.”

Please don’t say why, Flo’s eyes begged. Don’t say the trip is difficult or your health isn’t up to it.
Oh, please.

“We need to take care of some business.”

“That’s right,” Charles said.

Flo wanted to kiss him. A co-conspirator! How had she not understood how much he loved her? She wished she could take flight, not like a bird, but unpredictably, zigzagging around the boat like a punctured balloon.
Fffft! Fwat!
Charles
had
agreed without the question ever being put.

Just then, Père Issa hailed Rais Ibrahim coming aboard with four live chickens. The consul excused himself and joined the captain on the bow. They were apparently old friends.

Trout drooped over the table like a general over the scheme of a lost battle. She studied the map legend, measuring distances with her finger joints. “It’s a hundred mile, seems.” Her voice verged on indignance. “More than a hundred. How long will it take?”

“Quatre jours,”
said Max. “Four days.”

Trout looked ready to cry. Good! Better for her to dissolve than
ignite. Let her be miserable, just so long as she did not refuse. Would she risk rebellion in front of all these people?
A public disgrace.
Would not humiliation override her fear? Trout shut her eyes. Silently praying? Counting to ten?

Selina signaled Youssef for more sugar water. Charles smoked his pipe and muttered to Paolo. It was an intermission of sorts, Flo thought. The play wasn’t over.

Eyes still closed, Trout began to sway where she stood, in wider and wider arcs. Max jumped up and escorted her back to her chair, his hand extended like that of a maître d’. She obeyed him. Oh, if only Trout could fall just a little in love with Max, if only she could allow herself that folly, though maiden ladies of a certain age—Trout’s age—did not exactly fall in love. Indeed, it was difficult to imagine Trout with any man except an employer. Bring me my slippers, Trout. Yes, sir. My eggs. Yes, sir. No endearments or entanglements, just the emotionless propriety of service. For who could love Trout? She was not cuddlesome or amusing, nor the least bit feminine. Barrel-chested and tall, with outsized hands, she had about her something of the warrior. Amazon Trout. She was not afraid of men, Fanny had said, even clutches of them drinking and gambling. Fanny had once seen Trout walking past such ruffians into a pub. But even ugly women were not safe alone in the streets, Fanny had stressed. Trout had simply been lucky. Men were brutes.

“Madame Trout,” Max said, “I hope that you will agree to be my model in the desert.”

Flo grinned as Paulo issued the invitation in English.

“Your model?” she repeated uncertainly.

“You will establish
scale
in my photographs, my dear lady. You will be among the first human beings to be photographed in the eastern Sahara—perhaps the
very
first. An innovator, a pioneer.”

“Will I?” A droplet of sweat slid down Trout’s temple, catching the last gleam of light. No, she would not cry.

“Have you ever sat for a photograph?” Max asked.

A pointless question, Flo thought—the Nightingales themselves
had yet to be photographed. The camera was a newfangled machine, with unreliable results. But Max was pointedly making a fuss over Trout; surely his flattery could nudge her past the point of refusal.

“Yes, sir, I have,” Trout said, and proceeded to brush the front of her dress with her two hands, as though tidying up to pose for a likeness. A pretentious gesture. Flo fought the impulse to laugh.

“Remarkable,” said Charles. “Congratulations, Trout. You are at the forefront of science and art.”

“Is that so, Mr. Bracebridge?”

Barely able to discern the outlines of Trout’s face, Flo could no longer restrain herself. “How is it that you have been photographed, Trout?”

“Oh, I have a friend, mum, Gilbert, who’s made my picture four times now. Once as myself, and three historical scenes.”

Gustave raised his glass. “To the future of art,” he cried. “And to Madame Trout, the photographers’ Muse!” Paolo translated.

“I don’t mind if I do, sir,” Trout said, at length. “Pose for you, I mean. But I will be wanting some photographs for myself, then.” Trout wound her loose yarn back onto the ball. Flo hadn’t known Trout to bargain so brazenly. But Max agreed, and offered to show Trout the next day the pictures the others had seen at Abu Simbel, when she was belowdecks.

Just then, Efreet-Youssef appeared from the shadows and placed an oil lamp on the table.

“You will bathe in the Red Sea!” Gustave pantomimed swimming with his arms.

“Not I, sir,” Trout said “No. I won’t be bathing in any foreign waters.”

Now that an accommodation seemed, miraculously, to have been reached, Florence was barely listening. Let Trout sweat, posing on the beach of the Red Sea, furiously fanning herself as Max hunched under the black hood of the camera. Let her stand atop a dune, or ride sidesaddle on a camel. Let her go on posturing sophistication, with trips to the dentist and a photographer friend who placed her
in
tableaux vivants
. Flo was no longer bothered by any of it. She was going to Koseir!

Gustave produced three slim packages. “I have taken the liberty of buying the ladies gifts,” he said, and handed over the paper bundles, each one fastened with twine to which a cinnamon stick had been tied.

Flo and Selina immediately lifted theirs to inhale the sweet, pungent odor of that hard curl of spice. Trout, wasting no time, forced the string over the package, ripped the paper apart, and promptly shrieked, hurling the gift to the floor.

“What
is
it?” Flo asked, rising to her feet.

“A dead animal, mum.” Trout covered her face with her hands. “A strange sort of . . . cat mummy!” She shuddered at the idea.

Charles, ever chivalrous, tore Selina’s parcel from her hands.

“Non, non, non!”
Gustave cried.
“Quel est le problème? Vous n’aimez pas mon cadeau?”

Gustave had gone bright red, the shade he turned with any strong emotion, Flo had noticed. Some people reddened, others blanched. She herself was inclined to a paler pink, still evidence of a throbbing vitality. Most women prized a pale complexion as more ethereal and less carnal.

Charles removed the article from its wrapping and set it upon the table. He stared wonderingly at it, picked it up it by one end like something foul, and held it aloft with two fingers.

“Hair!” cried Flo.

“Les cheveux d’une femme Egyptienne,”
Gustave explained.
“Elles sont très belles, n’est-ce pas?”

“You see, it’s only a woman’s hair,” Flo told Trout soothingly. She unwrapped her own thick black braid, though the surprise had been ruined.

Still grimacing, Trout prodded hers with one foot, as if to ensure it wasn’t alive. “I was thinking maybe a dead rat. I heard as the natives eat vermin here. Maybe a rat for dinner, I thought.”

Drawn by the commotion, Père Issa rejoined the group.

“May I offer you or the captain another drink?” Charles asked, a
glint in his eye. “Some brandy for your rat entrée, eh?” He tossed the mane into the air and emitted a tuba-size guffaw.

Selina grabbed his elbow, but he ignored her.

“Rodent flambé, anyone?”

“Charles, please!” Selina cried in vain. “You are embarrassing Trout.”

Gustave, meantime, was doing what Flo imagined a
gentilhomme
would always do for a woman under duress: he had taken Trout’s arm and was whispering apologies, first in French and then in his broken English, offering himself up as buffoon, if necessary, to regain her good graces. “Pardon me, sweet lady,” Flo overheard. “I am much desolated to scare you with hairs.” At this, Trout chuckled, which he matched with a giggle and Charles amplified to a horselaugh until they were all howling. And how wonderful it was to laugh! Charles and Gustave had a gift for it; Flo, alas, did not. But, then, hadn’t Fanny taught her to stifle the impulse and cover her mouth? No belly laughs permitted, only tittering behind a fan or gloved hand.

Flo linked arms with her maid. “Hair is
very
expensive, you know. You could have a fine wig made, Trout. We all could, in Paris. What a lovely gift, Gustave.
Merci beaucoup
.”

“Indeed,” Selina nodded. “A great luxury. Thank you.”

“Gustave always finds the best presents,” said Max. “I was with him when he bought the hair. The women wept and carried on while they were shorn. You see, the husbands forced them, for the money.”