The Twelve Rooms of the Nile (35 page)

“Oh, goodness,” Selina said, her voice sober again. “I wish I didn’t know that.”

The sky was by now completely dark. Noting the late hour, Père Issa prepared to depart. “Tomorrow,
mes amis,
I shall help you hire the caravan and crew. And I shall send word to my brother advising him of your arrival next week.” With that, he bowed, his robes languidly moving against his body, like a gentle tide.
“Bonsoir à tous.”

Flo watched Père Issa’s white
gubbeh
float down the gangplank. Back on shore, he hurried into the crowd on the cay, his turban like a French knot pulled taut on its thread until it shrank into a swirled nub. In a moment he was indistinguishable from anyone else on shore.

Trout excused herself and went below. Then, in a ploy that Flo suspected was designed to leave her alone with Gustave, Selina fetched Charles’s telescope and proposed that Max look at the moon.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how I happened upon Père Issa?” Gustave moved his chair closer. They sat at the table, the map between them.

“Bien sûr.”

“He found
us
, actually. He was eager to meet two authentic Frenchmen. What great good luck, isn’t it?”

“Does he really have a brother in Koseir?”

“Of course, my dear. I am not a liar. I merely emphasize.”

“And does his brother have a house?”

“He does, indeed. And quite a grand one, according to you.”

“You understood my English?”

“I grasped the gist of it, or, I suppose, the intention.”

“I see.”

Her eyes were drawn to the lamp. Paradoxically, its small, wavering flame made the darkness around it more pronounced.

She had reached a strange pass, having run out of what to say—she, the brilliant conversationalist whose head positively raced with too many ideas. She stared at the lamp, willing a genie to pipe forth from it in scarves of smoke. She stretched her fingers, folded them together, then pulled them apart to scratch her arm, her nails embarrassingly loud over the woven fabric.

At last she remembered the consul’s hand. “I saw you noticed Père Issa’s nail?” She wiggled her little finger in the lamplight.

“Unusual,
n’est-ce pas,
Rossignol?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve seen it before in the East. Haven’t you?”

Mostly, Charles had done the talking with the few Oriental men they’d met, and, determined not to offend them, she’d always stared at her feet, or into a neutral space to the side of them, while cultivating a vacant expression. The surreptitious glances she took at the cataract “bigs,” half naked in the river as they hoisted the
Parthenope
up and
down the rapids, hardly counted, so far away were they, and clothed in froth. “No,” she said. “I haven’t.”

“It is a local custom, like the turban. Or like worry beads.”

“It must also be a mark of wealth,” Flo said. “For with such a nail, one could not possibly do a jot of manual work.” She was pleased with her logic.

“No, nothing like that, though it
does
have a use.” He set his empty snifter on the table and, inserting two fingers in the collar of his shirt, cranked his head from side to side. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be mysterious. I shall explain it to you when we are alone.”

Flo looked around. Max, Charles, and Selina were out of earshot. Paolo and Joseph were smoking the captain’s narghile at the bow. “But we are alone
now
.”

He lifted her hand into his lap. Setting up a rhythm, he stroked the side of her thumb and then of each finger, moving from digit to digit. “Then we must be more alone,” he said at last.

He was barely touching her, but she felt the contact before it happened, each hair pricking up from its follicle in anticipation.

“
Truly
alone.”

She found herself unable to speak—unable, in fact, to do anything save feel each finger as it was touched, all of her senses collected there, imprisoned in that single spot.
Falling in love?
No, not love, precisely, but
falling,
yes. And just where she would land was unclear and, in this moment, irrelevant.

Max returned to the table, downed the last of his brandy, and rolled up the map. Catching Gustave’s eye, and not caring, apparently, if she overheard, he grunted something about leaving, then returned to the Bracebridges.

“I shall come to see you the day after tomorrow,” Gustave said. “If there is anything you need for the trip, we shall buy it together in Kenneh.” He released her hand. “Then, at dawn the following day, we depart!”

“Thank you.”

“De rien.”

“And for Trout, too.”

“Ah, well. She did not require so much persuasion.”

“She did not, did she?” Why had he stopped? The desolation of her abandoned hand was unbearable. She reached for his hand and placed it between hers, which he allowed without acknowledging. “But I think there is more mystery to Trout than that,” she said. She
was
able to speak, though sentience remained centered in her hand. How strange to feel split in two, the Flo who was speaking and the Flo who was only a hand.

Not daring to mimic him, to touch his fingers, she simply held his hand until it grew heavy in hers, inanimate as a stone. Nor did she know how to free it, return it to him. It was all so awkward. He was waiting, she knew, for her to revive it, but shyness and inexperience stopped her. His hand could have been a dead fish.

Max, who seemed always to be in charge, slapped his friend on the back, impatient to go. Gustave retrieved his hand. In another moment, the three men were tromping down the gangplank, the light from Joseph’s lamp flickering over their well-liquored faces as they clambered ashore.

Turning back to the
Parthenope,
Gustave began to wave, his arm tick-tocking overhead like an upside-down pendulum as he sang
au revoir
alternated with
bonsoir
until his voice grew faint. This was for her, she was certain; he must have sensed how intently she was watching him.

In this simple act, she recognized that another connection had been forged between them. The evening had been entirely proper. Yet, the secret weight of their conspiracy had pressed them closer. They had resorted to tactics just short of lying. Surely, had they robbed a bank or committed some equally egregious crime together, it would have felt little different—no less forbidden, and no less astonishing.

18

CARAVAN

O
nce a week, the Kenneh market occupied a dusty street at the northern tip of the harbor, itself no more than a sloping beach. Narrow booths lined either side of the winding thoroughfare. When the merchants were not sweeping sand from their stalls, they sat out front hawking their goods, or took refuge within from the heat and wind, bent over their accounts or chatting with customers.

One could not shop quickly. Ceremonies had to be observed. In the Orient, a substantial sale required the leisure to establish goodwill and to offset the innately degrading effects of cold cash. Tea and sweets lubricated the extensive dickering process. With Joseph’s help, they spent an hour purchasing staples:
kamr-ed-din
—apricot paste—along with a crock of olives, freshly butchered chickens, several dozen eggs, and a slaughtered lamb. They still needed lamps and lamp oil, goatskins and saddlebags. The caravan crew supplied nothing but camels and desert expertise.

It was hard for Gustave to talk to Miss Nightingale as they squeezed through crowds that surged through the street like a riptide or, conversely, stood in scattered formations immovable as lampposts. Miss Nightingale was often busy translating for Trout or distracted by Max’s peripatetic presence. Walking faster than seemed humanly
possibly, Max scouted the shops ahead and rushed back to report. He couldn’t resist fingering the merchandise, while Gustave was more restrained and deliberate, not wishing to convey too much interest to keep the price low. For despite his native costume, he knew that he could never really pass for an Oriental. Besides being in the company of two European women, small incongruities gave him away. His nails and robes were too clean; his skin, though tanned, too pink. He was fleshier and taller than most Egyptians.

They stopped at a chandler’s stall. “It’s very bright in the market, isn’t it?” Miss Nightingale remarked, shading her eyes with her hand.

“And also very dark,” Gustave countered. He pointed to the back of the booth where the face of the beturbaned owner swam up like a reflection at the bottom of a well.

“Let’s go in,” she said, pulling Trout by the arm linked in hers. Clearly, the maid had been enlisted as chaperone.

Inside, the shop was stuffy and close. While he, Miss Nightingale, and Trout lingered over rows and rows of the clay lamps ubiquitous in the Orient, Joseph negotiated for candles at the back of the shop, where the owner kept them to guard against pilferage.

They proceeded to a saddlery to buy goatskins and camel bags. Gustave delighted in the profusion of kilim pouches in vivid patterns of madder, brown, blue, ivory, and black. “Let’s take our time,” he suggested.

“Yes,” Miss Nightingale replied, “I hate to rush. These are all so handsome.”

Even Trout took an interest in the selection. An hour later, pleased with their purchases and full of more sweets, they followed Joseph up a hill. The open-air shop at the crest was strung with clotheslines fluttering with scarves and homespun robes of every description. Sunlight and wind playing through the textiles created the atmosphere of a carnival.

“You must to cover the head,” Joseph told the women, patting his skull.

“Oh, I have a shawl,” Miss Nightingale replied. “I’ll be fine.”

In his butchered French, Joseph explained that she and her friend must wear kaffiyehs. Nothing else would do in the desert.

She examined a kaffiyeh whipping on the line. “I am sure my English cloth is just as good, if not better.”

Joseph whispered and Gustave passed it along. “He says he will not be responsible if you do not wear proper headgear.”

Looking amused, Miss Nightingale translated this warning for Trout. “But he has no idea what English cloth is like.”

“I am sure you are right, Rossignol, but it is just as easy to buy a kaffiyeh.” He picked out a red-and-white one trimmed with yellow silk. “Very pretty, isn’t it?

“Yes, but—”

“Let it be a gift from me, Rossignol,” he insisted. He quickly selected a second, plainer one with black-and-white stripes. “And this is for you, Trout.” He pressed it into her hand over her objections, eliciting a polite smile. She folded it under her arm.

“Trout has a very practical straw hat she can wear,” Miss Nightingale said. “But these will make lovely souvenirs. Thank you, Gustave.”

“Well, I shall wear the Arab headgear,” he said pointedly, unfolding the one he’d chosen for himself and draping it around his head. “There. I am ready for the khamsins.”

“Surely you have heard of the Arkwright Mills, Gustave.”

“The what?” he asked. Trout pricked up her ears at the familiar English words.

“The Arkwright Mills. The most famous in the world. They weave the finest cotton cloth.”

“Is that so?” He passed a handful of piastres to Joseph to pay for the scarves.

“Quite so. You see, the mill is a new industrial design. The looms are gigantic and run day and night. I’ve seen them myself—”

“I had no idea.” She seemed quite enthusiastic, even a tad mulish on the subject.

“Oh, yes, indeed.” She turned to her maid. “Isn’t that right, Trout?
And they use only the strongest cotton, grown on the sea islands of Georgia and South Carolina.”

He feigned interest while eyeing a chunky amber necklace. Prayer beads. He picked up the strand. The amber was warm and oily in his hand. Perfect to finger in his pocket or for his desk.
A red vest, six meters of Dacca cloth, a monkey, a mummy. . .
. the mummy! Joseph had told him there was a shop in Kenneh specializing in Egyptian antiquities. But where was it?

She was still enthusing about the cloth. The mills weren’t far from her home. She had visited them with her father. Did he know that the girls who worked at the mill lived together in dormitories? He did not.

“Pardon me for interrupting,” he told Miss Nightingale, “but we must leave. There’s one more thing I want to buy—a mummy.”

“Oh.” She fidgeted with a sleeve. “A mummy, you say?”

“But first, let’s try this on for size.” He carefully arranged the kaffiyeh around her face, demonstrating how she might fasten it to cover all but her eyes. It was charming on her; the yellow silk had been an inspired choice. “It looks beautiful, doesn’t it, Trout? Biblical.”

“Really?” She stroked the cloth covering her hair. “What do you say, Trout?”

“I wouldn’t know, mum. You do look more Egyptian.”

“It’s very flattering,” he insisted, taking her arm as they strolled from the shop. Perhaps that would be the end of the talking jag about the mills. He hoped so.

The antiquities shop was close to the harbor; they had passed it on their way to the butcher’s. Inside, cheaply executed reproductions abounded—clay heads of pharaohs, models of the pyramids and the Sphinx. When Gustave inquired about a genuine mummy, the merchant smiled and bowed effusively, promising an answer by the time the
monsieur
returned from Koseir.

Miss Nightingale wore the kaffiyeh for the rest of the excursion. But she remained silent, clasping fast to his arm each time he offered it.

• • •

The next morning, she appeared wearing a green eyeshade suspended from her bonnet. She had brought it out to Egypt at the urging of Herr Professor Baron Bunsen, about whom, by 7
A.M
., he did not wish to hear one more word. This contraption lent her the remote but insidious expression of a card sharp. She seemed nervous. And apparently, when she was nervous, she chattered. With relish, she had already recited a compendium of facts about each of the wells en route, the climate, and the living conditions of the Ababdeh (mud hovels too squat to stand up in; poor diet).