The Twelve Rooms of the Nile (44 page)

“As should we all,” Max replied halfheartedly. He wiped his forehead on his sleeve. “Tell Mohammed to send out a search party for the next two hours.”

The message was conveyed. Mohammed held up his hand and nodded, then sent two men to untether their camels.

Max shook his head. “As Damien said on the morning of his execution, ‘It will be rough day.’”

Gustave sat down Indian-style and put his head in his hands.

Flo wondered if the mention of Satan was one of the numberless Arabic proverbs proffered to throttle discussion, or a sly reference to the Europeans as white devils. How could you determine a man’s intention if you didn’t speak his language or share his beliefs? She’d happily embarked on a study of ancient Egyptian religion but had no curiosity about Islam, which seemed an amalgam of oddities and borrowings. She felt with conviction what she’d written home more than once—that Egypt would be an exquisite country were it not for the Egyptians who lived there.

After sending Joseph to spy on the remaining camel drivers, the three of them gathered in the men’s tent, talking and pacing in circles. Flo was feeling more terrible by the minute, knowing Trout must be terrified wherever she was. Which she did not wish to imagine. Instead, she pictured her doll-sized, wrapped in her green plaid shawl in a cartouche with Ramses, her hand securing her black straw bonnet. There she stayed, etched on stone, immobile, safe in the vaults of history until Flo could figure out what to do.

Why, they asked each other, had Trout been kidnapped, but not Flo? Gustave gently suggested she was more vulnerable alone in a small tent, while Flo probably escaped because her tent was large, implying several occupants. Flo’s spirits sank at this supposition, thinking it must be true. Max believed there would be a demand for ransom and that the camel drivers were implicated.

How had it been accomplished, especially as none of the camels was missing? They agreed that a person or persons of professional
stealth must have crept up in the night. Max again proposed a conspiracy among the camel drivers that would have eased the culprit’s way.

I am responsible for her
, Flo kept thinking.
I and only I. I should have anticipated these possibilities
. Or was that hubris? Taking responsibility for everything, like God.

The discussion was wearing on her nerves. The obvious horror in Trout’s abduction was
rape
, a word she dared not say but found so harrowing that merely to think it produced waves of nausea. Instead, they talked around it, addressing it historically, which was only slightly less disturbing. Max mentioned the long, infamous history of white slavery in the Orient, which traced all the way back to Saphira, the Circassian concubine in King Solomon’s court. Beautiful young white women had been kidnapped for centuries, not to mention, Gustave added, the loathsome custom of destitute parents selling their daughters into seraglios. Naturally, some of these women had been found and returned home. If what had happened to Trout was commonplace, might there not be a commonplace solution? But here they reached a logical impasse: since Trout was neither young nor beautiful, why would anyone want her in the first place?

It was unendurable to think of the flinty, middle-aged spinster, so upright in her way, being violated. The cartouche cracked. Trout ran shrieking across the dunes, pursued by turbaned men on camels. Flo struggled not to faint, her face hot, hands cold, and head pounding. She missed Selina and Charles, even the heaving, righteous bosom of Fanny, the speechless awkwardness of WEN. What if Trout were killed or sold into slavery? What if they never learned what happened to her? The tragedy—and her failure as an employer—would settle on her head like a lead weight. And on her heart. She could barely follow the conversation.

Gustave, sitting next to her, seemed to sense her upset, but she made it clear that she wished no affection from him. If Max saw signs of intimacy he might assume that she was Gustave’s conquest, not his confidante. “We must
do
something to help the poor woman!” she cried abruptly.

“Yes, yes,” Gustave and Max agreed.

At once they decided to send a man back to Koseir to request that Père Elias dispatch a search party into the desert. The messenger took Trout’s camel.

• • •

Two hours later, the luckless crewmen returned empty-handed and subdued.

After a quick luncheon, the caravan pulled up stakes and continued toward Kenneh. The crew struck Trout’s tent and packed up her belongings with Flo’s.

The passing vistas merged into a muddy blur. Flo’s mind locked onto Trout, her thoughts painfully mixed. Trout had been a good patient while ill and better than no company at all at Père Elias’s, where they had enjoyed the tub together even if in a dull silence. Though Flo was desperately worried for her, she could not lie. She refused to be a hypocrite, like the vicars at home, who turned the recently deceased into saints, seconded by parishioners known to despise them. It was only when she allowed herself to imagine danger to Trout’s person that her feelings toward her were temporarily simplified—purified—into a singular loving concern. It was so much easier to deal with Trout—to feel genuine affection and sympathy for her—when she was absent.

That evening they camped later than usual in order to reach the well at Hagee Soolayman, where camels were always watered on the second night of a return journey from Koseir. Mohammed explained that they could not alter the itinerary. If they had tried to stop earlier, the camels would have balked, for they knew where the well was. In their blood, they knew, he said.

Flo was limp with exhaustion. It was nearly midnight. She would have traded anything for a bath in the pink tub, and thought longingly, too, of the Red Sea. Just to behold it again would be refreshing.

The crew bought goats’ milk from the Ababdeh, whose huts clustered in the surrounding hills. It was too late to go shooting for fowl,
so they dined on beans and apricot paste. The tribesmen watched from a distance like vultures about to descend on their crumbs, but only the children, naked and shy, came forward to beg, singing and dancing in the orange glow of the campfire. Flo gave them most of her portion.

At Gustave’s insistence, Mohammed posted a sentry outside her tent. With the guard in place, she retired and prepared for sleep. She lit a new candle. The light was hypnotic, and staring at it, she was able to calm herself and collect her thoughts.

She reached into her camel box and retrieved her desk. Touching her writing supplies was reassuring. Steel pen, inkwell, nibs, her diary, and Trout’s brown book. She prepared to jot a line or two in
Lavie
.

Wouldn’t it be a miracle if Trout had managed a word about her abductor? Or inadvertently noted something suspicious, or had a premonition of what was to come? Didn’t the circumstance demand that she peek at the journal to search for clues? Just the last brief entry before the ink smear . . .

25 April 1850

Here is your drudge in the desert again, cold and lonely
.

We left Koseer at dawn. I am writing with one hand, holding your key in the other. I like to remember that you kept it in your pocket near your heart
.

The wind is howling. So I checked the pole that the natives say will hold up the tent in a storm. Miss N told me the Egyptian name for tent is “house of hair.” Goat hair, thick as a doormat and never washed. I think vermin live in it that chew on me when I sleep. I itch and itch
.

Flo paused to scratch her ankle. Thinking about a bite always made it tickle.

I am cold. My breath is the only heat. Except for shoes, I am dressed. I won’t change clothes until Kenna as there is no water to
bathe and no privacy in the desert. Which Miss N calls “solitudinous,” as if a fancy word could fill all that emptiness
.

Flo cringed each time she encountered her name. It was terrible to read another person’s truth, especially when it included one’s self.

My eyes stung and hurt all day. I wonder can the desert burn them out. No job fairs for blind maids. I’d be put in the workhouse, caning chairs or weaving on a handloom. Such dark notions I know you do not care for
.

It had never occurred to Flo to provide Trout with a green eye-shade. It had seemed a luxury—like good gloves—not a necessity.

I sleep on a rug, but sand works its way through. That is the story of Egypt: one thing after another burrowing into the skin. It isn’t a carpet proper, but a saddlebag with the seams ripped open and restitched flat. When we trek in the daytime, it is stored just above the camel’s foulest part
.

I told Miss N I did not want to be alone in a tent, but she did not answer. She sleeps in a big tent and is not afraid like

Flo cringed with horror. She didn’t recall Trout asking to share her tent. She felt a sudden heat, a spreading shame, quickly striped with anger. Question after question tumbled through her mind. Who had given Trout that key and why? Which must be the same one she’d found on the dahabiyah floor and later seen under Trout’s pillow. Not only was Trout’s disappearance a mystery, the woman herself was.

She slammed the book shut, sick with guilt and worry.

A moment later, she opened it and started at the beginning.

23

“THIS IS TRAUT’S BOOK”

19 November 1849, in Alexandria

The boat from Malta took three days. Yesterday the captain shut off the steam lest we arrive before sunrise and be set upon by robbers and such. We will lodge here a fortnight
.

Miss N is beside herself with happiness. She loves the moon and calls it Ices. I call it Ices too to please her. She does have her moods, sometimes sad, sometimes bright as a new penny
.

I am homesick. I’d liefer sit twixt your knees and roll cigars while you read me your poems than see the sights. I do miss my Massa
.

Polished Miss N’s shoes, pressed her bodice, washed and hung her underthings, dressed, combed, and coiffed her, trimmed her nails, rubbed the looking glasses
.

20 November 1849

I had a Turkish bath today, washing with palm leaves. I hope I do not get a rash. Then we et luncheon of bananas, dates, citrons, and odd fruits I did not taste. All the servants are men—cooks
,
chars, and scullions too. The women live bunched up together in rooms. We visited an Armenian church though I do not know what made it Armenian other than the vicar’s funny hat
.

After church, we called on the Sisters of Charity. Miss N does like her hospitals and diseases. She says these dirty low sons of men are all on their way to perfect truth but it will take them longer than us
.

24 November 1849

Today we saw a lot of women in black robes. It is hard to tell who is fat and who is thin with all that cloth
.

We rode asses to and fro, such small beasts your feet touch the ground. A man runs in front to clear the way. Bounce and bounce, my bottom was sore as a blister
.

I fear I shall have to see every rock in Egypt if Miss N has her way. I did stay at the hotel while the three of them went to see the place where Admiral Nelson beat the daylights out of Napoleon’s frogs
.

I hope you are thinking of me
.

Polished three pairs of boots, washed Miss N’s clothes. Scrubbed the chamber pots. Darned holes in her stockings. Cleaned Mr. Bracebridge’s pipe and kit for which he thanked me
.

26 November 1849

I’d liefer be home where I know what to do and it is always the same. And I can visit you evenings in your rooms at the Temple. When the big day comes to go to Paris together, it will be a hop and skip next to this
.

I do not like being a lady’s maid, there is too little work. I have no hearths or knives to clean, no fires to lay, no scuttles to fill, no lamps to trim at night. My hands have turned white. You know I like to be in my dirt and then scrub clean, it gives such a feeling of worth. All play’s worse nor all work
.

28 November 1849

I had a close scrape, thanks to Miss N. She wished to visit a mosk so we dressed in heathen clothes. Miss N said our hands and faces must not show, but I could scarce breathe with my face covered.
What is wrong with the human face?
said I, but she did not reply. Miss Selina told me the Mahometans reckon a woman’s face and hair the root of temptation and sin
.

So many red hats I have never seen. They look like upside-down flowerpots. The women wear veils done up with metal rings. If all a man can see of a woman is her eyes, it will lead to a lot of rude staring if you ask me
.

We heard the call to prayer. I am getting to like this song caroled five times a day. Everyone washed hands and feet. A priest called out and we pressed our heads to the floor. You couldn’t see a patch of ground, just miles of Turkey carpets. When we were outside again, a crone grabbed my arm shouting
Frank! Frank!
I’d of fainted but for Mr. Charles and Paolo spiriting me away
.

I do not think Miss N means to wear me down, but she does. I am only a maid, I want to say. I will comb your hair and polish your boots and lace your corset, but spare me your
enrichments.
(That is what she calls her wild ideas.) I do not care to see inside a pyramid, for she told me it means climbing through tunnels by candlelight. The thought of all that stone pressing down on me makes me feel I will throw up
.