The Twelve Rooms of the Nile Part 13

Though Flo didn't have woolen petticoats, high boots, or a m.u.f.fler, she prepared as best she could. She wore her brown Hollands under the navy wool dress, and her black hooded cloak. In a hatbox, she packed two shawls (one wool, one lace), gloves, and a scarf. She readied a blanket, folding it and placing it at the foot of her bed with her parcels.

The stone walls of Philae cast long shadows like trenches onto the sh.o.r.e by the time they rounded the northern tip of the island in the late afternoon. From the dahabiyah, they boarded a small felucca with a single furled lateen sail. Four men took up oars, one with a carpet rolled around his neck like the thick ecclesiastic collar of an exotic sect. The crew placed three folding chairs in the boat bottom and upon them cushions on which the three Europeans knelt or sat. The craft sat low in the water, laden with its cargo of household goods and clothing.

As Flo had learned on their trip up to Nubia, the cataracts of the Nile weren't waterfalls in the strict sense, but a series of rapids, the result of an upheaval that had split the cliffs alongside, raining down treacherous boulders and slabs of granite that formed broken chains, some jutting straight out of the water, most submerged, detectable only from currents eddying and foaming around them.

As they paddled along between the rocky defiles-the last fragments of the cataracts downstream-Flo observed the sky and sh.o.r.e. Clouds like lambs' tails dissipated into feathers; the sakias on land creaked as a camel or ox circled around, bringing up bucketfuls of water for irrigation. Nightfall in Egypt was often rapid, the sun a fireball so quickly extinguished at the horizon that she expected to hear it sizzle as it dipped into the river. At other times, orange and purple streamers hung in the sky long after the sun had disappeared. Tonight the dying light changed to a soft, opaline blush, the color of ascensions to heaven and the shriven eyelids of saints. The Nile parted around the boat's prow like shirred pink silk.

In half an hour, Mahatta came into view, nestled in a cove shaped like a sickle. The crew leaped from the boat and dragged it across the shingle. Disembarking, Flo felt graceless and stiff in her swaddling of clothes. After about a quarter mile, the first habitations appeared, reed and mud huts of traders wayfaring before the tumultuous ride down the cataracts. Farther along, they encountered the stone and brick dwellings of the cataract sheiks, who lived in big, boisterous clans. Flo had met them while they negotiated with Charles to drag the Parthenope up the rapids.

Florence liked what she saw and heard as they entered Mahatta-civilization, Nubian-style, with its hallmark sounds and scents-the thuds and groans of pack animals settling in for the night, the guttural chatter of merchants gathered by open-air fires, cooking spiced lamb or baking bread in clay ovens. She'd always warmed to the bustle of human beings at day's end. At Embley, the m.u.f.fled racket of pots, the chirp and hum of servants' voices before and after supper were calming, palliative. In fact, she preferred them to the decorous volleys at the dining table. In this way, Mahatta reminded her of home. Most important, it was a living city. She'd spent the past three weeks among the remains of the long dead, whose culinary clatter and disagreements about seasonings hadn't been preserved in their scrupulous engravings.

After pa.s.sing an orderly kitchen garden, they came upon a tent the size of a Hampshire cottage. Its flaps were tautly fastened to the ground, a miniature turret crowning each corner. Though torches illuminated the scene, there was no apparent entrance, and no sentry to announce their arrival.

They stood about, unsure what to do. Efreet-Youssef, always the most accommodating crewman, crawled under the tent face-first on his belly, inching forward like a worm until he disappeared. Flo could hear him announce, "Effendi, Bracebridge Bey! Bracebridge Bey!"

Lifting a flap of the tent and securing it with a red swag, Mr. Lewis strode forth, looking pleased, and welcomed his guests.

Flo could not help staring, so taken was she by Lewis's demeanor and attire, for the man had gone completely native. He had adopted the costume of an Ottoman vizier-or was it a viceroy?-blue gubbeh, white caftan, red turban, and a ragged white beard. Mrs. Lewis, a plain young woman clad in an English frock, stood quietly off to one side, rather like a second wife, Flo thought. She wondered why the wife wore such drabbery while her husband was tricked out like a peac.o.c.k. For safety? To remind Mr. Lewis that, despite his clothing, he was not an Oriental, but an Englishman playing dressup? Selina, standing alongside, pinched Flo's arm. Can you believe it?

Mr. Lewis handed his guests into the tent, where a woman removed Flo's blanket from her shoulders and folded it a.s.siduously upon a wooden stool. She wore trousers and a veil, both of pink muslin so transparent that it appeared less like cloth than concentrated infusions of dawn light. Her posture was as studied and impeccable as a dancer's. Whenever this Rosy Dawn (as Flo decided to dub her) moved, her bracelets, necklaces, and fringes sewn with coins jingled. The effect was hypnotic, the sound of faeries and stardust.

The meal was standard English fare, though how the Lewises managed it, Flo could not imagine and decided not to ask. She did not wish to appear overly impressed.

Mr. Lewis was pleasant and intelligent; Mrs. Lewis remained something of an enigma. Oh, she was recognizable as an English-woman of good breeding (from Hampton, Middles.e.x, it turned out), but why was she here on the arm of a man more than twice her age? Had her parents shipped her out with the intent of making a match? Why else would she have traveled to Cairo at age eighteen? Had the two met beforehand? Unlikely. Mr. Lewis had not been home for decades. Had she brought a dowry that allowed Mr. Lewis to continue living abroad (and rather luxuriously), or had it been a case of love? At moments like this, Flo felt like a child too young to play a game with complicated rules, and also like a spinster so old that she'd forgotten the arcana of marriage. Clearly, she should be grateful that f.a.n.n.y and WEN had not packed her off to some forsaken corner of the world! Oh, they wouldn't have dared. Finally, she tried to imagine what Gustave would make of their hosts. Would he think Mrs. Lewis a craven seeker after security? Or a young woman who'd fallen under the spell of an older man? Flo knew the truth lay outside these pat melodramas, neither of which approached how Mrs. Lewis must feel so far from home, living in a tent on the Nile! And that is what Flo most wished to know: Mrs. Lewis's heart.

Servants laid the borrowed carpets upon the packed earthen floor and seated the three English in chairs. (No dyspepsia for Charles after all.) The dining table was a round bra.s.s platter balanced on collapsible wooden legs, with barely enough room for plates and cutlery. Rosy Dawn pa.s.sed trays and poured wine from a tall ewer.

After the food was served, Flo asked, "What convinced you to move house from Cairo to Mahatta?" The sound of her own chewing (a piece of mutton) naturally m.u.f.fled the sounds around her, but after she had swallowed, she immediately sensed from the continuing silence that everyone else knew the answer to this question. Also, that it might have been rude to ask it.

Charles started to answer, but Mr. Lewis held up his hand, patriarch-like, indicating he would entertain the query, no matter how touchy or tasteless. His robes hung down from his wrist in biblical blue and white scallops. "My dear Miss Nightingale, how kind of you to ask." He placed his fork on the table. A lengthy reply? Loss of appet.i.te? Everyone stopped eating.

Across the table, Flo saw that the color had drained from Mrs. Lewis's face. Selina, sitting next to Flo, fidgeted.

Mr. Lewis sighed as he blotted his purplish lips within the fleece of his beard. "Our neighbor in Cairo, Rifat Pasha, wished to buy our property to expand his garden."

"He wanted to plant trees," Mrs. Lewis added in a monotone. "Almond trees."

"Almond trees!" Charles repeated with enthusiasm. "Lovely, lovely. Lovely blossoms. Lovely aroma." He fell silent, his voice petering out. He looked at Flo helplessly. Had he also not heard the story or forgotten it?

Mrs. Lewis sniffled, withdrew a handkerchief from her sleeve, and dabbed at her nose.

Selina said, "Perhaps I should have told Miss Nightingale about your mishap."

Flo felt her cheeks turning pink. Mrs. Lewis nodded and continued to hold the handkerchief in place, as though a nosebleed were pending.

"When we refused to sell," Mr. Lewis resumed, "our neighbor finished his demita.s.se of Turkish coffee, went home, and sent his slave to burn our house down that afternoon. That is the method of purchase in Egypt. My dear bride lost everything she had shipped out from England."

"How awful for you and Mrs. Lewis," Flo said. "I am sorry to inject the memory of it into our meal. I didn't know." She couldn't help thinking that Mr. Lewis's regal garments carried no clout in Cairo. It seemed plausible that his neighbor considered Mr. Lewis an arrogant interloper or an imposter. Perhaps Mr. Lewis should have offered compensation-baksheesh of a kind-in lieu of a sale. After ten years in Egypt, could he be ignorant of the customs? Or did he know, and object to them on principle?

"A terrible loss of property," continued Mr. Lewis. "My wife's piano, plate and crystal, her furniture." He shook his head. "Family items she had hoped to pa.s.s on to the next generation."

Mrs. Lewis blew her nose as proof of the depth of her loss. Rosy Dawn approached and handed her a fresh damask napkin, then returned to her shadowy corner. Charles, seated next to Mrs. Lewis, patted her hand.

"At least no one was harmed," Mr. Lewis said. He beckoned to Rosy Dawn to refill his winegla.s.s. "Except the slave responsible for the fire. Several people witnessed him setting the blaze. Rifat Pasha administered a severe bastinado for his lack of stealth." Mr. Lewis laughed and helped himself to a potato.

"So we heard," Mrs. Lewis said, smiling. Evidently she appreciated her husband's humor in the midst of her sadness. Flo didn't know why, but she was taking a dislike to the woman, though in the next instant she wondered if this judgment might simply be the result of her own general bad mood Abruptly she wished she were dining with Gustave and Max. The impact of this realization made her sigh aloud.

Looking freshly alarmed, Charles turned back to Mr. Lewis. "What about your work, the watercolors and sketches?"

"Miraculously, nothing was lost."

Furtively, Flo studied Rosy Dawn-the purple silk sash, the blue jacket that ended just beneath her bosom with a fringe of gold coins that left her midriff visible through the pink gauze. She wore her hair in l.u.s.trous black ringlets that reached her shoulders. A painter would have had to use every pigment in his box to capture the shadings on her silks, which were as iridescent as scarab wings. When the woman raised her gaze from the floor, Flo saw that her eyes were a luminous and flickering green. At that moment, the woman returned Flo's glance with a look so searing that Flo felt rebuked. The sensation was identical to how she'd felt when she and Trout had argued. She felt again the sting of Trout's words: You don't know much about me, mum, truth be told.

A servant appeared carrying a wooden platter of sweets. Another carried a kettle of tea brewed at the brazier outside. "Bird's nest pastries," Mrs. Lewis said. "And Turkish delight. It's a Turkish delicacy made of-"

"We know," Flo said, taking one of each, not wanting to appear gluttonous, though she could have easily consumed half a dozen. She watched Selina place a pale green gelatinous square dusted with sugar into her mouth. She chewed it slowly, her eyelids closing as she savored it.

After dinner, they viewed Mr. Lewis's watercolors and sketchbooks. He had made thousands of drawings. "I have enough material here for a lifetime of painting," he said, turning the leaves of his portfolios while his guests oohed appreciatively. He said he planned to return with Mrs. Lewis to England the next year and start a family. Charles congratulated him, shaking his hand and clapping him on the back, saying that he had captured in his work all that was foreign and flamboyant in Cairo just as he had captured Spain's hauteur and dash. Mrs. Lewis glowed with pride.

Flo, who loved art but did not always approve of it-the Italians were too fond of the naked breast, in her opinion, and the Dutch too gloomy-was at first enamored of Mr. Lewis's renderings, seduced by their beauty. They were scrumptious Eastern delicacies meant to be consumed by the eyes instead of the mouth. He was masterful with a brush, and his hues had a depth she'd never before seen except in oil paintings. One composition showed a street bazaar; in another, schoolboys gathered around a low, tiled table under the tutelage of colorfully garbed imams. Harem portraits featured languid women in lavishly decorated rooms with carved wooden shutters (from which, Flo mused, Rosy Dawn might have stepped). In all the work, a honeyed light poured down, picking out the brilliant white coils of turbans and the ruby stripes of pajama trousers with a fierce purity and sensuality. But there was something troubling, too, and the longer she looked at the pictures, the less she liked them. She couldn't say why. Certainly, Lewis had captured the faces of the Orientals, from the hawk-nosed Greek sailors to the satin ebony cheeks of the Nubians. The colors were truer, if possible, than in life. The tactile billow of the textiles, the undulant curves of the camels, the brick and wooden textures were all magnificent. And then she saw what it was, or rather what was lacking. There was not a speck of dirt or disarray anywhere. Not a hint of stink. Everything had been glamorized, like a still life with flawless fruit and a smudgeless gla.s.s set upon a pristine tablecloth. If there was a beggar or cripple, his robes were not as tattered and threadbare as in life, his skin eruptions entirely omitted. Streets and alleyways lacked steaming piles of animal manure and sewage standing in open culverts. No pulpy filth smeared the ground of the markets; no spavined mules limped through the bazaars; no mangy dogs begged for sc.r.a.ps. Mr. Lewis had captured the splendor of Eastern fairy tales, of Aladdin's lamp and flying carpets, but not of the Egypt she had seen. The world he had created was too beautiful, completely devoid of suffering and evil. And therefore-and worst of all-not in need of redemption.

At eight forty-five, Flo, Selina, and Charles packed up to return to Philae. The temperature had dropped, and cold penetrated every joint and exposed inch of skin. They covered themselves with blankets while walking, but it was colder on the water. Charles draped each of the women and himself with a kilim rug to cut the wind. The wool was heavy and itchy, with a smell like stale tobacco. A slow rain of dirt sifted down from it onto Flo's clothing.

Luckily, despite going upstream, they caught a countercurrent and were back at Philae in ten minutes. Nevertheless, 9 P.M. was well past their usual bedtime, and Flo went straight to her cabin. Trout was sleeping under a quilted coverlet without her levinge. Flo wondered whether to follow suit. Murray warned severely about fleas, which cold did not discourage so much as impel to a warm body. It recommended sinking a dahabiyah after hiring it, which also took care of rats, but the Parthenope had not been doused. Nevertheless, she decided to take her chances, and for the first time curled into bed without the device.

There were numberless islands above the cataracts, some no bigger than a tabletop, others, like Elephantine, large and mountainous. Selina and Flo, once again in the felucca, were bound for medium-size Bidji, just offsh.o.r.e of Mahatta, where Mr. Lewis sometimes worked for greater privacy. Selina, enthused at the prospect of drawing the temple ruins on Bidji, had brought her sketchbook. "Everyone has done the Sphinx," she told Flo as they neared the island.

Flo remembered Selina's delicate pencil sketch of it at the start of the trip.

"But how many have sketched Bidji? Perhaps I shall be the second, after Mr. Lewis, of course."

Mrs. Lewis, looking more festive and relaxed than the evening before, greeted them at a rickety wooden dock. She wore a white cotton dress with a yellow ap.r.o.n over it, like a governess. The crew helped the pa.s.sengers ash.o.r.e, then set off for the other side of the island. Mrs. Lewis called after them in Arabic.

"What did you say, Mrs. Lewis?" Flo asked, impressed at her hostess's fluency in the language.

"Please, call me Marian. I said they should return in four hours."

"I do hope they have the same notion of the hour as we do, Marian," Selina said. She carried her drawing supplies close to her body like a banker his accounts.

"Time is more approximate in Nubia," Mrs. Lewis said gaily. "The important thing is that they will return well before dark."

Marian Lewis, Flo noted, was very sure of herself. She had the confidence and manner of a beautiful woman, though she was as ordinary as Parthe, who had the manner of a frightened rabbit. It was irritating to see a woman behave as if she were beautiful without actually being beautiful. Flo wondered how Mrs. Lewis managed it. Early on, someone must have convinced her of it, based, Flo reasoned, not on fact but on feeling. Her family might have constantly told her how gorgeous she was, not out of a desire to lie, but blinded by the purest love. Flo had met mothers like this, so enamored of their children that they considered others' offspring negligible. f.a.n.n.y was not such a mother, p.r.o.ne as she was to harping on the tiniest flaws. With f.a.n.n.y as a mother, Flo did not even know if she were beautiful.

A child of about four ran from a nearby hut to greet Mrs. Lewis. She pushed up the hem of the Englishwoman's dress and embraced her stockinged legs. "Zehnab!" Mrs. Lewis cried, petting her on the head. The child wore nothing but a bead necklace around her neck and another around her waist. She jumped up and down, clutching Mrs. Lewis's skirts, raising them up in small handfuls, like flowers. The child's woolly hair radiated from her head like a ring around the moon.

The little girl kissed Flo's hand as Mrs. Lewis introduced her. Flo was so taken with her that she immediately began to wonder what she might give her as a present. She hadn't thought to bring trinkets. Would Selina be willing to part with a couple of pencils or pieces or chalk? She whispered the question, and Selina nodded enthusiastically.

"And here is more of the family," said Mrs. Lewis.

An old man clad in a sheer white robe approached with two girls in tow, an adolescent and a younger child. Flo felt she'd been delivered to a pagan heaven and here was its St. Peter, accompanied by two angels. With open faces and kindly expressions, they appeared to exist in a state of contentment that Flo had never known or could no longer remember-the paradise that was her childhood, before Miss Christie? The trio beamed at her. They were clean and polished-looking, from their neatly oiled and coiffed hair to the dazzling red of the elder's tunic. Mrs. Lewis explained that one big family inhabited Bidji and that he was its patriarch. Flo wished she could speak to him directly. Was there any bigger obstacle in the world than language? She saw Selina curtsy and followed suit.

The old man was Zehnab's great-great-grandfather. The older girl, Fatima, was Zehnab's mother and a widow at sixteen. The last girl, Azrah, was Zehnab's aunt. She was ten and had just been married.

After a deep salaam, the old man left the girls with the women.

"It's a short swim from Bidji to Mahatta," Mrs. Lewis said. "Azrah swims over to visit us several times a week. Sometimes she brings little Zehnab."

Azrah, the new bride, was anxious to show off her house, a typical Nubian mud dome consisting of two rooms, one furnished with a clay divan and water jar, the second one reserved for chickens. Azrah was happy with her life, Mrs. Lewis declared, and especially proud of two pillows angled neatly on the divan. Though Flo could not stand up in the squat dwelling, she appreciated its cleanliness and practicality.

Mrs. Lewis had prepared a picnic to eat under the trees. She asked Fatima to fetch it, and soon the six of them were lounging on an Indian paisley bedcover, munching on pistachio nuts, durra bread, durra cakes, olives, and white cheese. Nothing English, unlike the evening before. While the food was being pa.s.sed, Selina dug into her tote, pulled out three pencils, and placed them in Flo's pocket.

Mrs. Lewis was an adept translator, and the Nubian children-the wife, widow, and bride-had many questions for her. Azrah was fascinated by Mrs. Lewis's gold wedding band, which she removed and pa.s.sed among the three girls to try on. Flo wondered how Mr. Lewis would react if he saw the ring so casually handled.

Selina began to sketch Zehnab while the older girls asked to hear the story of Mrs. Lewis's wedding. Mrs. Lewis was happy to oblige. Since grooms paid a bride price in Egypt, they wanted to know how much Mr. Lewis had given for her.

"Thirty shillings," she said, laughing. She translated the conversation for the women.

Fatima said that was very little and seemed disconcerted by Mrs. Lewis's bargain price. She asked how often Mr. Lewis beat her.

"Never," chuckled Mrs. Lewis.

Surprised by that answer, Fatima and Azrah conferred briefly before the next question. "What is wrong with him that he does not beat you?" Azrah asked. She looked agitated.

"It is because he loves me," Mrs. Lewis replied. "In England, men do not beat their wives." She fussed with her mousy hair, pushing it back from her forehead.

Again, the older girls conferred, withdrawing to a corner of the picnic cloth while Zehnab continued to pose for Selina, frequently peeking at herself taking shape on the sketch pad. Selina seemed delighted by the little girl.

"Is the thirty shillings part true?" Flo asked.

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Lewis answered, more cheerful than ever. "The cadi who married us demanded a price be paid, so my dear husband gave thirty shillings for the poor plate."

"It must have been a strange but happy day," Flo said.

"Unusual, to be sure." Mrs. Lewis seemed lost in a momentary reverie of the event. "But wonderful, too. That is the day Mr. Lewis bought me my Berber slave. Oh, but you saw her, last night at dinner."

Flo could not believe it! That there should still be slaves in Egypt was criminal. But that Marian Lewis should delight in owning one was nothing short of loathsome and evil. She recalled the hostile glare of Rosy Dawn when she caught Flo staring at her, and felt deeply ashamed. "You must love Mr. Lewis very much," Flo mumbled. "Such an extravagant wedding gift." Selina, like Flo an abolitionist, took one of Zehnab's hands and held it, avoiding Mrs. Lewis's eyes.

"Have you thought about arranging to educate little Zehnab?" Flo asked. "She seems so bright and energetic. You could send her to the nuns in Cairo."

"Whatever for?" Mrs. Lewis replied.

Wasn't it obvious? Flo thought of Felicetta Sensi, the little urchin she'd placed a year ago in the convent school at Trinita dei Monti, proud to have removed her from the harsh, perverting streets of Rome. Since then, she'd been paying for the child's education with her dress allowance. "For her betterment and the betterment of her whole family." Flo stared unblinking into Marian Lewis's face. Was it really going to be necessary to explain the idea of progress to her?

"That would be a waste of time. The child is perfectly happy here as she is."

The older girls rejoined the group, still watching Mrs. Lewis piteously.

Flo decided it was useless to express her outrage.

"Could you translate something, Marian?" Selina asked, handing Zehnab the portrait she'd made.

"Of course."

"Tell the girls that we like them very much." Selina tore off several sheets of paper and signaled to Flo to produce the pencils. "These are gifts for them."

As Mrs. Lewis translated, the girls eagerly accepted their presents, chattering and tugging on Flo and Selina. "They want to embrace you," Mrs. Lewis said, "to thank you."

"That would be lovely," said Flo. The five hugged and bussed. Selina clung to the little girls with tears in her eyes as Mrs. Lewis watched impa.s.sively.

Fatima returned to the subject of Mrs. Lewis's nuptials with what seemed to be an expression of concern. Would Mr. Lewis be sending her home since he did not think enough of her to beat her?

Mrs. Lewis laughed, then laughed again as she translated for Selina and Flo. Englishmen, she explained, did not send their wives home. They remained married to one woman forever.

The Nubians shrugged and abandoned the topic, still pitying Marian Lewis, Flo thought, who was the last person in the world to recognize pity when it was directed at her.

"I gather you disapproved of her," Selina said on the boat ride home. She swatted at a wayward insect swept up in a current of air. The men had unfurled the sail, and the boat was moving at a clip, combing the water into patches of green corduroy. "As did I. That she should brag about owning a fellow human being!" Selina frowned and shook her head.

"Awful," Flo said. "I think she's a brat."

"Do you?" Selina yawned.

"Yes. She has too high an opinion of herself, and quite apart from what others think of her."

Selina didn't seem to be as enraged about Marian Lewis as she was. In another moment, she nodded off, her cheeks a tawny pink in the fading light.

Sweet Selina, compa.s.sionate Selina. Remarkably, when it came to people like Marian Lewis, who were spoiled rotten and oblivious to their own flaws, she kept an open mind, while Flo detested Mrs. Lewis's complacency. No doubt, privately Marian Lewis set herself above the likes of Selina and Flo, Selina because of her age and faded beauty, Flo because she was a spinster seven years older than she. Most frustrating, it was impossible to impress Mrs. Lewis, as she wasn't interested in anything she didn't already know.

Something beyond mere disapproval irked Flo. Why was she so enraged? The anger was akin to the way she sometimes felt toward f.a.n.n.y. With f.a.n.n.y, the intensity of feeling made sense: f.a.n.n.y had the power not only to block her ambitions, but also to withhold her love. Marian Lewis's greatest offense was that she was sickeningly content, immune to what people like Flo thought of her. Also, she had accomplished something Flo had not: she had found her place in life and was reveling in it.

It disgusted Flo finally to realize that what she felt was pure jealousy, and of someone she did not admire!

The next morning, the post arrived shortly after breakfast. Flo had two letters, one from f.a.n.n.y. Nothing yet from Gustave, but it was only Wednesday, and she calculated that he was still in Aswan, perhaps performing obscene acts. She found herself hungering for his unique company. He didn't shy away from topics many people considered impolite. She no longer gave a fig for polite conversation. She much preferred to be unconventional.

f.a.n.n.y's letter was full of cheerful reportage and advice. Flo decided to put off answering it until she had completed the Philae letter. She wanted to explore further the parallels between Osiris and Christ. Had Osiris not died for his people, too? In the seventh room, he was a fearsome presence, though she was convinced that, like Jesus, his terrible death had made him a compa.s.sionate and loving G.o.d.

She recognized the handwriting on the second letter. "It's from Clarkey," she cried out to Selina.

"I can't wait to hear the latest from Paris," Selina trilled.

Mary Clarke's letters were generous and stylish and, most of all, funny. She had a knack for inventing words that sounded half French and half English, but made perfect sense. She "trigged up" her apartment when it was dirty, and now so did Flo and Selina. The entire Clarkey circle had adopted the term.