The Twelve Rooms of the Nile Part 21

They sorted out the sleeping arrangements, and a servant took the bags and parcels to their rooms. Joseph retired to the veranda, where a hammock awaited him. Flo followed the consul into the salon.

She and Trout sat upon one divan, Gustave and Pere Elias on another. Max, hypervigilant about breakage, toted the photographic equipment himself. She heard him repeatedly struggling up the stairs.

An exchange between the men proceeded in rapid French. Pere Elias inquired about friends and kinsmen in Kenneh, but after a fusillade of names, it turned out they knew no one in common but his twin. Flo kept her gaze elsewhere, preferring to study her surroundings rather than join the conversation.

Divans with pillows in the Ottoman style lined the sitting room, while fringed carpets in shades of red, cream, salmon, and blue overlapped on the stone floor. Against the stark white walls, the effect was beautiful, like an indoor garden. Bra.s.s trays and bowls, placed about for decoration, glowed like patches of sunlight in a shady glen. She made a mental note to buy bra.s.sware gifts.

Trout was drifting toward oblivion, her head lolling to one side, her eyelids fluttering shut. As Flo watched her, she felt a stab of envy, the emotion she most detested in herself. Why did a lowly servant enjoy peace of mind while she was deprived of it? Other than simple ch.o.r.es, Trout didn't have to lift a finger, relying on the others for every need. She didn't have to communicate with anyone but Flo, whose concentration was excruciatingly punctured by overheard smatterings of conversations and the babble of vendors and beggars. Coc.o.o.ned in a noisy silence, Trout, on the other hand, could relax into a state of carefree helplessness.

The problem, Flo knew, was that she liked to be in charge, and even when she wasn't, she followed events as if she were. It wasn't that she didn't trust people to do their jobs; she simply knew she could do them better. But being responsible was as often a torment to her as a joy. She paid for whatever confidence and power it bestowed with exhausting, unrelenting vigilance. Lately, observing Trout, she had begun to wonder what it would be like to entrust herself to another's care, body and soul. Wasn't that what she had tasted the first evening with Gustave on the houseboat when she felt herself shrink until she was pleasantly small? And in the cave at Philae, too, while he sprawled next to her, radiating warmth? Surely that liquefying sensation of ease had something to do with wishing to yield herself to another.

Trout snorted. Her eyes flew open, then shut. The men chuckled, nodded at Flo, and resumed talking.

Max returned and took a seat between the two pairs. "What have I missed?" he asked her. A droplet of sweat coursed down his cheek and was sucked up by his collar. "What have they been talking about?"

"You shall have to ask Gustave," Flo replied.

"You didn't hear them?"

It was rare for Max to press. Usually he was the epitome of coolness, a French version of the Poetic Parcel now that she thought about it, though Richard had redeeming qualities Max probably lacked-interest in the poor, for one. "I'm afraid I was resting."

"Ah," Max said. "You must be tired." He reached forward and patted her arm. "But Trout is sawing lumber for the G.o.ds!"

Flo's heart pounded as jealousy stabbed and stabbed. It was so unjust and ridiculous that she envied Trout. Trout, who went everywhere alone-to the dentist, to the pub, on the train to Ryton. Were Flo to suffer a toothache, at least two people would accompany her to the dentist-f.a.n.n.y, out of solicitude, and Parthe because she could not tolerate Flo's going anywhere without her. "I'm sure you have no idea how I feel, Max."

He leaned back. He fiddled with the top b.u.t.ton of his shirt. "I hope I have not given offense in some way."

She sighed, close to tears. "Forgive me, I am tired." Which was a lie. Fueled by frustration, she could have sprinted into the street and screamed. Or, like Gustave, howled.

"Is anything amiss?" Gustave asked.

Was there a universally disquieting tone in human speech, she wondered, for the other two turned to her and Max as if an alarm had been raised.

"I was just teasing Miss Nightingale about her maid." Max pointed to the sleeper, whose fitful snoring now sounded like the buzzing of a fly trapped at a window.

"You must all be fatigued from the journey," Pere Elias observed. "Would you care to retire to your rooms? We shall not dine until after dark."

"Though I, for one, am about to drop," Gustave said, "I want to walk on the beach. The Red Sea! Perhaps I could take a plunge-"

"The water is still cold at this time of year," said Pere Elias. "But the tide is out and if you go north, toward Old Koseir, you will find seash.e.l.ls just inside the cove."

"Then I shall wet my toes. Who wants to come along?"

"I do." Flo's hand shot up like one of the boys in her Ragged School cla.s.sroom. f.a.n.n.y was right: too much enthusiasm. She was sure she was flushing.

"I'll stay here," said Max, patting his dyspeptic belly.

"Hakim, my houseboy, will go with you, if you desire." Pere Elias indicated the boy serving them thimblefuls of coffee in small white cups.

At the threshold of manhood, with a tall, long-limbed body, the boy still had the dewiness and brightness of a child. Flo had never seen such luxuriant eyelashes, pointy clumps of them, like shiny feathers. His skin was flawless as a newborn's except for his upper lip and jaw, where the first down had sprouted in spa.r.s.e patches. Rather like Parthe's, she realized with dismay. Did a woman dare shave her face?

"We will be fine alone," Gustave said. He polished off his coffee in one swallow.

"I need my bonnet," Flo said. "I shall meet you in a moment." She gently shook the maid, who came to consciousness reluctantly.

Trout had no interest in seeing the water. "I shall stay, mum, and unpack your things for the night."

"That is kind." As Trout awakened, Flo noticed her anger subsiding, as if it were the idea of Trout more than the actual person that annoyed her. "But then you must rest. It's plain you are sleepy."

Trout rubbed her eyes with both fists, like a baby. "That I am."

As they descended the slope from Pere Elias's garden to the sh.o.r.e, the sky turned a lambent green. Flo stopped to retie her hat, stalling as she watched the bilious color scud above the whitecaps in streaks and fumes. On the second day in the desert, the sky had turned the same putrid shade before the wind picked up, wailing like a banshee and charging the air with grit.

"Shall we go then, Rossignol?" Gustave asked.

"I think a storm is coming. Perhaps another khamsin."

"I wouldn't worry." He pointed down the beach. "It's clear to the north, where we're headed."

They had taken refuge under whatever they could grab while the camels hunkered down, their backs to the wind, and sand heaped up around them. Flo had watched through a tear in the scratchy blanket until abruptly, as if someone had closed a chute in the sky, the khamsin ceased. Then just as they stood up, there had been another flash of green followed by hail the size of English peas. And the sound! Like a war. An a.s.sault by a thousand drummers, each pounding a different rhythm- "Let's walk toward the clear, cherie, and find those sh.e.l.ls."

The green patch was scuttling southward, propelling itself like an octopus. The sun blinked on. "I've been collecting sh.e.l.ls since I was a little girl." She followed him to the edge of the water.

After he removed his boots, tied the laces together, and slung one shoe over his shoulder, he rolled his trousers and stepped into the surf. "This is bliss!" he shouted. "We have arrived in Paradise." A groan issued from deep in his throat as he waded in.

It was thrilling to watch him relish each new sensation, to see his thick, strong feet with their long toes, the tournure of his calves, and the light brown hair on them, which she had a sudden desire to pet.

They continued walking, a wide swath between them-he in the surf, she on the damp packed sand of the tidal zone.

"These little waves nip like kittens," he said. "Cold teeth, though."

Immediately the spume solidified to fur; she felt the needle-sharp milk teeth.

"Will you join me?"

"I can't."

"Why, dear Rossignol?"

She did not expect the question. "I simply can't-that's all."

He dashed some spray toward her with the heel of his hand. "Afraid of the cold? It is not so bad." He submerged his hand in the water, extended it toward her, dripping. "Here, feel."

She grasped his frigid fingers and quickly released them, then dried her hand on the other sleeve. "I don't want to get my dress wet," she explained. "If I take off my shoes, the hem of my dress will drag in the water. I can't roll it up as you have your pant legs."

"Quelle domage."

"Yes."

Pivoting, he addressed the sky like an audience. "I am here," he announced. "I am walking in the Red Sea. The Red Sea!" he trumpeted. Two fishermen mending nets turned to stare. He scooped up a handful of water and licked it. "Salty! Saltier than salt cod or tapenade."

Beyond him, a dull red fishing boat was nearing the beach, its dingy lateen sails loosely furled. Two men plied primitive oars, poles with a circular piece of wood lashed at one end.

Shivering, Gustave walked out of the surf, dried his feet with his shirttails, then replaced his boots. They continued north. He began to hum, occasionally singing words to a tune she didn't know. She felt happy. They did not have to talk. She did not have to answer questions. The breeze was bracing, while the sun, hovering to the west above the town, warmed her left shoulder and the back of her neck.

They reached the natural jetty of the cove, a rocky scarp where children jumped, shrieking, into the chilly water. The beach was broad and fully exposed, with mounds of sh.e.l.ls bleaching in the sun at the high tide line. Closer to the surf, bubbling holes where crabs and mollusks lived appeared at each recession of the waves.

Flo hurried up the dune. "Look!" she cried. "I've never seen so many sh.e.l.ls in one spot." She dropped to her knees and immediately found half of a blue-black pen sh.e.l.l flashing iridescent rainbows of nacre. "Oh, I wish we had thought to bring a basket or camel bag. We have nothing to put them in."

Gustave silently unb.u.t.toned his shirt and arranged it into a makeshift sack. She tried not to stare, but other than natives, she had rarely seen bare-chested men-only field hands at the Hurst in summer, and then from afar. Gustave's chest was rosy, like his cheeks, with a perfect fan of hair between his b.r.e.a.s.t.s that narrowed to a furry chevron at his midline and disappeared beneath his trousers. His clavicle was as cleanly chiseled as a statue's, the shoulders pleasantly rounded. Like fruit, she thought, feeling the idea in her mouth. And nothing at all like Richard, who was shorter and who, when not lolling on the furniture or floor, moved in fits and starts, like a small dog.

"Such riches, Rossignol," he said, kneeling beside her. He had tied the shirtsleeves into a soft handle for the bag, which he placed between them before scooping up two clattering handfuls from the trove.

The sh.e.l.ls might have been a stash of anything rare or delectable: jewels, gold coins, bonbons, puppies. Flo felt something in herself creak open and give way, like the door to a secret room. It seemed that she left her body or it left her. The two of them played with the mindless absorption of children.

She'd never seen such a varied and colorful sh.e.l.l a.s.sortment. Some looked fresh from the ocean depths or wherever they lived. Did anyone even know? There were turrets and turbans, heavy cones with runelike markings, volutes with fine spires lined in orange and rose. One bivalve had widening purple and gold rays like the sky in a Bible ill.u.s.tration.

Movements at the periphery caught her eye-small crabs scuttling sideways, brandishing single pincers. She tapped his arm and pointed them out.

"I would not like to sit on one of those. They look ferocious." Whipped about by the breeze, his voice came and went at her like a train whistle.

"Do you suppose they are all right-handed?" she asked.

"I don't know. Would nature design them otherwise?" He placed an elongated, fluted clamsh.e.l.l in her lap.

"That one looks like a bird's wing."

"Or an angel's."

"We are alone," she suddenly said.

"Yes." He continued to sort his pile.

"Really alone."

He looked about the beach. There were children and fishermen, a few strollers playing keep away with the surf. "Not to worry-we have some company."

"I mean we can talk now. Remember?"

His expression remained blank. She would have to prod him. "You said we must be more alone to discuss Pere Issa." She wriggled her little finger under his nose, at last eliciting a flash of recognition.

"I'd forgotten."

She brushed sand from her lap and placed another sh.e.l.l in the makeshift bag. "His brother has an identical fingernail."

"Does he? I hadn't noticed." He squinted as he lifted a specimen to the light. "Look at this one, so delicate, as translucent as"-he paused and stared at her-"as your earlobe with the sun shining through it."

Reflexively, she touched her ear, then took the sh.e.l.l, which was ivory with pink undertones. "Isn't it miraculous-the way spiders spin silk, and sh.e.l.ls make this lovely bone china?" She tossed it in the sack.

"And some have portholes and make pearls." He laid an abalone sh.e.l.l on her lap.

"I wish I could make something out of that one. A brooch. Or a necklace."

"Be careful not to cut yourself. The edges are sharp."

"I shall."

She felt wonderful. There was nothing she had to do, nothing to figure out, no reason to be watchful. She could sleep on the beach, if she wished, like Trout. No, it was better to stay awake and feel this logy, indefinite joy. Though now that they were talking, she noticed, time had resumed, for the sand had turned a deeper shade of gold, with tiny flecks-mica?-glinting like electrum.

"All right. I shall explain the nail."

"Good. You promised, so you must." She folded her hands in her lap like a child waiting for her bedtime story.

"Where to begin?" He sighed. "You know that human habits vary around the world-for example, where we are now."

"Of course."

"And it is not a matter simply of dress, language, and currency. Customs regarding matrimony and courtship are different, too."

Was there some reason he was going back to the story of the Flood? She wanted to hurry him along, but decided not to for the moment.

"And physical customs are also different. s.e.xual practices, if I may be absolutely blunt."

"You may." The door that had creaked open now swung back a tiny but perceptible notch. She pulled herself to a more upright position, her hands flat upon her knees, which were buried in sand under the damp, heavy folds of her dress, bits of which surrounded her like blue flotsam.

"Ideas of pleasure are different, I am told, and I have read and somewhat experienced. . . ." His voice trailed off, as if he had gone down the wrong path. In a second, he resumed. "In the East, pleasure is more highly regarded-"

"Is that why a Mohametan may take as many as four wives?" she interjected brightly. "To increase his pleasure?" She was glad of her candor. Proud of it. She would not be shocked by anything he said. "Or is it to produce more children?"

"I don't know."

"We had animals at the Hurst-that's our summer home in the north-cows and horses. Lots of cats-"

He stared at her, visibly perplexed.

"I saw them whelp and nurse," she explained. "And mate."

"Oh," he said, smiling. "I don't doubt you know the facts of life."

"Yes." She was relieved to have that out of the way. She didn't want him to think her completely naive.

He threw a handful of rejects to the side and pulled the sack closer. "But, of course, human beings don't engage in s.e.x merely to procreate. s.e.x is an expression of love. Of mutual enjoyment."

She'd always pictured f.a.n.n.y lying stiff as a board under WEN. Every woman. It was something the man did to the woman. She watched the surf arrive tatted with bubbly froth. "Naturally," she agreed. "Why else would husband and wife kiss? The lower animals don't."

"Kissing. Exactement. The nail is like that. Not that it's used on the lips." His eyes darted about for a split second. They undeniably darted. Closer by than before, two crabs challenged each other. The crabs were losing their shyness, she thought, ignoring the two of them as if they were permanent fixtures on the beach, like trees.