The Twelve Rooms of the Nile Part 25

Mohammed nodded and, in the ensuing silence, took the floor. Joseph translated. "He say one man comes to him yesterday and ask permisso to leave. His mother very sick. Last night he goes home."

"I knew it!" Max said, pounding the sand with his ivory-topped cane. Startled, Flo stepped back. "Foul play," he continued. "Trout did not vanish on her own." He shook his head. "Foul play."

"Mohammed swear by all holy that man have nothing to do with Trout," Joseph added.

"Il est menteur, le con!" Max cursed under his breath. Joseph let the words pa.s.s without the Arabic equivalent.

"Perhaps we should return to Koseir," she blurted, more out of nervousness than common sense. Her first instinct was always to retreat to the place or moment before a catastrophe, as if she could turn back time itself.

"No," said Max. "That will do no good."

Through Joseph, Mohammed proclaimed that they must continue the journey to Kenneh or risk exhausting their food.

He is not the least intimidated by us, she thought. What she had earlier taken for trepidation was something else. But what? Duplicity? Humility? The simple desire to stick to his routine?

"Inshallah, perhaps the woman will return to us," Mohammed said. "I remain at your service, effendi." With that, he and his crew turned away to tend to the camels, which had been staked in place since the night before.

Max shouted after him, his cane in the air. "Wait right there! If a Frank is harmed or dies, an Arab, or more than one, shall also die!"

Flo caught her breath. Striking a Bedouin could be fatal. What did insulting or threatening one lead to? To her relief, the camel drivers stopped and listened to Joseph hectically translating. "He say he know the law, effendi, and he and his men are innocent." Mohammed stopped, gestured toward them, and offered a benediction. "May Allah watch over you."

"Et vous," Gustave rushed to say.

"Audthu bilahi min ash shaytan ar rajim," Mohammed intoned, smiling and bowing before turning away.

"What was that last?" Gustave asked. He looked beside himself with worry.

"He say he seek Allah to protect from the accursed Satan."

"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 antic.i.p.ated these possibilities. Or was that hubris? Taking responsibility for everything, like G.o.d.

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 Circa.s.sian concubine in King Solomon's court. Beautiful young white women had been kidnapped for centuries, not to mention, Gustave added, the loathsome custom of dest.i.tute 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 impa.s.se: 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 f.a.n.n.y, 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 a.s.sume 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 Pere 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 pa.s.sing 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 Pere 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 cl.u.s.tered 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 rea.s.suring. 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 circ.u.mstance 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 rest.i.tched 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 Ma.s.sa.

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

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 a.s.ses 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 sc.r.a.pe, 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.

Polished the boots, scrubbed the chamber pots, washed out clothes, swept and polished the floor on my knees, made the beds, dressed and coiffed my lady.

Flo set the diary down. This was a different Trout from the woman she'd slept alongside for the past three months and shared a household with for a year before that. It hadn't occurred to her how often Trout might like to express her opinions or how pointed they were. Such a simple thing, speaking your mind. She took that right for granted, though it was a habit f.a.n.n.y did not admire in her. She reminded herself she was reading Trout's secret thoughts, but she didn't like it one bit.

And that dutiful list of daily ch.o.r.es! Flo had never so much as boiled an egg. Was it her fault if she had been born into a wealthy family? She felt guilty, always guilty, and yet incapable of satisfying even the few obligations of her privileged life. She trusted that in time her father would settle three or four hundred pounds a year on her so she could live independently of her family. She had only to reach the age when she was proclaimed a spinster without prospects. Then she'd be free, with perhaps one devoted servant, someone nothing like Trout.

She picked up the soft brown leather book and continued reading.

3 December 1849. We are in Cairo now.

I have hardly sat still for a week, running after Miss N.

We were towed up a ca.n.a.l from Alexandria. It was dandy and I worked on my crochet. Then we boarded a crowded steamer. Miss N jumped ash.o.r.e without so much as a fare-thee-well. I shook like a wet hound until we found her on another boat. I do not care to make history like Miss N, who shows her derring-do at every turn. Nor do I trust her. When she gets an idea in her head, she does not consider anyone else. The second boat was as bad as the first, full of jabbering foreigners and bugs. The children cried all night and there was no room to lie on the floor.

Polished 3 pairs of boots, washed Miss N's hair and combed it dry, washed out her underthings and packed up 3 times.

4 December 1849 There are not enough brooms in the world to sweep Cairo clean. Miss N loves it and calls it a garden. But she hates the desert. It is an abomination, says she, like Sodom and Gomorrah. At least in the desert I would not have to sweep the sand away. Here, that is all I do. But it comes back like black to a kettle.

I saw a baby hippopotamus at the consul's house. It was cute enough to kiss, with big whiskers and pink as a piglet. No crocodiles yet and I hope I never do.

We are lodged in fancy rooms at the Hotel de L'Europe. Dinner takes two hours, with fancy desserts like Vol-au-Vent of Pears, and Dantzic Jelly. Mr. Charles said it was a capital meal.

Every afternoon I walk at Miss N's side, nodding at the ladies with silk parasols. Remember the night you took me to the opera, and I was proud to be the only servant in the house? I would never wish to pa.s.s for a lady. Give me bootblack and soot so I can prove my worth to G.o.d with hard work.

We wear veils wherever we go. They keep the sand out of our faces and spare the heathen the sin of looking at us.

Miss N said she will not be surprised if Cook's started tours on the Nile. And isn't it grand to see it before the English middle cla.s.ses wreck it forever? I kept my peace, as I have never booked a Cook's tour, though I rode the railway third cla.s.s to Shropshire last year. It was thrilling.

7 December 1849 Mr. Charles engaged a houseboat for the next four months with hooks and cubbies everywhere since there is so little s.p.a.ce. The parlor is pretty, with green panels and a divan all around. Miss N is content though she keeps saying Squawk, squawk I am no dahabiyah bird. I am sick of this cleverness and it is only the second day.

We can see the pyramids from here. You know what they look like.

8 December 1849 Miss N used up her petticoat tape to sew a flag that says PARTHENOPE whilst Mr. Charles hung a Union Jack and his family colors. Do you have family colors, Ma.s.sa, you never said.

Nine crewmen we have, all odd. They are not slaves and not free men either, for each is beholden to another, like a wife to a husband. When the wind quits, they row and sing the loudest song. Otherwise they do not make a peep. We cannot walk the deck where they sleep and eat for fear of catching their fleas. Miss N says the Egyptians are too beaten down to drive the flies from their faces. She is disgusted with them.

9 December 1849 I am tired of Miss N's outings. I am her companion when Miss Selina is ailing. She is a delicate sort, not like your drudge, though lately, I suffer from headaches and stomachaches and pain in my eyes. But Miss N is no coddler and I must go with her.

We visit filthy ruins and temples that all look the same. At one, human bones stuck out. I saw naked slaves in such poverty as breaks your heart. The poor things are humble and do not complain. G.o.d will provide, they say. Mr. Charles believes a contented mind is a curse.

I sleep in a levinge to keep the bugs off. It works, but I don't sleep sound tied up like a prisoner.

Here the diary broke off for two pages where, Flo saw, Trout had written and rewritten a letter without finishing it to her satisfaction.

My sweetheart, I want to post this so you read about my trip before I return. Miss N writes for hours every day. I have heard her read to Miss Selina and seen her letters. Her words are so fine I can see the color of everything and smell its smell. So here is your drudge, writing a proper letter. The moon is like silver, the stars are diamonds. I miss you reading to me so much Dearest Gilbert, A letter for you.

We see beautiful skies and here was one. The moon was like a silver platter in need of polishing as I could see gray spots on it. And the stars were diamonds that would take your breath.

I miss you. I wish I spelt better so you would not smile at my words. It is hard to write to a poet and a gentleman such as you are Flo's face grew warm, as if she were standing near a roaring fire. Apparently Trout had read her letters. Flo often left them lying about, a.s.suming that Trout was bound by honor and devoid of curiosity. She decided on the spot not to mention the lapse, but to keep her papers out of sight in future. The irony of her own invasion of Trout's privacy was not lost on her. She felt herself blush again, this time with shame.

As for the fussy, spoiled, and thoughtless "Miss N," she barely recognized her. What if the rest of the world saw her as Trout did? Surely she would know if she were horrid, wouldn't she? The heat spread down through her torso. She could feel her pulse at her throat and in her chest.