The Twelve Rooms of the Nile Part 29

After another long slug, she began to revive, like a wilted plant responding to water flooding its leaves and branches. While the men exchanged formal pleasantries, she rushed two of Hakim's goatskins to the sick tent. Max was so grateful, he wept as he drank, while Joseph leaned forward on his elbow, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down like a hungry chick as he swallowed. Their fevers had broken. Still, both men were weak and without appet.i.te. They needed to return to Kenneh as quickly as possible to avoid a relapse in the desert heat.

The camel guides were sharing Pere Elias's dates and water good-naturedly when she returned. Just then she spied a haggard Gustave plodding back toward the camp. Earlier, when he exited his tent, they'd exchanged the stuporous greetings of the desperately hung over. Now, though pale, his eyes sunken within swollen circles, he smiled at her. She pa.s.sed him her goatskin, and he drank until he was quenched.

She could wait no longer. "What about Trout?" she asked the consul. "Have you found her?" She was determined to stay calm but felt herself trembling. She feared the consul's presence boded bad news, possibly the worst news. Gustave reached out his hand and she took it, gratified that Max remained in the tent, though she would not, she decided, relinquish this comfort if he suddenly appeared, reputation be d.a.m.ned.

Pere Elias and Hakim were conferring in whispers. "Please," she begged them, "we have been sick with worry."

"Mademoiselle Nightingale," Pere Elias began, crossing himself, "I beg your forgiveness for taking so long. Of course, I shall tell you all that I know." He glanced at Hakim, who sat beside him, hanging on his employer's every word like a spaniel awaiting a tidbit. The wind gusted at ground level, an impish, invisible creature that ruffled the hems of the men's robes, her filth-stiffened dress.

"Out with it, monsieur!" Gustave shouted. "Is she among the living?"

"Oh, yes, forgive me, dear friends. Yes-she is alive." The consul put his arm around Hakim's shoulders. "That is why I-we-have come. To explain everything. I beg you only to be patient."

Flo felt her body sag in relief. Thank G.o.d. Thank you, thank you, G.o.d. Gustave squeezed her hand and held fast to it.

Warm and newly familiar, his hand propelled her into a parallel awareness. Comments from the previous night floated like motes in a sunbeam across her mind. Oui, d'accord. J'aime ton visage. But a strange fog enveloped her, as if she had kept a secret so long and thoroughly that she herself had forgotten it.

After securing the mold of Gustave's face in a box, she recalled, she had groped toward her tent, acknowledged the drowsing sentry, and lain upon her bedroll without undressing. A moment later, it seemed, the sun was blaring. Peering outside and seeing no activity, she went back to sleep. Shortly after eight-four hours later than usual-the crew roused themselves and she got up for good. It was then that she noticed her unb.u.t.toned bodice and the tatters of pa-pier-mache clinging to her neck and chest. He had made squeezes of her, yes. And they had kissed. Beyond that, she was sure of only two things: that she would be happy to see him again and that no harm had been done her. Nevertheless, before emerging from her tent, she had inspected her drawers for blood, finding nothing but a stiff patch of cloth where something had dried. Her virginity, that priceless jewel for which she had no earthly use, was intact.

They had talked. And talked and talked. She remembered laughter. Above all, the impression of tenderness given and received. They had been playful, like brother and sister, though not exactly. She felt her face heat up as she remembered the feel of her fingers in his mouth and her will dissolving in a burst of pleasure. And then he had placed his finger in her mouth, whereupon the sensation had doubled and trebled until she felt herself purely a body, all thought having vanished for the first time in her life. She had liked that. Very much. Was this what Clarkey called amitie amoureuse? Loving fellowship?

Pere Elias was nattering on at the edge of her attention, carefully laying the groundwork for his story. The camel guides ululated and hooted as he lauded the Ababdeh women, who were, as everyone knew, blessed with strong feet and lean figures. Their flawless, nut-brown skin was especially glorious against their white sh.e.l.l necklaces.

She returned to her thoughts. They must remain in touch after Egypt. She pictured him visiting at Embley, herself in Rouen or Paris. They might remain friends for years, decades-a lifetime of substantial letters and conversations. She could consult him about her plans to serve G.o.d, and confer with him about his writing. They would be the best of companions, like Clarkey and M. Fauriel. Perhaps lovers. Had Clarkey been sleeping with Fauriel all those years? Certainly she must be now with Mohl. She had heard that the French knew how to prevent pregnancy. If anyone knew, Clarkey would. A brutal determination formed in her mind: she would keep him as a friend, whatever it took.

But was this the touted bliss of love that she'd read about in Madame Sand's spicy novels? It was not the crushing sensation she'd expected, but rather feathery and weightless. How lightly his hand had covered hers! And how much it a.s.sured: to keep her safe, to guide and delight. Such a simple act, holding hands. We are a pair, it said. Two in harmony against this inattentive, suffering world.

She let out a deep sigh. Whether it was love or not, she couldn't stop smiling, especially now that she knew Trout was alive.

The consul's speech, alternating between French and Arabic, had slowed, as if he were approaching sensitive material. She turned her attention to it.

Not one Abadi in living memory, he explained, had refused matrimony. Most boys eagerly antic.i.p.ated it as a mark of manhood and privilege. To make matters worse, Hakim's father was a sheik; his mother, a powerful matchmaker and matriarch. Humiliated by the recalcitrant son who would not take a bride, they had disowned him. It was owing to these grave circ.u.mstances, Pere Elias summarized, that Hakim had hit upon a plan that, alas, had come to involve Trout.

Following the consul's logic, Flo's mind leaped forward. "I hope he does not propose to marry my maid." Snickering and chortling followed Pere Elias's translation. For the first time she had the undivided attention of the crew, even Mohammed.

"Non, certainement pas," Pere Elias replied. "Although Hakim prefers the company of older women, he does not wish to marry anyone, I a.s.sure you."

The crew continued to laugh. Apparently they found the idea of Trout as a wife utterly ludicrous. Flo felt slighted on her maid's behalf. Trout might be forty-three years old, but she was neither infirm nor unattractive. Indeed, she was a person of a certain dignity.

As if reading Flo's thoughts, Gustave stood and called them to order, his hand raised like a constable's directing carriage traffic at Mayfair. "See here, there's no need to mock Miss Nightingale's companion."

"Forgive me," Pere Elias said, raising both hands as if to bless the crew, but in fact to silence them. "She is a fine English lady."

Oh, thought Flo, if you only knew.

Grumbling, Gustave sat down again next to her.

"Understand that Madame Trout is safe," Pere Elias said. "To my best knowledge, she is perfectly safe and sound."

Again, Gustave jumped up, with more vigor than he'd shown all day. "Will you not simply produce her then?" He sat back down. "These people talk long, but not straight," he whispered. "There is always something hidden in their words." Color had returned to his cheeks and sweat lay in a thin film upon his brow.

She removed her handkerchief and blotted his forehead as she eyed the consul. "Where is she then?" she demanded.

Shaking his head, the consul regarded his sandals. "This will take time."

Now Hakim stepped forward, addressing Flo in frantic Arabic. "I regret the sorrow and worry I have caused you," the consul translated. "I am the guilty one." His face reddened as tears flooded his handsome brown eyes. "I beg you to spare me and the men who helped me."

"C'est ca." Gustave clapped hands, looking away with distaste. "The confession."

Things, at last, were starting to come clear. Flo watched as the consul comforted the sobbing, shaking Hakim, and urged him to continue. "I only wished for the forgiveness of my beloved father and mother," the boy finally managed.

The crew clucked in sympathy.

"I had to do something to restore my mother's honor, or she might have died," Hakim explained.

For all his tears, Flo thought Hakim unrepentant, a remorseless upstart of a boy.

"Also," Hakim continued, sheltered by the strong arms of Pere Elias, "I did not wish to be an orphan."

"The poor boy," Gustave said meltingly into her ear. Even he, it seemed, was taken in by the sob story.

Flo could hardly credit the sympathy Hakim's testimony had generated. "Oh, I have had enough of all of you," she suddenly shouted, rising to her full height and jamming her hands over her narrow hips as she walked toward Hakim. "Where in the blazes is my Trout, boy?" she thundered. "I command you to bring her to me at once, since you claim to know where she is."

As he listened to the consul's translation, Hakim's eyes appeared to darken, then lighten and glaze over. His face turned waxen. Flo recalled with definite satisfaction that he was said to be frightened of women. This power over him pleased her. All her life, it now seemed to her, she had backed down from those who opposed her, trapped and helpless and despising herself for it. Rarely had she sought directly to exercise authority over anyone, yielding instead to misery, as if that would bring the desired result, as if justice could be achieved merely through patient suffering and the pity of others. Never had she felt power-the raw force of it-possess her being as it did in this moment. Her body jolted into a fine alertness, every fiber of her straining forward with pointed intention. She could smite him if his answer proved unsatisfactory. Yes, smite him!

Hakim's lashes fluttered like a child's caught in a lie. Any second, she expected, he would dissolve into another gushing waterworks of regret.

Instead, he swooned. The guides promptly collected him, fanning his forehead and patting his cheeks. Only Mohammed did not move or show concern, his usual composure prevailing. His lack of sympathy was not, then, the mark of a weak man, as she had thought, but the flimsy mask of power. Max had been right all along, but she had had to be outraged to see it: the guides had conspired in the kidnapping.

Pere Elias stepped to her side. "I knew nothing of what I am telling you until you sent word that Madame Trout was missing. Let that be absolutely clear."

"Of course," she replied. Was there anyone in this part of the world who was not fundamentally self-serving, not frightened to death of retribution? Still, she believed the consul, her reasons having as much to do with his bathtub and bonhomie as his declaration. She had observed his kindness and fondness for Hakim-he did not beat him, for one thing. Indeed, the consul was nothing if not brave to inject himself into the tribal dispute. Yet even the consul's good intentions did not soothe her present frustration or allay her feeling smothered by his ingratiating politesse. She preferred to fulminate, to yield to the new energies roiling within her and fly into a satisfying rage.

"Oh, everyone is innocent!" she screamed, throwing up her arms and glowering. "I suppose it's all Trout's fault. No doubt she kidnapped herself!" Blood rushed to her face. "You're all liars. A pack of liars!" She felt magnificent, her own heart pounding applause within. Even Gustave hung back, watching.

"Oh, she was kidnapped, that is clear," the consul confirmed, bowing. "But, miraculously, the family is reconciled, thanks to Madame Trout-"

"Is she their slave, then?" Flo pictured an abject Trout hunched over a cooking fire in a shadowy desert cave. She reached for Gustave's arm and found it. Touching him settled her. Her breathing slowed.

Again, the consul begged forgiveness. "Not at all. On the contrary, she has been treated well. But soon you may ask her yourself."

The consul and Hakim were staring at something beyond Flo in the white distance. She turned to see what it was, but had she not known that something was there, she wouldn't have noticed the faint streak at the horizon where the desert melded into the browned blue of the sky.

For an indeterminate time, the streak did not change, though a dusty halo formed around it. Slowly it elongated into three bars, which soon shifted into three ovals. Waves of heat, the watery illusion of a mirage, transected the blur as it approached.

Looking bored, Mohammed sat down with his men, but Hakim and the consul remained standing, arm in arm, watching the distant shimmer. At the corner of her eye, Flo glimpsed the tent flap open as Max and Joseph edged outside to join the spectators.

"Why the silence?" Max asked in a weak voice. "Is something wrong?"

Quickly grasping the situation, Joseph grabbed Max by the shoulders and turned him in the direction of the oncoming visitors, still a faraway smudge.

Long moments later, three camels loped into the camp with three riders in full Bedouin traveling fig-striped woolen mantles and kaffiyehs to shield their faces from the scouring sand. Only the eyes and hands were not covered. While Flo and her entourage waited, two of the figures ordered their camels to kneel, then helped the third down. They approached in a line, the two on either side supporting the third, processing as regally as Victoria through London. Flo heard a m.u.f.fled "Mum!" escape into the boundless desert air.

"Is it you, Trout?" she cried, bringing her hands up to her mouth. "Is it truly you?" Her chest felt as if it might burst open like a magic trick into a bouquet of flowers-white roses for sheer grat.i.tude.

"Yes, mum," came the quavering voice.

Flo rushed to grasp Trout's hands, then hugged her. They stepped back to arm's length to regard each other, then embraced again.

Weeping, Hakim prostrated himself at the feet of the other two figures, clutching their ankles. Flo watched as his parents removed their robes. The father wore a leather ap.r.o.n; rings bedecked his ears. His hair was stunning. Save for a short tuft on the top of his head, it was dressed in the corkscrew ringlets the Italian painters favored for Jesus. Though age had creased his face like a map folded too many times, his body was lean and muscular. On his arm he wore a leather band in which a short knife was sheathed. The mother was clad in a long white gown secured under her upper arms, while a long wrapper covered her head, one shoulder and an arm. Flo had the unkind thought that it would have taken quite some time for her to starve, as she was not lean like most of her kinswomen, but plump as a pigeon breast, with skin firm and gleaming as a ripe apple.

Everyone gathered in a circle. Flo counted thirteen, including the camel crew, who bunched together in a wide arc, with Mohammed seated at the sheik's right hand, no doubt a position of honor. Hakim's mother removed and folded Trout's mantle and kaffiyeh.

There, at last, and apparently none the worse, was Trout. She stood stock-still, allowing herself to be appreciated. Her face split into an improbable grin.

Gustave kissed her on both cheeks. "We feared you'd been sold into white slavery," he said, nodding at Flo to translate.

"I don't know about that, sir," Trout said.

"It's just as well."

Hakim's mother fussed over Trout, cupping her chin, stroking her cheek with the back of her hand. She offered Trout water and dates, acting, Flo thought, like a body servant. Or, indeed, a parent. Had she in some fashion adopted Trout in lieu of the bride that had been denied her? Oh, the strangeness of it! This would require a longer letter home than going up and down the cataracts had. Parthe would be beside herself.

"I've had an adventure, mum. I do hope you didn't fret for me too much."

"Oh, but we did. We searched everywhere for you. We did not know anything except that you had been taken." Feeling more relaxed now, Flo bit into a fresh date; it was slightly chewy, with cool honey at the center. "I knew you could not have vanished under your own steam."

Flo was wretched at keeping secrets. She hoped none of the guilt she felt for reading Trout's diary colored her voice. She would never volunteer it, but what if Trout suspected once the book was returned to her? Flo recalled the panicky feeling that had overcome her when she realized Trout had read her letters. Apparently she had no greater control over her impulses than Trout did.

Trout tugged at her arm. "I shall tell you about it later, mum," she said under her breath. "I don't wish to speak in a language these people can't understand."

"Very well," said Flo, but she thought it odd that Trout should be solicitous of her kidnappers. Perhaps she did not yet feel wholly safe.

The Bedouin couple had brought the makings of a feast: goats' milk, durra cakes, and something resembling clotted cream, churned as they rode, the consul explained, by the rocking motion of the camels.

After the food, Pere Elias offered Turkish cigarettes, greatly prized, Flo knew, in the desert. Only she demurred. Even Hakim's father, who had brought his own long pipe, accepted. Hakim's mother pa.s.sed hers to Trout, who, after a few moments, sat happily wreathed in smoke. Flo could not help staring.

"I always thought smoking a filthy habit," Trout told her between puffs, "but now I've taken it up"-she tapped her ash to one side-"I quite enjoy it."

Soon Hakim's mother rose to perform a dance while his father chanted and the camel drivers clapped. She moved about the circle slowly, rotating her hips to the repet.i.tious melody and flexing her hands into arabesques.

"She is happy," Pere Elias explained to Flo and Gustave. "Her honor has been restored and she has her son back."

"How I miss my own dear mother," Gustave opined. He turned to Flo. "Don't you find this reunion touching? Do you not miss your own?" He stopped himself. "But no, I suppose you wouldn't." He sounded apologetic.

"I love my mother. I wish her well," she said. "But away from me, or I from her." She felt more determined saying aloud to another person what she had only thought privately. Addressing the consul, she said, "You will tell us more, I hope, when the celebration is ended."

"It will be my duty and my pleasure."

"And, of course, there is the matter of justice to discuss," she added.

"Oui."

Hakim danced at the edge of the circle, by turns catching his mother's eye and then Trout's. The drivers reclined on their elbows or sat cross-legged, contentedly smoking. Indeed, with Trout returned, the scene resembled nothing so much as opera bouffe, Flo thought, complete with costumes, exotic sets, comic interludes, and a plot of mistaken ident.i.ty.

Late in the afternoon, Hakim's parents prepared to depart. They had saved the gifts for last, whether by tradition, or in a final attempt to purchase her goodwill, Flo did not know. The idea of justice was, in fact, much on her mind. Punishment. Possibly clemency. Whatever she decided would require a wisdom she wasn't sure she possessed. She was weary, and bloated, too, after so much food and water.

The father withdrew a live kid with hobbled legs from his saddlebags-the animal barely a weanling-as well as a soapstone cup packed with hair grease for Flo. (Trout already had one, she later learned.) Next, he presented a limp bundle of fur with dark, gla.s.sy eyes. Despite all the hunts at Lea and Embley, it was the first fox Flo had ever seen. She shuddered.

"What is that, mum?" Trout asked, pointing to another furry offering.

"Merde!" Gustave cried. "It is a dead rat." He poked at the animal, stretching out one of its long back legs. "But a rat from a circus. On stilts. Disgusting."

"No, no!" The consul wagged his finger and moved closer. "It's a jerboa, not a rat. They roast it over their camel-dung fires. It's tasty! Not at all what you would expect."

Removing the knife from his arm sheath, the sheik skinned the animal with a few deft strokes.

Flo felt faint.

"I saw him catch it," Trout said with remarkable equanimity. "Walked right up to the burrow, he did, and pulled it out with his hands."

"The Ababdeh are great trackers," Pere Elias said as the sheik proceeded to skewer the animal on a stick. "Voila!" he exclaimed, accepting the kabob and bowing to the sheik in studious thanks. Hakim, observing nearby, looked proud and pleased. Vindicated.

Sh.e.l.l necklace softly clicking, the mother next stepped forward with two bronze rings lying in her open palm. She stared at Flo's nose, visually inspecting it at close range, then pointed to her own nose ring, smiling. Flo felt herself stiffen as the woman grasped her hand and tried to push the ring onto her finger.

"Please," Flo told the consul, flinching. "Tell her no more gifts! They are unnecessary. Besides, how can a gift compensate for a kidnapping?"

"It would be a great insult to refuse these last tokens," he cautioned. "This represents most of the wealth of the family. You might undo everything."

At that, Flo allowed Hakim's mother to place the nose ring on her fourth finger. The woman did likewise for Trout. Flo and Trout curtsied. The mother smiled and fired off something in Arabic.

"Tell them how much we appreciate their generosity," Flo urged Pere Elias.

Trout settled the ring on her finger and admired her hand.

"What are we to do with the baby goat?" Gustave asked.

"Eat it," Pere Elias replied. "You shall need it for the rest of your journey."

"And the fox?" Flo asked. Do we-"

"Yes, that, too."