The Twelve Rooms of the Nile Part 8

In his fantaisie on the p.u.s.s.y, images bloomed in his mind, casting a wide net of metaphorical a.s.sociation. Kuchuk Hanem's mons Venus took its rightful place alongside the warm tints of Provencal houses; her shaved l.a.b.i.a plumped into sharp focus alongside sand dunes, plucked chickens, and jeweled glue pots. How had he begun his paragraph on the imagined t.w.a.t of his brother's wife? Yes-"a red light that s.h.i.+nes on him the way the sun s.h.i.+nes on manure." The writing was not a literal record, but the result of imagination fused with invective and sometimes with love. For surely he had been in love with Louise, hadn't he? He thought back to his second meeting with her. She had worn yellow leather gloves with a single b.u.t.ton at the wrist that left a coin of flesh where he had pressed his finger, then his lips. They'd removed to his hotel for a s.e.xual triumph that lasted two days and nights. Yes, hers was next. Wheat fields after a rain, the open mouth of a chick . . .

The air had cooled as the moon rose in the sky and the wind picked up. Max, toting his unwieldy photo cases, paused to b.u.t.ton up his s.h.i.+rt. They picked their way along the sh.o.r.e beneath escarpments that rose up steeply on either riverbank into a wide canyon. They'd moored the boat last in a fleet of dahabiyahs, as far away from their fellow Europeans as possible. Had it not been for Miss Nightingale and her ridiculous maid, he would never have agreed to such a visit. But he could not refuse her. He always found it difficult to be cruel in person (as opposed to in writing). And Max, he knew, welcomed the chance to socialize. His brilliant friend was a gregarious and polished man who enjoyed small talk even if he sometimes approached people the way a dentist eyed a mouthful of rotten teeth.

"I am forced to admit that they were quite pleasant, as pleasant goes," Max remarked as they emerged from beneath a jutting cliff.

"Yes, they were. But then it isn't hard to be nice if one is wealthy. I think they must be loaded." They pa.s.sed a dahabiyah almost as impressive as Miss Nightingale's where someone was playing the flute. No, it was a duet. Off-key violin arpeggios reached them on the breeze. The sound was haunting.

"My G.o.d, Mozart on the Nile." Max groaned.

"I don't think it's Mozart, Du Camp Aga, though I do detect a melody buried in the whining."

"What did you and Miss Nightingale talk about off to yourselves?"

The music droned on, fainter and more sour as they pa.s.sed its source. A swampy odor-the Nile at low tide-filled his nostrils. He'd become fond of the sulfurous fug, which smelled like fish and s.e.x. Slowing his pace, he answered, "What did you and the Brace-bridges discuss?"

"Well, Charles Bracebridge is no slacker. Reads Latin and Greek, has a villa in Athens, loves Byron-"

"Loves Byron?"

"Apparently. They're both great h.e.l.lenophiles."

"One point in their favor, then." He made a mental note to ask Bracebridge about the great poet. "That raises them from the ranks of epiciers and drudging professionals, don't you think, effendi?"

The cange came into view, its upper half pewter in the moonlight, the lower portion dissolved in the black of the river. The sentry called out something in Arabic and Joseph jumped up, tied a blanket around his naked body, and hailed them. With the sentry's help, he hastily deployed the gangplank.

"They are definitely elites," Max said. "But I reserve judgment on the young miss since you monopolized her completely. Quit stalling and tell me what you and she discussed."

Joseph galloped down the gangway and removed Max's cases to the boat.

"Trouble," Gustave said, stopping just short of the cange. "We discovered we are both troubled."

"Sounds like you pa.s.sed confidences." Max playfully blocked his way onto the boat and leered at him.

"We were just making idle chatter."

"She hasn't got much of a figure, has she?" Max moved aside and they boarded the boat. "Does she even have b.r.e.a.s.t.s?"

Max's taunting annoyed him. He suddenly felt protective of Miss Nightingale's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, whatever their size, whether bee stings (most likely) or lemons. "She isn't like that. I mean, I don't think of her as a woman." He found it difficult to describe her, nor did he want to. "More a kind of presence."

"What does that mean, a presence? You make her sound like a ghost."

They unfolded stools and sat down. "I'm not sure." He lit his pipe. "I said it in jest."

"Jest my eye. You spent most of the evening with the little English flower." Max packed his chibouk and lit it.

"p.i.s.s off!" Gustave clapped him on the shoulder. "The truth is I was dreaming of Kuchuk Hanem the whole time. And don't forget, you still owe me a photograph of her."

"The great alma, Kuchuk Hanem." Smoking his chibouk, its stem more than a meter long, Max resembled a long-billed bird. "Would she spread her legs, I wonder, for the camera?"

"She might, if we pay or flatter her enough." With the side trip to Koseir, how many more weeks until they returned to Esneh? Three? Five? He would shower her with gifts. Dates. Ribbons. Henna to decorate her hands and feet and pet sheep. One of his quills? She was illiterate, but might find a s.e.xual use for it. "We should make the picture in her house, not on the boat," he cautioned. "In public, she tries to pa.s.s herself off as a schoolmarm."

"Good point." Max yawned, then announced he was retiring. He planned to work the next day. Bidding good night, he descended to his cabin, smoke floating up behind him in a wispy wake.

Gustave expelled a few smoke rings, watching them expand and wobble into nothingness.

He was as surprised by what he had said about Miss Nightingale as Max was. Not a woman! Well, she was certainly not a candidate for a muse or mistress, though he could not help but compare her to Louise, who also had a brain and an education but was devoting her life, it seemed, to the martyrdom of love, sacrificing herself on the altar of his unrequital. In the end, he preferred his prost.i.tutes, who gave a convincing impersonation of undying love and harbored no expectations afterward. Nor any literary ambitions. No, he must never give Louise a foothold again. The gifts he had bought her in Egypt, he decided, were obeisance to past trysts, not an invitation for future ones.

Miss Nightingale, by contrast, was not glamorous or, apparently, amorous. Earnest suited her best. Her gaze was sharp as a falcon's, and as unsettling. She burned with utter sincerity; commitment to some ideal steadied her gaze. If she knew how to flirt, she hadn't displayed her talent tonight. But she was kind and sympathetic-her consoling touch on his arm had moved-no-melted him.

He drew one more time on the pipe, then tapped it on the side rail, spilling the embers overboard. Just down the beach, light from a native hut illuminated three camels perched on the sand like unwieldy prehistoric birds. They were tethered to an acacia tree, their slender k.n.o.bby legs folded beneath them, their long necks tucked against their flanks. He listened to the creaking of the masts and rigging, the soft clatter of the wind in the palm fronds, the lulling slosh of the waves. A bud of joy flowered in his chest.

He was drunk and exhausted. Why, he asked himself, had he offered to teach her about making squeezes when he hated it so?

9.

THE WEIGHING OF THE HEART.

Flo awakened before dawn and lay abed in the pitch darkness, ruminating. The letter she'd written leaned against the candlestick on the top of the bookcase that served as her nightstand.

But now, not another thought about him! She'd not savor the memory of the evening, but put it aside, like a sweet left on view in a dish both to tantalize and rea.s.sure. If she saved the pleasure for later, perhaps, before she knew it, the sweet would multiply into a tray of delicacies, mouthful after melting mouthful she could gorge on. If he answered, or came calling.

She unfastened the tapes of her levinge, removed her sleeping cap, and sat up. She lit a candle stub, then thought better of it, candles being so precious, and reached for the oil lamp stowed on a lower shelf. It gave less light but was steadier, and in its wan aura she donned her brown Hollands and a pair of palm slippers. She slipped the letter into her bodice.

She'd wanted to witness the effect of the sunrise on the facade of the great temple of Abu Simbel every day since they'd arrived. Selina and Charles had spoken of joining her, but after a week it was clear that they were unwilling or unable to risk climbing in the dark. According to Bunsen, dawn was extraordinary, and twice a year the light penetrated to the innermost chambers. During the vernal and autumnal equinoxes? She'd look it up this afternoon. The baron's book was a ma.s.s of prose knotty as an oak, thick with awkward phrasing rooted in his German. She'd already compiled revisions for the Murray book; perhaps she'd edit Bunsen, too. Now, though, alone and unescorted (the ball and chain was still slumbering), she exited her room and crept across the deck. She'd be back before she was missed.

The crewmen were asleep, and except for the captain and Paolo, who accorded themselves the privilege of a hammock, were snugged in their niches, the foredeck a lumpy expanse of blanketed bodies. Paolo had ordered them to wear trousers under or over their djellabas-indeed, to sleep in them-making it safe for the women to be among them at odd hours. For a few extra piastres, they'd cheerfully complied.

She stepped up the portable stairs and over the gunwale, then down the flimsy gangway with its rope railings and onto the damp sh.o.r.e. There, she extinguished her lamp and stood in the enthralling darkness. The moon had already set and the sky was the depthless black of tarpaper, a few stars pinning it down like nails. A breeze lifted the down on her arms and neck. She scanned the clock of the sky. Could one predict from the stellar alignment the exact moment the sun would swing from one side of the heavens to the other, like the disk of a celestial pendulum?

The sandy incline between the temples was so familiar she knew her way in the dark, the grains cool over her feet. Halfway up, without alarm, she sank to her knees, turned sideways, and tacked to the crest. There she sat upon the rocky earth, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness so that eventually she could just make out the ragged margin between the trees and sky.

The great rock temple of Ramses II was the most imposing sight she'd seen in her twenty-nine years, no small claim for a woman who'd toured most of the European capitals, crossed the Alps and Apennines, and swooned at her own insignificance from the crags and vales of Scotland. It had even replaced the Sistine Chapel, where only a year before she had lain for hours on the floor beside Mariette, drifting upward to join the muscled bliss on Michelangelo's ceiling.

She expected to observe a different grandeur and wisdom in Egypt. Her heart thudding, she faced west, where the colossi loomed invisibly. Slowly, as though limned with pencil on black paper, the outline of their mountain abode emerged from the dark surround. The cliff turned a metallic gray so transitory and ghostly that the statues seemed only now, after three millennia, to succ.u.mb with a last glimmer to their eternal stillness. Then the sun cracked open behind her, a ruddled splinter at the horizon. As the light gained radiance, it reversed the first impression of fading glory to one of impending majesty.

Dawn began to burnish the pairs of disproportionate legs, the hands like flounders in the laps. The ancient stone carvers had rendered the lower half of the seated figures crudely, lavis.h.i.+ng their skill and pa.s.sion on the magnificent heads and headdresses, and particularly upon the pharaoh's visage. That face! Repeated everywhere in Egypt, but nowhere more powerfully, it combined serenity with absolute power. Such calmness of soul moved her to exultation. She could look upon that face every day and never tire of it. Even the head that lay choked in the sand did not detract from the awe. Ramses the Great was great. He had ruled for more than sixty years of a golden age. What must it have been like when he pa.s.sed to the Field of Reeds at ninety-six? Four generations had known no other sovereign. They would have mourned his loss like the death of a G.o.d.

The sun crept higher in the sky, transfusing the limestone figures with pink light until they flushed, as if rousing from slumber. The nostrils seemed to flare, the lips to part, the eyes to narrow their gaze, surveying from their fastness the landscape at their feet and every living thing within it. With a flash of pain at her throat, Flo's breath caught, as if commandeered by the reviving Osiridae. And then, in the next instant, the moment of their awakening pa.s.sed and the day lay before her, the stone figures lifeless, archaic monuments. The mountain erupted with the smells of morning-baking earth, the faint steam of evaporating dew, the tang of insect chitin crushed underfoot.

She studied the figure intaglioed into the rock face above the four colossi. Ramses was making an offering to his namesake, the sun G.o.d Ra. Not a sacrificial ram, not gold, silver, or armfuls of lotus flowers; instead, he proffered the small figurine ma'at, that symbolized justice. The frieze brought tears to her eyes.

At the smaller temple, too, a wall relief had set her weeping with joy, and she'd returned three times to take notes for letters home. I never understood the Bible, she'd written, until I came to Egypt. Though less impressive, the small temple echoed and affirmed her deepest beliefs. For there, Ramses was crowned by the good and evil principle on either side. What a modern philosophy! Had any theory of the world gone farther into faith and science than this? For she, too, believed that evil was not the simple opposer of good, but its collaborator, the left hand of G.o.d, as the good was His right. Just like her, the Egyptians believed that evil was the brother, not the foe, of Osiris, the Lord of the Underworld and Eternal Life, though afterward, according to Bunsen, the Egyptians abandoned this idea and scratched out its nose and eyes in the old carvings. But in Ramses's time, good flowed from evil, and out of evil, good. And in the journey to the afterlife, which mimicked the dying and rising sun and was not so different from the hours before the Resurrection, the pet.i.tioner's heart was weighed against a feather in the seventh room of the night. If the scales tipped to either side it was devoured. Evil threatened him at every gate and had to be appeased with charms and spells. Some of them were so poetic that she'd memorized them. O my heart which I had from my mother! O my heart which I had from my mother! Do not stand up as a witness against me! As she gazed raptly at the temple facade, she felt again a conviction thrumming in her body-that the world was bound together in an intricate, harmonious web governed by natural laws that men could discover slowly and with great effort. That was G.o.d's will-the human revelation of divine order.

She kneeled on a rock, still gazing at the faces of Ramses. Were it not for her ideas about evil, her life would have been so much simpler. She could have converted to the church of Rome, working out her destiny within an order, as a nun. But the Catholics preached that evil was easily identified and routed, when in fact it lay tangled with the good, like the clean and dirty blood in the umbilicus. She couldn't subscribe to such an arbitrary notion. Didn't the unborn child need both to survive until he was delivered, and afterward, wasn't he heir to both? Wasn't he marked like Cain? And blessed like Moses?

With the sun fully risen, she made her way down the long ramp, half stepping, half glissading, enjoying the sudden slips and dips like a child. The sun was already strong on her shoulders, though by the time she reached the sh.o.r.e, some twenty minutes later, a breeze had picked up and herringbone clouds had scudded into place like threads on a giant loom, graying the light to a harsh glare. She reached the boat, climbed aboard, and pa.s.sed the still-somnolent crew. Their hours had been irregular from the start-often they sailed at 4 A.M.-dependent upon the tides and their employers' whims. Only Paolo, puttering with pots and pans about the stern, acknowledged her with a wave of his hand.

"Buon giorno," she called, waving in return. "May I ask you a favor?"

He put aside the utensils and came toward her, inclining his head as he approached.

She withdrew the letter from her dress. "Could you deliver this to M. Flaubert for me?"

"Now, signorina?"

"Yes, please." She inspected the letter one last time. It was perfect, the red sealing wax exactly centered on the envelope flap. She handed it to him. He wiped his hands on his trousers before taking it.

"Right away." He bowed his head again, like a butler or valet. "Subito." He gave a little salute and hurried down the gangway. She watched him march briskly up the beach, deftly negotiating the mud from last night's rain as he pa.s.sed by the small fleet of houseboats, bound for the blue cange with the tricolor flag.

10.

A VISIT TO THE PATRIARCHS.

When he awakened, Gustave remembered Max leaving him to sleep alone during the night-in disgust, because he'd been retching.

He felt nauseated now. And tired. Surely it was still early in the morning, though there was no way to know. In its handsome mahogany case with ormolu fittings, the clock on the shelf had read onethirty ever since he boarded in Cairo. The Egyptians seemed to regard clocks as decorative rather than functional objects. Or perhaps they thought them European good luck charms. In any case, a timepiece was useless in Upper Egypt. His pocket watch had stopped after the first sandstorm. Though Max had carried his in a double case inside a b.u.t.toned pocket, sand grains had jammed the mainspring.

He craned his neck for a view of the sun, but the sky was hazy. It looked the way he felt: s.h.i.+tty and glaringly ragged. Too much of Bracebridge's good Irish whiskey after the dinner wine. At home, his mother would have prepared his father's remedy for mornings after: cognac, fresh milk, a raw egg, and a squirt of lemon juice.

The wind, he noted with distaste, had returned after a day and evening of quietude. Waves raced relentlessly sh.o.r.eward, repeatedly slapping the sand, like the pounding in his head.

He rose from his bed, fighting the urge to vomit, threw off his gown, donned his hooded djellaba, and pulled on his boots. It was then he noticed Achmet skulking in the doorway, a piece of paper in hand. How long had he been standing there? Surely the man had watched while he slept, drool leaking onto his pillow, afraid to wake him. "Effendi," the servant whispered, his eyes cast down. He handed the paper over, bowed, and disappeared.

Gustave recognized the creamy stationery. Miss Nightingale must have stayed up last night writing. Or perhaps she had gotten an early start. He imagined that she preferred sunrises to sunsets, waking brightly and full of energy.

He stuck his head through the doorway and instructed Achmet to bring coffee and bread. Then he slit the missive with his ivory letter-opener, one of the few vanities he'd brought from home.

Cher Monsieur, Nous avons tous tellement apprecie votre visite d'hier soir. Je vous prie de remercier Monsieur Du Camp de notre part-votre ami est un photographe vraiment exceptionnel! Il me ferait plaisir de regarder vos compressions archeologiques. Peut-etre pourrais-je meme vous aider a les faire.

Que dire de l'etrange conversation que nous avons eue? De ma part, je l'ai trouvee extraordinaire. C'etait comme si on se connaissait depuis des annees deja. . . .

The letter continued in a more searching tone: Good and evil are two of the subjects that consume me at present, first, in regard to ancient Egyptian beliefs; second, in what I find contradictory and limiting in the Christian interpretations (especially the Roman Catholic, which you yourself no doubt practice). Finally, as one who wishes to do good in the world but has only managed to suffer ineffectually (and also make others suffer on my behalf), I feel confused as to my future course. How shall I accomplish good in the world? I hope you do not think me naive.

Perhaps the freedom of being in an exotic land is what impels me to confess this tempest of ideas to you. If so, I hope you are similarly afflicted with candor and curiosity and will wish to spend time with me discussing these things, especially as you have written an entire book on goodness.

As my friend Selina mentioned, we shall stay on here a few more days, then head for the island of Philae, the "jewel of the Nile." I look forward to meeting you there and learning about your squeezes.

Sincerely, your new friend,

Rossignol

P.S. Please give my warmest regards to Max.

He liked her directness, her apparent lack of embarra.s.sment, her tone, so intimate that had she spoken the words instead of writing them, he might have thought them odd. With sparkling honesty, she had suggested they meet for a theological discussion. As far as she knew, he was a man of similar spiritual inclinations. He smiled at the absurd irony.

Or was he? Why had a degenerate like him written a book about a saint? He thought of himself as a troublemaker interested only in truth, chiefly ugly truths. He had tackled the subject of goodness not on his own account, but Saint Anthony's. Was it possible he harbored a secret wish to do good, like Miss Nightingale, or at least to understand what goodness was? And if he did, how could he reconcile it with his dissipated ways-his studied cra.s.sness, his love of perversity and fascination with prost.i.tutes?

He reread her letter, in case something lay hidden between the lines, but her words were crystalline, unsullied by ulterior motives or mixed intentions. So different from Louise's. Miss Nightingale's missives were clarion calls that invited him to question his soul.

He tucked the letter away and went abovedecks. No one about but Captain Ibrahim, lolling on a palm mat. He peeked in the salon, where Max was still sleeping, then returned to his cabin.

Coffee and bread sat on a bright tin tray, courtesy of Achmet, who preferred to move unnoticed to escape remark or criticism. In Egypt, it was best to be invisible except when summoned, and then, to lavish flattery. Only yesterday, when he asked Aouadallah why he was still standing at attention after a day of brutal work, the poor soul had prostrated himself and mumbled a reply. "He say, effendi," Joseph translated, "that it please him enough to be see by you." There would be no revolutions in Egypt anytime soon.

After he finished the meager meal, he had nothing to do and nowhere he wanted to go. He decided to answer Miss Nightingale and send his reply by courier to her before the day was out. He had something specific he wished to discuss with her, something that would not interest Max, a trip-actually, a pilgrimage-he'd made on his own in Cairo. Who better than Miss Nightingale to confide in?-especially as it pertained to the subject at hand.

My dear Rossignol, Thank you for your kind letter, which arrived with the speed of lightning. I hope this to you fares as well.

I want to tell you about a marvelous discussion I had in Cairo, partly out of pure curiosity, and partly with the idea of revising my book about Saint Anthony. Since it bears on the idea of good and evil, I think it will be of interest to you, too.

While Max (who has little interest in the Christian faith) was busy photographing the necropolis of the Mamelukes, I took our crewman Hasan with me to visit the Coptic patriarchs at their monastery in Cairo. Hasan is fluent in French and Arabic and, most importantly, Coptic, which is the last remnant of the ancient Egyptian language.

I found the patriarch in an open courtyard, seated on a divan built around a copse of trees. Someone had placed handwritten books with many flourishes and illuminations all about him so that he appeared to ride in a gold and white cloud of paper. Four more of his sect clad in long black pelisses manned each corner of the yard.

Hasan introduced me as a Frank traveling the world in search of wisdom and religious truth. Long and flowery salutations followed. "May you prosper forever, my sweet lord, and find happiness in all your days and G.o.d grant that you return home safe and happy to your family"-this bestowed on me simply for saying my name!

The bishop greeted me courteously and offered many kindnesses. Out came the little cups of strong sugared coffee, the heavy pastries and gelatinous Turkish Delight-cubes of fruit essence dusted with sugar. A fellow approached from the shadows tricked out with a strange contraption that I initially thought was a bagpipe, for I saw a lumpen shape slung over his shoulder and a metallic mouthpiece in front. He turned out to be carrying hot tea in a goatskin, which he poured from a bra.s.s spout by leaning forward. Little gla.s.ses were stowed in a separate sack under his arm. After he had served us, he wandered off, chanting, "Chai, chai!"

I posed questions about the Trinity (how three G.o.ds could be one); about the Virgin; the Gospels; the Eucharist; and the Resurrection. All the erudition I had acquired for Saint Anthony came flooding back. The four robed figures joined us. They, too, were theologians, in the tradition of catechisticals (the Copts invented the catechistic method), and took stools around the patriarch while I sat cross-legged at his feet on the ground. I took notes while Hasan translated. The bishop was ruminative in his answers, thinking with his head down, as if consulting his great, shapeless beard. When the old fellow tired, one of the spirited younger cohorts took over until everyone was quite exhausted. In all, I spent three hours with the Copts, and hope to go back upon my return to Cairo for another session, maybe to talk to the Armenians as well.

As you must know, the Coptic religion is the oldest of all the Christian sects. They are descended from the ancient Egyptians, but have always been Christian and are highly respected here despite being a tiny minority. While Max and I were first in Cairo last December, we spent many hours tutored in Islam, learning about circ.u.mcision, Ramadan (their Easter), the veil, the Prophet, his family, and the dietary laws. We learned more about Islam than I yet know about the Copts.

The Coptic bible is surely closer to what Saint Anthony would have known than the version put forth later by the Roman Catholic Church. He himself was a Coptic Christian and the first monk. He invented the anchorite life.

The most significant theological difference between the Copts and Rome is this: they reject the idea that Jesus was human. This affects their notions of good and evil. They believe that He had only a divine nature, so was not a man at all. If Jesus was not capable of sin, it follows that man is not capable of G.o.dliness. This interests me because Saint Anthony was a man who suffered temptation his entire life and was never rid of sin-so not a saint in the way we understand today. He did nothing but live alone in the desert and battle his demons. No healing, no miracles, just the unending struggle to be a human without sin, which is impossible. But if, as the Copts believe, we are born evil and can't achieve goodness, why would he even have tried?