The Mistress of Nothing (10 page)

The sun began to go down and the hills turned as red as hot coals in the dying fire of the day; we reached the Valley at twilight, which in Egypt gives a glorious, soft, warm light. Now that we had been in the country for more than half a year, I felt I should be accustomed to its beauty and its mysteries, but I was not, nor would I ever be. The Egyptian people live among the ruins of their former selves and they accept as given the strange and monumental remnants of their past. A whole valley, high up in the hills, where the tombs of kings and queens have been carved deep underground into the stone, filled with treasure, then opened and plundered and sealed and reopened and plundered yet again. The bearers had brought torches with them and we entered the tomb of the Pharaoh Sety. The walls were painted in exquisite tableaux and the colors were perfect and bright. Omar pointed out to me the ceiling with its painted vultures flying towards the back of the tomb, and Sety himself standing before falcon-headed Re, the Sun God. I felt awestruck by what I was seeing; the air in the tomb was very dry and the torches were burning hard, throwing out an intense yellow light. I turned to my Lady to say, once again, that I wished I could read and interpret the hieroglyphs, but my Lady was deep in conversation with one of the bearers. Instead of discussing the tomb and its elaborate and meaning-laden decoration, as usual my Lady was asking the bearer about his family: how many children, where did they live, were they all healthy?

When it was time to return home, we made our way out of the Valley of the Kings and mounted our donkeys, my Lady and myself both complimenting each other on our dress sense, which made riding a donkey if not comfortable, at least a little less perilous and a little more dignified. The bearers extinguished the torches and, for a moment, we were blinded by the night. But night is not dark in Egypt; the moon and stars were so bright and the night sky so clear that as we came down from the Valley, the Nile was laid out before us in the distance, more dreamlike and sinuous than any tomb painting. We picked our way out of the hills back down the stony lane and the night was so quiet we were reminded of where we’d just been: the realm of the dead, a valley of the dead, a place where the dead had been disturbed in their rest over and over again.

RAMADAN CONTINUED, AND AS THE DAYS PASSED I COULD SEE
that Omar was finding it more and more difficult to rise in time for the dawn prayer, to rise at all, in fact. One morning as I dressed in the half-light before sunrise, I heard the muezzin call to the faithful from the minaret in the mosque of Abu el-Haggag on the other side of the village. I was accustomed to hearing Omar respond to the call to prayer in his room next door to mine, and I was always careful to move about the house as quietly as possible during this time. But this morning I did not hear him stirring, and so I went to his door and saw that he was still sound asleep on his mat. I had never woken a sleeping man before. I was not sure how to go about it; I took a step into his room and whispered his name, but that had no effect whatsoever. I took another step, and Omar sighed and shifted his position, his dark hair falling across his face. Then I had an idea: I began to recite the call to prayer myself. I had heard it so often, I found I could recite the words even though I understood less than half of their meaning. “Prayer is sweeter than sleep,” I said, in English—I knew this part because Omar sometimes greeted me with these words first thing in the morning—then I stumbled through the Arabic, starting at the beginning with
Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar,
God is Great, God is Great.

Omar shifted once again, and I saw he was waking, and I stepped backwards through the door, out of his room, and stood in the corridor continuing with my call. I heard him roll out of bed; he sat up and coughed and cleared his throat and was about to perform his ablutions, pouring water from the jug into the basin, when he stopped. He poked his head out of his room and saw me standing there. “Are you my muezzin now, Sally?” he asked, smiling.

“Allahu Akbar,
Omar,” I repeated.
“Allahu Akbar.”
And I went back into my own room, where I threw open the shutters and looked out across the Nile as the sun rose over the hills on the other side.

THE EARLY HEAT THIS YEAR, COMBINED WITH RAMADAN, EXHAUSTED
the people of Luxor, and as the religious month came to an end with the festival of Eid el-Fitr, many villagers fell ill with a contagion that swept through the village. The first I knew of it was when Ahmed, the little boy who appeared every morning to fetch and carry for Omar, failed to turn up for the third day running.

“The boy is lazy, Sally,” Omar said, when I mentioned Ahmed was still missing. “How many times have we found him sleeping in the sun just when we need his help?”

“Sleeping in the sun, yes,” I admitted, “but here, in the French House, where he knows we can find him.”

Omar was not concerned. But Ahmed’s absence was so out of character that I felt sure something terrible must have happened to the boy. I set out on my own to find him.

I knew where Ahmed lived; I was often greeted by his mother as I made my way to market with Omar. She would emerge from her little one-room dwelling to take me by the hand, offering endless thanks for allowing Ahmed to work in the household of the great
Sitti
Duff Gordon. She was blind in one eye and had very few teeth, but—I realized one day with a shock when she announced her age proudly to Omar—she was younger than me. After that I was bold and addressed her as Umm Ahmed, Mother of Ahmed, which delighted her and everyone else who was listening (I was always surprised to discover just how many others were listening). She and Omar would engage in a lengthy series of greetings and blessings, which Omar would translate for me before Umm Ahmed released my hand and allowed us to continue on our way. Our passage to the market now consisted of a series of encounters like these, blessings exchanged, news passed on. I understood that my Lady and I were figures of great interest to the villagers, but I saw also how their curiosity was transcended by their adherence to the rituals of greeting and respect; Egyptians were unfailingly polite.

This morning, when I arrived at Ahmed’s house and called out my greeting—
“Ahlen, ahlen Umm Ahmed”
—no one came forward. I stepped closer; no sound emerged through the gaping open hole that functioned as a doorway. I called out again and still received no answer, so this time I stepped right up to the threshold of the house and peered in. The air was putrid with the stench of vomit and death and I barely controlled my impulse to flee. Despite the smell I felt convinced that there was someone inside the house, though I couldn’t make out any shape or form in the gloom. I thought I heard something stirring, and I leaned forward further still, not wanting to step inside the house without having been invited. “Ahmed?” I found myself whispering.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder and I stifled a shriek. It was Mohammed, the water carrier. “I followed you,” he confessed, “I am so worried for Ahmed.” He spoke to me slowly, in his clearest Arabic, enunciating carefully. “Umm Ahmed died, from fever,” he said. “Ahmed is already very weak. Half of Luxor is sick with this dreadful epidemic. You must help him,” Mohammed said, and he spread his hands.
“Insha allah
—God willing.”

“Why didn’t you tell us earlier—yesterday or the day before?” I asked.

“We did not want Ahmed to lose his position in the French House.”

“Where is he?”

Mohammed turned and looked towards the dark and low doorway.

“Fetch clean water and bring it to me,” I said. And, no longer hesitant, I entered the tiny house.

The ceiling was so low the top of my head brushed against it, and I shuddered at the unexpected contact. I took three steps forward and stopped, allowing my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I could make out a pallet against the wall to my right and, on it, a pile of clothing, but after another moment I realized that the pile of clothing was, in fact, Ahmed. I took a few more steps and was beside him. In the dim light I could see that he had grown very thin: he was a small boy, a child of eight or nine, ten at most, and there had been no substance to him when he was well, running after Omar. His lips were cracked and his clothes were filthy and the smell was terrible. Was he dead? Had they left him here on his own to die? There was a jug of water next to his head. I thought to pour a few drops onto his lips but then wondered how long the water had been sitting there, stagnating, colonized by insects from the Nile. Still not sure if he was dead or alive, I placed my hand on his forehead and felt the fever burning on his skin; it was already hot outside, despite the early hour, but the heat emanating from Ahmed’s forehead was terrifying. I took off my headscarf and dipped one end of it into the water and slowly, carefully, washed Ahmed’s face. I pulled the pile of dirty clothes away from his body and, my scarf now fully wet, washed his limbs. His arms and legs seemed elongated in their skinniness, his elbows and knees painful interruptions, his ribs showing themselves to me plainly. He was a child, just a young child, despite the pleasure he took in the mischief he made, vexing Omar several times every day; he could be my child, I found myself thinking before I wondered aloud where that idea had come from. “Fancy that,” I said, “my boy.” He was not as dirty as the smell suggested—someone was caring for him, there was no doubt about that—and I pictured Ahmed’s mother, holding my hand as she talked with Omar, so grateful for the work we had given to her son. Dead now. Doubtless buried already, as Muslims bury their dead quickly.

Mohammed arrived with fresh water. “Help me,” I said, and together we propped him up using the pile of dirty clothing as a pillow. Once we moved him, he began to cough weakly, and he opened his eyes. “Missy,” he said, using the name he’d adopted for me. He continued speaking in a broken voice.

“What’s he saying?” I asked Mohammed, who repeated the boy’s words using the same slow and careful enunciation he had used earlier.

“The little brown owl, he said, the little brown owl came to his door and looked at him and flew away and he knew then that you would come to find him, Missy.”

“See if you can get him to drink. I’m going to fetch Lady Duff Gordon’s medicine box.” As I stooped to clear the doorway I realized that I’d spoken Arabic without pausing to think, without first formulating the English, then planning the translation.

Life in the French House went from calm and slow to urgent and fast-paced that day. A strange epidemic was upon the village, a gastric condition that produced as its symptoms chronic stomach pain, constricted bowels, and terrible fever. Left untreated, one simply weakened, poisoned, then died. Though I went home with the sole intention of getting her medicine box, my Lady herself insisted on returning to Ahmed’s house with me. “I’ve nursed my share of sick children,” she said, “and I know the contents of this dreadful box of tricks better than anyone.” In fact, there had been several occasions on
Zint el-Bachreyn
during our Nile journey when a boatman had been injured and the medicine box produced, its poultices, tinctures, salts, and wraps providing far more sophisticated treatment than any of these men, the
reis
included, had received or witnessed elsewhere. My Lady had become quite adept at treating minor injuries and ailments, and my own skill at physicking when she was ill was already well established.

However, Omar and I spoke at the same time: “You must stay here, my Lady, you must not—” We stopped speaking and looked at each other, shaking our heads and frowning in agreement.

My Lady folded her arms firmly. “I want to see Ahmed. We shall go together, Sally, you, and me.”

My Lady was aghast when she saw Ahmed’s condition and heard what had happened to the boy’s mother. She insisted we transport him to the French House, where a bed was made up for him in a cool and quiet alcove. There he could be nursed properly.

When the villagers heard that Ahmed was receiving treatment, they began to arrive at the door of the French House to ask my Lady to treat their own families who had been brought low by the epidemic. Mustafa Agha came to the house that afternoon to warn my Lady not to treat them. “You’ll contract the fever yourself,” he said, to my relief. My Lady might pay heed to Mustafa Agha’s advice.

“Nonsense,” she replied. “How do we know this disease is infectious?”

“Half the village is sick!”

I had wondered myself how the disease was transmitted, but I kept quiet; my Lady had a theory that the villagers were eating too much green corn and green wheat and this, combined with the religious fasting, had led to the sickness.

“I’ll dose them with castor oil and that will clear out the digestive tract,” said my Lady.

“Lady Duff Gordon,” Mustafa Agha replied, and his expression was very serious—Mustafa Agha was rarely entirely serious—“if your treatments do not work for the
fellahin,
they’ll accuse you of poisoning them, or giving them the evil eye.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! Is it better to leave them to languish with terrible stomach pain? Sally,” my Lady ordered, “go and fetch my lavement machine.” The machine, a collection of tubes and sacks and pumps and funnels, was stored in a cloth bag at the bottom of the largest trunk; while I unpacked it I could hear my Lady arguing with Mustafa Agha in the next room. “We’ll give them castor oil,” she repeated, “and if that doesn’t work, we’ll treat them with my lavement machine.”