The Sacred River (37 page)

•  •  •

It was past noon by the time they stepped out of the doors of the church. The sun was high, white in a white sky, the light blinding, the heat radiating up from the sandy ground. A line of carriages waited outside the church, their drivers stretched out on the seats, the horses’ heads hanging, motionless apart from ears that twitched, tails that flicked over their haunches.

Two black-shrouded figures standing in a doorway called out greetings to Yael; she lifted her hand in a wave. She turned to her niece, took her hand, and drew her under the shade of a spreading tree.

“Harriet, dear,” she said, looking at her through her thick lenses, raising her voice over the rattle of the wheels of a passing carriage. “Is it your wish to return to London with your mother?”

Harriet shook her head. “No, Aunt Yael, it isn’t.”

“You know that I shall be staying on in Alexandria for the foreseeable future. I shall be moving to the house where we hold the clinic. I could provide a home for you, a modest one, if you feel your health and spirits are better here.”

“Could you, Aunt? Do you mean it?”

“Yes.”

Harriet felt a great rush of hope spring in her chest. Almost as soon as it arrived, it began to subside. She pictured Louisa’s sun-browned face, the shorn hair that had given her mother the air of a martyr, the alteration in her, so absolute since their departure from London. Louisa had cast off her stays and bustle, her high standards of housekeeping, her concern for Harriet’s every breath. She wanted only to gaze at the flowers in the garden of the villa or watch Suraya’s children playing. Sometimes she sang.

“Mother isn’t herself, Aunt Yael. I have to look after her.”

Yael did not disagree. She fingered the crucifix she wore around her neck, holding the two outstretched arms of the cross between her thumb and forefinger.

“Don’t make the mistakes I made, Harriet. If you are not to marry, then don’t spend your days doing what the world wishes you to do. Find out what the Lord wants for you, dear, now that you are well again. And
do it with thy might
. Did you care for Mr. Soane?”

Again, Harriet shook her head. “I thought I did. I care for someone else. Do you remember the man with his piano, Aunt?”

“Indeed. Did it arrive safely? Very difficult items to transport, pianos.”

“I think of him day and night.”

“Does he wish to marry you?”

Harriet averted her eyes.

“I believe he has a wife already.”

“I see. Well then, you must put him out of your mind entirely, Harriet.”

Harriet nodded, unable to meet the gray eyes that mirrored her own.

Yael patted her hand.

“Marriage is not the only way to a life. And you know that what I have will one day be yours.”

“Thank you, Aunt. But that is a long way off.”

“I daresay.”

Yael raised her hand for a cab and a brougham drew up beside them. It was their final farewell. Yael was going to distribute rations at the clinic; she opened the place every day. She and Louisa had said their goodbyes after breakfast; Harriet had been surprised by the affection that seemed to have grown between them.

Yael spoke to the driver in Arabic and helped Harriet up onto the seat. As the driver cracked his whip on the ground, the horse raised its blinkered head and moved away from the church, under a thin avenue of trees, their leaves unmoving, drooping with thirst. Harriet turned and waved.

Sitting alone in the cab, passing on into the old part of the city, Harriet stared out. Merchants sat cross-legged in front of empty shops and children played marbles in the dust; veiled women stood in twos and threes in dark doorways; beggars slept on straw mats in the shadow of the mosque. The city looked strangely lifeless, as if in wait for something.

•  •  •

In the Cairo railway station, Eberhardt Woolfe stood in a place from which he could keep an eye on the great clock. He had a cup of Turkish coffee in his hand and his suitcase was on the ground at his feet. It was empty. He had not been able to think of anything that he required, other than to find Harriet. The train for Alexandria departed in fifteen minutes and his ticket was in his pocket. On arrival he intended to go directly to the office of the Anglo Ottoman Bank, find out the whereabouts of the villa, and go to her.

The clock struck the half hour and he finished the coffee and hurried toward the platform.

FIFTY-NINE

Yael stood at a table, running the last of the round green lentils through her hands, feeling the seam at the bottom of the sack. It was mid-afternoon and the rations were almost finished. The women and children had come in a rush, departed without lingering for their usual chat with her and one another, the stories for the children. Only a few of them remained, including Um Fatima, helping out, as she sometimes did, in Suraya’s place. Her husband had been released and was close to being able to walk again.

Yael felt subdued. Bidding farewell to Louisa at breakfast time, and then to Harriet after the service, she had put on a cheerful enough face. It was her choice, made of her own free will, she reminded herself, to stay on alone. But she felt daunted nonetheless.

“ ‘Thy kingdom come,’ ” she said silently. “ ‘Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’ ” She poured the last scoop of lentils into a cloth bag, added a dozen papery-skinned onions from the wooden crate at her feet. She heard a rumble from outside that sounded like thunder, and wondered if there was a summer storm brewing.

Spooning rough gray salt into a cone of newspaper, she twisted the top shut, then dropped the salt into the bag on top of the onions. Yael had torn pages from the Arabic version of the Bible and was using them to wrap the slivers of soap that she gave to the women with the food. Cleanliness was next to godliness.

She looked up at the last of the mothers waiting for rations. It was Nur, her child standing next to her, her feet bare on the floor. When Yael had begun the clinic, the women who walked through the doors had been indistinguishable to her. They had all looked the same, in their black veils held between blue-tattooed lips, black-and-blue-striped gowns, slippered feet. She knew each one of them now by name. Nur’s name meant
light
,
and when she smiled, she radiated light, a dignity in the face of adversity that Yael found Christlike.

The child’s face was clean and so was her loose cotton garment. Her hair was combed and divided into two fine plaits, her face curious. Yael leaned forward over the table and touched the little girl’s cheek.

“Sacrebleu. Abracadabra. Here, Sitti Nur.”

She pushed the bag across the table and the woman dipped her knees in a kind of curtsy, reached for Yael’s hand, and touched it to her forehead, saying something in Arabic. Yael did not recognize the words but she understood the sentiment behind them.

She nodded. “Greenwich Mean Time. Polly, put the kettle on. Forever and ever. Amen.”

The distant rumblings outside the window intensified and the woman, instead of hurrying away with her provisions as the others had, spoke to her again, more urgently, in a stream of Arabic.

“
Je ne comprends pas
,” Yael said, straightening up. “Ave Maria. Mazel tov. God bless you and God bless your daughter.”

The woman took up the bag, balanced it on her head, the weight of the beans drooping down on each side of her face, and left. Um Fatima had gone already.

They had run out of oil, sugar, tea, onions, lentils. Soap. She would go to the market in the morning with Suraya. Alone in the room, Yael sat at the table and wrote a shopping list. Retrieving the donations from the congregation, from the back of the drawer, emptying the heavy mass of coins into her Gladstone bag, she raised her nose in the air and sniffed. Something was burning that was not meant for burning. Yael closed the drawer and let herself out. Locking the door behind her, she set off for home.

•  •  •

Louisa sat on one of the two striped couches in the drawing room of the villa, looking out of the open French doors at the garden beyond. The trunks were packed and locked, sitting by the front door. She and Harriet had eaten lunch together, after Harriet returned from church. Harriet had been subdued during the meal, as if preoccupied. She’d been to Yael’s church with her and said goodbye to her aunt there. Louisa assumed she was sorry to leave her. She’d been sorry herself, felt a wrench at parting from her sister-in-law that she would have believed impossible. It felt wrong to be leaving without Yael, but she had been resolute. After their conversation in the garden, Louisa had not tried anymore to persuade her.

It was four in the afternoon. Mustapha had gone out to get a cab to take them to the harbor; the boat sailed first thing in the morning and the passengers had to embark before nightfall. Sitting on the couch, her handbag on her lap, Louisa felt at peace. There was nothing to do but wait for Mustapha’s return, take the carriage to the harbor, then embark on one of the small boats that would carry them out to the steamer. Her death would come when it came. She prayed that she would be spared to see Blundell once more, to look on his face, feel his arms around her.

She sighed. Harriet was so quiet.

“Did you have enough lunch, Harriet?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Is everything packed?”

“Yes, Mother.”

Harriet was wearing the peat-brown travel skirt that she had worn for the journey out. She had washed her hair and been sitting in the sun in the garden, allowing it to dry. For once, Harriet had requested Louisa to brush it for her, as she used to when she was a little girl. Louisa had been glad to oblige, had enjoyed standing behind Harriet, drawing the brush through her soft hair, arranging it in a plait that ran down her back and fell on her newly laundered white cotton shirt. Harriet wore the orange scarf over her shoulders and, at her neck, the brooch that Anna had sent from India, the garnet fruits hanging from the branches of the silver tree. Her pocket with her book in it was tied around her waist. Despite her eccentric costume, Harriet looked well, in better health than Louisa had seen her for many years. Louisa took comfort from that. It was what she had wanted. It was what they had come to Egypt for.

“I can smell burning,” Harriet said.

Louisa sniffed the air. Laid over the lingering odor of the fried fish they’d eaten at lunchtime was the harsh smell of smoke. “Someone having a bonfire, I expect,” she said.

Mustapha tapped on the door and entered the room.

“Is the cab out—”

Louisa stopped and stared at the housekeeper in astonishment. In the dim golden light that found its way through the curtains, he stood very straight before them. He was dressed in his customary long white robe, his feet were as usual bare, and at his waist was a long curved sword, sheathed in leather. She wondered for a moment if he intended to murder them.

“What is it, Mustapha? Is the cab outside?”

“Madame, there is trouble in the town. It is better to stay here.”

“The steamer leaves tomorrow. I have the tickets.” Louisa reached into her bag, produced an envelope, and held it in the air. “We must go now.”

“No ships can leave tomorrow. You must hide.”

Outside, the sound of gunfire ripped through the air, the shots crowding impatiently into the atmosphere, tripping over each other.

Louisa rose from the sofa. “Whatever can be happening?”

The air in the room thickened to a haze and Harriet took Louisa’s arm.

“Don’t be alarmed, Mother. What kind of trouble is it, Mustapha?” she said.

“Bad trouble.” Mustapha held open the door, instructed them with a movement of his head to pass through it.

“Come, Mother.”

Harriet pulled Louisa out of the room. They hurried behind Mustapha through the kitchen, out the back door, and through the mud yard where he and his family lived. Children’s clothes hung from the branches of the tree in the middle and chickens scratched in the dust. Mustapha held open the curtain at the doorway to the apartment.

“No, Harriet,” Louisa whispered. “I cannot go in there.”

“Go on, Mother. Quickly.”

Harriet gave her a push and Louisa stepped over the threshold. In the dimness, Suraya rose from a stool, laid down a new baby. She wiped her right hand on her robe and extended it to Louisa.

“
Ahlan wa sahlan
,” she said. “Welcome.”

Straightening the cover on a low wood-framed bed, smoothing the pillows on it, she gestured for them to be seated. Louisa looked around her at smoke-blackened mud walls, a collection of earthenware jars on an open shelf, a copper kettle on a fire. She turned to Harriet as the commotion beyond the walls grew louder. Mustapha appeared again at the door and said something in Arabic to Suraya, his voice low and urgent. He let the curtain drop again. Underneath it, Louisa could see his feet walking across the yard among the fowls.

Gunfire sounded again, sharp, so close it might have come from the garden. Suraya gestured urgently and wordlessly that they should hide under the bed.

Harriet pushed Louisa under the bed, then crawled in behind her. They lay side by side underneath the sagging rope weave, the mud floor hard against Louisa’s hips and shoulders. It was hot in the small room, and airless. Louisa’s body was rigid. She had believed her life would simply expire, like a clock that ceased to tick. She had not imagined she would die like this. By violence. She felt a mortal fear that was new to her and whimpered.