The Golden One Read online

  “When do you leave?” Nefret asked steadily.

  “It will take a while to make the necessary arrangements,” Ramses said. She gave him a reproachful look, and he went on, “I’m not being deliberately evasive, dear. I need to learn all I can about our present dispositions in south Palestine before I decide on the best way of getting into the city. Then there’s the little matter of transport. They’ve pushed the rail lines as far as Rafah, but most of the traffic is military, and if I tried to pass as a British officer, it would mean being subject to orders from people who didn’t know who I was, or letting too many military types in on the secret. I don’t want even Cartright to know my plans: I politely refused several of his suggestions.”

  “You don’t trust him?” I asked.

  Ramses began pacing restlessly up and down the room. “I don’t trust any of the bas – - any of them. I still don’t know how Bracegirdle-Boisdragon fits into this; he’s made no further attempt to communicate with us, and when I posed a carefully phrased question to Cartright, he stiffly informed me that I was taking orders from him and no one else.”

  “It’s the usual interservice rivalry, as I said,” remarked Emerson, with a curling lip. “They keep more secrets from one another than from the enemy.”

  Ramses shrugged. He had said all he was going to say on the subject.

  “What makes them suppose Sethos – if it is he – will stay in Gaza?” I asked. “Ramses, you won’t go haring off to Constantinople or Jerusalem after him?”

  “Even if he’s left by the time I arrive, there will be news of him. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  He was being deliberately evasive now, and we all knew it. He was right, though; it was impossible to plan ahead.

  For the next several days we were all busy about our different affairs. At my insistence, we kept up the pretense that we were in Cairo for personal reasons – a little holiday away from the family, the need to do a little research at the Museum. We dined out every evening, at one of the hotels, with as carefree a mien as we could manage, and if Emerson shouted at the waiters more often than usual, no one thought anything of it.

  I remember one of those evenings with a particular poignancy. We were lingering over coffee after an excellent dinner at Shepheard’s and listening to the orchestra render a selection from The Merry Widow. Emerson came out of his fog of frowning introspection when he heard the familiar strains of the waltz, and asked if I would like to dance. I pointed out to him that the dancing had not yet begun. It did soon thereafter, and several couples took the floor. Emerson asked me again, and I pointed out to him that the tune was not a waltz. It was another of the ballads that had become popular in the past few years – the kind of song Ramses had once described as tools of the warmonger, with their sentimental references to love and duty and sacrifice. I knew this one very well. Nefret had played it the night we got the news of the death in battle of our beloved nephew Johnny.

  Ramses rose and offered Nefret his hand. I don’t know what had moved him to want to dance to that song; perhaps the memory of Johnny, who had loved music and gaiety and laughter, perhaps a sudden need to take her in his arms. In my opinion the new dances were not nearly so pretty as the waltz, but they certainly offered the opportunity for close embraces.

  It was always a pleasure to watch them dance together, they moved with such matching grace, even in the clumsy (in my opinion) two-step. She was wearing a gown of pale blue voile printed with little flowers, a copy of a favorite garment of Ramses’s that had been worn to shreds and discarded. Her skirts floated out as he turned her.

  My sentimental husband cleared his throat and reached for my hand. There was no need for speech; we were both thinking the same thoughts: of Johnny, only one of the millions of gallant young men who were lost forever; and of another young man, even dearer, who was about to disappear into the dark underworld of war. Would we ever see our children dance together again?

  “Yes,” I said emphatically.

  So closely attuned are my dear Emerson and I (some of the time) that he required no explanation. He squeezed my hand. “Yes,” he repeated. “How are your arrangements coming along, Peabody?”

  “Very well. And yours?”

  “I will be ready when the time comes.”

  Ramses was in and out at odd hours; all he would say, when I questioned him, was that he was exploring various sources of information. He spent a good deal of time alone with Nefret. I did not begrudge them this, but I could not help asking her, one morning when we were alone, whether he had told her anything I wasn’t supposed to know.

  “If I had promised not to tell you, I wouldn’t,” she said with a smile that took any possible sting out of the words. “But there’s nothing.”

  “Are you all right, Nefret?”

  “Yes, of course. Why do you ask?”

  “You are too calm. More than calm – serene. Misty-eyed.”

  “Good Gad, Mother!” She burst out laughing. “You do have a way with words. Perhaps I’ve become a fatalist. If I could go with him I would, but I’m beginning to realize – finally! – that my whining and my clinging only make it harder for him. There are some dangers one must face alone.”

  “True,” I said thoughtfully. “However, there is nothing wrong with attempting to minimize the danger if one can.”

  “You’ve got something in mind, haven’t you?” She looked alarmed. “Mother, don’t tell me unless you want Ramses to know. We keep nothing from one another.”

  “And quite right, too. Perhaps I had better not, then. He would only fuss. Fear not, my dear, I won’t do anything that might endanger him.”

  I had not expected Ramses would give us much notice of his departure, so I went ahead with my own schemes as quickly as was possible. Sure enough, my son turned up one afternoon in time for tea, with the news that he would be leaving immediately.

  “There’s a new batch of Labour Corps ‘volunteers’ going off tomorrow. I’ll stay with them as far as Rafah, where I am to meet Chetwode.”

  At the beginning of the war, Britain had promised the Egyptians they would not be asked to take part in the conflict. That promise, like so many others, had been broken. Some of the poor fellows who made up the Labour Corps had volunteered, but most had been conscripted by local magistrates to fill their quotas. I didn’t doubt Ramses could blend in perfectly; for a man who had played the parts of beggars, camel drivers, and mad dervishes, a peasant from Upper Egypt presented no difficulty. It sounded like a very uncomfortable method of getting where he wanted to go, but there was no use asking Ramses to explain.

  “Ah,” I said. “In that case, we had better start packing.”

  Ramses must have known there wasn’t a hope of persuading us to remain in Cairo, but he tried.

  “Mother, too many people already know about this supposedly secret expedition. The three of you marching purposefully on Gaza will be a dead giveaway. You’re too well known, especially Father.”

  “Ah, but we will be in disguise,” Emerson said.

  Emerson loves disguises, and is not allowed to indulge in them as often as he would like; he looked so pleased, his lips parted in a broad smile, his blue eyes shining, that Ramses hadn’t the heart to object. Instead he gave me a critical look. “You’ve worked it all out, haven’t you, Mother? Nefret, why didn’t you tell me about this?”

  “She knew nothing of it,” I said quickly. “I couldn’t ask her to keep secrets from you, now could I?”

  “Oh, God.” Indignation and reluctant amusement mingled on his face, to be replaced by remorse. He went to Nefret and took her hands in his. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

  “Your apology is, for once, appropriate.” She looked up at him with a smile. “I accept it. Mother only told me she had the situation well in hand. I didn’t ask for details. I trusted her, and I suggest you do the same.”

  “Don’t worry, my dear,” I said cheerfully. “Your father and I have it worked out. He has a dear old friend in Khan
Yunus -”

  “Of course,” Ramses said resignedly. “Mahmud ibn Rafid. Is there any place in the Middle East where Father doesn’t have a ‘dear old friend’?”

  “Not many,” said Emerson, smoking. “Khan Yunus is only ten miles south of Gaza, and Mahmud owns a villa there.” He chuckled. “When he told me ‘My house is your house,’ he may not have meant it literally, but he cannot object if I take him up on the offer. He’s scampered off to Damascus, so that will be all right. It is quite a comfortable house. Even your mother will be pleased with it.”

  I doubted that very much, but at such a time I would have settled into a cave or a tent in order to be nearby when Ramses carried out his hazardous mission. “Quite,” I murmured. “Emerson, I presume you have made the other arrangements we discussed? I cannot think of anything I dislike more than a long journey by camel, but there seems to be no alternative.”

  “Ah, but there is,” Emerson said. Self-satisfaction is too weak a word for the emotion that illumined his countenance and swelled his broad chest. “I will give you three guesses, Peabody.”

  A hideous sense of foreboding came over me. “Oh, no, Emerson. Please. Don’t tell me -”

  “Yes, my dear. I have acquired a new motorcar.” Avoiding my stricken expression, he turned to Ramses and explained. “It’s a splendid vehicle, my boy, one of the T Model Ford Light cars the military has been using. It has -”

  “How did you – uh – acquire it?” Ramses asked.

  “Ah, well, you know my methods,” said Emerson with a grin.

  “You stole it!”

  “No. Well. Not exactly. It has -”

  “You can’t drive it yourself, you know,” I interrupted. This obvious fact had occurred to me once I got over my initial consternation, and it cheered me quite a lot. “Think how absurd you would look at the wheel, in turban and caftan.”

  “I have considered that,” said Emerson, with great dignity. “You said you would leave the problem of transport to me.”

  “Hmmmm. Frankly, I do not see how we can drive all that distance without getting bogged down in sand dunes and blowing up tires; but if all goes well -”

  “It won’t,” Ramses muttered.

  “If it does, we should arrive within a few days of one another. Mind this, Ramses; you are to report yourself to us before you go to Gaza. You know where we will be. For our own peace of mind and for safety’s sake, we want to be made cognizant of your plans. Have I your word?”

  “Yes.” He hesitated for a moment, and then shrugged. “You’ll have to follow the road, so I suppose the worst that can happen is that you’ll break down and be forced to accept help from the military. Speaking of peace of mind, I would like to be made cognizant of your plans. Is Father to be a wealthy aristocrat – a wealthy, bearded aristocrat – and Mother his favorite wife?”

  “No, that is Nefret,” I explained. “I am the older wife.”

  Ramses exchanged bemused glances with Nefret. Her open-mouthed astonishment convinced him, had he doubted it, that she had known nothing of my scheme. He laughed a little, and shook his head.

  “Mother, you never cease to amaze me. I hope you enjoy yourself. As the older wife you will be in a position to bully Nefret – and Father.”

  “Ha,” said Emerson meaningfully.

  Ramses was gone next morning. When Nefret joined us for breakfast she was a trifle hollow-eyed and pale, but that might have been a normal reaction to such a hard parting. I did not feel I had the right to ask what they had said to one another – my sympathetic imagination supplied a good deal of the dialogue – but I did venture to inquire whether Ramses had been angry about our following him.

  “Resigned, rather,” Nefret said, toying with her toast.

  “Eat something,” I ordered. “We are leaving in an hour and it will be a long, hard day. The first of many, I fear.”

  “Not at all,” said Emerson. “The T Model Ford Light car -”

  “I don’t want to hear about it, Emerson. Eat your breakfast.”

  “I have,” said Emerson indignantly. “You are the one who is delaying us.”

  To have left the hotel in disguise or in the vehicle Emerson had acquired would have aroused speculation. We went by cab to Atiyeh, the village where the northern branch of Abdullah’s family lived, and there we found no other than Selim awaiting our arrival. He was disappointed when I failed to register surprise at seeing him.

  “It was logical,” I explained. “Once I learned of the motorcar. I am pleased, Emerson, that you didn’t insist on driving it yourself.”

  “I had a number of reasons for bringing Selim along, all of them excellent, and all of them, you will claim, obvious to you. Let us not waste time discussing the subject. Is the car ready, Selim?”

  “Yes, Father of Curses. It is,” Selim said enthusiastically, “a wonderful motorcar. It has -”

  “What about supplies?” I asked.

  “Everything is in order, Sitt Hakim,” Selim said. He looked doubtfully at the piles of personal luggage I had brought. “I think there will be room.”

  There was, but just barely. Nefret and I would have to sit on some of the parcels and put our feet on others. There was not even space on top of the vehicle, where Selim had fastened several long planks.

  The whole village gathered to wave good-bye and shout blessings. It would have been impossible to conceal our expedition, whose ostensible purpose was to examine certain ruins in the Sinai. Selim had asked them not to speak of it, and since they all knew about Emerson’s frequent disputes with the Antiquities Department, they assumed we were planning to excavate without official permission. Sooner or later someone would tell the story, as a good joke on the authorities, but as Emerson philosophically remarked, it didn’t matter much; by the time the gossip reached General Murray, it would be too late to stop us.

  As an additional precaution we waited until we were well away from the village before we assumed our disguises. Emerson’s consisted of shirt and trousers, an elegant long vest and flowing robe, and, of course, a beard. Instead of a tarboosh or turban, he covered his head with a khafiyeh – the flattering headdress worn by the desert people that frames the face in folds of cloth and is held in place by a twisted cord. It shadowed those distinctive features more effectively than a turban and protected the back of his neck from the sun.

  Nefret and I bundled ourselves up in the inconvenient and uncomfortable ensembles worn by Moslem ladies when they travel abroad. Ramses always said that if a disguise is to be successful, it must be accurate in every detail, so Nefret and I were dressed from the skin out in appropriate garments: a shirt and a pair of very full trousers, with a long vest, called a yelek, over them; and over the yelek a gibbeh; and over the gibbeh the additional layers of the traveling costume – a large loose gown called a tob, a face veil that reaches nearly to the feet – and on top of it all a voluminous habarah of black silk which conceals the head and the hands as well as everything else.

  Emerson and Selim both stared when Nefret removed the scarf that had covered her head; I had dyed her hair before we left the hotel, and it made quite a difference in her appearance.

  “What did you do that for?” Emerson demanded. “Her hair will be covered.”

  “Not from other women in the household,” I replied, applying brown coloring to Nefret’s smooth cheeks. “And one must always be prepared for accidents. That red-gold hair is too distinctive.”

  Selim nodded and grinned. He was in a state of boyish exuberance, flattered by Emerson’s confidence and looking forward to the adventure. He had not been told of Ramses’s mission, nor of our real purpose. That did not matter. He had complete faith in Emerson – and, I believe I may say, in me – and rather fancied himself as a conspirator.

  I can best sum up that journey by saying that camels might have been worse. Without Selim’s expertise and Emerson’s strength we could never have got through. The first part of the trip was not too bad, for the Corps of Engineers had improved the r
oads from Cairo to the Canal. We crossed it at Kantara, on one of the pontoon bridges, and it was here we met our first and only check by the military. Huddled in the tonneau amid piles of parcels, enveloped in muffling garments that concealed everything except our eyes, Nefret and I waited in suspense while Emerson produced a set of papers and handed them to Selim, who passed them over to the officer. Staring straight ahead, arms folded and brow dark, Emerson was a model of arrogant indignation. He did not move an inch, even when the officer handed the papers back and saluted.

  “How did you get those?” I asked, sotto voce.

  “I will explain later,” Emerson grunted, as Selim sent the car bumping over the bridge.

  We camped that night in a little oasis not far from the road, and a great relief it was to stretch our cramped limbs and remove several layers of clothing.

  “We are making excellent time,” Emerson announced, as Selim got a fire started and Nefret and I sat by the little tent he had set up. So far I could not fault Emerson’s arrangements, though I was inclined to attribute some of them to Selim. Emerson would never have thought of the tent. Concealed in its shadow, away from the flickering firelight, we allowed ourselves the luxury of removing not only the face veil and habarah but the tob and gibbeh. The air had cooled rapidly after the sun set, as it always does in the desert.

  Selim insisted upon doing the cooking, and while he arranged his pots and pans, Emerson produced the set of papers he had shown the officer. I studied them with a surprise I was unable to conceal. They bore the signature of none other than the high commissioner, Sir Reginald Wingate, and testified to the moral character and loyalty of Sheikh Ahmed Mohammed ibn Aziz.

  “Where did you get these?” I demanded. “Not from Wingate?”

  “Good Gad, no.” Emerson began digging around in the luggage. “What did you do with my pipe?”

  “I didn’t do anything with it since I didn’t know you had brought it,” I retorted. “Isn’t a meerschaum out of character?”

  “The devil with that,” said Emerson, extracting pipe and tobacco pouch. “As for the papers, you will never guess how I got them.”