Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters

by Lesley M. M. Blume

  “‘Ahlan,’ he said to Gladys, and she disappeared into the house. My stomach almost turned over, for I was sure that the house would collapse on top of her.

  “After what seemed like the longest few minutes in the history of the world, she reappeared at the door and peered out at us.

  “‘Come in, you fools,’ she said. ‘We’re in the right place.’ She stalked out, grabbed her purse from the trunk, nodded at Ahmed, and went back inside.

  “Beatrice cleared her throat and exclaimed, ‘What is she doing?’

  “Overcome by curiosity, I followed Gladys into the tattered-looking house. The boy still stood at the front door, holding it open for me. ‘Ahlan,’ he repeated politely as I walked through the door into the house.

  “To my astonishment, the inside was absolutely nothing like the outside. Night and day could not have been more different. I had expected to find a disgusting house filled with spiders and rotting wood and who knows what, or who, inside.

  “But instead, I walked into a gleaming blue and white palace, fresh and cool as spring water. Towering palm trees grew right out of the marble floor, which is where I got the idea for this living room, and dozens of colored-glass lanterns dangled above our heads. Powerful white pillars soared up to the high ceiling, which was made of thick glass. During the day, the piercing blue Moroccan sky and sunlight shone through it, and after sunset, you could see thick twists of white stars in the inky black night.

  “I heard the sound of trickling water and noticed a star-shaped fountain in the middle of the room. Made of glistening white marble, it shone in the pale sunlight streaming in from above. We had stumbled into the most unlikely oasis in the Marrakech medina.

  “Gladys perched herself on the edge of the fountain. Alexandra and Beatrice tentatively came through the front door and exclaimed, ‘Oh!’ at the same time.

  “‘Ladies,’ Gladys declared knowingly. ‘I’m surprised at you. We’re from New York City, after all. The Somerset girls, of all people, should know never to judge a room by the door leading into it. The more secret and hidden a place is, the better it is.’

  “She took off her ladylike jacket and shook it, sending dust billowing into the air. It made a halo-like cloud around her in the sunlight. We were home at last.”

  Cornelia realized that the mint tea in her glass was now cold. She had been so wrapped up in Virginia’s story that she hadn’t taken a single sip.

  Virginia stopped talking and stretched a little bit.

  “Goodness, I hope I’m not boring you,” she said to Cornelia. “Give me an audience, and I’ll talk all afternoon.” She reached down and scratched Mister Kinyatta. The dog had curled himself into a ball and fallen asleep. His raspy snores sounded like little pig grunts.

  “I’m not bored,” said Cornelia. “Gladys was pretty brave. I would have been scared to go into that house.”

  “Yes, she was just like an elephant sometimes,” said Virginia. “She would barge through any door in front of her, whether it was open, shut, locked, or nailed up.”

  Cornelia nodded. “Madame Desjardins is like that too, but not in a good way,” she said. “She’s always barging into my room.”

  “Well,” said Virginia thoughtfully, “have you considered booby-trapping the door? Maybe some sort of lever system that would fling a pie in her direction? That might work. Privacy is very important and it deserves to be vigilantly protected.”

  Cornelia smiled and ducked her chin. She’d never heard such an elegant adult use the word “booby-trap” before.

  “Do you have time for another story?” she asked shyly. “I want to know what happens next.”

  “Oh, I suppose so,” said Virginia. “If you insist.”

  “We settled very quickly into our disguised palace in the medina. Alexandra and Beatrice were painters, you see, and they set up their easels in the garden behind the house and painted for days. I began imagining on paper what sort of history had happened in our secret Moroccan manor. Gladys played cards with Ahmed and Pierre and won all of their money.

  “When we took breaks from these various occupations, Pierre showed us around Marrakech and the countryside. We went once to the ancient market—called the souk—and to the hills around the town and looked at the old mosques and lavish, brightly colored Moroccan gardens.”

  “I like that word,” said Cornelia with satisfaction. “Souk. It’s a pretty fancy way to say ‘supermarket.’”

  “Oh, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, my dear,” said Virginia. “Souks are not like sterile American supermarkets. In fact, they couldn’t be more different. They are mazes of rickety stalls, teeming with people and filled with fish and cooking meats and huge barrels of pungent spices. Silver trays, copper teapots, and gold necklaces. Clucking chickens, hissing snakes, newborn lambs. Everything under the sun, even magic love potions! And it’s all for sale. Souks are madhouses, I’m telling you.”

  “But Gladys was not satisfied with these occasional outings. Pierre began to cart her around everywhere with him, even on errands, but Gladys soon wore him out. She then made Ahmed take her all over Marrakech at all hours.

  “One afternoon, Gladys and Ahmed were out for an especially long time. When they returned, Gladys joined Alexandra, Beatrice, and me for mint tea in the palm garden behind the house. As Gladys reached out for a glass, Alexandra looked at her sister’s plump hand and shrieked.

  “‘Gladys Somerset! Did you get tattoos?’ she cried, and recoiled.

  “Gladys’s fingers were covered in brown patterns, as if they’d been painted with a fine watercolor brush.

  “‘Oh, quit yapping. It’s just temporary henna paint,’ said Gladys as she reached for a honey pastry called baklava. ‘This old woman in the souk painted me, and she did my feet too. In fact, she even painted a little anchor on my arm like the captain of the Mauretania. Apparently, Moroccan brides have it done before they get married.’

  “‘Gladys,’ Alexandra said. ‘Here’s a news flash: you are not a Moroccan bride.’ Beatrice and I giggled.

  “Several days went by. One afternoon, it got extremely hot out and restlessness set in. Pierre and Ahmed had the day off and we had no one to show us around. We lazed in the house’s cool marble tearoom and listlessly tried to think of something to do. Gladys threw herself about on a settee and sighed noisily behind a book.

  “‘Let’s go to the souk,’ she said at last as the settee creaked and groaned under her.

  “‘Are you kidding?’ Beatrice answered. ‘We’d get lost in about two seconds in that crazy jungle of shacks.’

  “‘You don’t know your way around, but I do,’ said Gladys. ‘I know it like the back of my hand by now.’

  “‘Forget it,’ said Alexandra, fanning herself with a palm frond.

  “But once Gladys got a bee in her bonnet, she could be relentless. She pestered and cajoled and nudged us until finally we let her lead us like a tour guide into town.

  “We had walked only a few dusty blocks from our house when we heard drums banging, followed by jangling bells and ladies trilling in high, shrill voices. All of the sudden, a parade of about fifty women rounded the corner and fanned out across the street, singing loudly and shaking instruments that looked like tambourines. They were clad in long bright dresses—sky blues, tangerine oranges, sunshine yellows—and veils covered their faces. They rumbled toward us like a thunderstorm.

  “The sunlight shone brightest on a woman in the middle of the crowd. She wore the most ornate dress and veil and moved very slowly, her eyes cast down. Henna designs covered her delicate hands and feet, and we realized that this was a bridal procession. We clapped as they passed by, but the women took little notice of us. They disappeared around a dusty corner and the sound of their parade faded as they walked farther away. Then it was quiet again.

  “Eventually Gladys led us triumphantly into the city’s enormous main square, the Djemaa el-Fna. Surrounded on three sides by the souk, the middle of the square was filled wi
th hundreds of people—buying things, selling things, shouting, running, mixing potions, charming snakes, skinning dead animals. All of them stopped and stared at us as we walked into the crowd. As you might have guessed, Cornelia, in 1949 in Morocco, you rarely saw four young American ladies strolling around on their own.

  “‘Stay together!’ shouted Alexandra. She grabbed Beatrice’s arm and I grabbed hers. Gladys barged through what seemed to us to be a wall of people. One man waited until we were about two feet away from him, and then he whipped the top off a basket at his feet. An angry cobra popped its head out and hissed at us. Beatrice blanched and we ran away, knocking into people behind us. The man gave a toothless laugh and clapped the top back down on the snake.

  “‘Everyone is pointing at us,’ Beatrice cried. I let out a loud whoop as someone gave my bottom a hard pinch, and several men behind me laughed. I glared at them and scurried along next to my sisters. Soon Alexandra let out a yelp as the same thing happened to her.

  “‘All right, all right—I know how to put an end to this,’ Gladys said.

  “She plowed through the crowd toward a small stall selling traditional Moroccan women’s clothing, and sorted through a pile of brightly colored clothes. ‘Arbaha,’ she said to the owner of the stall, holding up four fingers and pulling out her coin purse.

  “‘Here are some disguises, so we blend in better,’ Gladys told us, handing us each a dress. ‘They’re called haiks.’

  “We ran to the edge of the square and slipped on our new outfits over our own clothes, looking sneakily around us.

  “‘What’s this?’ asked Alexandra, examining part of the garment.

  “‘A veiled hood to hide our faces,’ said a muffled Gladys as she thrashed around inside her roomy dress.

  “I tugged at my hood until I could see out through the veil. It was as hot as blazes inside. The only way I could tell the twins apart was by the colors of their dresses: Alexandra wore green and Beatrice wore red. Gladys looked like a big round orange under her haik. Now we could prowl around in the souk undetected.”

  “I would hate to wear a haik,” Cornelia piped up. “It sounds completely incommodious.” This meant “uncomfortable.”

  “Good word, Cornelia S.,” complimented Virginia.

  “You’re right—it wasn’t the most pleasant thing in the world at first. But we Somersets have always loved theater and drama, and the haik was like a costume. Think about all of those heavy costumes that opera singers have to wear onstage all the time, the poor things. At least the haik was relatively light and roomy.”

  “Suddenly we heard the high, piercing shrieks of the bridal procession again. I turned around to have a look, but I stepped on my long dress and stumbled forward. Before I even knew what was happening, the women in the parade swept me up and carried me away with them. Confused and unsteady, I feared that the crowd would trample me into smithereens if I tripped again and fell down. I covered my ears to blot out the deafening sound of women singing and tambourines shaking.

  “I caught sight of Beatrice’s red dress and grabbed her hand as we muddled along. ‘Where are Alexandra and Gladys?’ I shouted to her.

  “‘I’m behind you!’ yelled Alexandra, and she tugged the back of my haik.

  “Great cheers erupted from the crowds in the streets around the square as the bridal party pushed on. Then someone grabbed my arm and jerked me sideways out of the procession. I yanked my veil off and took several deep breaths of the dusty air. Alexandra, who had grabbed me, and Beatrice did the same.

  “‘Where’s Gladys?’ I gasped.

  “‘She must still be in the parade,’ Beatrice said. ‘I tried to grab her arm, but she was too far away for me to reach her.’

  “‘We can’t lose her!’ exclaimed Alexandra. ‘Run after them!’

  “So we began to chase the bridal parade as it wound into the maze of the souk. It finally halted in front of a big building like our secret house back in the medina. The ladies gave one last holler, and then all fifty of them filed into the house, with the bride in the middle of their crowd and Gladys mixed in someplace as well. Just as we reached the building, the last woman swept in and the doors closed with a thud. Beatrice tugged on one of them, but it stayed shut.

  “‘Now what are we going to do?’ Beatrice wailed. ‘Poor Gladys.’ She paced back and forth in front of the building.

  “‘Let’s be rational,’ I said. ‘This is a wedding, right? And at a wedding, there are guests. So, when guests start arriving, we’ll slip in and pretend that we’re invited. Hopefully, we’ll find Gladys—if they haven’t sent her off to jail yet for trespassing—and then we can scramble out of there.’

  “Eventually the front doors opened and guests began to arrive. We decided that we’d look less suspicious if the room was full of people, so we lurked around in an alley along the side of the house for a while. Fortunately, the bride and groom appeared to know half of Marrakech, and the room filled up quickly.

  “‘Ready?’ I asked, putting my veil back on. We tried to look very formal as we strolled up the front stairs of the house.

  “An usher greeted us at the door. ‘Ahlan wa sahlan,’ he said as he handed each of us a glass of mint tea. We nodded silently and walked into a large room filled with guests and waiters who walked about with trays of figs and almonds. At the far end of the room, the bride sat on a throne. She had changed into an even more elaborate dress, and a gold crown glistened on top of her veiled head.

  “‘It’s about a thousand degrees in here,’ Beatrice whispered in my ear. ‘I bet the bride is absolutely dying under all of those layers.’

  “She paused, and then said, ‘You know what? Now that I’m getting a closer look, that bride seems pretty chubby all of the sudden. She didn’t look that big on the street.’

  “We edged closer to the throne to inspect her. I glanced at the astonishing henna patterns covering her hands and feet. Then I squinted at the left forearm of the bride and did a double take. Amidst the designs of leaves and stars, I saw a henna anchor! I almost passed out.

  “‘Beatrice and Alexandra,’ I whispered. ‘I’ve found Gladys.’

  “Alexandra gasped and marched right up to the throne. ‘Gladys Somerset—have you lost your mind?’ she hissed, hoping that no one overheard. ‘Who do you think you’re fooling? We know that’s you under there!’

  “The ‘bride’ stirred a little under her costume. ‘Help me, Alexandra,’ Gladys wheezed from under the veil. ‘This underdress is as tight as a boa constrictor. I can barely breathe. And for your information, this whole mess is not my fault.’

  “‘What do you mean, it isn’t your fault? You’re pretending to be the bride at someone else’s wedding! Have you gone crazy? What happened to the real bride?’ Alexandra huffed.

  “‘Well, on the way over here, I got smushed up next to her in the parade,’ said Gladys from under the veil. ‘Nice girl. Spoke good English. Anyway, she said that the groom was horrid and mean and that her parents were forcing her to marry him. But she’s in love with a goat farmer from Casablanca and wants to marry him instead. So she begged me to switch places with her and I simply had to oblige. When we got here, we went to the bathroom and switched outfits, and she popped out the window.’

  “Gladys shifted her bulk on the throne. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I think I’m in quite a pickle,’ she added glumly. ‘You and Beatrice and Virginia better do something pretty quickly, or I’m going to end up with a no-fun husband.’

  “Alexandra strode back to me and Beatrice and told us what was going on. We sweated in our haiks as we tried to think of a solution.

  “‘We need to create a diversion before the ceremony starts,’ Alexandra whispered, eyeing the groom as he walked around the room greeting guests. ‘I have an idea. I’m going to create a big ruckus outside the front of the house. When the guests run to the front door to see what’s happening, you push Gladys off that throne and out the back door.’

  “
She threaded her way through the crowd in the room and out the front door. Beatrice and I ambled nervously up to the throne and told Gladys to get ready to make a run for it.

  “Several long minutes passed. Suddenly I heard the sound of something crashing into a herd of metal garbage cans in front of the building, and outside Alexandra shouted at the top of her lungs, ‘Aaaaaaaaaaaah! My leg is broken! Oh, the agony! I’ll never walk again! My life is ruined!’

  “The music stopped immediately and the guests and waiters scrambled to the front door to see what the fuss was about. Alexandra continued to wail outside.

  “And then, as onlookers from the wedding hall rushed to her aid, she said, ‘Oh, maybe it isn’t broken after all. Heh, heh—what do you know? I can walk again! It’s a miracle!’ The jig was up.

  “‘Now, Gladys—before it’s too late!’ I whispered loudly.

  “Gladys pitched forward off the throne as heavily as a marble statue. The three of us ran out of the room, down a hallway, and into another room at the back of the house. Gladys staggered around like a wounded rhinoceros. ‘I’ve got to get out of this dress,’ she moaned.

  “‘There’s no back door!’ I shouted. ‘What are we going to do?’

  “‘We’ll have to go out the window,’ Gladys said as she threw her crown onto the ground and wrenched herself out of the dress. ‘I refuse to go back in there and marry that man.’

  “We squeezed ourselves out of the window and sprinted down the dirty alley behind the house, ripping off our haiks as we went. We must have run half a mile before stopping near a mule barn to catch our breath.

  “It was only then that I realized that Gladys was clad only in her underwear. A donkey turned his head to look at us and began to bray, as if laughing with all of his might.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Cornelia. “What did Alexandra crash into all of those cans?”