And yet, there was no place for Gertrude Bell in the British plans. She had drawn the boundaries of Iraq and willed it into existence, but she would not be high commissioner. Percy Cox would rule.
She set her cup down, and stood, and looked north, her expression pulled taut as a pale, thin glove. “I can work with Feisal,” she said then, but not to me. “He’ll need a friend. Someone to guide him. Good God, the poor man’s never even been to Baghdad!”
She raised her voice and beckoned to the others. “All right, everyone,” she called out ringingly. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”
We gathered and remounted, an excruciating process now that we’d had time to stiffen up, but as we drew closer to our destination, the scent of clover blew in from the riverbank, freshening the air and our dispositions. At the distance of two miles, the pyramids seemed to hover in a tremulous haze of sand, grand and imposing above the palms. An hour more, and then—
Well, it doesn’t matter how many photos and paintings you have seen. The pyramids will take your breath away. They are immense in a way that is incomprehensible unless you experience them up close and in all four of Professor Einstein’s dimensions: length, breadth, height, and time.
What will it mean to you if I say that the Great Pyramid is an almost solid mass of stone that covers thirteen acres? That each block at the base was a third the size of a railroad boxcar? Not much, I imagine.
All right. Try this: the Great Pyramid appears from a distance to terminate in a point, does it not? In fact, the apex is a flat square platform nearly thirty feet on a side, so large that an ordinary home in Cedar Glen would fit on it with room to spare. Such an imaginary penthouse would sit forty-eight stories above the desert—and at that, the Great Pyramid is only a suggestion of its original size. Three thousand years old when Jesus was a child, it has served Egyptians as a quarry for millennia. Most of its smooth limestone facing stones were carried off for reuse long ago. What you see today is only its rougher, smaller core. Yet even in that reduced state, it was the tallest man-made object on earth through all of human history until 1889, when the Eiffel Tower was erected.
Around that corrugated mountain of hewn rock, hundreds of tourists dominated the landscape while mobs of half-naked children cried “Baksheesh! Baksheesh!” and robed men in tarbooshes offered their services as guides. The Great Pyramid itself swarmed with climbing trios of steadily diminishing size. Nearly every foreigner was accompanied by two Egyptian stevedores who clambered up and over the shoulder of each huge block of stone, then reached down to grab the raised hands of their freight. Thus they hauled the tourist up by his arms, from one ledge to the next, chanting relentlessly in English singsong: “All right! Very good! Hard work! Pay soon!” Politely, they left off what seemed to me implied: Or prepare to be hurled to your death, should you fail to meet our remunerative expectations, O wealthy representative of colonial power!
Detective Sergeant Thompson was easy to pick out in the multitude, since he stood a good deal taller than your average man, English or Egyptian. Moving in his direction, I waved to him and called, “Are you going to make the climb?”
He opened his mouth, closed it, started again to say something, and thought better of it. “No,” he said finally, and carefully, and quietly. “I feel like I’ve been beaten with clubs.” He started to jerk his head toward Churchill in the distance, but winced and curtailed the gesture. “At least he’s decided we won’t go on to Sakhara after all. Just the bloody Sphinx, then back to the hotel.”
Indeed, merely walking around to the other side of pyramid was more than enough exercise to satisfy the most athletic and ambitious among our party. The stepped pyramid at Sakhara was impressively visible to the south and I’m sure it was very interesting, but it was all I could do to hobble the last little distance to the Sphinx, where our camels would be waiting for us.
To make even that small additional effort seemed unlikely to be worth the trouble but, once again our pain was rewarded by the stunning difference between anticipation and reality. The Sphinx is larger, more somber, and more surprising than one can prepare for, no matter how familiar its image. Its body was said to be that of a lion at rest, though it looked to me like a monumental Labrador retriever. Each huge paw was fully fifty feet long, by my pacing measurement. The head would require a three-story house to contain its volume; the ears alone are just over four feet from top to bottom. Sadly and famously, its nose is mutilated, but the face remains quite beautiful. With the impassive dignity of a handsome Negro man, its stony eyes have seen empire after empire rise and fall, and disappear into the desert.
“Yoo-hoo!” In a parking lot nearby, Lady Cox was waving a hankie to get my attention. “Miss Shanklin, where is everyone?” she called in a shrill voice that cut like a train whistle through the sightseers’ babble.
I picked my way across the sand. Lady Cox and I exchanged stories. Mine was filled with discomfort and wonderment, hers with boredom and annoyance. “I’ve been waiting hours,” she complained.
“We’re going to have a photograph,” Clementine called out just then. “Everyone! Get back on the camels for the picture!”
There was a fair amount of French commentary on that notion. We were all wretched. Hips, shoulders, back, knees—everything ached, and every point of contact with the saddle felt raw. Joints and muscles had begun to seize up like a Model T engine after its crankcase has jolted apart on a stretch of rutted road. I hated to think what I would find when I undressed. Blisters, boils, bruises …
Nevertheless, most of the British remounted at Clementine’s request, and that photo is in the history books. There we all are: the people who invented the modern Middle East and those who came along, or fell in with them by chance. The Sphinx is nearby, the pyramids in the distance. You can see Clementine and Winston, Miss Bell, Colonel Lawrence, and Sergeant Thompson high on camelback, along with several officers in uniform. I hung back, shy as always of being photographed. Clementine insisted, so I hurried over and stood next to Lady Cox. You can see the two of us, on foot, off to the left. We are standing next to an Arab whose name we did not ask.
Mercifully, Lady Cox offered me a ride back to Cairo in the consulate car; I accepted with gratitude. When young Davis asked, “Did you enjoy the day, miss?” I hardly knew what to say, for if the world offers a more lacerating, bone-shattering, muscle-wrenching mode of transportation than riding a camel, I never discovered it. And yet, memories of that day are among the most vivid of my time in Egypt. Indeed, they remained among the most vivid of my life, and I would not have traded them for an experience more comfortable or luxurious.
I returned to the Continental Hotel early that evening in a state of utter aching affliction. Karl was the very soul of understanding and lifted Rosie into my arms for her delirious greeting when he realized I was too stiff and sore to bend over and pick her up myself.
“Ach! Agnes! I well remember my own first journey on a camel,” he said, and insisted I take some aspirin immediately. He’d had my room tidied. The morning’s flowers were artlessly arranged in a lovely faience vase. “A gift,” he said. “Rosie and I found it in a shop this afternoon.”
While Karl ordered something from room service, I retreated to the bathroom. Within minutes I was nude, as I had imagined I’d be early that morning, but soaking alone in a tub of warm, scented water that Karl had drawn for me himself. Half an hour later, Rosie announced the arrival of room service, and I climbed, whimpering, out of the water. A light supper was waiting for me when I hobbled out of the bathroom, tying the belt of my silk wrapper over my nightie.
The sun set. I ate an omelette. Karl prepared a pipe and listened while I told him everything I could recall of what Miss Bell had said. In one way, to share it all seemed homey and natural, and brought to mind the evenings when Mumma and Papa had discussed their plans to begin a business together. At the same time, it was exciting to feel a part of something clandestine and important.
It was premature
to draw out the British ground troops, Karl thought. “Trenchard will need a year at least to build the air bases. The army should remain for now.” He was also wary of the man the British had decided to work with on the Arabian Peninsula. Ibn Saud openly wished to conquer the Hejaz and Mesopotamia, Karl told me. His goal was to spread Wahabism, an ascetic form of Islam to which no one outside his tribe adhered.
“Can the British truly believe that ten thousand pounds a month will buy Ibn Saud’s friendship? They’ll simply end up financing the trouble he makes for them. What a pity that Sufi Muslims are outnumbered!” he remarked. “No one thinks of them, but the Middle East would be better if they ran it.”
He was also quite gloomy about Miss Bell’s map. “This Iraq of hers makes no sense—politically, tribally, religiously.”
“Miss Bell seemed to think that Lawrence’s friend Feisal could bring the region together,” I said.
“Perhaps, for a time, but all men are mortal. What will happen when Feisal dies? A very real civil war, I fear, to end a very artificial state. No,” Karl said decisively, “I see nothing to be gained by Miss Bell’s new boundaries, and I am surprised Lawrence compromised on this. His plan was sensible. Keep the three Ottoman districts separate: Kurds in the north, Sunni in the middle, Shi’a in the south. Unless …” Puffing on his pipe, Karl looked out the window toward the deepening aquamarine where a thumbnail moon was rising. “Perhaps the idea is to play the Kurds off against the Arabs and the Persians. Cox may believe he can use native rivalries to prevent them from organizing a resistance against British influence.”
Karl sat for a time, lost in thought, and when he came to himself, he seemed slightly boggled. “And so! Just like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. “The Treaty of Sèvres is abrogated: no homeland for the Kurds after all. And nothing for the Armenians. Two nations, brushed aside in the name of compromise.” He lifted the teapot and topped off my cup before asking, “And what of Palestine?”
“No one mentioned it.”
“Odd. I heard that Sir Herbert Samuel arrived for the negotiations yesterday. He’s the high commissioner for the Palestine Protectorate.”
I thought back, but nothing came to mind. “I don’t recall hearing that name at all, but— Oh, I keep forgetting! Lawrence has invited me to come with the British party that’s visiting Palestine!”
I expected Karl’s usual response: Agnes, you must go! Instead, his face clouded over. “I’m not certain this is a good idea, Agnes. Churchill is unpopular here, but he is truly hated in Palestine.”
“Do you think I should decline?” I chewed a bit of buttered toast, trying not to look delighted at the idea of staying here with Karl. “Lawrence wanted to show me where my sister used to teach, in Jebail, just north of Beirut. That’s where he and Lillie met before the war, but perhaps you could take me there instead?”
He said nothing, and there it was again: a silence that felt like punishment. Even a few seconds distressed me, and the old habit of appeasement and ingratiation reasserted itself, as though a switch had been thrown.
“Karl,” I said tentatively, “wouldn’t it be useful to you? If I were to go with them, I mean? People just talk to me. I don’t think they realize …”
“ … that you are a woman of intelligence?” he suggested.
“Well, I guess I just look so harmless, nobody imagines— And really, I just listen, but maybe I—I could—I could be useful.”
“Mother’s little helper.” With a deep breath, he looked away, deliberating. At last he made up his mind. “Lawrence would not have invited you, I think, if he were not confident that you will come to no harm. All right,” Karl agreed. “You must be careful, but yes! This is an extraordinary opportunity.” There was a long moment while he held my gaze, and then he added, “For both of us, I think.” And I felt a sort of bone-deep relief, as though Mumma had told me that she was pleased by a gift I’d given her.
While I finished my supper, we discussed the vagaries of traveling with Rosie. She certainly made everything more complicated, but I could not have imagined leaving her at home in Ohio. “And if you had, we never should have met,” Karl said. “So I am glad that you brought your wursthund with you.” In the end, we decided that Rosie would be perfectly happy to let Karl feed her sausage for a few days. He had business in Alexandria, but she could easily come with him on the train, whereas things were likely to be much less flexible on a British diplomatic excursion to one of the empire’s embattled protectorates.
Karl would make arrangements for the concierge to help me pack for the trip to Palestine tomorrow; the bulk of my belongings would be stored while I was gone. “And when you come back to Cairo, what would you say to a voyage up the Nile?” Karl asked, his eyes sparkling. “It is the least I can do for such a helpful friend.”
“That would be wonderful,” I said.
“It’s settled, then! Would you like more tea? No? Have you had quite enough to eat? Yes? Then it is time for you to rest.”
He turned down the bedcovers and gently took the robe from my shoulders, offering a steady arm as I climbed groaningly into the bed. Rosie, boosted up beside me, promptly nosed her way under the sheets, settling against my aching, blistered hip.
“I’ll come round for her in the morning,” Karl said softly, turning out the light. I heard the door latch click when he left, and nothing more after that.
I suppose you’re wondering if I was disappointed to be retiring alone that evening. After all, just that morning, I had made up my mind to— well, you know.
To tell the truth, I was rather relieved. Yes, of course, “Birds do it, bees do it,” as the song goes, but it was not so easy to throw off the fear that decades of spinsterhood had rested upon, and reinforced. Since Papa died, I had lived by the maxim “You can because you must.” Duties, tasks. Self-control, self-denial.
To delay a little longer—to wait a week or so for the next step— that seemed the better part of valor. Under the circumstances, then, to be fussed over and tucked into bed was not merely sweet but entirely satisfying—for the time being, at least.
When I get back from Palestine, I’ll be ready, I thought. And I slept very soundly that night.
MOST DOGS, WHEN THEY MEET your eyes, intend to intimidate you. For example, when a collie stares, he is giving an order: Be quiet, you! Go stand in that group where you belong! All the world’s a flock of sheep, to a collie.
Not so with dachshunds. Dachshunds gaze. When a dachshund like Rosie looks softly into your eyes, her sweet expression seems to say that you are the most important person she has ever met in her whole life. Moreover, she considers it a high honor and distinct privilege to be your pet. She’s only being nice. Within that absurd tubular body beats the heart of a princess. She gazes at you to demonstrate the very devotion she expects, but she is also issuing a warning: If you leave me home alone, you’ll be sorry.
Abandon a dachshund and upon your return, you may well be confronted with a small token of her displeasure. This, for the dachshund, is an undignified but necessary form of training. Eventually, you will learn your lesson, which is to take her with you everywhere. When you have finally accepted this, you will be generously rewarded for your good behavior by a jaunty, joyful companion.
I was an exceedingly well-trained subject. Leaving Rosie with Karl was awful. “I can’t stand it. Look at that face! Look at those eyes!”
“She’ll be fine,” Karl insisted, kissing my forehead. “She’ll have many walks and an entire sausage every day.”
“Don’t overfeed her.”
“Agnes, you’re going to be late for the train.”
“You be a good girl, Rosie. I promise, I’ll come back.”
“Agnes, if you don’t make a fuss, she won’t be upset. Into the taxi with you!”
Reluctantly, I did as I was told. Rosie, by contrast, set off happily with Karl on their first walk of the morning, her meaty little hindquarters sashaying gaily down the street. She never looked back, an
d as the taxi turned onto the bridge, it was I who had to reconcile myself to the separation.
The cab picked up speed and I watched the city slide by. Cairo was slow to awaken: dawn not so much greeted as slept through. Despite the wailing calls to prayer from every minaret, the commercial boulevards remained nearly empty until noon. A donkey cart loaded with dates might clip-clop along a road. A baker’s deliveryman might bicycle across a square, balancing a huge tray of fresh bread on his head while he pedaled. A sweet-potato seller might pass, pushing his rumbling wagon toward a market. Then quiet would descend again.
Thus, my taxi had hardly any competition in the streets that separated the Continental Hotel from the main Cairo train station. I smiled, thinking back to my adventures on the dragoman’s cart, amazed to realize that just ten days had passed since Rosie and I arrived here. In that short time, I had hobnobbed with diplomats, explored the great Egyptian Museum, sipped coffee with a child-bride’s husband, ridden a camel to the pyramids, and met the love of my life. One could hardly ask for more from a vacation, I thought giddily. And now, it was on to Palestine, and to the Lebanon beyond!
I paid the cabbie and followed the sound of British voices to the train. Passengers were assembling on the main platform, and the place was crawling with British soldiers. Suddenly, I found my path decisively barred, and though the soldiers were quieter about excluding me than the doorman at the Semiramis, they were equally determined, and I had nothing to prove I’d been invited. The longer we discussed the matter, the more likely I was to miss the train, and I’m afraid I raised my voice when pointing that out. To my relief, Detective Sergeant Thompson emerged from one of the first-class cars and saw the difficulty I was in. I expected him to come to my rescue, but he scowled and stalked toward me like an unusually menacing heron.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
I glanced over my shoulder. There was nobody behind me. “I—I’m going to Palestine.”
Dreamers of the Day Page 19