by Francis King
Alexine frowned. The story of her purchase of Sunny had clearly spread.
Two guards were seated on the ground on either side of the iron-studded door to the harem. One got lethargically to his feet and pushed the door open for them to enter. Since there were bars on the windows, Alexine was surprised that the door was not locked.
As she entered the room, excited squeals erupted from the women. All of them jumped up from the divans on which they had been sprawling, and rushed forward in a powerful cloud of scent. The tips of their finger-nails were orange with henna, and many of their palms, outstretched to her in greeting, bore geometric patterns in black. One of them, the youngest present, little more than a girl, was nibbling at a sweetmeat. She now pushed all of it into her mouth and, having swallowed it, began daintily to lick at one finger after another. Another, gaunt and hollow-eyed, stooped and, without a word, examined the lace fringe of Alexine’s dress, lifting it in a hand. Looking down at this one’s bowed head, Alexine saw that the roots of her dyed black hair were grey.
‘Come! Come over here!’ The Mudir collapsed on to one of the divans and beckoned Alexine over. She went across and perched uncomfortably on its edge. The women now lined up raggedly, facing them. All of them stared fixedly at Alexine.
‘You like them?’
‘Yes, they’re charming. And all so different.’
He laughed. ‘I like change. Every man likes change. Now.’ He pulled in his chin and adopted a serious expression. ‘They wished to greet you with a song, but they know no Dutch song. So they will sing you a song taught them by a Scottish missionary lady. Sadly, now dead. She was bitten by a snake when looking for wildflowers. But she taught them this song.’ He said something to the women and then raised a forefinger. ‘ Listen.’
Hesitantly and raggedly at first but then in confident unison the women began to sing. What was the song? At first, Alexine was puzzled, rarely able to distinguish one word from another. But then she heard it – ‘Bring back, bring back’ – and she realized that, yes, it was ‘My bonnie lies over the ocean’. The women’s heads swayed from side to side in time to the beat – they might have been the well-drilled chorus of an operetta – and their bodies, some dumpy, some tall, some emaciated, some vast, some beautiful, also swayed. When they had finished, they all covered their faces with their hands and burst into laughter.
‘Now I wish you to hear an African song. This wife comes from the far south. She was a slave. I bought her two, three years ago.’ He leaned forward and called out something.
In response, a tall, extremely thin woman, her hair elaborately plaited close to her head so that it looked as if her pink scalp was enclosed in a net, picked up a stringed instrument propped against a wall and seated herself on a stool fetched for her by the girl-wife. She placed the instrument on her lap, her legs wide open, so that it looked like the upsided half of a water-melon, with a long, stringed neck sticking out of it.
She plucked a few notes meditatively, and then a few more. She paused. She looked up at Alexine and gave a small, slow smile. There was another plucking of notes, seemingly at random, one after another, with long pauses between. Then, suddenly, she gripped the instrument even more tightly between her knees, and began to produce a jangled frenzy of sound. She shut her eyes, she began to sing. Alexine stared at her, mesmerized. She wished that Harriet were present. The voice had a plaintive, husky quality, now gleaming as it soared and now darkening as it sank to what was little more than a gruff whisper.
At the conclusion, Alexine clapped. She was the only person present to do so. Without any acknowledgement, the woman got up off the stool, handed the instrument to the young girl, and then wandered off. She seemed to be deliberately making a point: she had sung for herself, not for this stranger, not for her husband, and not for the other wives.
‘Did you like that?’
‘Very much.’
‘Better than the English song?’
‘Not English, Scottish. Yes, I liked it better.’
‘The two songs are similar. A woman longs for the return of a man. Two places are so far apart but the feelings are the same.’ He said the last sentence as though he were making some profound observation. ‘Shall we leave now? We have our business to discuss.’
Back in his room, she was surprised to see that Daan had vanished.
‘Where is my friend? He hasn’t gone has he?’
Without answering, the Mudir took her arm and, holding it, guided her over to the divan on which she had been previously sitting. When, to her surprise, he lowered himself on to it beside her, he was so close that she at once shifted away from the inevitable contact. He looked sideways at her, smiling. ‘ Monsieur Thibault has told me of your wish. I think there is little hope.’ He edged towards her. ‘I will see what I can do, of course. For a woman as beautiful as you, I am willing to do anything. If the steamer were mine … But I merely look after it for the Governor-General in his absence. I do not know if he would wish … He might return at any time and demand to have the use of it. However …’ He sighed. ‘For you …’ He again shifted abruptly, so that his body was once more pressing close against hers. She could retreat no further from him, since she was already pressed against the wall. His hand descended on her knee. ‘ Dear mademoiselle – we must try to reach some sort of agreement. However difficult that is.’
Alexine jumped to her feet. She would have done so sooner, had she not been so curious to see what would follow next. She walked over to the window and once more gazed out at the prison-like building opposite. There were louvred shutters behind the bars. There was no way of looking in or of knowing whether anyone was looking out. The two squatting guards were both now asleep, their half-recumbent bodies resting against the iron-studded door. One of them had his mouth wide open.
‘Why have you gone off there?’ His voice was querulous.
Alexine turned. She laughed. ‘Please, Your Excellency. Please. I beg you. Let’s understand each other.’ She felt no anger and no fear. She knew herself to be totally in control of the ludicrous situation. ‘I am not looking for a husband, I am looking for a steamer. I’m prepared to pay for a steamer. But the only thing with which I’m prepared to pay for it is money.’
Now he too laughed. ‘Yes, you could be the daughter of the Queen – of Queen Victoria.’ He jumped up from the divan and went behind his desk. ‘Well, let us talk frankly. It is always best to talk frankly when doing business. May I put a frank question to you? How much money are you prepared to pay?’
‘How much do you want me to pay?’
It was one of the rare occasions on which Alexine was willing to bargain, taking the same pleasure in the contest as she took in playing piquet with Addy or chess with Daan. As usual, she paid far more than the other party had dared to hope for, but far less than she had feared.
When she eventually left the Mudir, she found Daan seated on a chair under a tree, puffing at his pipe.
‘What happened to you?’
‘They said I couldn’t smoke in that room of his. I thought you’d be much longer in the harem. Sorry, miss. Did you need me?’
‘No, thank you. I managed perfectly well on my own.’
Chapter Twelve
HARRIET WAS COMPILING ANOTHER OF HER LISTS. She had not fully recovered from her sudden bout of dysentery, even though Lucy had been dosing her with a morphine mixture brought with her from England, and an injudicious walk by the river that morning had given her a headache.
First she listed the boats at their disposal:
Steamer
Dahabiah (first-class accommodation)
2 other dahabiahs
3 nuggars
Then she listed the animals, which were to be carried in the two inferior dahabiahs:
A.’s horse
S.’s pony
4 camels
2 mules
40 donkeys
50 sheep
70 (?) hens
That completed, she began to add up,
hand to brow, the number of people taking part in the expedition. In addition to themselves, the six local servants and Sunny, there were sixty-five soldiers, who on the advice of Monsieur Thibault were all to be armed with muskets, and six more soldiers allocated to them by the Mudir as an additional protection. There were even more porters than on the journey from Cairo. Alexine had also announced, after consulting with innumerable people, a few expert but most merely ignorant busybodies, that further recruitment of porters would have to be made as soon as they had left the river to penetrate inland.
Lucy came into the room. ‘Sorry to disturb you. I wondered whether you wanted our cook to prepare the dinner or whether you’d like yours to do it.’
‘Oh, let ours do it. We pay him enough. And he’s demanding even more to accompany us on the expedition.’
‘You look done in.’
‘I am done in. These preparations are endless.’ Harriet threw down her pen. ‘The problem is that we don’t know how long we’ll be away. Three months, six months, nine months, a year? No one can tell us because no one can predict what will happen. So we have to assume that it’ll be a year and take enormous quantities of supplies to last us for that period.’
‘I hate to say this, but your whole party is far too big. The more people you are, the more food you need. The more food you need, the more boats, porters, donkeys and camels you need to transport them. And the more mouths you have to feed … Well, you can see. It’s a vicious circle. On his journeys, Roderick never takes more than a dozen or so people with him.’
‘Yes, I know, I know! But I’ve no idea how to break the vicious circle. Everyone says that we must have a large number of soldiers to protect us.’
‘I don’t envy you.’
‘I wish we weren’t going.’
‘Well, don’t go.’
‘If I don’t go, then Alexine will go on her own. Addy certainly won’t accompany her without me. I couldn’t let Alexine set off by herself.’
‘Why not?’
Staring into space, Harriet did not answer the question.
‘You’re very close to each other.’
‘She’s all I’ve got.’
A terrible weariness suddenly overwhelmed her. She crossed her arms on the desk and then rested her left cheek on them.
She felt Lucy’s hand on her shoulder.
‘It’s hard for you.’
Harriet suddenly brightened. She raised her head. ‘But fun.’
‘That girl’s here.’ Nanny Rose was at the door.
Harriet looked down at the diamond-encircled watch pinned to her bodice. ‘Isn’t she early?’
‘She’s always either early or late,’ Nanny Rose said. ‘No sense of. time.’
‘How can you bear to listen to that hooting and squalling?’ Lucy asked.
Harriet laughed. ‘ She’s improving.’
Three times a week Lola came over for a singing lesson. Sometimes she arrived by carriage, but often she walked over alone, striding out vigorously under a parasol one shaft of which was broken. She would often examine the shaft as she was closing or opening the parasol and say that she wished that she could find someone to mend it. On their departure, Harriet was planning to give her one of the three parasols that she had brought with her from Europe.
By now Harriet’s piano had been tuned, by the nineteen-year-old son of the Greek tailor. He had served only a brief apprenticeship to an elderly piano-tuner uncle in his native Smyrna, but was fortunate in possessing perfect pitch. After tuning the piano, he would beg Harriet ‘I’d play on it for him and then, leaning forward, one knee crossed over the other and eyes closed, would listen enraptured. Harriet said that at last to be playing on a piano totally in tune was like waking up one morning and finding that all one’s rheumaticky aches had disappeared.
‘Lola!’ Harriet had already grown fond of the girl, so eager, so enthusiastic, and so full of ambitions for a singing career that would never be realized for lack both of opportunities and of talent.
‘Madame Thinne!’ The girl swooped across the room, threw her arms around Harriet and kissed her on both cheeks. She smelled of healthy sweat from her walk as well as of the lavender water that Harriet had given her on their last encounter. ‘Are you better?’
‘Oh, it was nothing.’ Harriet hated to discuss her health.
The lesson over, Harriet and Lola set off for the market in the carriage that Alexine had rented for the period of their stay. The girl, overhearing Harriet complaining of the difficulty of communicating with those traders, the majority of whom did not speak any language but their own, had offered to accompany her. This had now become a routine at the close of every lesson.
As they set off, Harriet cried out: ‘Oh, I’ve forgotten my list!’
Lola laughed. ‘Oh, Madame Thinne! You and your lists! I’ve never kept a list in my whole life and I’m sure mama never has.’
‘Oh, no, here it is! I wonder why I put it in that pocket.’
Harriet had ticked off some items on previous expeditions to the market. But as she now glanced down, she saw how many things still remained to be bought: wine, pale ale, tea, tins of soup, pearl barley, soap, biscuits, packets of seeds, pins, needles, cotton, pens …
Suddenly she remembered something not listed. Monsieur Thibault had advised her to acquire a gutta-percha inflatable boat. It would be useful if they wished to explore some channel too narrow for their other craft. She searched her reticule for a pencil to add that item.
When Harriet returned, she was exhausted, and at once went up to her bedroom, drew the curtains, and, without removing even her dusty boots, lay down on her bed. But almost at once she was aroused by Addy’s voice outside the door: ‘Harriet dear! May I have a word with you?’
Harriet wanted to ask whether the word could not wait, but she knew how her sister was constantly fretted by impatience – often repeating the Dutch proverb ‘Do it and it’s done’, when it was suggested that something trivial but regarded by her as urgent might be deferred.
‘Yes. Come in, come in! What is it?’
‘I’ve been thinking about something. For days.’ Addy crossed over to the bed and sat down on it. She bounced. ‘You need a new mattress.’
‘Oh, I can’t be bothered to look for one on top of everything else … What have you been thinking about?’
‘Our trip. I know how upset you’re going to be – and how upset Alexine is going to be – but I’m afraid’ – she played with a tassel of the bedspread – ‘I just don’t think I’m up to it.’
‘Why? You’ve been perfectly well for weeks. Of course you’re up to it!’
Addy shook her head. ‘ I’ve – I’ve lost my nerve. I can’t face it. As you know, I almost died on the journey here. I really thought that I was dying. I can’t go through all that again. If I go with you, I know that this time I’ll die. Yes, I know it, I know it!’
‘Oh, you mustn’t have these morbid ideas. Anyway, at our ages, it won’t be all that long before both of us are dead. But we’re just as likely to die in our beds back at home as out here in the jungle.’
Again Addy shook her head. The two women gazed at each other. Harriet’s first feelings of shock and dismay had been transitory. Relief was now sweeping away all her previous feelings of weariness and discouragement. Why this relief? she was later to question herself with guilt and shame. Her love for her sister was second only to her love for Alexine; they had spent most of their lives together. But not to have Addy, constantly ailing and constantly complaining, with them was to be free of a responsibility as heavy as that of caring for that multitude of often stubborn, lazy, inefficient, demanding and quarrelsome employees.
‘But what you are going to do while we’re away? It may be months and months before our return. You’re not thinking of travelling back home by yourself?’
‘No. I don’t mind waiting for you. Here. I’m sure Lucy and Roderick won’t mind my staying on. Lucy and I get on well together. We’ve become good frien
ds. Really, we’re so unlike each other, but we have one thing in common. We’re both great readers. That’s a strong bond.’ She got up off the bed. ‘Oh, Harriet, don’t be cross with me! And I hope Alexine won’t be cross. I hate to let you both down. But I haven’t got your spirit. Not now. I did once, I think. But not now, not now.’
Harriet swung her legs down from the bed. ‘Well, it’s sad, very sad. But I understand, of course I understand. Do you want me to break it to Alexine?’
‘Oh, would you, would you? Please! You know – I’ve never confessed this to you before – I’ve always been rather frightened of her. Even as a little girl.’
Harriet smiled. ‘Sometimes I’m also frightened of her. Napoleon’s marshals must have been frightened in the same way of him.’ She hobbled towards the door. Her legs felt leaden and her feet were aching. ‘I must do something about finding that gutta-percha boat. I had no luck in the market. I wonder if Roderick has any ideas.’
Chapter Thirteen
ALEXINE WAS INFURIATED by the slowness of their progress.
‘Why can’t be get a move on?’ was her constant, increasingly angry question, as she marched about the steamer or, when they were merely adrift as the captain debated with members of the crews and even one of the porters or a servant which of two entirely similar channels they should take, listened in mounting impatience to a conversation that she was unable to follow. ‘ French, French!’ she would often order, ignoring the fact that, though the pilot could speak rudimentary French, as could the cook and the two personal maids, scarcely anyone else could do so.
The captain tried to explain: the problem was the constantly changing appearance of the sudd.
‘Sudd? What is this sudd?’ She had never heard the word in Dutch, English or French.
Again the captain tried to explain: it was a barrier, perpetually shifting hither and thither – he made a sinuous gesture with a hand – of floating vegetation, trees, roots and impenetrable mud.