by Alice Duncan
Chapter Eleven
Wow, talk about your teeming masses! I’ve never seen so many people as there were at that dingy little train station in Cairo. And hot? Merciful heaven, but it was hot in Cairo. I feared for the length of our stay there. Fortunately for us, one of the Cook’s people was there to meet us and he swept us off to the grand and glorious (that’s what Harold called it) Shepheards Hotel, which had been a haven for the wealthy tourist for decades. After we got there, I had to agree with his assessment of the place.
“The tour will begin the day after tomorrow,” our Cook’s guide told us, seemingly unaffected by the blistering heat, perhaps because his robe and turban were blindingly white. “Bright and early.”
Harold checked us in to the hotel, and much to my surprise a bundle of letters awaited me. Naturally I’d been writing to my family practically every day from the moment our journey had begun, but I hadn’t expected anyone to write back, mainly because I’d be on the move. I perked up considerably when I clutched the small stack of envelopes.
“Your family loves you, Daisy,” said Harold. “I think it’s grand that they all care so much.”
But my attention had been diverted by the return address on one particular envelope. Why in the name of heaven would Sam Rotondo be writing me?
“Daisy? Are you still with me? Are you feeling faint from the heat?”
“What? Oh. I’m sorry, Harold. I was just . . . surprised by this letter. It’s from Sam.”
Harold’s eyebrows rose and waggled, and he looked like a villain out of an old-time melodrama. “Aha. Is there dirty work afoot? Does he want you to solve a crime?”
I gave him a good frown. “Nuts. Sam’s always made pains to keep me out of the investigations he’s worked on.”
“Not always,” said Harold in a voice as dry as the weather.
“Well, yes, but that was only once.” And both Harold and I had been arrested for our efforts. Oh, very well, to be completely honest, we’d been picked up in a raid on a speakeasy—where I had not gone to drink and carouse but rather to conduct a séance—and that’s what had precipitated my involvement in the case in question.
“Let’s go to our rooms. I’m sure they have fans in the rooms. We’ve got first-class accommodations, according to my travel agent.”
“Good idea.”
“I’ll come to your door at fiveish, and we can take tea on the famous balcony of Shepheards, which overlooks the busy streets of Cairo. Maybe we can locate a fakir charming a cobra or something.”
“I thought fakirs with cobras lived in India.”
“They’re got ‘em here, too. Mother told me all about them.”
“My goodness.” My provincial mind could hardly make heads or tails of the sights I’d already seen, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for more of them. Yet here I was, poised for further exotica whether I was ready or not. But first I wanted to read Sam’s letter. And the rest of them, too, of course. It’s only that I’d expected communications from my mother, father, aunt, sister, brother and nieces, friends, etc. I hadn’t expected to hear from Sam until I got home to Pasadena in another month or two. Or three.
The first thing I did once I’d been seen to my room and my things had been disposed of, not by me but by a servant, was arrange my letters. By the way, I don’t think I’d ever get used to being waited on hand and foot. I’d make a lousy queen.
I had intended to read the letters from my family first, but discovered myself tearing open Sam’s missive, my curiosity enormous. It read as follows:
Dear Daisy,
I hope you don’t mind me writing to you. I keep remembering Billy telling me to keep an eye on you, and I can’t do that now that you’re thousands of miles away in Egypt. But I wanted you to know that you’re in my thoughts, and I’m keeping an eye on the rest of your family while you’re away.
Enjoy yourself. Please send me a postcard from Egypt.
Respectfully,
Sam (Rotondo)
Talk about your basic cases of astonishment! He hadn’t written a single, solitary scolding word. To tell you the truth, I was touched, and I itched to take up pen and paper and write him back instantly. However, I read through the rest of the missives like the dutiful kinswoman and friend I was:
Ma was fine.
Pa was fine.
Aunt Vi was fine.
My sister Daphne, her husband Daniel, and their two little girls were fine.
My brother Walter and his wife Jeanette were fine.
Mrs. Pinkerton was fine, and gushed all over the paper about how wonderful I was. I’d have taken her words more to heart if I didn’t know I was a fake who’d been falsely taking money from her for years and years. Not that she didn’t want to be taken advantage of. But I think we’ve already covered the Pinkerton situation.
Even Johnny and Flossie Buckingham were fine.
So why didn’t I have a mad desire to write all of them back, but only Sam?
Fortunately, before I could come up with a satisfactory answer to my question, Harold knocked on my door. “Time for tea, Daisy!” he called out cheerily.
“On my way,” said I, wondering if I should have changed my clothes. The dress I wore, the same sleeveless gray one I’d worn on the train, was kind of rumpled. Maybe Shepheards frowned upon rumpled people. Oh, well.
I opened the door and asked, “Do I have to change clothes to take tea on the balcony?”
Eyeing me up and down with no particular relish, Harold said, “I wouldn’t have hurt you to have changed into something a little less dismal, but I know you’re determined to carry out this mourning thing until you’ve wrung the last of its discomfort from it.”
“Harold!”
“Sorry, Daisy. It’s just that I prefer you in brighter colors.”
“Yeah, well let something happen to Del and then tell me how bright you feel and for how long, Harold Kincaid.”
“You have my profound apologies, Daisy. Would you like me to grovel at your feet?”
I smacked him on the arm and said, “Let’s go get some of this tea about which you speak and see if we can find ourselves a fakir. Other than me, of course, but I’m another kind of faker.” I grabbed a straw hat on my way out, in case hats were de rigueur at Shepheards.
And, boy, did we! Find fakirs, I mean. There were also were dozens, if not hundreds, of dirty little children begging for money—or “baksheesh,” as it’s called there—and innumerable Egyptian guides everywhere, eager to rent rides to tourists on donkeys or camels. I eyed the camels with speculation. They were the dromedary variety. I remembered that from a lecture Billy had given us at the dinner table once, in which he’d explained the differences between dromedary and Bactrian camels. I never thought I’d get to ride on either type, and I still wasn’t altogether sure I wanted to. Those things were tall and, from what Billy had read in the National Geographic, they weren’t the best-tempered of beasts.
“I love the blankets they have on the camels, Harold,” I said as a very proper waiter whose dark skin proclaimed him some type of native specimen pulled out my chair for me. “Look at how beautifully they’re woven and in such intricate patterns, too. The colors are gorgeous.”
“They probably all smell like camel,” said Harold, destroying any romantic thoughts I’d begun to harbor for camels, which, granted, were few at that point.
Although it was only five or so in the afternoon, the heat still bore down on us in waves, making me glad for the umbrella on our table and for the straw hat whose ribbons I had tied under my chin. Harold sported a pith helmet. I didn’t tell him so, but he looked kind of silly in his “tourist” uniform, which consisted of a tailored white linen suit and that pith helmet. As soon as we sat and were under the shade of the umbrella, he shucked the helmet, probably because it had made his head sweat. I could tell, because his thin hair was plastered to his head.
“I don’t know how much of this heat I can take, Daisy,” he said. “I’m sorry I dragged you all the way out
here.”
Shrugging, I said, “It gets this hot in Pasadena. Sometimes.”
“Not very bloody often.”
“True, but as long as we’re here, we might as well take in a pyramid and the sphinx and stuff like that.” I hoped I wouldn’t cry when I looked at all the amazing Egyptian monuments Billy had told me about. He’d been fascinated by Egypt, probably because so many astounding things were being discovered there around that time.
“I suppose you’re right,” said Howard, wiping his face with his handkerchief.
A waiter came over, and I let Harold order for the both of us, since he was accustomed to giving orders to waiters and I wasn’t. When the “tea” arrived, I was amazed that, along with the beverage, a platter containing about a thousand little tiny sandwiches and cakes accompanied it.
“Egypt is still a British protectorate,” Harold explained. “So I asked for a proper English tea.”
“English people eat all this for tea? What do they have for dinner and how do they fit it in on top of this?”
Pouring out a cup of steaming tea for me—I’d have preferred cold lemonade, but I didn’t want to make a fuss—he said, “This meal would be considered dinner for the lower orders of the British Empire, my dear.”
“You mean people like me?”
He nodded. “Indeed. It’s only the very wealthy who can afford to have this kind of tea in the afternoon. Then they go to their theaters, balls and parties and eat supper at midnight or so.”
“Good Lord, really?”
“Well, to tell the truth, I think the custom is fading out, but yes. That’s the way it used to be.”
“So the people who do all the work have sandwiches and cakes and tea for dinner?”
“Not exactly. They eat their final meal of the day then, but they still call it having tea.”
“How long are we going to stay in England on our way back home? Maybe I’d better study up on the language and culture. It sounds more complicated than Egypt.”
With a laugh, Harold urged me to try one of the tiny sandwiches, all of which had their crusts removed, naturally. “Try one of the cucumber sandwiches. They’re good.”
“If you say so.” I peered at the tray Harold held out to me, trying to find myself a cucumber sandwich. I wasn’t hungry, but I did want to please Harold, who had gone to a whole lot of trouble for me. At the risk of being rude, I pointed at a sandwich. “Is that a cucumber sandwich?”
“How the devil should I know? Take a bite out of it and you tell me.”
So I did. And it was. A cucumber sandwich, I mean. It wasn’t bad, and it wasn’t heavy, and I appreciated that aspect of it particularly.
“Oh, look,” said Harold. “There are tomato sandwiches, too.”
“Don’t they put anything on them but tomatoes? Heck, Aunt Vi would combine the ingredients and give us tuna-fish with cucumbers and tomatoes both on the bread.”
“Different cuisines, sweetie.”
“I guess so.”
After tea, which didn’t last very long, since I couldn’t eat more than a bite of two of the sandwiches and didn’t want any of the cakes, Harold and I decided to stroll across the street to see the gardens. Billy had told me about the gardens, too, and my heart hurt when I thought I should be with him on this trip and not Harold. But if Billy had lived, we never could have afforded to visit Egypt, and even if we’d come into a pile of money, Billy’s health wouldn’t have allowed him to take the trip, so it didn’t make much difference. Why was life so difficult? You needn’t attempt to answer that question. It was rhetorical.
The aroma of the roses and other flowers was very pleasant, and I again wished Billy could have been with me. Stupid thing to wish for, but there you go. After we’d wandered about a bit, Harold said, “Well, it’s a nice garden, but it’s too damned hot out here. I say we head for the hotel and rest until dinnertime.”
“Good idea. I have some letters to answer. When’s dinnertime?”
“I’ll come to your room at eight. Will that be all right with you?”
“Perfect.” It didn’t matter to me what time we ate—or didn’t eat. Maybe by eight the two bites of sandwich I’d taken at tea would have disappeared and I’d be hungry.
The first letter I answered was Sam’s. Don’t ask me why.
Dear Sam,
Thank you for your letter. I truly appreciate it.
The trip, so far, has been interesting. I was kind of seasick on the voyage over on the ship, but the trains have taken us through some fascinating country. I really liked Constantinople, which people are now calling Istanbul.
I contemplated that last sentence. Had I liked Istanbul? Well, I’d found it interesting, but you couldn’t use the word “interesting” in every sentence because that would get boring. Nuts. I tried again.
The people both in Istanbul and Cairo are, for the most part, Moslem. You probably know that already, just as you probably know the Egyptians keep their women clad in black from head to foot, and they only have little slits for eyeholes so they can see where they’re going when they’re out and about. The robes themselves (I’m sure there’s an Arabic word for them, but I don’t know what it is) look comfy, but I sure wouldn’t want to be covered from head to toe in this ghastly heat. I think August is definitely the wrong time to see Egypt. Anyhow, women in Turkey are given more scope in their choice of dress, and while I saw a lot of head scarves and things, I didn’t see any women muffled from head to toe in fabric. On the other hand, we were only there for a short while.
Still and all, tomorrow Harold and I are going to visit the pyramids at Giza and maybe ride on a camel. Billy always wanted to do that. There’s a train that takes passengers to the pyramids. Somebody on the train from Istanbul to Cairo told me that people used to have to ride donkeys from the hotel to the pyramids. I’m glad we no longer have to do that.
I sat still, chewing the end of my pen and wondering what else to write. Was I being too chatty? Not chatty enough? I reminded myself that Sam had been Billy’s best friend, and that he’d helped me out of a jam or two, that my folks liked him, and dipped the pen in the ink bottle once more.
Well, I have to write return letters to my family now, so I’d better sign off for the time being. Thanks again for your letter, and please keep in touch. I’ll tell you all about the pyramids when I write again.
Contemplating my last paragraph, I wondered what had prompted me to write it. When Sam read it, he’d know I’d written to him first. Did I want him to know that?
“Aw, nuts,” I muttered as I lay down my pen, folded the letter, stuck it in the envelope—both paper and envelopes, by the way, were thoughtfully provided by the hotel itself—licked the gummed flap and closed the stupid thing. So what if Sam knew I’d written to him before I’d written to my parents? And did I really want him to keep in touch?
“Who cares?” I growled at the room.
Then I wrote basically the same letter to Ma, Pa and Aunt Vi and my brother and sister; penned a more effusive, but much shorter, letter to Mrs. Pinkerton in which I said I could feel the spirits of the pharaohs all around me. That, of course, was pure bunkum, but she expected stuff like that. If I could really sense spirits, I’d probably be overwhelmed by those of the however billion common folk who’d lived and died in Egypt during the last several thousand years, the ratio of pharaohs to common folk being what it was.
I decided to drop a note to Johnny and Flossie, too, but thought I’d get them one of those pretty postcards with scenes of Egypt I’d noticed at the front desk. And I probably should get a funny card for Pudge Wilson. Thinking I might as well do that now, since eight o’clock was still an hour and a half away, I slipped out of my room and walked to the elevator, or “lift,” as they called it there.
While searching through the rack of postcards, I heard a voice close by. The voice addressed me.
“First trip to Egypt?” the voice asked in a pleasant, clipped British accent. I looked up to see a tallish man, ve
ry blond and handsome and impeccably dressed in the same sort of white costume Harold had chosen to wear at tea only without the pith helmet, reaching for a postcard of his own.
I wasn’t accustomed to being accosted by strange gentlemen in strange places—or heck, even in Pasadena—and at first thought maybe I shouldn’t answer him. Then I figured what the heck, and said, “Yes. You?”
“Oh, no. I come here often on business. Egypt is one of my favorite places on earth.”
Somewhat surprised, I asked, “Even in August?” Then I felt stupid.
But the fellow only offered me a gentle laugh and said, “It’s hot in August, all right, but it’s always fairly hot here. Egypt gets into the blood, though, if you study it enough.”
“It does?”
“It does.” He tilted his head and studied me. “Do I detect an American accent?”
He must have seen me stiffen slightly—I mean, who the heck was he to be quizzing me over a stack of postcards, for Pete’s sake?—because he said, “I beg your pardon. I don’t generally address young women whom I don’t know. Please allow me to introduce myself. Wallingford Stackville, at your service.”
“Daisy Majesty,” I said in a neutral voice, “and I don’t believe I need your service, but thank you.”
“Oh, dear, I’ve upset you. I beg your pardon again.”
“Think nothing of it,” I said, and went back to studying postcards. After a good deal of thumbing through cards, I purchased one of a colorful caravan of camels and white-clad men traveling across the Sahara desert, one of the pyramids at Giza, one of a boat traveling on the Nile and a funny one of the face of a camel showing all his—or her. I couldn’t tell its gender—crooked teeth. Then, without giving my unwanted companion another thought, I went back up to my room and wrote a note on the caravan postcard and addressed it to Johnny and Flossie. I addressed the boat-on-the-Nile postcard to my nieces and the one with the pyramids to Edie and Quincy Applewood. And Pudge Wilson got the snaggle-toothed camel. He’d love it.
Chapter Twelve