A Grave Celebration

by Christine Trent

  Now Violet understood. “Sir, I am sorry to say that I do not know your son,” she said softly. Surely the shock of losing his business—for there was certainly nothing left to recover—was making him anxious for a son who had merely skipped out with friends. Or had perhaps returned without his father’s awareness and then fled with the sea of humanity that had rushed away from the fire. Violet suggested both of these possibilities to him, concluding, “I am certain he will return as soon as he is able.”

  The man cradled his head in both hands, rocking back and forth. “La, my lady, no. My son he is very reliable, very devoted to his father. He would never do either of these things you suggest.” He dropped his hands in resignation. “I must keep looking,” he muttered, and walked away, shoulders slumped.

  Violet suspected that following him to offer further condolences would not be appreciated, and so she turned once more to where de Lesseps and Pasha were still arguing, but in lower tones. Louise-Hélène looked in Violet’s direction and held up a hand to stop Violet’s approach. She whispered something to de Lesseps; then she and Isabelle picked up their skirts and made their way to Violet.

  Louise-Hélène’s expression was anxious and worried, and that distress had transferred over to the maid, who rubbed her hands together without ceasing.

  “Mrs. Harper, I’m glad I found you,” Louise-Hélène said breathlessly. Like that of the man Violet had just encountered, Louise-Hélène’s wild hair was coated in ash, so Violet could only imagine what her own visage was.

  “May I be of service to you, mademoiselle?” she replied.

  “It is terrible, just terrible, what has happened. What has the world come to? Poor de Lesseps,” Louise-Hélène said, her voice cracking and tears welling up in her eyes. There was no answer to be had, and Violet recognized in the girl a hysterical mourner who needed to be soothed.

  “Yes, mademoiselle, the fire is a great tragedy, and de Lesseps’s entertainments for the evening were rui— had to be ceased, but tomorrow is a fresh day and by sunrise everyone will have forgotten what has happened. In fact, they might consider it the most thrilling part of the festivities.”

  “Madame Harper,” Louise-Hélène said, looking strangely at Violet as though the undertaker were ready for the lunatic asylum, “the fire is not the great tragedy; the calamity is the dead body caused by the fire.”

  Violet was not often stunned into silence, but this was an exception. She shook her head. “Are you saying someone burned to death here tonight?” she asked incredulously.

  Louise-Hélène nodded. “Yes, he was found over there.” The girl pointed to where de Lesseps and Pasha were still in heated conversation. “I believe my fiancé and the khedive each blame each other for the fire and the man’s death.”

  Suddenly, Violet had a very sick feeling in her stomach about whose body lay there.

  She breathed deeply and removed all thought of being a tourist. Mentally donning her undertaker’s hat with its long black tails of crepe, she said firmly to the girl, “You must take me to him at once.”

  Louise-Hélène’s eyes widened. “You wish to talk to de Lesseps?”

  “No, I wish to see this man who was burned.”

  Isabelle gasped from behind her mistress, and Louise-Hélène said, “Non, madame, I could not possibly do so. I did not see the cadavre myself—de Lesseps would not permit it. I only know it—he—is there, behind the wood pile where de Lesseps and the khedive now stand.”

  Violet smoothed her skirts and wished that the empty tapestry bag in her hand were filled with the undertaking supplies still aboard Newport. “Very well, I shall find the body myself.”

  “Madame Harper, you cannot—” But Violet did not stop to hear Louise-Hélène’s admonishments, and soon heard the two women scurrying after her. Violet walked deliberately past the two arguing men, catching snippets of their conversation, which by now was mostly de Lesseps lecturing and Pasha pleading.

  “I have provided two thousand men to take care of this, as well as the Americans, de Lesseps. You have not—”

  “You were responsible for the evening’s entertainments, Isma’il. You cannot expect me to import Frenchmen to solve every problem for you.” De Lesseps was remarkable in his placid disregard.

  “There are limits to what I can do, sahbi. Limits.” Pasha’s words were threatening, but his tone was apprehensive.

  Violet was determined not to listen to this private conversation and ignored it as she rushed by, but the khedive noticed her and the other two women, and halted her with a “Where are you going, madaam?” For the moment, the argument ceased between him and the Frenchman.

  “I understand there is a body here,” she replied calmly.

  “This is none of your concern. Find your husband and return to your ship.” The khedive flicked his fingers out toward the water in dismissal.

  But Violet Harper had not become a highly regarded undertaker over the past sixteen years by permitting herself to be intimidated by brutes, fools, and nincompoops.

  She drew herself up and stared steadily at the khedive. “It is indeed my concern, sir. I am an undertaker, and as I do not see another one on the premises, I will tend to this body.”

  The khedive looked at her incredulously. “What do you mean you are an undertaker? Do you mean to tell me you are a preparer of the dead? Impossible. Besides, you are not only a woman, you are English. You know nothing of our customs.”

  Violet smiled. “Ah, but I do know. I know that we are already too late to bury him before sundown the day of his death. I also know that we need to find out who he is quickly so that he can be buried in his family mausoleum.”

  Unable to contradict her, the khedive harrumphed loudly, but Violet noticed a burgeoning look of respect residing in de Lesseps’s eyes. The Frenchman intervened. “Perhaps the lady might be of assistance, Pasha. Neither of us wishes that any notice be brought to the situation.”

  “I can have my own men take care of—”

  “Oui, you can, but this woman is not Egyptian, and so will not spread it about to your countrymen, and she is only a very minor member of the British delegation with no authority whatsoever in her home country. Let her see to the body and let’s be done with it right away.”

  Violet knew she was being insulted, but her primary concern was the corpse lying nearby in complete indignity. She resisted the urge to tap a foot impatiently while the khedive wavered. Finally, he threw up his hands. “As you wish, sahbi,” he said, and walked away without another word.

  De Lesseps seemed to take no notice of the khedive’s petulance. “Zees way—Madame Harper, isn’t it?” He led her back behind the great pile of burnt lumber, where she immediately saw the poor man, who lay sprawled, almost as if he had tripped, fallen, and been unable to get up before the fire consumed him.

  As she rushed forward and knelt next to the body, she heard de Lesseps, Louise-Hélène, and Isabelle behind her, their shoes scuffling in the dirt and shavings as they backed away. Louise-Hélène made retching noises as the other two attempted to comfort her, but the young woman’s distress was of no interest to Violet now.

  Only this dead man was.

  She gently reached under him and turned him over, finding his body a little lighter than a typical man of his size. The man’s mouth hung open in an eerie expression of his horror over his own death, his lips peeled and his burnt-over teeth so crowded it was almost as if he had two sets of them.

  She had never seen such a traumatized body before. The thin outer layers of his skin had partially peeled off, and what remained was mottled in black, red, and purple. Parts of the thicker dermal layer of skin had shrunk and split, so the underlying fat had leaked out in streaks that looked like runny egg yolks. If Violet were not so accustomed to death, she might have been gasping as loudly as the people standing twenty feet away from her were.

  His hair was mostly gone, and his clothing—what was left of it—had melted into his skin. The unmistakable scent of charred musc
le and innards filled her nostrils.

  Why was it that lamb made a delightful fragrance as it roasted, but a human being’s flesh was noxious? Violet figured it was the Almighty’s way of reminding people that humans were not to be used as a source of food.

  However, the man had not been consumed by fire; it had been extinguished quickly enough that he was not completely roasted. As gently as she could, she put a hand on his chest. “Sir, I am very sorry for what has happened to you, but I promise to make it right for you. I will see you reunited with your ancestors in your family crypt, and I will improve your looks as best I can, although I admit it will not be easy.”

  Drat, all she had was her new tapestry bag, not her regular undertaking bag. She considered asking Isabelle to retrieve it from Newport, but decided against it. All that would serve to do at the moment was stir up rumors and gossip as to why Violet needed the tools of her macabre trade. However, the least she could do was—

  “Isabelle,” she said, keeping her hand resting on the body’s chest but turning to look back where the trio was standing, with de Lesseps acting the protector over the two women. “I am going to need some sort of sheet or blanket. This man needs to be covered up before he is removed.”

  Isabelle nodded wordlessly and left.

  Violet turned back to concentrate on the corpse under her care. “Forgive my impertinence, sir, but I must inspect you a bit.” She gently touched him in various places, careful not to press too hard against his skin, fearful that it might erupt.

  His nose was disjointed. It seemed strange that it would have broken as he fell. If he had been overcome by the smoke, he would have slowly collapsed to the ground.

  As she considered his body further, it occurred to her that the man couldn’t possibly have been here for the duration of the fire, for surely he would have— Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but surely more of his flesh would have burned away by now. There was a lot of him left for having been in the epicenter of a blazing-hot fire, even if most fires were incapable of reducing a man to ash. It seemed to Violet that—

  Wait. What was this?

  Violet held her breath against the repulsive smell and bent down to look closer. Why, that looked like a—

  She sat up straight. Impossible! Her heart began hammering erratically inside her chest. How could this be? Swallowing to maintain control and to avoid alarming de Lesseps and his fiancée, she slowly bent over to examine the area again, lightly pressing two fingers against the troubling spot.

  There was no doubt.

  There was a gash in this man’s midsection most definitely caused by a large knife. Violet’s mind raced. He couldn’t have been stabbed after the fire, for it was only recently put out and he had been discovered shortly thereafter. Besides, who would stab an already-dead person?

  But if he had been stabbed prior to the fire, well, that provided a horrifying explanation as to why his body was not more ravaged. His dead body must have been dragged to this place so that the crime would be covered up by the fire in progress. Which might also mean that—dear God in heaven—the fire was intentionally set, specifically to disguise this murder.

  Thousands upon thousands of people had descended upon Port Said. How was it possible to discover who had wished this poor man harm and why?

  Well, for the moment, Violet knew of one man who was missing. Hopefully, the lumberyard owner would return soon, although she did not relish the idea of presenting the body to him, if this was indeed his son.

  At that moment, Isabelle returned with a long length of cotton in bold stripes of magenta, white, and charcoal, her hand shaking as she held it out to Violet. “I bought this from the nearest merchant I could find who hadn’t fled the area,” she said breathlessly.

  It wasn’t exactly a snowy white winding sheet, but Violet couldn’t fault the girl’s quick resolution of the problem. Before she had time to decide whether it was more important to enrobe the man in respectful coverings or report to de Lesseps what she had ascertained, two Egyptian men approached. Their clothing was grime-free, suggesting they had not been members of the chaotic fire brigade.

  “Madaam Harper?” the taller one asked, flashing a charming smile as he spoke in nearly flawless English. Both were probably in their early thirties, although the second one was stockier and seemed ill at ease.

  Violet did not answer as she spread the cloth over the body, covering him from the shoulders down. She then rose up and said, “I am she. You are . . . ?”

  He executed a neat bow. “I am Hassan Salib, the khedive’s cultural attaché. This is Rashad, one of the khedive’s porters.” Rashad simply stared in response to Violet’s greeting.

  “We were sent by our employer to take care of a most unfortunate occurrence,” Hassan said. He nodded down at the covered body. “I believe this must be the man who has suffered the terrible tragedy?”

  At this point, de Lesseps abandoned his role of female protector and marched over to get involved in what the khedive’s man was saying. “What do you mean you are here to take care of it?” he demanded. “I told Pasha the undertaker here would be sufficient for what had to be done. He dares undermine my authority?”

  Hassan bowed again, and this time spoke English with a French accent. “Thank you for your thoughts, Monsieur de Lesseps. As you know, it is customary that the dead be—”

  “Oui, oui, I know. They must be buried by sundown the day of death. It is too late for that, and I won’t have you parading him through the streets and wailing over him, attracting the people’s interest like bees to pots de crème.”

  Violet hardly thought that description apt, given that the body before them was quite the opposite of a sweet custard dessert. However, there were much more important items to address, and so she spoke up with brisk determination: “Monsieur de Lesseps, I must inform you that—”

  But she was ignored. Hassan, not intimidated in the least by de Lesseps, replied to the man politely but firmly, “There is no intent to make a spectacle of the man, but the khedive insists that we take him away from this place ourselves. It is not right for a Briton, a woman”—he flicked an apologetic glance at Violet—“to have an Egyptian body in her charge. I apologize, monsieur, but I must obey my orders.”

  “Where is Pasha?” de Lesseps said incredulously. “Was he too much of a coward to come with you? He obviously knows he is conducting himself like a frightened, nose-twitching little lapin! Perhaps he is digging a burrow aboard El Mahrousa at this very moment.”

  Violet could see that the fire was nearly extinguished, with some of the soldiers on the fire brigades tending to the smoking embers, and other men relighting torchères that had been extinguished, thus starting to bathe the area in peaceful light again. Sam was lingering with several of his Civil War comrades, no doubt sharing tales of their exploits. Looking off in the opposite direction, she saw that people were trickling back to the area surrounding the pavilions. Something had to be done with this poor man soon, and the khedive needed to know that his countryman had been murdered.

  She tried again. “Monsieur Salib.” What title did one give a high-ranking Egyptian employee? “Before the body is moved, the khedive must be made aware that—”

  Another interruption, this time a commotion from where Louise-Hélène and Isabelle still stood. It was the lumberyard owner, returned from his tormented wanderings. Violet quickly stepped over to meet him, hoping to prevent him from seeing what she was now sure was his son lying there.

  It was no use, for his gaze was instantly drawn to the brightly dyed cloth covering the lower half of the body. “Who—who is that?” he asked, his voice quavering as he slowly raised a finger to point, like a ghost in Mr. Dickens’s novel about Mr. Scrooge.

  She replied as soothingly as she could. “We aren’t quite sure. Perhaps you should—”

  Once more Violet felt as if she were barreled over and splattered like a heap of dung in the path of a runaway carriage. “Someone died here,” de Lesseps said gracele
ssly, almost as if he had given up on the idea of keeping it quiet.

  The lumberyard owner stepped to the body, recoiled once in horror, then bent down again. Everyone collectively held their breaths as he examined the body. It wasn’t long before the man began to shake in his grief, the shaking soon turning to a loud keening as he rose and beat his breast. Tearing at his hair, he called out miserably in English, “Yusef, Yusef, my son.”

  His sorrowful refrain soon exploded into a torrent of curses. Grief, like bargaining in shopping stalls, knew no language barrier, and everyone present bowed their heads instinctively in the face of the man’s wild-eyed anguish.

  This was becoming a dreadful scenario for Violet, who still had the unenviable task of telling not only de Lesseps and Hassan Salib but now this son’s heartbroken father, too, of how the man had been murdered. The father’s loud demonstrations were attracting the attention of people gathering again in the hopes of the festivities starting once more.

  Something had to be done. De Lesseps was practically the king over the entire canal affair, so she had to tell him. Violet signaled to him, and together they walked away to where Louise-Hélène and her maid stood, both still wide-eyed over the entire experience of the past hour.

  “Monsieur,” Violet said in a low voice, barely hearing herself over the sound of the father’s grieving, “I regret to inform you that the man is Yusef Halabi, the son of the lumberyard owner, and he did not die in the fire.”

  “What do you mean? That he died from the smoke, not the flame?”

  “No, not at all,” Violet said, steeling herself for the reaction to come after her next words. “He has a deep stab wound in his midsection. His father said he disappeared earlier in the day. I believe he was murdered elsewhere and then dragged here. It may even be that the fire was deliberately set to cover up his murder.”

  Louise-Hélène brought a gloved hand to her mouth, her eyes welling with tears of empathy. De Lesseps, though, did not respond at all as Violet might have anticipated.