The governess gave the boy a squeeze and then put him down beside his mother. He started to cry and reached out for her as she walked away. Mrs. Brandt looked at me. “Transitions,” she sighed. “They are always hard.”
“Yes.” I knew something about that.
“Have you ever undertaken a journey like this?”
“Oh no. Nothing like this.”
“You will be fine. I could see that when we met. That’s why I’ve hired you. And you.” She kneeled toward her son. “You will be fine as well. You’re mother’s big boy, aren’t you?” The boy hacked out a sob and then sniffed it in. He nodded, his fists balled by his sides. I wanted to pick him up and hold him, but I knew it wasn’t my place. Soon enough, his governess was back, giving him books and games and the stuffed bear for the trip, and Mrs. Brandt and her sister were instructing the stewards who had gathered around us. I could tell by the attention they were receiving that this family was important. I waited for someone to tell me what to do next.
* * *
On our sailing to Cairo, I felt more off-balance than sick, yet I wasn’t able to keep food down, my body seeming to bear the roiling weight of the water. My head felt light and heavy at once. Sven Brandt missed his young governess and seemed as seasick as I was. His skin was pale and sallow, nearly yellow under his eyes. At four years old, he was so light when I picked him up that he felt like he weighed no more than a toddler half his age. Sven ate little, became weak and tired and needed to be carried often. Mrs. Brandt, her sister and I took turns carrying the boy. When I did, the deck seemed erratic under my feet, my strength tattered by lack of food and sleep. I wouldn’t complain about any task I was given, so I clutched Sven’s body as though he were a life preserver and moved slowly. The boy didn’t seem to mind. He held onto me just as tightly as I to him. We were in the same situation, both malnourished and nervous, and became allies, too exhausted to say much to each other.
Mrs. Brandt had made this crossing before. She commented on the linens, the food, the music played by the band in the dining room. Sometimes she commented favourably, others more critically, but she always gave the impression that she had a lot of experience to confirm the validity of her opinions. I listened and tried to commit some of the details to memory. It might be valuable information in the future to know how high a thread count a napkin should have – and if it should be cotton or linen – if pickles should be soaked in vinegar or brine, if the songs played before dinner should be lively or calm – and how these should differ from those played during dessert.
I continued to call my employer Mrs. Brandt. She hadn’t invited me to call her otherwise. Her sister asked that I call her Elspeth. “You’ll find an interesting thing will happen.” Mrs. Brandt patted her lips with a napkin at breakfast one morning. “Not many have mentioned that we are travelling without men yet. The closer we get to Egypt, the more we’ll be reminded. Even though the boat’s staff and travellers won’t have changed, it’s as though people begin to pick up on the mores of the Near East.” She was right. By the third day, our dining companions at breakfast asked after our husbands, and we heard the question repeatedly from then on. Usually, I had an earlier dinner with Sven, neither of us eating much, so that I could put him to bed early and stay with him while his mother and aunt dined. That night, we were all invited to sit with the captain, and Sven was dressed in his sailor suit, the ladies in their best gowns.
“I suppose you’ll stay in Cairo for longer this time?” the captain asked Mrs. Brandt. He nodded at the waiter who stood with a wine bottle wrapped in a cloth, then inclined his head toward Mrs. Brandt, so the man filled both their glasses.
Mrs. Brandt raised her glass and nodded toward the captain, touched her lips to the glass, then put it down without a real drink. “Yes. The household needs to be set up – Mr. Brandt is too busy with the business, of course, to do so properly.”
“Of course. We each have our strengths – a man’s is business while a lady’s is running a household. It must be a challenge, though, with all the blacks and Arabs?”
“It is. I consider myself adept, but it is. I’ve some reliable staff in place already, most from the continent, and I’ve brought Miss Jüül from Copenhagen to manage the household staff. I still need to secure a governess for Sven.”
So, I was now Miss Jüül from Copenhagen, Manager of Household Staff. I had a title to hang onto, a way to define myself, a role to work toward perfecting. Our plates were cleared as the orchestra began again, the violins keening out the first notes. We sat, Mrs. Brandt’s and Elspeth’s wineglasses full, as though it would be improper to have them as anything other than decorative, and watched as couples got up to dance. “I’ll take Sven to bed now.” He kissed his mother and aunt on their cheeks and then I took his hand, held it until we were out of the ballroom when I could pick him up again.
As I carried the boy to our berth, his head against my shoulder, the scent of his hair sweet enough that I could have chewed on it, I realized that the girl I’d given birth to would be around the same age. “Sven,” I whispered to him. “Sven, when is your birthday?”
He was nearly asleep and didn’t answer. It didn’t matter.
Twenty-Seven
We disembarked with a shuffling of papers between Mrs. Brandt and someone on the dock, nothing that took more than a couple of minutes. The war was less than a year away from beginning, and one could still board and disembark ships as simply as getting on and off a train. Borders and papers seemed more theoretical than they did during or after the war. More like suggestions than divisions. We were viewed askance, but this was because we were three women with a small boy. Being without a man made us suspect. “Mr. Brandt will be here soon,” Mrs. Brandt assured me. We were standing on a dock, being stared at by what seemed like hundreds but was likely only dozens of men. I’m not sure what was more uncomfortable on my skin, their eyes or the heat.
“Well, at least it’s a dry heat,” laughed Elspeth. “That’s what the British keep telling us – At least it’s a dry heat!” she repeated in English.
Mrs. Brandt didn’t respond, looked over our heads. I held Sven. Between him and me, we had probably lost ten pounds on the sailing, and I swayed slightly with his light body in my arms. The dock seemed to move more than the ship had. When I shifted to try to alleviate the feeling, the pier kept coming up hard under my feet.
“There he is!” Elspeth pointed. Mrs. Brandt looked and I heard her make a small, almost squeaking sound in her throat before she cupped her hand over her mouth. It was the first time I’d seen such a girlish gesture from her. It pleased me that a husband could still cause this kind of excitement. The boy was squirming in my arms, perhaps wanting to get down and run to his father, but that didn’t seem safe, so I kept holding him.
“Sven, my boy!”
His son corkscrewed in my arms, and as he lurched out of them, he was caught, swung up into his father’s hold. I tried to regain my balance and Mr. Brandt put a hand beneath my elbow to steady me, his son balanced on one arm. In this way, I felt Mr. Brandt before I met him. His hand left my arm when he reached out for his wife, “Mrs. Brandt,” a lilt in his voice as he leaned to kiss her.
“Mr. Brandt.” She held out her face and giggled. This is the only way I can describe it.
“And dear Mrs. Huugard.” He leaned to kiss his sister-in-law.
Elspeth nodded and smiled. “Brother.”
Following the reactions of the other two women in our small party, when he turned to me, I felt as though I should greet Mr. Brandt with some excitement, giddiness. I didn’t, however. I smiled at Mr. Brandt in what I hoped was a pleasant, deferential way. I had nothing to get excited about. He was a stranger, certainly not my family, and I had little idea of what kind of employer he would be. He looked directly at me, which wasn’t a given for a man of his stature, a woman of mine, and I thought he frowned slightly, just for a moment, though I ma
y have been mistaken.
“This is Miss Jüül,” Mrs. Brandt told her husband. He nodded, as both an assent and a greeting, a slight bow to his head. “We’ve hired her as head of household staff.”
When he looked at my face again, I could see the colour of his eyes, warm hazel stippled with streaks of green. “Do you think you’re up for the task?” He spoke through a slight smile, one eyebrow raised.
“Oh, don’t tease her already.” Mrs. Brandt swatted at her husband’s arm with her gloves, held limp in one hand. To me she said, “Some find the locals hard to handle.”
Without taking his eyes away from his family, Mr. Brandt made a small gesture, a slight twist in his wrist, and men came forward. Dark-skinned, white-clothed and plentiful, the men picked up everything around us, held out their arms to take what we had in our hands. They all appeared to be frowning, either slightly or quite deeply, as though we were disappointing them in some way. “It’s okay.” Mrs. Brandt must have read something on my face. “Give them what you can – you’re not used to the heat yet, it will drain you – but make sure you keep a scarf for your hair.”
Mr. Brandt led our small brigade, Mrs. Brandt and her sister following. No one thought to pick up Sven or take his hand, so I did. Several men, perhaps two dozen, followed us with our belongings. When we got to the cars, Mr. Brandt directed what luggage should go where and the ladies decided who should ride with whom and the men worked to fit the luggage into the cars. Everything the men called out to each other sounded to me like it was said in anger.
As we waited, Mrs. Brandt and Elspeth tied scarves over their hair, secured them well. I followed. “Is this in deference to local custom?”
Elspeth laughed a curt, sharp laugh and said, “I suppose it could be, yes!” She looked charmed by this idea, eyes bent into an amused smile.
“Not really,” said Mrs. Brandt. “We just like to protect our hair for the drive. The dust here is different than in Europe, somehow. Thicker and, though it’s so dry it can nearly choke a person, it’s, well, almost oily, wouldn’t you say, Elspeth?”
“Yes, something like that. Not pleasant, in any case.”
“It will stick to your hair.”
“Oh, of course.” I secured my own scarf.
The cars sputtered through the cramped streets of Cairo. People stopped to gape and crushed toward us. There was a man in each car with a stick, swinging it to keep people back. I wondered if they supposed we were important and wanted to get a closer look, or if it was simply the cars themselves that drew a crowd. Often, it took only some stern words to let us through, but sometimes the men would poke or whack people away with the sticks. Men. They were all men. For most of the drive, there were no women on the streets. When we got through the most congested part of the city – though this was relative, every part seemed crowded – and I could see more than a couple of feet from the car, I glimpsed women down side streets, moving between doorways. A woman with a child on her hip saw us and pushed another child into a doorway as though she were afraid.
As the car lurched through the city, I wrapped both arms around my waist and held my stomach. During the crossing, the heavy weight of water pushed up against me from below, but after more than a week at sea, dry, hard land felt strange, my legs stiff. As the car jerked and slowed, my stomach felt equally, if not more, upset. How must the boy be doing? He was so quiet.
“Sven?”
He turned to me, his eyes wide and tearing at the edges. It could have been the dust. It could have been any of several things, really.
“Are you all right, darling?”
He nodded. What else had I expected? After my time on the boat with him, I knew the boy was stoic. I’d wondered from whom he’d learned this quality – his mother, I supposed. Mrs. Brandt seemed focused in a way that was steely, a little cold. I understood that she would have to be this way – living away from her husband for part of the year, maintaining two households, tacking together a family across continents, as she was.
“Won’t this be an adventure?” I wanted to convince myself. Sven looked at me as though he were surprised that I was starting a conversation with him. It took a moment until he nodded. “This fascinating new country, and you’ll be here with both your mother and father. Won’t that be lovely?”
“I’ve been here before.”
“Of course you have.” It was me who hadn’t.
“Father is busy.”
“They usually are, aren’t they?”
“Yes. He likes to play with me.”
“Of course he does! I would like to play with you as well. You can show me the toys you have at your Egyptian home.”
“I think you will be busy too, miss.”
I laughed. “Yes, I suppose I will be, but I’ll always make time for you, Sven. We’ve crossed an ocean together after all!”
The boy grinned at me.
The streets were becoming less crowded, more treed, though the shade didn’t seem to provide respite from the heat. Armed men stood at gates. I could see little beyond the walls of what I assumed were estates. Everything seemed cast in shades of yellow, ochre, gold, and though it was midday, the air glowed as though sunrise or sunset. There was no blue to the sky, only washes of white and brown. The air was something separate from the sky, something made of dust and fine particles.
The lead car pulled up in front of one of the gates and two armed men pulled it open, the wrought iron squealing as they did. The cars turned into a circular drive bordered with palms and flowering plants – I could smell green, the scent of moisture that must have been required to keep this small garden thriving in front of the estate. When one after the other the men got out and began unloading our things, Sven and I remained seated. I wasn’t sure what to do – would someone help us out of the car? Would someone give us directions? I watched Mrs. Brandt and Elspeth for cues. As Mr. Brandt held his hand out first to his wife, then his sister-in-law, I felt awkward waiting. Did I think I was their family? I was staff, like the men who were unloading the cars. I too should be doing something.
I stood, straightened my clothes and told Sven, “Wait, I’ll help you out.” Luggage was already piled around the cars. The men were moving from one to the other, picking things up, putting them down in different piles. They stepped well aside and paused when I got out of the car. I held out my arms to Sven but Mr. Brandt was there. “Let me.”
“Of course.”
He tipped his hat to me and then opened his arms to his son. In that moment, there was a shriek. Mr. Brandt, Sven and I all looked toward the house. Elspeth had been the one to yell and she was pointing to something. Leaving from the archway that lead into the villa was a mongrel of a dog with a large, colourful bird in his teeth. Bloody paw prints tracked across the marble floor leading from the house. Mrs. Brandt looked away and shook her head. “Good Lord,” then, directed at me, “Welcome to Cairo!” She looked around until, it seemed, she had found the right person to address. “Mr. Sawalha, take care of that, please.”
“Of course, ma’am.” He bowed slightly, then turned and said something to the other men. It all seemed so loud, so fast to me. There was movement all around us, heat pressing up against me. We weren’t inside yet when I heard two short, sharp gunshots. It sounded as though they’d shot the dog quite close to the house. I wondered what would happen to that beautiful bird, dead though it was.
Twenty-Eight
Those mornings in Cairo, I woke to a world teeming, either the heat or the noise getting to me first. I got up to respond to it all. The Brandts’ estate was as sheltered from the sun as it could be, surrounded by palms and built around an inner courtyard – water slipping off the yellowed edges of plants each morning after they’d been tended – yet heat soaked into the ceiling tiles, reflected off the marble and radiated into the rooms. And the racket! The birds began shrieking at dawn, and the people were not much differe
nt. There was more yelling than I was accustomed to. More disturbing, there were insects so large that their wings and legs made noise around us as they whirred and caught.
I would dress and be in the kitchen by five each morning when the first kitchen staff arrived. I took my tea and toast with the head cook and went over the meal plan for the day. The cook was French but had been instructed to serve not only Danish food but the most British of English food as well. I’m not sure who had made this decision or why, but it was in Egypt that I developed a taste for pudding. I would next meet with the butler and we would review who was expected to call that day, when and where Mr. and Mrs. Brandt’s commitments were, if there were cars assigned. Every couple of days, I would update Mrs. Brandt’s social calendar and ensure that it didn’t conflict with anything she was required to attend with Mr. Brandt.
There was always shopping to be done – for the pantry, the household, Mrs. Brandt’s wardrobe – and staff to be sent to the best markets and vendors for each item. Most of the staff were men, the exception being the girls who cleaned the house. They needed quite a bit of supervision as it wasn’t unusual to find them gathered in the inner courtyard, chattering and giggling. Sven’s caregiver was an older woman named Sitto, and it was she who would reprimand the cleaning girls to get back to work. A sharp glance from her could get the lounging gardeners moving as well. As a petite Danish spinster, I hardly seemed like the right person to do so, and I often wondered why I’d been chosen as head of staff. Perhaps Mrs. Brandt saw me as someone who could keep the staff in tow while not threatening anyone or anything she held dear. A kind of nonentity in the household. That’s how she treated me. Perhaps she knew that I was already ruined, as they called unwed mothers then. Whatever her reasons, aside from disciplining wayward staff, I did my job well.
Little Fortress Page 15