He Shall Thunder in the Sky (2 page)

     “Very well,” Ramses said. “I will see you later, then.”

     He might have been addressing me or the cat, or both. I stepped aside, and he proceeded on his way.

     Emerson followed me to our room, and kicked the door shut. After attending a luncheon party at Shepheard’s we had returned to the house to change, but while my husband and son proceeded with this activity I was delayed by a tedious and unnecessary discussion with the cook, who was going through another of his periodic crises des nerves. (At least that is what he would have called it had he been a French chef instead of a turbaned Egyptian.)

     I turned round and Emerson began unbuttoning my frock. I have never taken a maid with me to Egypt; they are more trouble than they are worth, always complaining and falling ill and requiring my medical attention. My ordinary working costume is as comfortable and easy to assume as that of a man, which it rather resembles, for I long ago gave up skirts in favor of trousers and stout boots. The only occasions on which I require assistance are those for which I assume traditional female garb, and Emerson is always more than happy to oblige me.

     Neither of us spoke until he had completed the task. I could tell by his movements that he was not in a proper state of mind for the sort of distraction that frequently followed this activity. After hanging the garment neatly on a hook, I said, “Very well, Emerson, out with it. What is the trouble?”

     “How can you ask? This damned war has ruined everything. Do you remember the old days? Abdullah supervising the excavations as only he could do, the children working happily and obediently under our direction, Walter and Evelyn joining us every few years . . . Abdullah is gone now, and my brother and his wife are in England, and two of their sons are in France, and our children are . . . Well, hmph. It will never be the same again.”

     “Things” never are the same. Time passes; death takes the worthy and unworthy alike, and (on a less morbid note), children grow up. (I did not say this to Emerson, since he was in no fit state of mind for philosophical reflection.) Two of the children to whom Emerson referred, though not related to us by blood, had become as dear to us as our own. Their backgrounds were, to say the least, unusual. David, now a fully qualified artist and Egyptologist, was the grandson of our dear departed reis Abdullah. A few years earlier he had espoused Emerson’s niece Lia, thereby scandalizing the snobs who considered Egyptians a lower breed. Even now Lia awaited the birth of their first child, but its father was not with her in England or with us; because of his involvement with the movement for Egyptian independence, he had been interned in India, where he would have to remain until the war was over. His absence was keenly felt by us all, especially by Ramses, whose confidant and closest friend he had been, but — I reminded myself — at least he was out of harm’s way, and we had not given up hope of winning his release.

     Our foster daughter Nefret had an even stranger history. The orphaned daughter of an intrepid but foolhardy English explorer, she had passed the first thirteen years of her life in a remote oasis in the western desert. The beliefs and customs of ancient Egypt had lingered in that isolated spot, where Nefret had been High Priestess of Isis. Not surprisingly, she had had some difficulty adjusting to the customs of the modern world after we brought her back to England with us. She had succeeded — for the most part — since she was as intelligent as she was beautiful, and, I believe I may say, as devoted to us as we were to her. She was also a very wealthy young woman, having inherited a large fortune from her paternal grandfather. From the beginning she and David and Ramses had been comrades and co-conspirators in every variety of mischief. David’s marriage had only strengthened the bonds, for Lia and Nefret were as close as sisters.

     It was Nefret’s sudden, ill-advised marriage that had destroyed all happiness. The tragedy that ended that marriage had brought on a complete breakdown from which she had only recently recovered.

     She
had
recovered, though; she had completed her interrupted medical studies and was with us again. Look for the silver lining, I told myself, and attempted to persuade Emerson to do the same.

     “Now, Emerson, you are exaggerating,” I exclaimed. “I miss Abdullah as much as you do, but the war had nothing to do with that, and Selim is performing splendidly as reis. As for the children, they were constantly in trouble or in danger, and it is a wonder my hair did not turn snow white from worrying about them.”

     “True,” Emerson admitted. “If you are fishing for compliments, my dear, I will admit you bore up under the strain as few women could. Not a wrinkle, not a touch of gray in that jetty-black hair . . .” He moved toward me, and for a moment I thought affection would triumph over morbidity; but then his expression changed, and he said thoughtfully, “I have been meaning to ask you about that. I understand there is a certain coloring material —”

     “Don’t let us get off the subject, Emerson.” Glancing at my dressing table, I made certain the little bottle was not in sight before I went on. “Look on the bright side! David is safe, and he will join us again after . . . afterwards. And we have Nefret back, thank heaven.”

     “She isn’t the same,” Emerson groaned. “What is wrong with the girl?”

     “She is not a girl, she is a full-grown woman,” I replied. “And it was you, as her legal guardian, who insisted she had the right to control her fortune and make her own decisions.”

     “Guardian be damned,” said Emerson gruffly. “I am her father, Amelia — not legally, perhaps, but in every way that matters.”

     I went to him and put my arms around him. “She loves you dearly, Emerson.”

     “Then why can’t she call me . . . She never has, you know.”

     “You are determined to be miserable, aren’t you?”

     “Certainly not,” Emerson growled. “Ramses is not himself either. You women don’t understand these things. It isn’t pleasant for a fellow to be accused of cowardice.”

     “No one who knows Ramses could possibly believe that of him,” I retorted. “You aren’t suggesting, I hope, that he enlist in order to prove his critics wrong? That is just the sort of thing men do, but he has better sense, and I thought you —”

     “Don’t be absurd,” Emerson shouted. My dear Emerson is never more handsome than when he is in one of his little tempers. His blue eyes blazed with sapphirine fire, his lean brown cheeks were becomingly flushed, and his quickened breathing produced a distracting play of muscle across his broad chest. I gazed admiringly upon him; and after a moment his stiff pose relaxed and a sheepish smile curved his well-shaped lips.

     “Trying to stir me up, were you, my dear? Well, you succeeded. You know as well as I do that not even a moronic military officer would waste Ramses’s talents in the trenches. He looks like an Egyptian, he talks Arabic like an Egyptian — curse it, he even thinks like one! He speaks half a dozen languages, including German and Turkish, with native fluency, he is skilled at the art of disguise, he knows the Middle East as few men do . . .”

     “Yes,” I said with a sigh. “He is a perfect candidate for military intelligence. Why wouldn’t he accept Newcombe’s offer?”

     “You should have asked him.”

     “I didn’t dare. The nickname you gave him all those years ago has proved to be appropriate. I doubt if the family of Ramses the Great would have had the audacity to question him, either.”

     “I certainly didn’t,” Emerson admitted. “But I have certain doubts about the new Department myself. Newcombe and Lawrence and Leonard Woolley were the ones who carried out that survey of the Sinai a few years ago; it was an open secret that their purpose was military as well as archaeological. The maps they are making will certainly be useful, but what the Department really wants is to stir up an Arab revolt against the Turks in Palestine. One school of thought believes that we can best defend the Canal by attacking the Turkish supply lines, with the assistance of Arab guerrillas.”

     “How do you know that?”

     Emerson’s eyes shifted. “Would you like me to lace your boots, Amelia?”

     “No, thank you, I would like you to answer my question. Curse it, Emerson, I saw you deep in conversation with General Maxwell at the luncheon; if he asked you to be a spy —”

     “No, he did not!” Emerson shouted.

     I realized that quite inadvertently I must have hit a tender spot. Despite the reverberant voice that had (together with his command of invective) won him the admiring appellation of Father of Curses, he had a certain hangdog look. I took his hand in mine. “What is it, my dear?”

     Emerson’s broad shoulders slumped. “He asked me to take the post of Adviser on Native Affairs.”

     He gave the word “native” a particularly sardonic inflection. Knowing how he despised the condescension of British officials toward their Egyptian subjects, I did not comment on this, but pressed on toward a firmer understanding of his malaise.

     “That is very flattering, my dear.”

     “Flattering be damned! He thinks I am only fit to sit in an office and give advice to pompous young fools who won’t listen to it anyhow. He thinks I am too old to take an active part in this war.”

     “Oh, my dear, that is not true!” I threw my arms around his waist and kissed him on the chin. I had to stand on tiptoe to reach that part of his anatomy; Emerson is over six feet tall and I am considerably shorter. “You are the strongest, bravest, cleverest —”

     “Don’t overdo it, Peabody,” said Emerson.

     His use of my maiden name, which had become a term of affection and approbation, assured me that he was in a better humor. A little flattery never hurts, especially when, as in the present case, it was the simple truth.

     I laid my head against his shoulder. “You may think me selfish and cowardly, Emerson, but I would rather you were safe in some boring office, not taking desperate chances as you would prefer, and as, of course, you could. Did you accept?”

     “Well, damn it, I had to, didn’t I? It will interfere with my excavations . . . but one must do what one can, eh?”

     “Yes, my darling.”

     Emerson gave me such a hearty squeeze, my ribs creaked. “I am going to work now. Are you coming?”

     “No, I think not. I will wait for Nefret and perhaps have a little chat with her.”

     Emerson departed, and after assuming a comfortable garment I went up to the roof, where I had arranged tables and chairs, potted plants and adjustable screens, to create an informal open-air parlor.

     From the rooftop one could see (on a clear day) for miles in all directions: on the east, the river and the sprawling suburbs of Cairo, framed by the pale limestone of the Mokattam Hills; to the west, beyond the cultivated land, the limitless stretch of the desert, and, at eventide, a sky ablaze with ever-changing but always brilliant sunsets. My favorite view was southerly. In the near distance rose the triangular silhouettes of the pyramids of Giza, where we would be working that year. The house was conveniently located on the West Bank, only a few miles from our excavations and directly across the river from Cairo. It was not as commodious or well designed as our earlier abode near Giza, but that house was not one to which any of us cared to return. It held too many unhappy memories. I tried, as is my habit, to keep them at bay, but Emerson’s gloomy remarks had affected me more than I had admitted to him. The war had certainly cast a shadow over our lives, but some of our troubles went farther back — back to that frightful spring two years ago.

     Only two years. It seemed longer; or rather, it seemed as if a dark, deep abyss separated us from the halcyon days that had preceded the disaster. Admittedly, they had not been devoid of the criminal distractions that frequently interrupt our archaeological work, but we had become accustomed to that sort of thing and in every other way we had good cause to rejoice. David and Lia had just been married; Ramses was with us again after some months of absence; and Nefret divided her time between the excavation and the clinic she had started for the fallen women of Cairo. There had been a radiance about her that year. . . .

     Then it had happened, as sudden and unexpected as a bolt of lightning from a clear sky. Emerson and I had come home one morning to find the old man waiting, a woman and a small child with him. The woman, herself pitiably young, was a prostitute, the old man one of the city’s most infamous procurers. The sight of that child’s face, with its unmistakable resemblance to my own, was shock enough; a greater shock followed, when the little creature ran toward Ramses, holding out her arms and calling him Father.

     The effect on Nefret had been much worse. In the clinic she had seen firsthand the abuses inflicted on the women of the Red Blind district, and her attempts to assist the unhappy female victims of the loathsome trade had taken on the dimensions of a crusade. Always hot-tempered and impetuous, she had leaped to the inevitable conclusion and fled the house in a passion of revulsion with her foster brother.

     I knew, of course, that the inevitable conclusion was incorrect. Not that Ramses had never strayed from the paths of moral rectitude. He had toddled into trouble as soon as he could walk, and the catalog of his misdemeanors lengthened as he matured. I did not doubt his relationships with various female persons were not always of the nature I would approve. The evidence against him was strong. But I had known my son for over twenty strenuous years, and I knew he was incapable of committing that particular crime — for crime it was, in the moral if not the legal sense.

     It had not taken us long to ferret out the identity of the child’s real father — my nephew Percy. I had never had a high opinion of my brothers and their offspring; this discovery, and Percy’s contemptible attempt to pass the blame on to Ramses, had resulted in a complete rift. Unfortunately, we were unable to avoid Percy altogether; he had joined the Egyptian Army and was stationed in Cairo. However, I had at least the satisfaction of cutting him whenever we chanced to meet. He cared nothing for his little daughter, and it would have been impossible for us to abandon her. Sennia had been part of our family ever since. She was now five years of age, a distraction and a delight, as Ramses called her. We had left her in England with the younger Emersons this year, since Lia, mourning the absence of husband and brothers, was even more in need of distraction than we. Emerson missed her very much. The only positive aspect of the arrangement (I was still trying to look on the bright side) was that Nefret’s surly, spoiled cat, Horus, had stayed with Sennia. I cannot truthfully say that any of us, except possibly Nefret, missed Horus.