He Shall Thunder in the Sky (29 page)

     However, I had a feeling Ramses would not have liked it. He obviously did not like what I was doing now, but the other would have vexed him even more. Emerson is rather like a bull in a china shop when he is enraged, and this matter was somewhat delicate. I felt obliged to point this out to Emerson.

     “We must not be directly involved in an attack on Farouk, or the shop, Emerson; our active participation could increase the enemy’s suspicion of Ramses.”

     “So what is the point of our going there this evening?”

     “I only want to be there,” I replied, refolding the shirts he had tumbled into a pile. “Or rather, near by. Coincidentally. Casually. Just in case.”

     I turned and selected a light but becoming cotton frock from the wardrobe. Emerson came up behind me and put his arms round my waist.

     “It is important to you, isn’t it?”

     I dropped the frock onto the floor and turned into his arms. “Oh, Emerson, if we are right, this could be the end of the whole horrible business! I can’t stand much more of this. Every time he goes out I am afraid he will never come back. And David could just . . . disappear. They could throw his body into the river or bury it in the desert, and we would never know what had happened to him.”

     “Good Gad, my love, that extravagant imagination of yours is getting out of hand! Ramses has been in worse scrapes than this one, and David has generally been in them with him.”

     I started to deny it but could not. A series of hideous images flashed through my mind: Ramses confronting the Master Criminal and demanding that that formidable gentleman return his treasure; Ramses dragged off to the lair of the vicious Riccetti, whom he had pursued accompanied only by David and the cat Bastet; Ramses strolling into a bandit camp, alone and unarmed . . . I did not doubt there were other incidents of which I had been happily unaware. Oh, yes, he had been in worse scrapes and had got out of them too, but his luck was bound to run out one day.

     I was not selfish enough to remind Emerson of that. I would not be one of those whining females who require constant reassurances and petting. Despair drains the strength, not only of the one who expresses it but of the one who is told of it.

     “I am sorry, Emerson,” I said, stiffening my spine literally as well as figuratively. “I will not give way again. And I have delayed us. We must hurry.”

     The garment I had intended to wear was now crumpled and covered by large wet footprints. I selected another, while Emerson dried his feet again and, at my request, mopped up the puddle of water on the floor.

     “What about Nefret?” he asked.

     “I would rather she did not come with us, but there is no way of preventing her. In fact, her presence will make this seem like one of our customary family outings. Behave normally and leave everything to me.”

     I feared I would have to go through the same thing with Ramses, who was lying in wait for me when I came down the stairs. “There is a button off your coat,” I said, hoping to forestall an argument. “I will get my sewing kit and —”

     “Stab yourself in the thumb,” Ramses said, his formidable frown relaxing into a half-smile. “You hate to sew, Mother, and with all respect, you do it very badly. Anyhow, I’ve lost the button. What the devil are you —”

     “Sssh. Behave normally and follow my lead. Ah, there you are, Nefret, my dear. How pretty you look.”

     Like the rest of us she was informally dressed, in a neat tweed walking skirt and matching coat. The golden-brown cloth, flecked with green and blue, set off her sun-kissed face and bright hair, which she had twisted into a simple coil at the back of her neck.

     “You have a button off your coat,” she remarked, inspecting Ramses. “And cat hairs all over the shoulder. Stand still, I’ll brush them off.”

     “You are a fine one to criticize my appearance, with that big purple lump on your forehead,” Ramses jeered.

     “Damn. I thought I’d arranged my hair to cover it.” Her fingers played with the waving locks framing her brow.

     “Not quite.” He watched her for a moment, and then put out his hand. “Let me.”

     She stood facing him like an obedient child with her chin lifted and her arms at her sides, while his thin, deft fingers gently loosened the gold-red strands and drew them down over her temple. One long lock curled round his hand and clung. He had to unwind it before he took his hand from her face.

     “I’ve made it worse,” he said. “Sorry. Excuse me for a minute.”

     “Go and tell the Professor we are ready,” I said to Nefret, and waited until she had started up the stairs before I went after Ramses, who had disappeared behind the statue. I found him leaning against the wall, staring intently at nothing that I could see.

     “You are as white as a sheet,” I told him. “What is wrong? Sit down. Let me get you —”

     “Nothing is wrong. A passing dizzy spell, that’s all.” His eyes came back into focus and the color began to return to his face. “I’m hungry,” he said in surprised indignation.

     “Nothing surprising about that,” I said, greatly relieved. “You only had a few sandwiches for lunch and it has been a hard day. Here, take my arm.”

     “I thought you wanted us to behave normally. Mother, why are you . . . I appreciate your concern, but I don’t understand what . . .”

     I knew what he meant and why he could not say it. Perhaps we were more alike than I had believed. “It has cost me a great deal of mental and physical effort to get you to your present age,” I explained. “I would hate to have all that effort go to waste.”

     “Yes, I see.”

     A bellow from Emerson ended the discussion. “Peabody! Where have you got to? We are waiting, damn it!”

     “Just having a look at the statue,” I said, coming forth with Ramses at my heels.

     There were three of them waiting — Emerson, Nefret, and the cat. They looked rather comical lined up in a row, with Seshat as expectant as the others. She was sitting bolt upright with her tail curled prettily around her front paws.

     “I think she wants to come with us,” Nefret said.

     Seshat confirmed her assumption by approaching Ramses. Looking up at him, she let out a peremptory mew.

     “You will have to wear your collar,” he informed her. The response was the equivalent of a feline shrug.

     “I’ll get it,” Nefret offered. “Where is it?”

     Ramses looked blank. “I don’t know.”

     “Fatima has it,” I said. “I gave it to her to keep, since you were always losing it.”

     Nefret darted off.

     In fact, the collar was seldom used since Seshat was not fond of travel. When she was not hunting hapless rodents in the garden or climbing around the exterior of the house, she spent most of her time in Ramses’s room. She seeemed to consider it her duty to watch over his possessions — or else (which is more likely) she considered it
her
room, and Ramses only a congenial and rather incompetent roommate, who required a great deal of looking after. I had never understood what prompted her occasional forays away from the house, and her determination to accompany us that night, of all nights, roused certain forebodings. Did she know something we did not?

     Nefret came back with the collar and gave it to Ramses, who knelt to buckle it around Seshat’s neck. Emerson moved to my side. “If you so much as shape the word with your lips, Peabody,” he said softly, “I will — er —”

     He did not finish the threat, since he could not think of one he would be able to carry out.

     “Which word, ‘premonition’ or ‘foreboding’?” I inquired as softly.

     “Neither, curse it!”

     “You must have felt it too, or you would not —”

     “Superstition is not one of my failings. I do wish you would get over your —”

     “Now what are you quarreling about?” Nefret asked. “Can we join in?”

     “Emerson is just being obstreperous,” I explained. “He always behaves this way when he wants his dinner or his tea or his breakfast or —”

     “Hmph,” said Emerson. He stalked out of the room, leaving me to follow. Ramses lifted the cat onto his right shoulder and offered me his other arm.

     “Do you go on, my dear,” I said. “Managing that cat is trouble enough. Nefret and I will follow, like obedient females. And try to prevent your father from driving the motorcar!”

     “Not much chance of that,” said Nefret, as Ramses started for the door with the cat draped over his shoulder. “Aunt Amelia, does it ever occur to you that this family is a trifle eccentric?”

     “Because we are taking the cat to dinner with us? I suppose some might consider it eccentric. But we always have done, you know; the cat Bastet went everywhere with Ramses.”

     “She always rode on his shoulder too,” Nefret said reminiscently.

     “He needed both shoulders then,” I said with a smile.

     “Yes. He has changed quite a lot since those days.”

     “So have you, my dear.”

     “Yes.”

     There was a note in her voice that made me stop and look searchingly at her. “Nefret, is something worrying you? Something you might wish to confide to me?”

     Nefret looked away. When she spoke, her voice was so soft the words were barely audible. “What about you, Aunt Amelia? I would like to help — to help you — with whatever is worrying you — if you would let me.”

     I did not at all like the direction the conversation had taken. Evidently my anxiety had not escaped her notice. Was my famed self-control failing? That must not happen!

     “How kind of you, my dear,” I replied heartily. “If something of the sort does arise, I will certainly request your assistance.”

     She did not reply, but hastened on. Intervention was called for; I could hear Emerson and Ramses arguing, more or less amiably, about who was to act as chauffeur. Nefret entered into the discussion with all her old zest; her laughter-bright face was so untroubled I wondered if I could have imagined that look of pain and appeal.

     Nefret has her own ways of managing Emerson; this time she got round him by declaring that
she
meant to drive the motorcar. Though Emerson is a firm believer in the equality of the female sex, he has some secret reservations, and one of them involves the car. (There is something about these machines that makes men want to pound their chests and roar like gorillas. I speak figuratively, of course.)

     In the end it was Emerson who proposed, as a compromise, that Ramses should drive. Nefret agreed with a grumble at Emerson and a look of triumph at her brother. He raised his hand to his brow in a surreptitious salute.

     Nothing could have been more normal than that exchange, and it put everyone in a merry mood. Emerson thought he had won, and the rest of us knew we had.

     Once we had traversed the Muski and its continuation, the Sikkeh el-Gedideh, our progress slowed, since the thoroughfares (bearing various names with which I will not burden the Reader) were narrower and crowded with people. The sun was setting and I was increasingly anxious to reach our destination but I did not urge Ramses to go faster. We made better progress than some might have done, since people tended to scamper briskly out of the way when they recognized the vehicle. Nodding from side to side, as regally as a monarch on progress, Emerson acknowledged the greetings of passersby. I wondered if there was anyone in Cairo he did not know. Most of them knew him, at any rate.

     “Perhaps we ought to have come on foot,” I murmured in his ear. “Our presence certainly will be noted.”

     “It would be noted in any case,” said Emerson. “Do you suppose we could go ten yards without being observed? Look at that.”

     Ramses had slowed almost to a stop in order to give the driver of a particularly stubborn camel time to drag it out of our path. A pack of ragged urchins now hung from both doors, exchanging comments with Ramses and paying compliments to Nefret. The compliments had, I admit, a certain financial element. “O beautiful lady, whose eyes are like the sky, have pity on a poor starving . . .”

     Ramses made a remark in Arabic that I pretended not to hear, and the assailants withdrew, grinning appreciatively.

     The motorcar had to be left on the Beit el Kadi, since it could not enter the winding ways that surround the picturesque sprawl of the Khan el Khalili. Emerson helped me out and started off without so much as a backward look; he assumed, probably correctly, that none of the local vagabonds would dare touch an object belonging to him. Ramses lingered briefly to speak to a man who had come out from under the open veranda on the east side of the square. Something passed from hand to hand, and the fellow nodded, grinning. Goodness, what a nasty suspicious mind the boy has, I thought.

     He must have got it from me.

     “Wait a moment,” I said, tugging at Emerson. “We should all stay together.”

     “What? Oh, yes, of course.” He turned. “Get hold of Nefret, Ramses, and hurry up.”

     “Yes, sir.”

     The archway on the east side of the square leads into the narrow lanes of the Hasaneyn quarter and to one of the entrances to the Khan el Khalili. Emerson led the way through this maze without a pause or a false step, despite the increasing darkness. The old houses have enclosed balconies jutting out from the upper stories, almost bridging the narrow street. This made the lanes pleasantly cool during the day and dark as pitch during the night. There are seldom any windows on the lower floors of these houses, and the only illumination came from an occasional lantern hanging over the doorway of a considerate householder.

     “Didn’t you bring your electric torch?” I asked, thankful that I was wearing stout shoes instead of low slippers.

     “Do you really want to see what you just stepped into?” Emerson inquired. “Hang on to me, my dear, we are almost there.”

     The restaurant was near the Mosque of Huseyn opposite the eastern entrance to the Khan el Khalili. Mr. Bassam, the proprietor, rushed to embrace us and heap reproaches on our heads. All these weeks we had been in Cairo and we had not visited his place! Every night he had hoped to entertain us, every night he had prepared our favorite dishes! He began to enumerate these.