The Mistress of Nothing (18 page)

“That’s all right, Omar,” said my Lady; she had dressed and readied herself for the day without my help for the first time since—well, it was beyond remembering. When he told me this I felt both shame and sorrow. “I’m quite capable,” she added.

“Of course, my Lady.”

“I’ll take my breakfast on the deck.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

“One of those eggs that we picked up the other day.” She waved a hand to dismiss him, but he was not familiar with this gesture, he told me: “Like this,” he said, and he waved his hand airily, and I almost laughed at the look of indignity on his face. He stood there, he said, waiting. “That’s all, Omar,” my Lady said, “thank you.”

He tried again later that day. “He’s perfect,” he said when he was helping my Lady get ready to go to bed, a task made awkward by the fact that it was the first time he had performed it.

“Who?” said my Lady.

“The baby,” Omar said, and I imagine he smiled so sweetly that my Lady could not help but smile in return.

But she tucked the smile away quickly. “Oh yes,” she said, “the child.”

“Would you like me to bring him to you?”

My Lady cleared her throat. “No. Thank you, Omar, but no. I don’t want you to bring him to me.”

Omar was puzzled. “Sally will rest. I can carry out her duties for her; I don’t mind. I’m more than—”

“I have no doubt that you can do Sally’s job as well as your own, Omar. That’s not what I’m saying. I don’t want to see the baby.”

Omar stood still, looking at her.

“Is that clear?”

“Yes, my Lady.”

“Thank you, Omar. Good night.”

It was Christmas Day. Omar had forgotten, which was not surprising, and I, of course, had forgotten as well. Neither of us thought to mark the day in any way, and my Lady did not say a word about it to Omar. She must have been very tired after the hours she had spent with us in the night. If she thought of crying, she probably felt too worn out and, besides, that wasn’t her way. I imagine she felt quite ill; she hadn’t been well, and now this shock on top of everything. Finding me racked with the pain of childbirth on a boat on the Nile on Christmas Eve; this shocked her but it was not the worst of it. She had seen women labor before, she had given birth herself, and she knew what it was: a horrifying, unruly, and dangerous mess of hope and agony. But to not know, to have not been told, to have been lied to, by me, Sally Naldrett, her loyal maid—it was too much. She could not abide not knowing. I think this was what caused her the most pain. How could I, her constant companion these past few years, her devoted servant for more than a dozen—how could I betray her confidence in this way? How could she have not known, not guessed? I think this, as much as any of the deception, hurt her pride. How could she have not seen what I was up to? How could I have not told her? The whole thing, the entire
affair,
as she would have it, took place right under her nose and she did not catch so much as a whiff of it. This was too much. It was my Lady to whom people turned when they were in difficulty—servants, friends, and family alike. At home in the Gordon Arms it was my Lady who was expected to step in and sort out whatever problems the staff were having—personal, financial, or otherwise. That girl, Laura, the young one, who got herself into trouble in Esher just before we departed for Egypt, I told her to go to my Lady for help, and she did. And my Lady helped her. My Lady found her a place in a household in Esher—a lowly place, it has to be said, a humble household where she would be the only servant—but they agreed to take her in, along with her child. That young girl went to my Lady for help, and my Lady gave it freely. In Luxor the villagers came to her when they needed advice and assistance; they came to her with their sick children, with their disputes, their trials. People came to my Lady for help; they told her everything, all their troubles, all their woes. They asked for her advice, they asked for her assistance, more often than not they asked her to intervene in their lives. They didn’t lie to her; they didn’t go out of their way to hide the truth. They didn’t conspire to hide an entire pregnancy!

And on finding me in labor, well, there was nothing else for it: my Lady had rolled up her sleeves and helped her dragoman deliver his child. She held my hand and reassured me calmly; she told me to shout out, shout out the pain. She woke the
reis
and shifted the boatmen into action, delivering hot water, clean clothes, hot drinks, clean sheets, a sharp knife that had been sterilized in the fire. She was not surprised to find me as sturdy and stoic in labor as I was in the rest of my life. She told me so, and it is, in fact, the last thing I remember her saying to me when I was at my lowest in my labor: “I’m not surprised, Sally Naldrett, to find you capable of this.” And when the baby finally battled its way into the world, my Lady placed him in my arms and declared him fit and hale.

“I’m not surprised, Sally Naldrett, to find you capable of this.” At the time I heard one meaning. Now I hear another.

It was too much; it was too much to expect her to bear this turn of events. To expect her to take it, like everything else, in her stride: illness, years of it, dogged illness that couldn’t be shaken off or willed away, and then exile, voluntary exile—well, it was either that or death—far away from England and all she held dear, her friends, her children, her husband, her mother. At times on our travels I fancied us a tribe of thieves, my Lady, Omar, and me. We were stealing time, creating our own world, new lives for us all together, in Luxor, on the Nile, in Egypt. We three. But I smashed all this; I destroyed my Lady’s peace. It was an illusion all along and I exposed it thus, irrevocably.

That night, once my Lady was confident that mother and child were both fine, she went back to her cabin. She stripped off her bloody clothes and washed my blood off her hands, arms, and face. She did this without my help, without the assistance of her devoted lady’s maid. Then she lay down, exhausted. But I imagine that she was unable to sleep.

The time with Sir Alick in Cairo had gone badly. She had so longed for his visit; she had had such plans and hopes and ideas; we had talked about it endlessly. The things she would show him! The conversations they would have! He would love Egypt as she did, he would love Luxor even more, she was convinced. To be with him once again, her husband, the man she had married when she was eighteen and had loved ever since, all those years, all those happy years. And then his visit was spoiled. Sir Alick did not fall in love with Egypt. He did not love Luxor even more: he did not travel with my Lady to Luxor when she asked him to. And she fell ill once again, of course she did, her lungs growing tighter and tighter, the pain in her side like being licked by flames, she told me so, the coughing and spitting and the blood—years of it, blighting everything. Sir Alick’s visit was a failure, a dismal failure, their goodbye at Boulak a melancholy end to a miserable time. My Lady thought of her son, Maurice, almost a man, and her baby Rainey, five years old—nearly six—at home in England, without their mother, without any prospect of seeing their mother; she thought of them, and she was bereft. She turned away from me once Sir Alick was gone and, I could see, she was immolated. Buried alive. Here she was, in Egypt, alone, without her children, without her husband, without her family; Miss Janet was in Alexandria but, frankly, the distance between them was so great, my Lady’s daughter might as well have been back in England.

And perhaps then—I don’t know, I couldn’t see into her mind, even though I once felt as though I did so on a daily, hourly basis—my Lady had a thought that had never occurred to her before, a thought that shocked her as deeply as the birth of my baby: it might have been better to have stayed in England to die with those she loved around her, than to have come here to live out her Egyptian afterlife. It might have been better to die. And that thought was enough to destroy what remained of her equanimity, to annihilate the picture that my Lady had painted for herself and the world of the sweet harmony of her Egyptian domestic life. That, and the baby.

And whose fault is it? my Lady asked herself, though it wasn’t a real question because she knew the answer already: it was my fault. Sally Naldrett. Me.

I SOMETIMES WONDER NOW IF THINGS WOULD HAVE TURNED OUT
differently if we had told her about the child early on, from the beginning. Perhaps then she would have had time to become accustomed to the idea, to find a way to reconcile herself to the situation. If Omar and I had married early on and not kept our secret, perhaps the disaster could have been averted and, as the months passed, my Lady could have joined us in our happy anticipation. Perhaps then she would have come round, she could have been part of our conspiracy, instead of feeling conspired against. Abdullah’s birth came at the worst possible moment, a lonely Christmas-less Christmas Eve on the Nile, just days after my Lady had made her farewell to Sir Alick. But it seems likely to me now that her reaction would have been the same, no matter when she discovered the truth of my—our—situation. And if we had told her then, in the spring, our time together might have been cut even more cruelly short, and Omar might not have been nearby at the time of the birth of his child. That was why we never did find a way to tell her; we knew inside our hearts that the risk was very great. So we deceived her, and now the consequences were ours—mine—to bear.

THE JOURNEY UP THE NILE AFTER THE BIRTH OF THE BABY WAS SLOW;
when we crossed the invisible line that divides Lower and Upper Egypt, at Asyut, the wind deserted us almost entirely. In my cabin, we felt becalmed, Abdullah and I, along with the
dahabieh.
One afternoon the crew were forced to get out and tow the boat with a rope along the riverbank. I could hear their shouts and the
reis
issuing sharp orders from his place on deck; the baby was asleep so I decided to go up, stretch my limbs, and see what there was to see. I came out at the stern of the boat, and I could see my Lady up ahead, in her seat beneath the canopy, the
reis
at her side. Omar was at his pots and pans below in the galley.

I stood and watched the men, envying their brown-limbed strength; the sunshine was warming; as always, it warmed the aches in my body. I’d speak to my Lady in a moment or two, but for now it felt good to be in the open air. I stared down at the still, green Nile, when something in the water caught my attention. Next to the hull, midship, something had risen to the surface. For a moment I thought it was a crocodile.

It was a woman. A dead woman. Silver bracelets glittered on her arms, which were raised up and stiffened as though in self-defense. Her knees were drawn up as well, and she was naked, and her breasts floated on the water beneath her young face.
“Beni Adam!”
the men shouted, spotting her only a moment after I had. The
reis
immediately offered a prayer. “God have mercy on her.”

“What on earth … ?” I heard my Lady exclaim. “Is she dead?” But of course we could see she was.

The
reis
replied, “Murdered, most likely. She still has her bracelets, so she has not been robbed. Let us pray for her father.”

“The poor girl,” said my Lady, and I wanted to rush to her side, “why would anyone want to murder her?”

One of the boatmen was attempting to push the woman away from the
dahabieh
with a pole; the body spun round in the water, making an ugly sucking noise. I began to feel faint. I was relieved that no one had noticed me. I’d go back down to my cabin to rest. But before I could go I heard the
reis
speak. “We are in the Saeed, Upper Egypt,
Sitti.
Most likely the woman was an adulteress, she has blackened her father’s name—his honor—and he has been forced to strangle her. Poor man.”

“An adulteress,” said my Lady. “I see.”

There was a strange note in my Lady’s voice; I heard it and I thought, that woman in the water is me.

I gave an involuntary shriek. “My Lady,” I said, and I began to move along the ship towards her. Just then, Omar came up from the galley, cutting off my progress. He placed a shawl around my shoulders and I slumped against him as he murmured to me, herding me back to my cabin, steering me away from my mistress, though of course I did not realize this at the time.

That night I was restless, unable to sleep, the dead woman bobbing in the water before my eyes, that word, “adulteress,” repeating itself over and over again. I was an adulteress. Omar already had a wife and a child, though it suited me to ignore this fact. We planned to marry: Egyptian law would allow us to do so; he would not have to divorce his first wife. But for the time being, I was an adulteress. Would my punishment be as harsh as that of the woman we had seen?

“KEEP HER FROM MY SIGHT, OMAR.”

In Luxor, late at night, Omar told me about the conversation that took place between himself and my Lady on our
dahabieh
that night.

“Pardon, my Lady?” Omar was tidying her cabin, one of the many duties that had previously fallen to me.

“Keep her away from me. I don’t want to see her.”

“But, my Lady—”

“Don’t answer back to me!”

Omar took a step away from my Lady and straightened. She had never spoken to him this way.

“I do not want to see her.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

“Thank you.”

Omar nodded.

“That will be all.” Again, that unfamiliar gesture of dismissal.

Omar bowed and left the cabin.

A few days later, Omar told me, he took it upon himself to plead our case.

“We plan to marry.”

“You are already married!”

“Egyptian law allows me to take more than one wife, my Lady.”

“You will not marry her. What will become of Mabrouka?”

“I can carry out my duties as the husband of two wives; this will not be difficult for me.” Omar kept his voice low, while my Lady’s rose and rose.

“She came to Egypt in service to me; it is I who will determine her fate. She is my employee.”

“I will marry her, my Lady.”

“Omar, she has tricked you into this. She is clever and quick and she has taken advantage of your—your kindness. You do not understand European women. I will not give my permission.”