The Mistress of Nothing (5 page)

It is extraordinary. My idea of our duo, my Lady and me, on an adventure like no other, has expanded quite smoothly to become a trio.

We are in the boat’s airless galley; it is kitchen, scullery, storeroom, and workspace all rolled into one. I draw a breath and stand tall. I am almost used to the feeling of sweat trickling down my spine continuously, like a tiny tributary of the Nile.

He looks at the flat bread he is making; he insists on making bread every day, claiming that the ship cook’s bread is no good, his infinitely better. He is right. “Please Miss Naldrett, you must sit down. You will be tired in the heat.”

“But I might learn something,” I say.

When I look, I can see he is smiling.

I study him. I can’t help myself, I stare and stare at everything and everyone in this country. He moves across the room and I catch his scent; he always smells very clean. It occurs to me that this might be because, as a Muslim, he does not drink alcohol; unlike Englishmen he is never beery and bleary of a morning. He looks up from his work, the work we share. His eyes are quick, dark but brightly lit, and he has caught me staring, but he gives no impression of having found me out. Instead, he smiles. His face is transformed, as though he smiles with his entire being. And I, unguarded—there’s no reason to feel guarded here, in this place, the Esher household and its gossip and malice are thousands of miles away, there is no one here to see me—smile back. The cramped conditions of the
dahabieh,
simultaneously damp and dry-hot, the sand that filters through every crack when the wind blows, the vermin I see clambering along the river bank, sliding hopefully into the water every time we draw near: all that fades away.

The
dahabieh.
I whisper the name to myself yet again:
Zint elBachreyn.
Long and narrow, sturdy, with an enormous white cloth sail. Mr. Abu Halaweh and the cabin boy battle to keep it clean; they have some success. There is a crew of eleven men, including the
reis
—captain—and his mate; Mr. Abu Halaweh says the crew are all from Upper Egypt, Aswan. To a man they are sleek and nimble and when my Lady and I embarked for the first time at the port of Boulak in Cairo, they lined up along the shore, immaculate in new white Egyptian cotton trousers, bare-chested, brown. A parade of half-naked men. I looked at them and thought, This is all so peculiar. It was all I could do not to laugh. Everything in Egypt is simultaneously alarming and entertaining.

Before we left the port, my Lady had the
reis
fix an English flag and an American pennant to the mast, as a signal to the consular agents we will meet along the Nile. Every corner of the boat is packed with supplies purchased during forays into the noisy markets of Cairo: not just food and drink but everything we could possibly need. There is a portable bath. Carpets. Six months’ supply of candles. Linen. An enormous copper kettle. I made list after list, checking and rechecking, consulting both my Lady and Mr. Abu Halaweh: we must not forget anything. This boat is our home for the time being. Our home. But not like any home I have known before.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU LEAVE EVERYTHING BEHIND? WHEN YOU
leave everything behind? When you leave everything familiar, not just houses and streets and wet windy wintertime, but husbands, children, friends? For me: the train into London on my day off; the arriving back home again. The branch of the oak tree that knocks against the roof of the stable. The postman who comes down the lane. None of these things have followed me to Egypt. Does this mean I am no longer the same person? Does this mean that I too have changed?

THE NILE: GREEN, A THICK, VISCOUS GREEN, LIKE MILK FLOWING
from a great green cow; often brown, churned up, swirling; occasionally clear to the bottom, sparkling, glassy; never blue. At night it is black, its depths infinite. It smells—I breathe in deeply—of vegetation, of grasses, even at times, rather oddly, like an English garden pond. Some days the river stinks, but even that is soon washed away. I stare down into the water for long minutes at a time, longing to dip my fingers, to trail my toes as I see men on other boats doing, but I am unable: the craft is too high above the water and besides, I’d have to take off my shoes and pull off my stockings. I’d have to remove my gloves, unpin my bonnet, put down my parasol.

And besides, there are crocodiles. I saw one our first day out; it slithered along the riverbank and into the water after us, as though we were its prey.

Luckily for me, when the boatmen bring
Zint el-Bachreyn
close in to the embankment, there is much else to see, much to take my mind away from the heat.

But the journey is hard on my Lady, truth be told; her health has been deteriorating steadily since the day we left Esher. The sea journey was too long, Alexandria too damp, Cairo too dirty, too busy. Shepheard’s Hotel was too expensive—as always, concern about money is at the forefront of my Lady’s mind—uncomfortable, and worse, claustrophobic. “That horrid hotel,” my Lady said later. “I couldn’t wait to get away. Now,” she says, she states uncategorically, “I will regain my strength as the boat travels south up the Nile.”

“Yes, you will,” I reply.

But a few days out of the port at Boulak, she can scarcely breathe, each breath as labored as the last, her blood spitting continual and debilitating, and none of my usual tricks—bed rest, hot drinks, fresh air, swaddling, steam humidity—are working.

It is evening. Mr. Abu Halaweh has arrived to take away my Lady’s meal tray, though she has eaten nothing. I am sitting at one end of her chaise rubbing her feet. “They are so cold, Sally,” she says, “like ice. As though my blood no longer reaches them.”

“Let me treat you,” I say.

My Lady groans and shakes her head.

“Miss Naldrett tells me she can make you better,
Sitti,”
says our dragoman. He calls her
“Sitti
Duff Gordon”—
Sitti
means Lady—or just
“Sitti,”
which my Lady enjoys. “I suggest you let Miss Naldrett treat you.”

We both turn and look at Mr. Abu Halaweh. “Is that an order?” asks my Lady.

I’m too startled to say anything.

“I suspect it is,” she continues, “the first of many, no doubt, Omar?”

He smiles his broad smile, winning us both over to his point of view.

And so, I treat her. Now that we are on board our temporary home and my Lady can rest in comfort and, even as she lies prone, be entertained by the world as the
dahabieh
glides along, she allows me to treat her.

But the treatment itself is dreadful: cupping. Neither of us relishes it. I was tutored in the cruel method by Doctor Izod in Esher last year, before we traveled to the Cape. He had adapted the procedure himself, adding a deep incision prior to the application of the heated glass. “There may not be a good, reliable doctor where you are headed, my girl,” he said. “We are trusting you with Lady Duff Gordon’s life,” and I quaked—without showing it, of course—because I had never thought of my position in this way before, caretaker of my Lady’s very life.

I clean the scalpel purchased in London for this sole purpose, specially designed, pointed and very sharp. Mr. Abu Halaweh is in attendance; he stands away from where my mistress lies, half-turned towards the door to preserve her privacy, but ready to help if he is needed. I have prepared the cup; I have heated it in a kettle of boiling water. It is hot to touch, but not hot enough to burn her skin, I hope. I am going to go in over the right breast, above the lung that, on earlier listening, sounded the more inundated, the more congested. I move quickly, unlacing my Lady’s blouse, pulling her undergarments to one side, baring her breast; this is only the second time I have undertaken this procedure unaided, and I want my movements to feel assured, definite—precise. I look up and meet my Lady’s gaze and she nods at me calmly; we have agreed she will not speak so as not to provoke more coughing. She took a steep draft of brandy before I began. I lower the scalpel and press down hard, making the incision, one inch long, perhaps an inch in depth. Blood wells up around the blade. My Lady cries out loudly before her head rolls to one side. Mr. Abu Halaweh steps forward but I reassure him: “It’s all right, she has fainted. It is a blessing.”

Moving swiftly, I unwrap the glass cup and, gripping it with the cloth as it is too hot for my bare hand, place it directly over the incision, pressing down firmly to create the cupping effect. The suction takes hold, the cup begins to cool and as it cools it fills with blood.

“Raise up the candle, please,” I say, and Mr. Abu Halaweh obeys. “Look,” I say, and he leans over for a better view, and I am pleased to see he does not appear squeamish. “Matter,” threads of white floating in the dark blood. “Pus. Sickness. It is being drawn out of her. This is what we want.”

Mr. Abu Halaweh says, his voice uncertain, “Are you certain this will make
Sitti
Duff Gordon feel better?” He clearly does not believe such a treatment can possibly work.

I find my hand begins to shake. I am having difficulty keeping the cup in place and am afraid I will lose the suction I have created. At first, I think his question ridiculous, but then I see the truth of it. “No,” I reply. “I’m not sure this will make Lady Duff Gordon feel better, Mr. Abu Halaweh. But this is what I’ve been taught, this is how I’ve been instructed to treat her by her English physician. And Lady Duff Gordon and I agreed: cupping, Mr. Abu Halaweh, it is what is needed.”

To my relief, he nods and I am able to keep my grip secure on the cup until it is full of blood and other bodily matter.

WE TRAVEL SOUTH. THE CREW SWING FROM STERN TO BOW WITH
tremendous ease. The river narrows into a steep canyon, bringing with it a kind of night blackness that I have never before experienced, as though the cliffs press together until they meet, high above our heads. Then the valley widens, broadens out again, pastoral. “Biblical,” my Lady proclaims from where she reclines on her makeshift daybed, and indeed, I think of Moses in his reed basket, floating along beside us. My Lady likes to be on the deck, under the shade of the canopy the crew have rigged, where she can watch the boatmen and the country, and she is making a good recovery now, the cupping wound healing well. In Cairo, Mr. Abu Halaweh wanted to hire a man to stand over her with a fan for the journey, but she would not agree. “There must be economies,” she declared. She lies back in the shade as a small breeze lifts off the water, not enough to cool anyone, but a breeze nonetheless. I move around the boat. I ask my Lady if there is any sewing, even though I know there is not. “Tearing,” says my Lady, “we should be tearing these clothes of ours to let in the air.” And yet with every mile south her breath grows a little easier and after a few more days she takes up her letters home once again. She is happy when she is writing; happiest when surrounded by her friends and family and making a great occasion of it, it’s true, but away from all that, her letters home are her family.

In the middle of the night, I wake. What is it? What is different? Then I realize—I am cool. I do not have to peel my nightdress away from my skin. There is a breeze, a real breeze, and it enters through my tiny window and departs by slipping beneath my cabin door. What month is it now? I ask myself, and I have to think hard before I can remember. November. I wrap a shawl around my shoulders and follow the breeze out onto the deck of the
dahabieh.
I walk forward, step on something, and skid back, alarmed. A half-awake Egyptian oath, followed by what sounds like an apology. There are men sleeping everywhere, the deck is covered with men, rolled up like carpets in a
souk.
The breeze lifts their hair and drops it again. I find a perch and sit down, taking long, slow breaths, and I marvel at the fact that here I am, awake in the night, surrounded by sleeping men, and it feels perfectly natural to me. The air is sweet, clear, and so pure that I suddenly feel that all my life, up to this point, I have been choking. No wonder my mistress has begun to improve at last. The night is moonlit and soft; the river is wide and the banks are broad. A lone ox moves along beside us. Egypt is sleeping, as it has slept for millennia.

The boat floats quietly on the water, and it takes me a while to realize we are moored. Over the past two years there have been many boat journeys. But this small sailing craft is not like those other boats; this boat is
our
boat, this journey
our
journey. And I realize, at this moment, that despite the uncertainty, despite my Lady’s illness and our exile from England, I am happy. Here, on the Nile at night, in the white Egyptian moonlight, I am happy.

AND SO WE JOURNEYED FURTHER SOUTH STILL, INTO UPPER
Egypt, then Nubia. We visited all the great monuments—the temples at Abydos and Edfu, Luxor, Karnak, and Dendera; we rounded that famous bend in the river at Abu Simbel and came upon the four huge statues of Ramses II seated against the cliff, sand up to their knees. “Compared to this,” my Lady said gravely, “we are so … temporary,” and then she laughed at herself as we clambered off the
dahabieh.
We traveled all the way south to Wadi Halfa before we turned around and were sluiced back down the Nile. It was as though every day brought a new visit to the Museum in Bloomsbury, except here everything was sunny and sandy and much brighter and more enormous than anything I could have imagined in Great Russell Street. I studied the ruins and tried my best to learn more about the culture and religion of the ancients, but I found myself continually distracted by Egypt, by the country around me that lived and breathed and did not require excavation. I was helped in this by my Lady, who was much more curious about the people—the modern Egyptian people, the
fellahin,
their mothers and sisters, fathers and uncles, where they came from, where they were going—than any number of crumbling antiquities. Even though her Arabic was still rudimentary, she did not hesitate to engage anyone and everyone we met in conversation; just as in England, she was able to find out who was who in any family straightaway. People always liked her, from the great and the grand to the poorest, most miserable mite; my Lady had the ability to make each person she met feel as though he was of great interest to her. Everyone had a story, and my Lady wanted to hear them all. Consequently, we were soon visiting more babies and old people than ruined temples and tombs, drinking cups of sweet tea and nibbling foods with strange flavors that were both sharper and sweeter than any we had eaten before. And the peculiar thing was—peculiar to me—that I enjoyed these visits as much as my Lady.