"Insha Allah," Isabel says, and she must have blushed for Umm Aya smiles and says: "But your mind is occupied with someone."
And Isabel, before she can think, says, "Yes." And then to her own surprise she says, "But I don"t know his feelings."
"His feelings?" Umm Aya draws in a breath "What can his feelings be? Can someone be desired by the moon and say no?"
Isabel smiles, shrugs.
"It"s certain that he wants you," Umm Aya says, "if he is a man. It could be that he wants you and there"s a reason making him not speak."
"I intend to speak to him," Isabel says. "This time."
"Speaking is no good, ya habibti. Ask one with experience and don"t ask the physician. Talk goes forward and backward and each understands it as he desires."
"What then?"
"You adorn yourself and scent yourself and sit with him in a comfortable way - and you are a woman and you know the rest -"
"El-Asr," Sheikh Isa says as the call to prayers floats into the room.
"I have to go." Isabel moves towards the sheikh. He holds out his hands and she places hers in them.
"Go, my daughter," he says, holding her hands between his own, "go. May G.o.d light your path, and give you that which you hold in your heart and compensate your patience with all good."
Isabel turns to see Umm Aya zipping up the holdall.
"Don"t forget your things," Umm Aya says, "and let your heart guide you."
And once again Isabel is enveloped in the smell of orange blossom.
19.
Only believe and thou shalt see.
J. S. B. Monsell, 1865 6 May 1901 I am to be married.
I look at the words and I can hardly believe them - and yet it is true. I am to be married in just over two weeks. And if Sharif Basha were to have his way we should be married Tomorrow, but he wishes the ceremony to be performed by his friend Sheikh Muhammad Abdu, who is at present in Istanbul, so we shall wait for his return.
Anna puts down her pen. She looks out of her window, but the men sipping their sundowners on the terrace of Shepheard"s Hotel, the Egyptian boys and the pa.s.sers-by on the street beyond reflect nothing of what is going on in her heart and mind. She crosses the room and examines her own face in the mirror. Something must show there, and indeed there is a flush on her cheeks and her eyes seem to shine with a deeper colour. She puts her hand to her face ...
I went, as he requested, to his mother"s house, and upon being admitted made my way to the great entrance hall. He was there, in the formal city dress I had first seen him in, his back to me, his hands joined behind it, his prayer beads working between the fingers of his right hand. As I came through the door he turned, and every aspect of him - the eyebrows almost joined above the dark, now troubled eyes, the thick, black hair invaded by white at his temples, the straight set of his shoulders, the way he held his head - every detail I had painted in my heart over the last five weeks held true, and my heart grew so agitated that I stopped and stood still in the doorway. For a moment, when he turned and saw me, he appeared taken aback, but it was just for a moment and he instantly collected himself and strode forward.
"Lady Anna," he said and took my hands. "Forgive me," he said, "it is just these -" The movement of his head indicated my dress. And of course, from the time I had been abducted into his house, he had only ever seen me in men"s clothes, or in his old dressing gown, or in the loose silken shift his sister had given me; never in the normal dress of a European woman. He stood and looked at me, my hands still in his grasp, as though he needed to ascertain that I was indeed the same person he remembered, the person to whom he had written his letter. I suppose I must have looked uncomfortable, for presently he said again, "Forgive me. I am overcome with ..." He did not complete his sentence but then said, "Come. Shall we sit down?"
I sat down on a divan and he sat next to me but immediately stood up again and positioned himself in front of me. When I glanced up he was looking at me intently, and a smile came into his eyes.
"You are as beautiful as I remember you," he said.
"But a little different," I replied.
He made a slight a.s.senting movement. "But it is still you, yes?"
"It is indeed," I said, and after a pause, "My desert clothes can still be found -"
"That will not be necessary. " He laughed. "I must get used to these. Oh, Anna -" with a gesture of impatience, turning away - "I want to have done with words. " He pushed his hands deep into his pockets. "But. There are the arrangements we have to make -"
"Arrangements?" I asked.
"For the marriage."
My heart made one sudden bound, and then all was stillness. His face darkened.
"You -" He looked at me intently. "Have I misunderstood? My letter, I thought was clear. And this morning I received your note -"
"Yes," I said, "yes." And now my heart beat so hard and my blood rushed about so that I thought I would surely faint.
"You have gone pale."
His voice was quiet - I would say curt. And I felt he was somehow retreating, moving away, although he yet stood in front of me. And I knew that I wanted him, I wanted him back with me. And I knew that it was paramount that he should not misunderstand me now.
"Monsieur," I said, above the beating of my heart, "you do me honour and I am indeed happy to accept your offer."
There was a silence and I made myself speak again: "If I seem strange it is just that I thought it would take a little more time - a few days perhaps - before we came to the point ..."
I looked up: he still glowered. I held out my hand. "Sharif Basha," I said gently.
He took my hand and I drew him to sit down close to me.
"Yes," I said, looking down at our hands. "Yes. I should very much like to marry you."
"You have to be sure," he said, my hand gripped tight in his. "You have to be completely, absolutely sure. You will be giving up so much - "I am sure," I said. And I was.
I heard him breathe out and then with his other hand he touched my face, feeling its contours as though to learn it. He fingered what loose curls he could find of my hair and I - I was lost to everything except his nearness and his touch. But when I thought he must surely kiss me, he moved away. On my new-released hand the rings I was wearing had made dents in the sides of my fingers. I studied these as he paced the floor.
"If Muhammad Abdu were here we could be married tomorrow," he said impatiently.
"It has to be him?" I asked and felt myself blush for I had not intended my words to sound so forward, and indeed I saw his face - so dark and impatient a moment before - light up with a wicked smile: "So, so? A few days my lady wanted to come to the point? But yes. No one else would dare do it. And it would not be right to ask. He has the authority -"
At that moment, with cries of "Lalu! Lalu!" little Ahmad came bursting into the room and his uncle turned to scoop him up into his arms. "Et alors," he said when Ahmad had finished hugging him, and then he said something in Arabic in which I caught the sound of my name and Ahmad, released on to the floor, came running up to kiss me and as I held him Layla ran in beaming, so that soon I was being embraced by both mother and child.
"Mabrouk ya Anna, alf mabrouk," she cried and went to hug her brother. "Mabrouk ya Abeih!" I saw the tears of joy in her eyes. "When?" she cried. "When will it be?"
"We were just saying -" Sharif Basha said.
Layla seemed to understand immediately and her joy was replaced by a worried look. "You must be careful, both of you," she said. "Very careful. No one must know until it is done."
I believe it was only then that I saw the true import of the step I was taking. It did not make me think again, no, not for one second. But alongside my new happiness an unease too was in that moment born, for I saw that I could not perhaps expect my friends to share in my joy. Sir Charles and Caroline, James Barrington and Mrs Butcher - I cannot believe I will be estranged from them for ever, yet at the best something different will colour our relations. I thought of the scandal it had caused three weeks ago when a German lady had dined at Shepheard"s with a gentleman who looked Egyptian and how the waiter - a Greek - had presented the gentleman (who turned out to be a cousin of the Khedive) with a fez full of salad with the compliments of the management. And then I thought of Lord Cromer and the Agency and a cold sliver of fear entered my heart - although not for myself.
"Anna," he said, "we will follow every proper procedure. But I think we should contract an Egyptian marriage first, and then have it ratified at the Agency."
"An Egyptian marriage is enough for me," I said.
"Lady Anna," he said and smiled, "Lady Anna who is never afraid. No, we will do it correctly. But meanwhile a bitter note came into his voice - "meanwhile I am sorry that I cannot take you out and court you properly. There is nowhere for us to go."
"You will have to court me later, monsieur," I said. "Meanwhile, I shall wait."
We went upstairs, where Zeinab Hanim kissed me most tenderly - indeed she kissed us both, with tears on her cheeks, and Mabrouka, her Ethiopian maid, clapped her hands so that her heavy bracelets jangled, but Sharif Basha stopped her in mid-zaghruda with a stern "Not now. When it is all done." But then he patted her shoulder and dropped a kindly kiss upon her head, for I understand she has been like a second mother to him all his life.
"As for my father," he said, "you can see him when we are married."
Looking up from Anna"s journal I am, for a moment, surprised to find myself in my own bedroom, her trunk standing neatly by the wall, my bed, the top sheet folded back, waiting for me to ease myself in. I had been so utterly in that scene, in the hall of the old house, in my great-grandmother"s haramlek. My heart had beaten in time with Anna"s, my lips had wanted her lover"s kiss. I shake myself free and get up to walk in the flat, to stand on the balcony, to look down at the street and bring myself back to the present. Who else has read this journal? And when they read it, did they too feel that it spoke to them? For the sense of Anna speaking to me - writing it down for me - is so powerful that I find myself speaking to her in my head. At night, in my dreams, I sit with her and we speak as friends and sisters.
In the kitchen I pour myself a cold gla.s.s of water from the fridge and pick up a cuc.u.mber which I bite into as I go back to the bedroom. Isabel is gone. All her things, the clothes she would not need, the big holdall with her camera and all her lenses, the books and tapes she has acquired, they are all here, stored in the boys" room. And she is somewhere over the Atlantic headed back for Jasmine and my brother. I have to speak to him. I have to talk to him straight. About her. I do not know what to make of her story of the shrine in the old house. Isabel is a practical, sensible woman. She is also romantic and full of feeling, but she is not mad. Not UFOs and alien abductions. Yet she was certain that she had pushed open a door and entered the shrine. She had sat there drinking Seven-Up and, by her account, conversing with a strange sheikh, a cheery serving-woman and a woman dressed like a Madonna in a painting.
We had gone back to the house next day and of course the door to the shrine was locked. Locked and padlocked and covered in cobwebs as it had been before. We went round to the front of the mosque. The tomb was covered by the usual green cloth and, yes, there were candles, but there are candles in many shrines. Beyond the iron screen the rest of the place was too dark for us to make out anything. I called the caretaker and told him we wanted to see the sheikh.
"Here"s the sheikh," he said, pointing at the tomb.
"No, the other sheikh," I said. "The one who lives inside."
"Ah! El-sheikh el-mestakhabbi? There isn"t one right now," he said. "The old one died and they haven"t brought a new one in his place yet."
"When did the old one die?" I asked.
"About a year ago," he said. "He was a youth, almost. But he was a pious man and the veil was lifted from him. And his father was here before him. They"ve been here a long time. For a hundred years. From before the house was taken by the government and turned into a museum."
"So for a year now there hasn"t been a sheikh inside?"
"It"s known, ya Sett. The thing is, a sheikh who lives here has to be - as you know - a man of G.o.d. It means he wants nothing of this world. This is the condition of the waqf. And you won"t find a man like that every day."
As we turned to go I thought of one more question: "And Umm Aya, does she still live around here?"
"I don"t know, ya Sett," the man said. "I haven"t heard of her."
Isabel is upset. She wants to argue with the man but I pull at her arm. In the car she says "I do not understand this. They were there. I saw them. I talked to them."
"Isabel," I say, "sometimes I think of people, or places, and the image is so strong that I"m quite shocked when I realise it was only in my head."
"They were there," she says, "just as you and I are here."
Tomorrow, I think, as I smooth on my night cream in the mirror, tomorrow I"ll place a call to her. And one to Omar. I haven"t got an international line. I would have been constantly tempted to call the boys.
Cairo
12 May 1901
Dear Sir Charles, I have just received yours of the 8th, in which you write that the Duke of Cornwall has promised to intercede for Urabi Pasha with the Sultan and the Khedive. This is welcome news indeed and will go - I hope - some way to redressing the wrong done these many years ago. I believe I have mentioned that Mahmoud Sami Pasha al-Baroudi lost his eyesight in Ceylon - so little did the climate agree with him - and now employs his daughters and grandchildren to read to him, for he is engaged on a work of compiling the best of Arabic poetry in one edition, with his notes. A formidable task for a blind gentleman. The others, of course, are now all dead. So I pray that the pardon of Urabi may heal some of those wounds which are still felt here today.
Life here is much the same. There was a Grand Ball in fancy dress at Shepheard"s last week. The Moorish Hall is very grand and well suited to such occasions. Four officers who wished to attend but - arriving late in Cairo - had no costumes, availed themselves of some ladies" gowns which are kept hung in closets in the corridors outside the rooms. They were a great success at the Ball but, by neglecting to return the dresses before they retired, caused a great deal of upset to the management next morning. The ladies were eventually pacified and peace reigned again. Such is the tenor of our amus.e.m.e.nts here.
James Barrington has confided to me that he thinks of returning to England. His mother has been recently left a widow and as an only child he is sensible of his responsibility towards her. He thinks he would not be unhappy - and could be of some use - on the staff of a London newspaper. I have promised to write and ask if you know of an opening? He is a very able young man and I believe you would find him sympathetic.
You ask when I think of returning. I have not made any plans. I do not yet find the heat too burdensome and I am making good progress with my Arabic - Anna breaks off. She feels too false writing glibly to her beloved Sir Charles about the progress she is making with her Arabic. She sets this page aside and starts again. She must have copied out the first four paragraphs for the letter continues on a different sheet: ... and I believe you would find him sympathetic. I think he will be in England before me, so I shall enlist his services in carrying to Mr Winthrop those herbs he asked me for last autumn. If there is anything at all that I can send you from here ...
And yet, the truth is that for the last two months, as her life in Cairo became more and more real to her, it has seemed to me that Sir Charles and Caroline and her home in London have receded in her mind. She worries about Sir Charles, but she knows that she is powerless to lift from him the greatest grief of his heart. Did she also fear that if she were in England she would be for ever ensnared in that grief?
17 May Today I removed Edward"s ring from my finger and put it - together with the ring I gave him - into the felt purse Emily made for me many years ago. Perhaps it is as well that I have had this time alone to prepare for the great change which is about to overtake my life. To bid farewell to the past, in as much as that can be done, and lay it to rest.
I should have thought that I would feel some concern towards Edward at this time. But I believe that were he alive, he would be indifferent to my marrying again - perhaps even happy for me and relieved for himself. Except - except that I think he would only feel that if I were marrying someone acceptable to him. As for this marriage - I try to imagine Edward and Sharif Basha (I still cannot use his name without the t.i.tle!). I try to imagine them meeting but even in my mind I cannot get them to shake each other"s hand. Piece by piece it is coming to me: the distance I am placing between myself and those I have known and cared for all my life. I can imagine Caroline meeting Sharif Basha, and perhaps flirting with him a little. But of the men - even dear Sir Charles - lean only imagine my father. He, I think, could have been his friend. Not here in Egypt, nor yet in England, but had they met in some other country I can quite imagine them conversing with quiet amicableness - even though it would have had to be in French. As for my mother, I am sure they would have become great friends upon the instant.
I have not seen him these eleven days. Nor will I - if all goes according to plan - until the 23rd. But Layla - my dear friend and soon to be my sister - has relayed his messages and tells me with smiles how he chafes and frets at each pa.s.sing day that I am not with him. "Dear Anna," she cries, "I am so happy! I thought it would never happen. And now you must hurry and give us a bride for Ahmad!" Sometimes she looks at me thoughtfully, though. And once she said, "You know Abeih will let you go home and visit whenever you want."
"I am sure he will," I said.
"Only -" She looked troubled. "You must not expect him to go with you."
"Yes," I said, "I had realised that."
"He could wait for you in France."
"Layla," I said, "all is well with me. It is too soon to start worrying about my homesickness." And indeed, I would not wish him to come to London and be stared at - or worse. One day, perhaps. When Egypt has her independence, we can take our children and open up Horsham for the summer months and I can show him - but that is a long time away.
Layla has told me of the arrangements. The contract on one day. The ratification at the Agency on the next - for the contract being in place, Lord Cromer can do nothing to stop the marriage. And the wedding itself will take place on the third day. We have discussed the details and I have said I should like as much as possible of the events to take place as though I were an Egyptian, for I feel sure that will bring much pleasure to Zeinab Hanim, who has been waiting these many years to rejoice in her son"s marriage. I think also it will make him happy. And, for me, since it will not be the old church at Horsham, then it may as well be entirely different. So I have told Layla that I leave myself in her hands and she is to arrange all things as she would for her sister. She is well pleased and has started by ordering me an evening gown of gold lame from a French seamstress on the rue Qasr el-Nil which I am to wear as a wedding gown. And whenever I go to the old house, I find her and Zeinab Hanim and the maids all st.i.tching and embroidering various garments which they hold up against me and pin and adjust until I beg for mercy. It is a shame for Emily"s sake that she cannot be made a part of all this for she would well love to - except, I do not know how she will take this marriage.
18 May Today I asked Layla to ask Sharif Basha if we could live with his mother. I have not seen his house, but I understand it is in the European style as all new houses are - and I have grown to love the old house more with every hour I have spent there.
"Could we not live here?" I asked. "If only for a while. It will be very hard for me to learn to keep house in the way he likes, and I would far rather learn from your mother than from the servants." I know also that Zeinab Hanim would dearly love to have her son once more under her roof, although she will not suggest it. And I should like, if one day pray G.o.d there is a child, to sit with Layla in the loggia at the edge of the courtyard, embroidering frocks, and watching our children play by the fountain, while I listen for the clatter of hooves and the bustle at the door that tell me my husband is come home.
20.