The Golden One: A Novel of Suspense (23 page)

Ramses was in and out at odd hours; all he would say, when I questioned him, was that he was exploring various sources of information. He spent a good deal of time alone with Nefret. I did not begrudge them this, but I could not help asking her, one morning when we were alone, whether he had told her anything I wasn’t supposed to know. “If I had promised not to tell you, I wouldn’t,” she said with a smile that took any possible sting out of the words. “But there’s nothing.” “Are you all right, Nefret?” “Yes, of course. Why do you ask?” “You are too calm. More than calm — serene. Misty-eyed.” “Good Gad, Mother!” She burst out laughing. “You do have a way with words. Perhaps I’ve become a fatalist. If I could go with him I would, but I’m beginning to realize — finally! — that my whining and my clinging only make it harder for him. There are some dangers one must face alone.” “True,” I said thoughtfully. “However, there is nothing wrong with attempting to minimize the danger if one can.” “You’ve got something in mind, haven’t you?” She looked alarmed. “Mother, don’t tell me unless you want Ramses to know. We keep nothing from one another.” “And quite right, too. Perhaps I had better not, then. He would only fuss. Fear not, my dear, I won’t do anything that might endanger him.” I had not expected Ramses would give us much notice of his departure, so I went ahead with my own schemes as quickly as was possible. Sure enough, my son turned up one afternoon in time for tea, with the news that he would be leaving immediately. “There’s a new batch of Labour Corps ‘volunteers’ going off tomorrow. I’ll stay with them as far as Rafah, where I am to meet Chetwode.” At the beginning of the war, Britain had promised the Egyptians they would not be asked to take part in the conflict. That promise, like so many others, had been broken. Some of the poor fellows who made up the Labour Corps had volunteered, but most had been conscripted by local magistrates to fill their quotas. I didn’t doubt Ramses could blend in perfectly; for a man who had played the parts of beggars, camel drivers, and mad dervishes, a peasant from Upper Egypt presented no difficulty. It sounded like a very uncomfortable method of getting where he wanted to go, but there was no use asking Ramses to explain. “Ah,” I said. “In that case, we had better start packing.” Ramses must have known there wasn’t a hope of persuading us to remain in Cairo, but he tried. “Mother, too many people already know about this supposedly secret expedition. The three of you marching purposefully on Gaza will be a dead giveaway. You’re too well known, especially Father.” “Ah, but we will be in disguise,” Emerson said. Emerson loves disguises, and is not allowed to indulge in them as often as he would like; he looked so pleased, his lips parted in a broad smile, his blue eyes shining, that Ramses hadn’t the heart to object. Instead he gave me a critical look. “You’ve worked it all out, haven’t you, Mother? Nefret, why didn’t you tell me about this?” “She knew nothing of it,” I said quickly. “I couldn’t ask her to keep secrets from you, now could I?” “Oh, God.” Indignation and reluctant amusement mingled on his face, to be replaced by remorse. He went to Nefret and took her hands in his. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” “Your apology is, for once, appropriate.” She looked up at him with a smile. “I accept it. Mother only told me she had the situation well in hand. I didn’t ask for details. I trusted her, and I suggest you do the same.” “Don’t worry, my dear,” I said cheerfully. “Your father and I have it worked out. He has a dear old friend in Khan Yunus —” “Of course,” Ramses said resignedly. “Mahmud ibn Rafid. Is there any place in the Middle East where Father doesn’t have a ‘dear old friend’?” “Not many,” said Emerson, smoking. “Khan Yunus is only ten miles south of Gaza, and Mahmud owns a villa there.” He chuckled. “When he told me ‘My house is your house,’ he may not have meant it literally, but he cannot object if I take him up on the offer. He’s scampered off to Damascus, so that will be all right. It is quite a comfortable house. Even your mother will be pleased with it.” I doubted that very much, but at such a time I would have settled into a cave or a tent in order to be nearby when Ramses carried out his hazardous mission. “Quite,” I murmured. “Emerson, I presume you have made the other arrangements we discussed? I cannot think of anything I dislike more than a long journey by camel, but there seems to be no alternative.” “Ah, but there is,” Emerson said. Self-satisfaction is too weak a word for the emotion that illumined his countenance and swelled his broad chest. “I will give you three guesses, Peabody.” A hideous sense of foreboding came over me. “Oh, no, Emerson. Please. Don’t tell me —” “Yes, my dear. I have acquired a new motorcar.” Avoiding my stricken expression, he turned to Ramses and explained. “It’s a splendid vehicle, my boy, one of the T Model Ford Light cars the military has been using. It has —” “How did you — uh — acquire it?” Ramses asked. “Ah, well, you know my methods,” said Emerson with a grin. “You stole it!” “No. Well. Not exactly. It has —” “You can’t drive it yourself, you know,” I interrupted. This obvious fact had occurred to me once I got over my initial consternation, and it cheered me quite a lot. “Think how absurd you would look at the wheel, in turban and caftan.” “I have considered that,” said Emerson, with great dignity. “You said you would leave the problem of transport to me.” “Hmmmm. Frankly, I do not see how we can drive all that distance without getting bogged down in sand dunes and blowing up tires; but if all goes well —” “It won’t,” Ramses muttered. “If it does, we should arrive within a few days of one another. Mind this, Ramses; you are to report yourself to us before you go to Gaza. You know where we will be. For our own peace of mind and for safety’s sake, we want to be made cognizant of your plans. Have I your word?” “Yes.” He hesitated for a moment, and then shrugged. “You’ll have to follow the road, so I suppose the worst that can happen is that you’ll break down and be forced to accept help from the military. Speaking of peace of mind, I would like to be made cognizant of yourplans. Is Father to be a wealthy aristocrat — a wealthy, beardedaristocrat — and Mother his favorite wife?” “No, that is Nefret,” I explained. “I am the older wife.” Ramses exchanged bemused glances with Nefret. Her open-mouthed astonishment convinced him, had he doubted it, that she had known nothing of my scheme. He laughed a little, and shook his head. “Mother, you never cease to amaze me. I hope you enjoy yourself. As the older wife you will be in a position to bully Nefret — and Father.” “Ha,” said Emerson meaningfully.

Ramses was gone next morning. When Nefret joined us for breakfast she was a trifle hollow-eyed and pale, but that might have been a normal reaction to such a hard parting. I did not feel I had the right to ask what they had said to one another — my sympathetic imagination supplied a good deal of the dialogue — but I did venture to inquire whether Ramses had been angry about our following him. “Resigned, rather,” Nefret said, toying with her toast. “Eat something,” I ordered. “We are leaving in an hour and it will be a long, hard day. The first of many, I fear.” “Not at all,” said Emerson. “The T Model Ford Light car —” “I don’t want to hear about it, Emerson. Eat your breakfast.” “I have,” said Emerson indignantly. “You are the one who is delaying us.” To have left the hotel in disguise or in the vehicle Emerson had acquired would have aroused speculation. We went by cab to Atiyeh, the village where the northern branch of Abdullah’s family lived, and there we found no other than Selim awaiting our arrival. He was disappointed when I failed to register surprise at seeing him. “It was logical,” I explained. “Once I learned of the motorcar. I am pleased, Emerson, that you didn’t insist on driving it yourself.” “I had a number of reasons for bringing Selim along, all of them excellent, and all of them, you will claim, obvious to you. Let us not waste time discussing the subject. Is the car ready, Selim?” “Yes, Father of Curses. It is,” Selim said enthusiastically, “a wonderful motorcar. It has —” “What about supplies?” I asked. “Everything is in order, Sitt Hakim,” Selim said. He looked doubtfully at the piles of personal luggage I had brought. “I think there will be room.” There was, but just barely. Nefret and I would have to sit on some of the parcels and put our feet on others. There was not even space on top of the vehicle, where Selim had fastened several long planks. The whole village gathered to wave good-bye and shout blessings. It would have been impossible to conceal our expedition, whose ostensible purpose was to examine certain ruins in the Sinai. Selim had asked them not to speak of it, and since they all knew about Emerson’s frequent disputes with the Antiquities Department, they assumed we were planning to excavate without official permission. Sooner or later someone would tell the story, as a good joke on the authorities, but as Emerson philosophically remarked, it didn’t matter much; by the time the gossip reached General Murray, it would be too late to stop us. As an additional precaution we waited until we were well away from the village before we assumed our disguises. Emerson’s consisted of shirt and trousers, an elegant long vest and flowing robe, and, of course, a beard. Instead of a tarboosh or turban, he covered his head with a khafiyeh — the flattering headdress worn by the desert people that frames the face in folds of cloth and is held in place by a twisted cord. It shadowed those distinctive features more effectively than a turban and protected the back of his neck from the sun. Nefret and I bundled ourselves up in the inconvenient and uncomfortable ensembles worn by Moslem ladies when they travel abroad. Ramses always said that if a disguise is to be successful, it must be accurate in every detail, so Nefret and I were dressed from the skin out in appropriate garments: a shirt and a pair of very full trousers, with a long vest, called a yelek, over them; and over the yelek a gibbeh; and over the gibbeh the additional layers of the traveling costume — a large loose gown called a tob, a face veil that reaches nearly to the feet — and on top of it all a voluminous habarah of black silk which conceals the head and the hands as well as everything else. Emerson and Selim both stared when Nefret removed the scarf that had covered her head; I had dyed her hair before we left the hotel, and it made quite a difference in her appearance. “What did you do that for?” Emerson demanded. “Her hair will be covered.” “Not from other women in the household,” I replied, applying brown coloring to Nefret’s smooth cheeks. “And one must always be prepared for accidents. That red-gold hair is too distinctive.” Selim nodded and grinned. He was in a state of boyish exuberance, flattered by Emerson’s confidence and looking forward to the adventure. He had not been told of Ramses’s mission, nor of our real purpose. That did not matter. He had complete faith in Emerson — and, I believe I may say, in me — and rather fancied himself as a conspirator. I can best sum up that journey by saying that camels might have been worse. Without Selim’s expertise and Emerson’s strength we could never have got through. The first part of the trip was not too bad, for the Corps of Engineers had improved the roads from Cairo to the Canal. We crossed it at Kantara, on one of the pontoon bridges, and it was here we met our first and only check by the military. Huddled in the tonneau amid piles of parcels, enveloped in muffling garments that concealed everything except our eyes, Nefret and I waited in suspense while Emerson produced a set of papers and handed them to Selim, who passed them over to the officer. Staring straight ahead, arms folded and brow dark, Emerson was a model of arrogant indignation. He did not move an inch, even when the officer handed the papers back and saluted. “How did you get those?” I asked, sotto voce. “I will explain later,” Emerson grunted, as Selim sent the car bumping over the bridge. We camped that night in a little oasis not far from the road, and a great relief it was to stretch our cramped limbs and remove several layers of clothing. “We are making excellent time,” Emerson announced, as Selim got a fire started and Nefret and I sat by the little tent he had set up. So far I could not fault Emerson’s arrangements, though I was inclined to attribute some of them to Selim. Emerson would never have thought of the tent. Concealed in its shadow, away from the flickering firelight, we allowed ourselves the luxury of removing not only the face veil and habarah but the tob and gibbeh. The air had cooled rapidly after the sun set, as it always does in the desert. Selim insisted upon doing the cooking, and while he arranged his pots and pans, Emerson produced the set of papers he had shown the officer. I studied them with a surprise I was unable to conceal. They bore the signature of none other than the high commissioner, Sir Reginald Wingate, and testified to the moral character and loyalty of Sheikh Ahmed Mohammed ibn Aziz. “Where did you get these?” I demanded. “Not from Wingate?” “Good Gad, no.” Emerson began digging around in the luggage. “What did you do with my pipe?” “I didn’t do anything with it since I didn’t know you had brought it,” I retorted. “Isn’t a meerschaum out of character?” “The devil with that,” said Emerson, extracting pipe and tobacco pouch. “As for the papers, you will never guess how I got them.” “A forger?” inquired Nefret, scanning the papers I had handed her by the light of the flickering flames. “A very skilled forger. You know a good many of them, I expect.” Emerson went about filling his pipe. “The ones with whom I am acquainted specialize in antiquities,” he replied. “I required a different sort of expertise. So I paid a visit to Ibrahim el-Gharbi.” “The procurer?” I gasped. “But, Emerson, you called him —” “A vile trafficker in human flesh. A good phrase, that,” said Emerson, puffing. “According to Ramses, el-Gharbi can be useful if one takes everything he says with a strong seasoning of skepticism, and he has connections with every illegal business in Cairo. At the moment he is open to reason. He wants to get out of that prison camp.” “I hope you didn’t promise you would arrange his release in exchange for these papers,” I said severely. “The end does not justify the means.” “I made no promises” was the evasive reply. “But we owe the rascal, Peabody. It was through el-Gharbi, or rather one of his sources, that I was able to — er — acquire the motorcar. He also gave me the name of the man who forges official papers for him, and a chit telling him to comply with my request. Good, aren’t they?” “Let us hope all our difficulties will be so easily solved,” I said. “Don’t be such a pessimist, Peabody,” said Emerson. “Aren’t you the one who keeps telling me to enjoy the moment, without worrying about what the future may bring? What could be more enjoyable than this?” I could have mentioned quite a number of things, but it was pleasant to sit round the fire with the fresh breeze of the desert cooling our faces and the blazing stars of the desert shining down. The infinite eyes of God — and nowhere in that vast wasteland to hide from them. Fortunately my conscience was perfectly clear. It was to be our last peaceful hour for several days. From Romani on, the road surface worsened, and we encountered a great deal of traffic. Heavy lorries lumbered past, loaded with supplies; troops of soldiers plodded through the sand. They gave us curious glances, but no one ventured to address us. The magnificent presence of Emerson, his nose jutting out from the spreading blackness of his beard, was imposing enough to win respect, and the presence of two veiled females forbade interference. The men had been warned to leave Moslem women strictly alone. Squeezed uncomfortably in our nest of baggage, Nefret and I looked enviously at the troops of cavalry that occasionally contested our right of way. Most of them were Australians or New Zealanders, and a splendid-looking lot of men they were. It was after we passed el-Arish, the farthest advance of the railroad, that the real trouble began. Men were working on the tracks and our unusual group had begun to attract undesirable attention. Emerson, who thinks he knows everything — and usually does — declared he knew of another path that would lead us through the Wadi el-Arish and into Palestine from the southwest. There had been fighting at Maghdaba, some twenty miles west of el-Arish, and the ground was strewn with the debris of battle, including the pathetic remains of horses and camels. After the second tire blew I began to worry about supplies. We were down to our last three cans of petrol, and the water was running low. The bed of the wadi was rough but not impassable; Selim kept turning and swerving, trying, as I supposed, to avoid the worst bumps. He could not avoid all of them; holding Nefret in a firm embrace, I began to wonder how the devil we were to get out of the cursed canyon. It was one of the longest wadis in the region, stretching all the way down into the desert. Suddenly there was a shout from Emerson. “There!” he cried, pointing. “Left, Selim.” I took one appalled look at the slope, littered with boulders, and shrieked, “Stop!” Selim did, of course. When faced with conflicting orders from Emerson and me, he knew whose command to obey. Emerson turned and shot me an outraged glare. “What’s the matter with you, Peabody? There is no easier way out of the wadi for another five miles, and —” “Easier? Well, Emerson, I will take your word for it, but I am not going to be bounced up that incline. Nefret and I will ascend on foot. Get out of those clothes, Nefret.” I began stripping off my own garments as I spoke. Flushed with heat but perfectly composed, Nefret said meekly, “Yes, Mother,” and followed my example. The men raised all sorts of objections. Emerson declared, “You can’t climb in those clothes!” and Selim, deeply offended, assured us that he was perfectly capable of getting the confounded motorcar up the slope without difficulty. Naturally I ignored these complaints. After fumbling about, I located one of the bundles I had brought and took out two pairs of boots. “What the devil,” Emerson began. “I believe in being prepared for all possible contingencies,” I replied. “And as you see, it is as well I was! Hoist up your trousers, Nefret, and tuck the ends into your boots. Now then, I think we can manage; are you ready, my dear?” Nefret grinned. “As Ramses has often said, you never cease to amaze me, Mother. Yes, I’m ready.” It was not a difficult climb — there was even a path of sorts, winding back and forth across the slope. We were able to remain upright most of the time, without having to resort to four-limbed progress. When we reached the top we saw before us a baked, barren landscape that shimmered with sunlight; but the hot air dried the perspiration that had coated our bodies, and it was wonderful to be out of those layers of clothing. Nefret peered down into the wadi. “Selim has backed the car up,” she said. “They see us — the Professor is waving us to get out of the way — they’re coming . . . Oh dear. I don’t think I can watch.” It was impossible not to, though. Amid crashes and thumps and the groans of various bits of the machinery, the vehicle thundered up the slope. Even louder than the other noises were the enthusiastic whoops of Emerson, bouncing up and down and grinning from ear to ear. When Selim stopped, on a fairly level stretch of ground, Nefret and I ran toward the car. “There, you see?” Emerson demanded. “I told you it would be all right.” “One of the tires is flat,” I remarked. Emerson waved this aside. “We’ll have it mended in a jiffy.” Selim managed to mend the tire, despite Emerson’s attempts at advice and assistance. We passed round the water bottle, resumed our costumes, and started again. I will draw a veil over the succeeding hours. I lost count of the number of times we got stuck in a sand dune. On several occasions Selim was able to back up and go at it again; at other times he had to lay the planks down and Emerson had to push from behind. He had removed all his extraneous garments, and shouted encouragement to Selim as the wheels spun and sent sand spraying over him. His head was bare, his fine linen shirt was torn and smeared with oil; in short, he was having a wonderful time. As the sun sank westward, it became apparent that we were not going to make it back to the coastal road that day. Bathed in perspiration, muffled in fabric, I was considering methods of murdering Emerson, and perhaps Selim as well, when I saw ahead a few spindly palm trees. “There it is,” Emerson said happily. “I thought I remembered the location.” “You thought?” I repeated. It was not much of an oasis, but there was water, brackish and muddy, but enough to allow us to sponge our faces and limbs. “Your little shortcut has only cost a day,” I remarked, as we sat round the small fire. “So far.” “We’ll be back on the main road tomorrow,” Emerson said. “And in Khan Yunus
by nightfall.” “So you say.” I looked at Nefret, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground eating sardines out of a tin. “I will have to dye your skin again, Nefret. What with sand and perspiration, most of it is gone. And you, Emerson —” “What’s wrong with my appearance?” Emerson demanded, running his hand through his beard and sprinkling his sardines with sand. “Shall I have a disguise, Sitt Hakim?” Selim asked hopefully. “You might shave your beard,” I said. Selim went pale and clutched at his treasured beard. I repented my cruelty almost at once. “I was joking, Selim. You are not known in this region; I do not believe a disguise is necessary.”