that chilled him to the bone. When he turned back to Harriet, the expression on her face alarmed him even more, for she appeared to be begging for his love, for a respectable future with him in a house like the one in which he suddenly felt like a captive. His stomach flopped over. He must have blanched. He withdrew his hand. When Gertrude returned with her book, he made his excuses and fled, never to return.
Outside in the street, he wanted to scream out of guilt and shame. What courage she must have marshaled to take his hand! And those exquisite, gauzy fingertip kisses! If Mrs. Collier hadn’t inadvertently rescued him with that vulgar smile when she thought she’d glimpsed a potential son-in-law, he might have promised Harriet anything. How weak and softhearted he was, how easily seduced! His contempt for marriage, his years of indiscriminate sex had been insufficient defense. He was still a romantic! As a corrective, he remained celibate for the next four months.
He didn’t know what had happened to Harriet. Gertrude had married and become a patron of the arts. Probably no suitor had claimed Harriet because of her weak constitution and the presumption she couldn’t carry an infant to term. What an elegant spinster she would make, clad in dark dresses befitting one no longer prowling for a mate, but set off to one side, like a beautiful vase reduced to holding umbrellas. From time to time he allowed himself to remember her: faintly damp with fever, wearing a fawn silk gown and roses in her hair, she reclined upon a brocade settee or draped herself over an armchair, lank as a set of clothes awaiting their owner to gather them up and put them on.
• • •
My dear Miss Nightingale:
Your letter reached me within two days, carried, I think, on the back of a donkey without benefit of franking but rather because a Mahmoud knew an Essem, who knew an Ismael, who had heard of a Youssef and here it is, in my hand. I hope that mine to you will travel as swiftly.
I owe you a debt of thanks for taking the time to explain the levinge and save me from “the biting hordes.” You are right—the standard mosquito netting is insufficient, and I have the welts to prove it!
What a lovely name you have, especially in French: Rossignol. And may I say that I find your French charming, far superior to my jagged shards of English. I hope one day to learn English well enough to read Shakespeare without a dictionary.
We’ve dropped anchor downriver from Abu Simbel, in a little cove. I wonder if you are nearby and if you have yet seen the mammoth statues of Ramses that flank the great temple. Max is excavating one Ramses for the sake of the official photographs he has been commissioned to make. (As I may have told you, I am documenting the monuments by making archaeological squeezes or molds of the inscriptions, though I am not an archaeologist.) I find it fascinating that the Egyptians and Nubians who live with these splendid monuments have so little feeling for them. They walk past them with no curiosity, as if they were old concert posters on a kiosk.
I regret that I did not meet your traveling companions, but perhaps the opportunity will yet present itself.
I have acquired an Arabic nickname, Abu Chanab, which means “Father Mustache.” Max is called “the Father of Thinness,” an apt description. Has your crew told you their nicknames for your party? Ask your dragoman and hope he is not too shy to tell you. Egypt seems a place where one requires an epithet. I shall call you Rossignol, my songbird, until you tell me another.
We shall be working here for at least another week, so perhaps we shall see you and your party again. I hope so.
I hereby swear that we have done no shooting among crowds, that we have shot only turtledoves for our larder and the odd eagle and lammergeier, the first for the sake of the feathers, the second because the sight of these huge, impatient buzzards strikes panic into my heart. (Max and I lay
Outside in the street, he wanted to scream out of guilt and shame. What courage she must have marshaled to take his hand! And those exquisite, gauzy fingertip kisses! If Mrs. Collier hadn’t inadvertently rescued him with that vulgar smile when she thought she’d glimpsed a potential son-in-law, he might have promised Harriet anything. How weak and softhearted he was, how easily seduced! His contempt for marriage, his years of indiscriminate sex had been insufficient defense. He was still a romantic! As a corrective, he remained celibate for the next four months.
He didn’t know what had happened to Harriet. Gertrude had married and become a patron of the arts. Probably no suitor had claimed Harriet because of her weak constitution and the presumption she couldn’t carry an infant to term. What an elegant spinster she would make, clad in dark dresses befitting one no longer prowling for a mate, but set off to one side, like a beautiful vase reduced to holding umbrellas. From time to time he allowed himself to remember her: faintly damp with fever, wearing a fawn silk gown and roses in her hair, she reclined upon a brocade settee or draped herself over an armchair, lank as a set of clothes awaiting their owner to gather them up and put them on.
• • •
My dear Miss Nightingale:
Your letter reached me within two days, carried, I think, on the back of a donkey without benefit of franking but rather because a Mahmoud knew an Essem, who knew an Ismael, who had heard of a Youssef and here it is, in my hand. I hope that mine to you will travel as swiftly.
I owe you a debt of thanks for taking the time to explain the levinge and save me from “the biting hordes.” You are right—the standard mosquito netting is insufficient, and I have the welts to prove it!
What a lovely name you have, especially in French: Rossignol. And may I say that I find your French charming, far superior to my jagged shards of English. I hope one day to learn English well enough to read Shakespeare without a dictionary.
We’ve dropped anchor downriver from Abu Simbel, in a little cove. I wonder if you are nearby and if you have yet seen the mammoth statues of Ramses that flank the great temple. Max is excavating one Ramses for the sake of the official photographs he has been commissioned to make. (As I may have told you, I am documenting the monuments by making archaeological squeezes or molds of the inscriptions, though I am not an archaeologist.) I find it fascinating that the Egyptians and Nubians who live with these splendid monuments have so little feeling for them. They walk past them with no curiosity, as if they were old concert posters on a kiosk.
I regret that I did not meet your traveling companions, but perhaps the opportunity will yet present itself.
I have acquired an Arabic nickname, Abu Chanab, which means “Father Mustache.” Max is called “the Father of Thinness,” an apt description. Has your crew told you their nicknames for your party? Ask your dragoman and hope he is not too shy to tell you. Egypt seems a place where one requires an epithet. I shall call you Rossignol, my songbird, until you tell me another.
We shall be working here for at least another week, so perhaps we shall see you and your party again. I hope so.
I hereby swear that we have done no shooting among crowds, that we have shot only turtledoves for our larder and the odd eagle and lammergeier, the first for the sake of the feathers, the second because the sight of these huge, impatient buzzards strikes panic into my heart. (Max and I lay
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