“I’ll make sure he doesn’t drink it all,” I assured him. When he left, I took a good look around. There were traces of animal habitation, but they were old and whatever had lived here last had been long gone before we arrived. Gabriel had eased himself onto a window embrasure and was sitting with his forearms braced against the stone surround. His colour wasn’t any too good, and I didn’t like the look of his hands. They were shaking and he gripped the stone until the knuckles were bloodless just to keep himself upright.
“Well, it isn’t exactly the Ritz, but it’s a damn sight better than some of the places we’ve spent the night,” I said, thinking of a particularly nasty little hotel in Northumberland.
He didn’t reply. It was clearly taking all of his effort just to stay conscious, and I waited, my nerves strained to breaking, for Herr Doktor to return. It seemed an age before he emerged from the little corridor, and when he came I saw why. His arms were full to heaping with supplies—bags of food, goatskins tight with water and even some bedding. He arranged the latter to make a comfortable pallet for Gabriel. I’d expected Gabriel to protest, but he simply landed on it facedown and was out for the count.
“You need to eat something,” I told him. He didn’t reply, and Herr Doktor gave me a kindly smile.
“Let him sleep now. It is the most restorative thing in the world, a good sleep. You and I will eat and drink, and later, when he rouses, we will feed him, as well.”
He beckoned me to what had once been the hearthstone of the little room. There he set a candle to light against the darkening shadows and began to arrange the food. He unpacked the usual native flatbreads and dates as well as some tinned things and even an orange, wrinkled and soft from its day in the boot of the car, but at least it was something fresh. He gallantly insisted I eat the whole thing, and I borrowed his imperial knife to cut it into segments, sectioning out bits for him in spite of his protests.
We ate like compatriots, the little German and I, sharing the food he had brought, along with a modest supply of his schnapps. “I will save some, for I think Herr Starke likes it even more than I,” he promised with a gleam in his eye.
“You never answered me when I asked if Daoud told you who he was.”
He gave me a twinkling smile. “Is it because I am old that you underestimate me or because I am German?”
I considered. “Both,” I replied. He broke into his peculiar wheezy laugh.
“I like a woman who is no stranger to honesty. It is a man’s virtue.” I opened my mouth to protest, but he waved me away. “It is not their shame that women do not have their share of honesty, my dear. It is our fault for making a world that demands they dissemble. But you are not like most women. You do not tremble and swoon when you see the man you love is so grievously injured.”
I licked a drop of juice from the orange off my lips carefully. “Because I don’t love Gabriel.”
He wagged his chin at me. “I thought we established you were honest. Ah, very well. I am not here to force confidences. You are married to him, though, nein?”
There didn’t seem much point in prevaricating considering how much he already seemed to know. “Yes. But the last time I saw him was in 1915. I was preparing to divorce him. Since that time I thought he was dead.”
“Until very recently.”
“Quite recently,” I conceded. “Now perhaps you’ll be good enough to tell me how you come to know so much about us.”
He shrugged. “Because I am of little consequence.”
“But, Herr Doktor—”
“No, child, do not protest. I speak the truth, and it is a truth you will know if you are ever my age and your country is a conquered one.” His old eyes were nostalgic. “The world is not as I once knew it. My upbringing, well, you would consider it medieval, I suspect,” he said, his gleam beginning to reemerge. “I was brought up in the forests outside Breslau. My father had a hunting lodge there and always we were on horseback, testing our mettle. I was sent to school to learn to be a soldier, like any good Prussian lordling.”
“Lordling? Your family is aristocratic?”
The full twinkle was in evidence as he smiled at me. “I no longer use my full title, my dear, but I was born Freiherr Wolfram von Schickfuss.”
Something stirred in my memory—the pilots in the convalescent home talking about the Red Baron. His title was Freiherr, as well. “Freiherr? That’s baron, isn’t it?”
“It is. And as I say, the world then was a different place. I was taught to shoot and to ride and I came home fit for life as a country squire. But the stars sometimes rearrange our plans,” he said, his voice low and dreamy. “I was out hunting my first autumn back at home. My horse stumbled and threw me into an icy stream. I managed to make my way up the bank, but I fell very ill and my lungs were damaged. My father decided to send me to the warmth of the Near East to recover. I had time, nothing but time on my hands, and nothing to do but sit and grow stronger. So I read. I read about excavations in Egypt and the Holy Land, and I paid calls to the sites where archaeologists were unearthing treasures. I learned much and I offered myself to the archaeologists. I did anything they needed just to be on hand to learn more. I picked through mountains of excavated dirt in the sieves. I tinkered with engines and made them run again. I drew maps and ran errands. Whatever I could to make myself valuable. And in time I learned so much, I myself became valuable. A dig hired me and I was sent to the Badiyat ash-Sham, this wondrous wasteland. And it was there I met her.”
“Her?”
He smiled. “Of course, my dear. Every tale should have a love story within it. And mine does, a very little one. Her name was Anna, but I think you know her better by another name?”
“I know her?” I stared at him in mystification, then I dropped the date I had been about to eat. “Gethsemane?”
He nodded, his expression wistful. “It was one summer only, but it was the most glorious summer of my life. The feelings for her, I have never forgotten. And so, when she comes to me and says, ‘Wolfram, you must help me. I think something is afoot,’ what can I do but help her?”
I rocked back on my heels. It did not seem possible, but there was something so simple, so grave in his manner, I knew he was telling the truth. But this portly little German and the tall and tweedy Englishwoman! The mind reeled.
“She was not always as she is now,” he said, revealing again his trick of reading my mind. I looked away and reached for another date. “She was beautiful then, like a Rhine maiden. She was a Lorelei, with long golden hair and eyes the same bright blue as the sky over Silesia. She was everything I admired in a woman. And I was not as I am now, either,” he said with a rueful glance at his rounded belly. “I was young and fit and my muscles were hard with vigorous work. I was a match for her then.” He paused then drew out his handkerchief and wiped at his eyes. The Germans had a reputation for coldness but in my experience there were few people more sentimental. I looked away again until he had finished. He picked up the thread of his tale.
“We had that summer together in our youth but nothing more. I was no scoundrel, you understand. I offered her honourable marriage. Not wealth, for we were not a rich family, but comfort and ease and the title of Freifrau as my wife. But these gifts I laid at her feet, she did not want. She wanted only her work. This she loved, more than she loved me. And I left the Badiyat ash-Sham with a heart so broken I could never love another.”
I caught my breath. “You never loved another?”
He laughed. “Of course I did. I am a man. I married three times and I loved them all. They were good women, my wives. But never do I forget my first love, my English Anna. And always I say to myself, ‘Wolfram, someday you will see her again.’ But the years pass and the wives come and go and I do not see her. And then the war. It was a terrible thing, that war. I am ashamed of it. Not of my people,” he corrected swiftly, �
�but of the emperor and his kind. It was a stupid war and wars should never be about stupid things. It was years of blood and mud and pain and when it was over, I said to myself, ‘Now, Wolfram. Now, you must find her.’ And so I made inquiries and I discovered she was digging once more in the Badiyat ash-Sham. And I make my way to her.”
“That is the most romantic thing I have ever heard,” I sighed.
“It is not romantic,” he said severely. “Romantic would be if she still looked like a Rhine maiden. She is fat and old and so am I. But I look at her, and for a moment I pretend I am twenty again, and I love her still. And so I am here, doing her bidding. For the sake of a boy I once was and the girl she used to be.”
“I still think it’s sweet.” I paused. “What trouble did she think was afoot at the dig?”
He shrugged. “She does not tell me everything. But she notices the Hungarians, they keep their eyes close upon Herr Starke—Rowan, as he called himself. The Hungarians,” he said again, and he spat into the corner. “They are scoundrels. The English and the German, we share a common ancestry. We understand one another. The Hungarians are a race apart, liars and thieves.”
His face was an alarming shade of red, and I cleared my throat gently. He recovered himself and took a deep breath. “As I say, the Hungarians kept close eyes upon Herr Starke. And then Daoud comes to me and says he has heard of a great treasure, that he is not a fool but a clever man who has the means of bringing me a wondrous find if I can give him money enough for it. It does not take a genius to realise this is the thing the Thurzós intend to steal from Herr Starke. I discuss it with my Anna and she tells me she has looked into Mr. Rowan’s things and discovered cuttings, all of them about the beautiful Frau Starke and her aeroplane trip. One of these has a picture of Frau Starke and her former husband, and Anna is clever. She has always thought to herself that Herr Rowan resembled someone she once met, but now she knows for certain. The photograph is clearer than her dim memory of a boy who once dug in the Badiyat ash-Sham as a student. She understands now that he has been passing himself off as someone he is not. But what can she prove against him? Nothing, for she knows nothing. So she follows him to Damascus and who does she find there?”
“Me,” I said meekly.
“You! How suspicious does this look now. But to what purpose does Herr Starke pretend to be someone else? And to what purpose has his wife come to Damascus? My Anna is clever. She follows Herr Starke as he follows you. She believes you are not in league with your husband, but she cannot know for sure unless she brings you face-to-face.”
“The dinner in Damascus,” I murmured.
He nodded. “She watches closely when you are faced with him. She said you were very cool, very composed, and yet your face is the colour of new milk when you see him. You might have suspected he was alive, but not until this moment do you know for certain. Anna arranges then to bring you here, to the Badiyat ash-Sham, to determine what the purpose of your plots might be. But before she can do so, you disappear with Herr Starke, and then poof! So go the Thurzós and Daoud, as well. My Anna insists that I must go and discover what is happening. She has reason to be suspicious of Herr Starke, and yet always she remembers the boy she knew. She liked this boy, trusted him, and she was very hurt that Herr Starke did not trust her enough to confide,” he added, wagging his chin at me.
“That was bad form,” I agreed. “I am sorry Miss Green was alarmed.”
“I do not like to see my Anna vexed,” he said pointedly. “But I must be careful because I do not know if Herr Starke is a villain, you understand? So I am cautious. I make myself seen so that you may come to me if you need help. But you do not come, and what am I to think but that you are in league with the criminal Daoud? It is only when I find him that I understand he is not happy with Herr Starke and means to harm him. Then I think to myself I can help and I make myself friendly to him to work to get you free.” He finished his tale, preening a little at his own cleverness.
“And very kind of you it was. But now,” I said, brushing crumbs from my fingers, “I think we need a plan.”
“No, Frau Starke. What we need is rest. You are a strong girl, and a brave one, but one can go only so far on one’s courage. It is time to sleep now. I will go out to the car and keep watch to make sure you will rest in safety.”
“But you must be tired, too,” I protested. “You were awake all night and drove all day with us.”
He shook his head. “I am old, my dear. I sleep like a cat, a little here, a little there. It is all the same to me.”
I rose and helped him up as he groaned a little, his body creaking and popping. “I sound like an old wooden house settling,” he joked.
He straightened and I put a hand to his arm. “I am glad you are here with us. You are a good friend.”
He smiled and lifted my hand to his lips in a courtly gesture. “It is difficult to know who is a friend here,” he said as he moved slowly towards the corridor. He turned back, taking one long look from Gabriel to me. “One will always need friends in the Badiyat ash-Sham.”
Twelve
He left me the rest of the food and water and the candle, stuck in a puddle of its own grease and burning slowly down. I blew it out and waited a moment for my eyes to grow accustomed to the dim scattering of starlight beaming through the narrow embrasure. When I could make out the shape of the pallet on the floor, I crept onto the edge of it, careful to keep away from Gabriel. He slept on, heavily, and I tumbled into sleep almost as soon as I lay my exhausted body next to his. Sometime later, deep in the darkest hours of the night, I woke as I felt strong fingers covering mine. He was shivering and muttering in his sleep, and when I touched his skin, it was scorching hot. I found the candle and lit it, half-afraid of what I would see when I looked at him. He was still on his belly, but his head was turned to the side, his face in profile. His cheek and eye were sunken and hollow-looking, and his brow was puckered. Somehow he had thrown off the blanket I draped over him, but I found it again and pulled it over both of us. I slipped close to him, careful not to touch him where he’d been wounded.
“I’m here, now hush and go back to sleep,” I told him, hoping it would settle him down. But he stayed restless, his hands plucking under his body at the pocket of his ruined shirt. I sighed and reached into the pocket, tugging out the little tin box. “I know I promised to bury you with this, but you’re not dying yet, if that’s what you think.” I pushed the box into his hands and he calmed instantly. The muscles of his face relaxed, and although he still shivered and shuddered with fever, he stopped mumbling.
After a few minutes he slipped deeper into sleep and his hands relaxed. I eased the box out of his fingers, but he was too far gone to protest. I opened it slowly, mystified as to what he could possibly carry in there that would be so important to him.
There was a wad of banknotes—a few very large bills and several smaller ones, tied with a bit of grimy twine—and a few newspaper cuttings, worn smooth from too much handling. They were cuttings about me, stories of my journey with the Jolly Roger and Aunt Dove, some with photographs, and one featuring a particularly warm embrace between Wally and me. I folded them back and put them aside. His signet ring was there, the gold ring he had always worn on his smallest finger. I could just make out the inscription under the shield, the same as on the knight’s tomb at the dig site. Nec Aspera Terrant. There were cigarettes in the tin and a match or two, and there was a tiny rabbit’s foot, the same one he had carried since boyhood on all his adventures. Half the fur was missing now, and it looked rather gruesome, but he would have sooner died than part with it.
And as I went to replace the contents, I realised something was sticking out of the roll of banknotes, something that had been tied inside them, perhaps for safekeeping. I untied the twine and opened the roll. It was a photograph, one I had forgot ever existed. It had been taken the day of our wedding and
was the only image of the two of us together. We had just emerged from the registrar’s office in Scotland, hand in hand, and Gabriel had spotted the tourist with his little camera snapping the picturesque street. He had darted over and pressed an enormous banknote in the man’s hand along with his card. When he ran back, he was laughing his bright, merry laugh as he scooped me up into his arms as if to carry me over a threshold. The shutter clicked just as I had shrieked, and the image was a little blurry. But it was unmistakably us—and just as I had remembered us. I was impossibly young and so stupidly trusting, and Gabriel was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen. By the time the photograph had arrived in the post, Gabriel and I were packing for China. I had lost track of it soon after, and if I had thought of it, I would have assumed that it had been lost, like so much drifting flotsam and jetsam left behind from the wreckage of our marriage. It was like stumbling onto a ghost, a dream I had long ago given up for dead.
The edges of it were soft with wear, and it was creased in a few places and even scorched a little on one side. It was battered and bashed and looked as if it had been to hell and back, just like the man who carried it. In the photograph I was staring up at him with adoring eyes, and when I looked at the expression on his face, I felt my heart turn over. I hadn’t imagined it, not everything. He really had looked at me that way. Even if only for a moment.
I tied it back into the wad of banknotes and shoved everything back into the box. I thrust the box into his hands again and blew out the candle.
“This doesn’t change anything,” I said into the darkness. “Not a bloody thing.”
* * *
By the time morning came, his fever had broken, leaving him looking disreputable as a buccaneer, and with a raging thirst. I gave him what was in the goatskin and a handful of dates and nuts.
“I see a tin of bully beef,” he said accusingly. “Where’s mine?”
City of Jasmine Page 19
