I tipped the boys a dime apiece when the car was loaded, and gave a nickel to the valet who held my car door open. Rosie hopped in, and for a time I sat still, gazing at the green-gloved hands resting on the steering wheel. I felt as transformed as the society I lived in.
The spell was not broken, but only slightly cracked when a trickle of melted snow slipped down a newly bared neck that had never before gone out in such weather without a sensible crocheted scarf. Even inside the car and out of the winter wind, my silk-stockinged legs felt exposed and cold beneath the knee-length skirt.
You’ll catch pneumonia, Mumma said.
Maybe so, I could hear Mildred say, but she’ll die happy.
What about Egypt? you ask. What has any of this to do with Egypt?
Well, I’m getting to that, but you have to know all about Mildred to understand why I went to the séance. You see, Mildred and Mumma began to argue on my way home, and they never seemed to stop. Every time my mother rebuked me for that spending spree or anything else, for that matter, Mildred’s voice would come to my defense.
What would she be like if you’d let her make the most of herself instead of the least? Mildred demanded, bold as brass. You always acted like her life was over before it got started.
But a silk charmeuse dress! A waste of money if ever there was one. It’ll sit in the closet forever.
Not necessarily … Why, it’s perfect for a cruise! It’s the very sort of dress ladies wear when they eat at the captain’s table on a cruise.
And what would you know about such things?
More than you would! I have lots of customers who go on cruises. Anyway, Agnes should get out more, see more things, said Mildred. Say! A change of scenery would be just the thing! She might meet someone on a cruise.
Meet someone? Why, the very idea!
And why shouldn’t she?
She’s nearly forty!
She doesn’t look it, not when she’s all dolled up.
It went on like that for a week. Nothing seemed to quiet the dispute I heard inside me. And it was in that state of mental instability that I found the courage to do something else completely out of character. I visited a medium.
I know, I know. You’re absolutely right. The séances popular in the twenties were shameful, silly affairs, designed to fool the gullible and take advantage of grieving families. I grant you that, but then again, here I am, telling you this story! So you just never know, now, do you? And remember, please, all the other invisible forces that had so recently become a part of our lives in those days. Madame Curie’s radiation, and Signore Marconi’s radio, and Dr. Freud’s unconscious. Even before I died, it seemed possible that there might be some scientific basis for communication with the unseen soul. There might be a sort of telephone of the spirit, or maybe radio waves, which were there to be heard if only one were tuned to the right frequency. Why not try to assuage our hunger for one more moment with the shockingly, suddenly absent? Why not yield to the desire to contact the dead, to ask one last question, to receive one last message?
And I did so long to hear my sister Lillian’s voice again! Maybe she could settle the differences between Mumma and Mildred.
All of which is why I am not embarrassed to tell you now that my decision to go to Egypt was set in motion by the eerie male voice I heard in the darkened room of a glassily bejeweled woman who called herself Madame Sophie. “Years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did,” the disembodied gentleman predicted. “Throw off the bowlines! Sail away from the safe harbor, madam! A sea voyage is what you need!”
“That is the spirit of Mr. Mark Twain,” Madame Sophie whispered, leaning over the fringed paisley shawl that covered a small round table. “He was a skeptic in life, but he visits me frequently.”
Well, I don’t know about that, I thought, but I listened anyway because, like Mildred’s, this voice too insisted that I travel, that I see the world from a different perspective. And a coincidence like that seemed the sort of thing to which one had to pay attention.
“Mr. Twain,” I said, feeling more than a little foolish, “while I am a great admirer of your work … Well, sir, since the influenza, I—I dream of drowning, and sailing would be—”
“—just the thing!” he exclaimed. “Like getting back up onto a horse after you’ve been thrown.”
Then it happened. Clear as a bell, I heard Lillie’s dear remembered voice. The best time for Cairo is March, she said. And then go on to Jerusalem, as I did …
You can wear the silk charmeuse, Mildred added.
“What about Rosie?” I asked, my hand running down her back as she snuggled in my lap. “I have a small dog—”
“That will be no problem at all!” the putative Mr. Twain assured me warmly. “Take her with you, dear lady. All the best ocean liners are delighted to accommodate the pets of valued guests such as yourself.”
Of course, it didn’t take a great deal in the way of deductive reasoning to work out that Madame Sophie was the inamorata of a gentleman who ran the Thomas Cook Travel Agency, located one door down the corridor from her second-floor salon, but I simply didn’t care. Within the hour, I had booked passage on a steamship to Egypt. And then? I drove directly from Cook’s to Halle’s to consult Mildred about a wardrobe for warm weather, and bought a beautiful set of matched luggage to contain it.
As you can imagine, Mumma argued nonstop, the whole day long. It’s nerves, she said as I steered the electric off Carnegie and angled up the hill toward Cedar Glen. You’ve no regular work, nothing to take you outside yourself. You have a great deal to be grateful for, right here at home, young lady.
I’ve been good all my life, I told myself and Mumma. I’ve been oh, so good for oh, so long! Just once, I’d like to trade good for happy.
I suppose now you’ll tell me you can buy happiness.
Not happiness, but maybe a little fun.
But Egypt, of all places! You’ll get a disease. You’ll be kidnapped by white slavers !
Lillie and Douglas did just fine there. Maybe I’ll be a missionary. Why, I could teach at the mission school in Jebail.
Well! Mumma didn’t know about that.
Neither did I, truth be told. I had never fully shared Lillian’s joyous, confident faith, although I did believe in God. Indeed, as the weeks passed and my departure date neared, I knew I ought to ask for divine guidance, but my courage failed me. What if God answered? What if He agreed with Mumma?
The thought of renouncing this trip made me go cold and dark inside, but when I looked at my new luggage and contemplated packing it with all the lovely flattering things Mildred had helped me pick out, oh my! I felt like Moses’ staff—like a dead stick miraculously bursting with new possibilities.
I felt … happy.
And afraid. And guilty, but excited as well.
Yes. More than anything: excited.
On the Monday before I sailed, I withdrew a great deal of money from my bank account. I had prepared answers to the questions I expected, but the teller had no clue that I was doing something wildly self-indulgent, nor would he have cared had he known. My next stop was the post office, where I gave instructions to hold deliveries, and felt compelled to explain, “I’m going away for a few months. To Egypt, actually.”
“Oh, how nice,” the postmaster said. “Next!”
Then it was on to the law office of Mr. Reichardt to make arrangements for my absence. I expected a lecture on thrift and the husbandry of my funds. “Do you a world of good,” he said instead. “Send me a postcard, Miss Shanklin.”
In fact, no one seemed shocked or even very interested in my plans. That, in itself, was strangely thrilling. Nobody came to see me and Rosie off either, and that was rather sad.
We boarded the eastbound train on a blustery, wet evening in early March. The bad weather chased us, arriving in New York City just as we did. The storm intensified as we transferred from train to steamship in a taxicab, its windo
ws fogged and smeared by sheets of freezing rain.
Things got even worse as we sailed, and the crossing was atrocious. Furious winds drove the rain with such force that it splashed down gangways and ran into corridors, bringing on panicky thoughts of the Titanic. Together, Rosie and I learned what “sick as a dog” really meant. I never ate at the captain’s table. Indeed, we hardly ever left our cabin, and when we did, I was definitely not wearing the silk charmeuse. When I had the influenza, I struggled to live, but seasickness made me yearn for a pistol.
That’s what you get for listening to shopgirls and fortune-tellers, Mumma said, satisfied to see me pay a price for my willfulness.
Finally, as we neared the coast of Europe, the tempest blew itself out. My stomach, and Rosie’s, settled. One fine morning, we left our cramped cabin and walked out onto the promenade deck, feeling rather well. There we discovered that some confidence trick of climate and current had delivered us into a full and bracing spring.
That night we steamed past Gibraltar: a towering black shape studded with tiny, twinkling lights. The next morning we slid by Spain, where the peaks of the Sierra Nevada loomed over the jagged summits of the Alpujarras. A day more, and the lavender rocks of Sardinia appeared. Forty-eight hours in Naples, to take on coal in the shadow of Vesuvius, and it was onward toward a dawn that revealed golden Mediterranean isles, shadowed in amethyst, set in a sea of sapphire and diamond.
Gray winter weather, selfless good works, the opinions of others— all these faded like the dim memories of a fever dream.
I listened hard but heard only my own thoughts, or perhaps those of my ancestors when they made the Atlantic crossing westward. No one at home knows where I am or what I am doing. No one here knows who or what I am, or have been, or shall be.
At last, the splendor of my audacity began to warm me. I lifted Rosie into my arms and turned my face east, toward a dazzling sunrise.
I can do anything I please, I thought, and no one at home need ever know what I’ve been up to.
“We’re free,” I whispered to my little friend.
Free. Free. Free …
PART TWO
Middle West
ACCEPT FROM ME, PLEASE, a bit of timeless travel advice. Should you inquire about a potential difficulty during a journey, beware the agent who assures you, “Sir,”—or Madam— “that will be no problem at all.”
What he means is, “Sir,”—or Madam—“I personally shall not be troubled in the slightest by what you anticipate. When you encounter it, I shall be safe at home, and snug in my own bed.”
To be fair, I had only asked “Mr. Twain” if there would be a problem traveling with my dog. I had not thought to inquire about being admitted to my hotel room in Cairo with Rosie at my side.
The Semiramis, I was given to understand, was one of the finest hotels in the world. Certainly it was one of the most expensive, but by the time I made the reservation, I was long past pinching pennies. I put down a substantial deposit and, having parted with that kind of money, it never occurred to me to ask, “Will Rosie (who you very well know will be traveling with me) also be permitted to stay at the Semiramis?”
After the cool, blue beauty of the Mediterranean, the port of Alexandria greeted our steamer with milky heat and a buzzing horror of flies. Above us, vultures wheeled or seemed to stall, stationary in the sky. Peddlers on the squalid dock hawked sugarcane and dates and lemonade in an aggravating singsong serenade. Beyond them, woeful donkeys complained while being grossly overloaded by sweating stevedores.
An alarming crowd of nearly naked men had gathered, hoping for work, I supposed, but with a sullen temper that certainly would have discouraged me from speaking to any. One stood out, however, handsome in a white turban, his bare brown legs beneath a long blue gown held close by a vivid red belt. Raising a hand to shield his eyes against the glare, he seemed to search the deck. Just as I saw “Cook’s Porter” emblazoned across his chest, he spotted me and called out, “You travel Cook, madams? All right! I am here!”
Courteous and efficient, this gentleman saw to it that my bags and my person were safely and efficiently transferred to the train station, and that I had exchanged ten dollars American for the equivalent in local currency. Rosie was always a good traveler and seemed to know that she should take care of business before we boarded the southbound train. That accomplished, the two of us were ushered into a first-class compartment. It was well appointed if a bit garish, and stifling hot, but provided blessed relief from the flies that covered one like soot outside.
The man from Cook’s stood at the door, looking expectant. I opened my pocketbook and held out a handful of Egyptian coins. “Um … how much is appropriate?”
He delicately selected two piastres, making sure that he did not touch my palm as he did so. “Thank you, madams. My pleasure, madams. Speak well of me to Cook’s, yes?” And with that, he was gone.
“Well, Rosie,” I whispered, “here we are in Egypt! Imagine that!”
I was trying to be thrilled but so far, Egypt had failed to charm, although the porter was quite nice. Maybe it was just too warm to generate any excitement. Rosie was panting and couldn’t be bothered to work up so much as a growl when two gentlemen slid open the compartment door and took their seats across from us. After murmuring courtesies, they flicked on the lights and two small electric fans I had not noticed mounted above the luggage rack.
“Egypt would be materially improved if relocated to a better climate,” the first one remarked in a lovely accent.
“Yes,” his companion agreed amiably. “We seem to have situated all our colonies in the world’s worst geography.”
I smiled and was about to ask if they were British, but they each rattled open their newspapers, making it clear that no conversation was invited.
The train lurched and pulled away slowly, seemingly reluctant to leave the station. That reluctance lingered for no reason I could discover. Rarely topping thirty miles an hour, we creaked slowly through the tan Egyptian landscape, the surface of which was cracked like pound cake baked at too high a temperature. Outside, beyond the dusty window, the high-pitched train whistle barely drew the attention of brown-bodied peasants who stood as unmoving as scarecrows in the scorched fields we traveled through.
“Gracious! Look at that!” I cried, pointing at a building that seemed to float above its foundation, twenty degrees above the horizon in the shimmering air.
The gentlemen barely glanced out the window. “A mir-a-age,” one informed me, drawing the word out, as though speaking to some pitiable dunce.
“First visit?” the other asked, brows raised.
“Yes,” I admitted, and felt as though I’d committed some unpardonable gaffe. They shot small knowing smiles at each other and went back to their reading. Embarrassed that I was not equally blasé, I moved Rosie’s hot little body off my lap, fussing over her a bit to change the subject in my own mind, if not my companions’.
Mirages became routine. Like Rosie, I dozed as the time passed, molasses slow. Eventually we entered the Delta, where the temperature moderated and the landscape changed dramatically. Natives working in the startlingly green countryside looked more energetic and alive. The train picked up speed as well. I thought, At last—we’re getting somewhere! But a few minutes later, we slowed again and stopped.
Up ahead, the track curved and I could see a pair of automobiles waiting. An English army officer’s spectacles flashed in the light. A few minutes later, a native conductor in a red uniform with a gold sash slid open the door of our compartment. “Gentlemen, your motors are waiting,” he announced, and they disappeared down the corridor with him.
I felt stupid, not sure if we had arrived somewhere or not. I might have asked, of course, but I’d already exposed my ignorance once and was unwilling to invite additional scorn. Before I could decide what to do next, the train lurched forward. I sat back, anxious and confused.
Once again the train picked up speed. Cairo came into sight: a
n immense agglomeration of low, clay-colored cubes and rectangles. Sidetracks appeared, ran parallel, converged. Suddenly, the roadbed was lined by a mob of furious-looking men in white dresses who screamed and chanted something that sounded to me like “Ah-bah sure-shill! Ah-bah sure-shill!” Rocks began to hit the windows. I shrank back into the compartment, clutching at Rosie, who flung herself toward the window, barking and snarling. Then, just as suddenly, the train outran the mob, and a few minutes later we pulled into the darkness of the Cairo station.
The compartment lights went out. The fans stopped. I sat still, dazed in the eerie silence. The conductor reappeared briefly and indicated that I should leave.
I gathered my things and joined the rest of the passengers in the aisle, keeping Rosie tucked up in my arms so she wouldn’t be stepped on. We emerged into a chaos of jostling, shouting, and rushing.
Rosie and I hurried through the crowd toward the baggage car and waited for my belongings to be unloaded. I sat on my steamer trunk, doing my best to appear both fearless and serenely expectant that someone wearing Cook’s livery would arrive. Time passed. Rosie relieved herself nearby. I pretended not to notice. No one from Cook’s appeared, and the platform was all but deserted. Tired and close to tears, I could just hear Mumma say, Well, you got yourself into this, Agnes. Are you just going to sit there like some greenhorn immigrant, fresh off the boat?
I drew myself up and waved to a passing workman two tracks away. We engaged in a brief, shouted conversation, during which he made reassuring Egyptian noises in response to my distressed American ones. With gestures and smiles, he indicated that I should stay where I was, and then he hustled away.
Eventually the workman returned, grinning happily. He was accompanied by a railway porter who spoke some English and was at pains to point out that the chanting had ended and that the mob outside had dispersed. “No worries, madams,” he soothed, while he and the workman heaved my baggage onto a luggage dolly. “No worries atall!”
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