Dreamers of the Day

by Mary Doria Russel

  “And what do the Arabs want for themselves?” I asked, since no one else seemed to have.

  “Independence,” Lawrence said. “A single caliphate: a single state encompassing all the tribes and all the territory that was unified under the Ottoman Empire.”

  “Well, then!”

  “Miss Shanklin, there are at present nine men claiming to be caliph. None of them can unify Shi’a and Sunni Muslims, let alone hold the lands ruled by the Sultan.”

  “I—I’m sorry. Sunny Moslems?”

  He corrected my pronunciation and explained that after Muhammad died, the question arose as to who would lead the Muslim community. The Shi’a believed that Muhammad had named as his successor his cousin Ali—who was also the husband of the Prophet’s daughter Fatima. The Sunni denied that any such appointment had been made. They believed the Prophet desired that Muslims be guided by a caliph: a leader who arises from within the community and who lives according to the precepts and example of the Prophet.

  There was more about tribes and emirs and sherifs, but it was late and my feet hurt. This has nothing to do with me, I decided, feeling very American and far removed from the fine points of impenetrable foreign customs. Before long, Lawrence saw that I was lost and waved it all off.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “France will never agree to Arab rule in the Middle East. They want Syria and the Lebanon for themselves, and they’re bargaining hard to annex the Mosul oil fields. The India Office will fight me as well. So one must focus on the possible,” he said decisively. “Tomorrow I hope to convince His Majesty’s Government—in the person of Winston Churchill—that our Middle Eastern protectorates should not be our last brown colony. They should be the British Empire’s first brown dominion.”

  We turned a corner. Karl was out in front of the Continental, lounging against a huge potted plant, smoking an evening pipe. Rosie noticed me at the same moment and gave a strangled little whine of joy. Karl let slip her leash. She sprinted down the quiet street. For the next two minutes, I was wholly occupied by her exuberant, wiggling greeting.

  When at last I could return my attention to the two gentlemen, my broad smile faltered. From this distance, Karl seemed relaxed and amused; Lawrence was motionless as a snake. Their eyes were locked. Lawrence seemed absorbed in some sort of mental calculation.

  Rosie struggled to be let down, and I bent to put her on the pavement. “No harm done,” I heard Lawrence say breezily. When I straightened and looked around, he was no longer at my side. Mouth open, I watched him disappear into the darkness.

  “An Arab dominion,” Karl said. “Like Canada. Or Australia … Self-governing for internal affairs, but without a separate foreign policy. It’s an interesting solution. The Arabs might be less offended than by the notion of being ‘protected’ by the British, but Lawrence is correct: the India Office will oppose him.”

  We had already chatted for nearly half an hour by then, sitting in the club chairs of the Continental’s quiet lobby. To be honest, I wanted to go to bed, but Karl had been waiting all evening to hear about the dinner party and I couldn’t disappoint him.

  “Why would the India Office care?” I asked.

  “Great Britain rules India, and India has the largest Islamic population on earth. An Arab dominion in the Middle East would give dangerous ideas to millions of Indian Muslims.”

  You’re probably thinking, Agnes, India is mostly Hindu, not Muslim! But, remember, this was back in 1921, before India became independent and before Pakistan became a separate country.

  India was the primary source of British prosperity, Karl continued. “It is governed by bureaucrats who live like royalty with palaces and servants,” he said. “Who among them would give up wealth and privilege for such airy ideals as liberty and equality for brown people?” He puffed on his pipe for a time before shaking his head. “No. It cannot happen. And in any case, Lawrence is right about the French, as well. They’d never agree.”

  “What have the French got to do with anything?” I asked—a little irritably, I’m afraid. Lawrence’s abrupt departure had thrown me off balance. Rosie was shedding all over my dress. My feet were killing me.

  There was nobody else around, so I kicked off my shoes. To my astonishment, Karl lifted my feet to his lap and began to knead the soles. Like so much of what Karl did, the gesture seemed equal parts caring and casual, merely a small physical favor done for a friend. I shouldn’t have allowed it, but it felt so good! Frankly, I’m amazed I remember anything he said after that, but the gist of it was that France had lost an entire generation of young men to the war. Their politicians had begun to debate polygamy as a way to repopulate the nation! Having paid such a price, the French believed themselves entitled to the greatest spoils.

  “They want real colonies, not self-governing members of some international gentleman’s club,” Karl said. “If the British give self-rule to their protectorates, it will stir up trouble in French possessions. Just a few months ago, the French had to crush a revolt in Syria that was led by Lawrence’s friend Feisal. They won’t want to risk that again.”

  His voice trailed off and Karl sat silently, the glow of his pipe going dark while his mind was far away. His hands had stopped moving, too, just as I had sunk into the sensation of his fingers on my feet and had almost begun to imagine … well, more.

  A few minutes passed. Feeling invisible and let down, I lifted my feet out of his lap and slid to the edge of the chair.

  Karl noticed the movement and shook off his thoughts. “Agnes, forgive me,” he said, his face showing genuine concern. He reached toward my hair and lifted it slightly away from my temple. My eye must have been wandering, because he said, “You are exhausted. I can see this. And perhaps bored. Yes! Don’t deny it! Let me walk you to your room.”

  The concierge nodded as we passed and wished us a good night. It felt cozy and intimate: to be sleepy and on the way up to bed, to laugh quietly together at Rosie’s comic leaping progress up the stairs.

  Her short little legs reminded me of Lawrence’s sensitivity about his height, and I asked Karl about that. “Yes,” he told me, “Ned’s brothers were quite tall, but he broke his leg as a boy and never grew after that. Here’s irony: if he’d been drafted instead of volunteering for intelligence work, the Uncrowned King of Arabia would have been relegated to a ‘bantam brigade’ filled with malnourished little men from the countryside! For anyone to be underestimated seems a personal affront to him, I think. He is drawn to the underdog.”

  While I fit the key into my door, Karl asked, “Agnes, what are your plans for tomorrow?”

  “Goodness! I’ve lost track of the days. Was today Saturday?” I asked, and he nodded. “Well, I have a tour of the city booked with Cook’s on Sunday and—”

  “Cancel it,” he urged. “You must rest, I think. Take a day or two to recover from your travels. Sleep late. I’ll make sure the boy comes round to walk Rosie for you.”

  I unlocked my door. Rosie trotted ahead and waited to be lifted, tossing her nose toward the pillows expectantly. Made shy by the hour, and the quiet, and the bed so near, I busied myself with her, embarrassed by my own thoughts.

  “I have business in Alexandria,” Karl told me, “but on Tuesday? Please, allow me to take you to the Old City. It is one of my favorite places in Cairo. I would like to share it with you.”

  “That would be lovely,” I said for the second time that evening, “if it’s no trouble.”

  Karl’s face changed again, softening but serious. Eyes on my own, he took my hand and brushed it with his lips. “Truly, Agnes, I believe this: to be enjoyed, life must be shared.”

  Even now, I can remember how I felt that night as I watched him turn and stride down the corridor. Can you see why I loved him so quickly? I hope you can. He was such a nice man.

  As Karl promised, the little boy came for Rosie first thing in the morning. I stumbled back to bed. Half an hour later I roused myself briefly to welcome her return and paid the chil
d what was obviously too much, given his reaction. Utter disbelief was rapidly replaced by a studied nonchalance that said, Oh, yes, madams! This is most assuredly the common fee for walking foreign dogs and includes, naturally, a surcharge for being seen in public with a loathsome short-legged one.

  Dachshunds have a remarkable capacity for resting even under the most leisurely of regimes, but thirty minutes on foot was a twenty-mile hike for Rosie. Reunited, we went back to bed and slept again until it was nearly noon. Feeling refreshed at last, I dressed in no great hurry and ordered a light lunch from room service.

  “Goodness gracious,” I said to Rosie. “Two days ago, we were still on the boat! We’ve ridden the whirlwind to Oz, haven’t we! But this will be a lazy day,” I promised us both.

  When we’d finished with our meal, I carried a lemonade out to the balcony and made use of the wicker chair and table there. Rosie settled in my lap. Contented and becalmed, I stroked her long back and watched the sky begin to whiten. The day was going to be hot, though it was still early spring and vast flocks of birds were traveling northward. Squadrons of pelicans, storks, and cranes soared high above a layer of violently flapping warblers and swallows. Nearby some sort of shrike gripped the hotel’s telephone wires. Boldly patterned if dully colored, it opened its wings and swept downward, noiselessly capturing what might have been a grasshopper or perhaps a small lizard. Horrified and fascinated, I watched the bird impale its tiny victim on the thorn of a climbing rose that scrambled up the hotel wall, a few yards from where I sat.

  Retreating to the printed page, I spent a quiet hour browsing through my guidebooks, reading with special attention about the Old City. I was wondering just how one pronounced the name of the Church of El-Moallaqa when an immensely long black car rolled up to the entrance of the Continental.

  The sun was at full strength. Yesterday’s warmth was now real heat and made me think of July in Cleveland. Even so, I felt a shiver of dread when I saw Mr. Churchill’s enormous bodyguard climb out. Of course, there were plenty of other guests in this hotel and no reason in the world to imagine that I was the subject of Detective Sergeant Thompson’s errand, but a minute later the telephone in my room rang, just as I’d feared.

  “Miss Shanklin?” a weary voice asked. “Thompson here. I’m in the lobby of your hotel, miss. Mr. Churchill requests the pleasure of your company this afternoon. We’re going to see the pyramids.”

  Well, who wouldn’t want to see the pyramids? But I had imagined I might go with Karl. “Sergeant Thompson, that’s a very kind invitation, but I was counting on a quiet day today and—”

  “Miss? I was assigned to this duty six weeks ago,” Thompson told me in a tone that suggested his spirit had been broken. “I’ve learned this much about my boss already: it’s no good arguing with him. Please, miss. I’d take it as a personal favor.”

  I let out a long breath. Rosie did love car rides. “I couldn’t leave my little dog in the room. May I bring her along?”

  “Miss Shanklin, you can bring the contents of Noah’s ark, if that’s what it takes,” Thompson said, sounding infinitely relieved. “Honestly, miss, thank you. Once he’s made up his mind … you have no idea.”

  Well, I didn’t then, but I would soon obtain one.

  Sergeant Thompson was waiting for me at the far end of the lobby. With the stiff and stoic look of a man who was duty-bound to follow foolish orders, he escorted me outside. “I was supposed to have the afternoon off as well,” he told me while Rosie made use of a flower bed, “but he took it into his head to paint the pyramids. It’s a disease with him, painting. I’m fed to the teeth with it. You couldn’t pay me to walk into a museum now. I’m not a bloody porter, but he’s got me carrying his damned boxes of paints—pardon my French, miss—and his easel, and his umbrella, and his chair. ”

  Rosie was already panting. I shrugged off the linen jacket I’d tossed over my dress. The car was going to be hot, and I’d be among Europeans.

  “We’ve been attacked by mobs twice since we docked in Alexandria,” Thompson continued. “I’m supposed to be guarding his life, not carrying his bloody boxes.” He leaned past me then, to open the door, but not before muttering, “If something happens, miss, I’m required to protect him. Get yourself back to the car and stay away from the windows.”

  Have you ever found yourself agreeing to something because you’re simply too polite to object? If I’d had a moment to think things through, I might well have said, “On second thought, perhaps I’ll take a rain check,” but it was all such a surprise that I just ducked into the car and hoped for the best.

  Inside, it was hot enough to bake bread and large enough to house an immigrant family. Sweating and jovial, Mr. Churchill sat in the center of the broad leather bench—away from the windows, I noted— and indicated that I was expected to perch on a folding jump seat opposite. “Miss Shanklin! And her dread dachshund, terror of the Semiramis!” he rumbled cheerfully as Thompson took his place up front. “Thank you for your companionship. Clementine and I operate on entirely different schedules. She’s up before dawn and does a full day before I so much as stir. Then—just as I’m finishing the day’s meetings and ready for some recreation—she’s off to take a nap. It’s a wonder we see each other at all! Still, we’ve had four children, so we’re not doing badly, are we?”

  Our driver, a young man in the blue uniform of a Royal Air Force corporal, coughed his surprise. I myself hardly knew what to say, but it didn’t seem to matter.

  “My mother is an American,” Mr. Churchill went on, without taking a breath. “It was a treat to hear your accent last night! Such interesting inflection, and the vowel shifts are fascinating! I thought, Wouldn’t it be grand to invite our American friend along this afternoon and hear some more of it?”

  “Where in America is your mother from?” I asked.

  “She was born in Brooklyn. Her father was a titan of Wall Street! Made fortunes and lost them just as quickly. Family moved to Paris when Jennie was four. She grew up in France.”

  That would seem to make his mother French rather than American, I had intended to remark, but Mr. Churchill evidently didn’t need to hear very much of the American accent I had been invited to supply. Instead, he himself spoke at length of his mother. Jennie, as her son always called her, was one-quarter Iroquois, which made her fascinating, in his opinion. She was an enduringly glamorous, if rather capricious woman for whom the conventional was simply too boring to bear. As evidence, her son described her as an accomplished pianist whose recitals showcased a tattooed snake coiling around her left wrist.

  She had married several times. Widowed by her sons’ unlamented father, she was quickly divorced from a second husband twenty years her junior and nearly the same age as Winston himself. Despite that less than agreeable episode, she had recently married another young gentleman. This third husband no longer lived with her. Jennie’s social life remained energetic in his absence.

  All of this was conveyed to me in considerable detail and with much affectionate tolerance while the car crawled through the Cairo traffic. By the time we reached the outskirts of the city, I had stopped trying to follow the twisted skein of names and relationships and began to be glad that Mr. Churchill’s conversation did not require a great deal from his companions.

  I’m going to melt, I thought and blotted up a trickle of perspiration with my hankie. “How much farther is it to the pyramids, Mr. Churchill?”

  “Oh, but we’re not going to the pyramids.” My surprise must have been obvious, for Mr. Churchill immediately shouted, “Thompson! Did you tell Miss Shanklin we were going to the pyramids?”

  Sergeant Thompson did not turn around. “I believe I said we’d see the pyramids, sir.”

  “Hah! Well! There you have it. Forgive the confusion, Miss Shanklin. An understandable misunderstanding, eh? I shall be very happy to include you in our excursion to Sakhara next Sunday. This afternoon, however, we’ll remain at a distance so that I may obtain some useful per
spective. Did Thompson complain about my paints? Hah! I expect he did. ‘I’m not a bloody porter!’ Yes? Do I have him?”

  I smiled. Rosie panted.

  “Do you paint, Miss Shanklin?”

  “Why, yes,” I said. “I’ve studied watercolors since college and—”

  “Watercolors! Watercolors! I have no word of disparagement for watercolors, but with oils you can approach your problem from any direction!” Mr. Churchill cried. “You need not build downward from white paper to your darkest darks. Attack where you please! Start with the middle tones, then hurl in the extremes when the mood strikes. Lay color upon color! Experiment! And if the attempt fails? One sweep of the palette knife will lift the blood and tears of a morning from the canvas, and you’re ready to make a fresh start!”

  Blood and tears? you ask. Yes, indeed. You can imagine my own surprise decades later when that casual remark would become his ringing wartime declaration, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” In 19 21 he was merely remarking on the advantages of oils over watercolors, but all his life Churchill recognized a good turn of phrase when he created it and was not above reusing one when the occasion presented itself.

  “Oils are delicious to squeeze out,” he confided cozily. “Splash into the turpentine! Wallop into the blue! You really must try oils before you die, Shanklin. You will see the whole world differently! There are so many colors on a hillside, each one different in shadow and in sunlight. I had never noticed them before I turned forty and began to paint. I saw color merely in a general way, as one might look at a crowd, for example, and say, ‘What a lot of people!’ ”

  Beyond our windows were men, women, and children, donkeys, dogs, and poultry. All small, all dusty, and all the color of khaki in the afternoon glare.

  “I must say I like bright colors,” he said, following my gaze. “I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colors. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and feel sorry for the poor browns. In heaven, I expect, vermilion and orange will be the dullest colors needed. When I get to heaven, I mean to fill a considerable portion of my first million years with painting. Armed with a paint box, one can never be bored!”