Dreamers of the Day

by Mary Doria Russel

  “Why did you decide to come to Cairo?” Karl had asked me on our first day together as we strolled, side by side, with Rosie in the vanguard. “It is an unusual choice for someone who has not been abroad before. Most Americans go to Paris or London. Or Rome.”

  I told him how Lillian had urged me to visit her in the Middle East, back before the war. She had even quoted Muhammad: “ ‘Do not tell me how educated you are,’ the Prophet said. ‘Tell me how far you have traveled.’ ”

  The explanation seemed to satisfy Karl, but it was not the truth, not if I was honest with myself.

  Why do we travel, really? If we are of a thoughtful nature, we may wish to improve our minds, to examine the manners and customs of others and compare them to our own. For these reasons, we study guidebooks and make lists of the churches, palaces, galleries, and museums we’ll visit. We take photographs and write our impressions in diaries. We might even justify the expense of the trip by planning to share our knowledge with others upon our return.

  But is it really an education that we yearn to acquire when we travel? Or—be honest, now—do we more sincerely desire souvenirs? What tourist returns with lighter bags than those he packed at home? We want something to display, a memento, a “conversation piece” that will silently inform a guest: I have traveled. I have awakened under a fierce foreign sun. We look for a painting, a sculpture, a vase that will whisper: I have shopped in souks and bargained in bazaars, and I have this to show for it.

  In all practicality, of course, one could buy such objects at home. After all, there are importers, antique shops, and art galleries—even in Ohio. Why, then, do we undertake the expense and risk of travel? Why leave the comforts of home for flies and disease, heat and dust, crowds and the risk of theft? Because souvenirs remind even the traveler of his journey: I was not always who and what I seem, sitting in this Ohio parlor. Here is a talisman of a magical time when nothing—not even I—was ordinary.

  If we are timid or rebellious or both, then travel—by itself and by ourselves—forces us to leave our old lives behind. Travel can overcome habitual resistance and set the soul in motion along magnetic lines of attraction. On foreign soil, desires—denied, policed, constrained at home—can be unbound. What hides beneath the skin-thin surface of the domesticated self is sensual, sexual, adult.

  Why then, truly, had I come to Egypt? To flee everything that was conventional and predictable and respectable. I wanted to lock up my mother’s house in Cedar Glen and walk away from my own dull mediocrity. I wanted to escape anyone and everything that had ever told me No.

  As the hours passed, so did my anger with Karl. I understood at last what I’d experienced while planning this journey: the excitement and fear, the happiness and guilt. Surely those were the very emotions one might have felt when planning a tryst with a secret lover.

  You are handsome and accomplished and brave, he’d said, taking my hands in his.

  In those hours, far from home, beyond the scrutiny of those who knew me in Ohio, the very meaning of sin began to change. To leave the apple unpicked—that was sin. To choose loneliness if love—even illicit love—were offered, that seemed worse than sin.

  That would make of my life a tragedy.

  The next morning there was a knock at my door. Expecting Rosie’s little boy, I ran my hands through my hair, pulled on my wrapper, picked Rosie up, and opened the door.

  The room service man bid me, “Good morning, madam,” and wheeled in a cart heavily laden with silver platters, pitchers, and bowls. Behind him in the hallway, Karl was holding flowers and newspapers. On his face was a sheepish look that asked, Agnes, am I forgiven?

  Rosie danced and spun and barked at our feet. Karl tipped the waiter. Grinning crookedly at me, he traded me the flowers for Rosie’s leash. “Walk you dog, madams? I gave the boy a day off. We’ll be back in half an hour.”

  I brushed my teeth and bathed and combed my hair. A bit of makeup. A fresh dressing gown. Ready, and slightly breathless, I stepped out onto the balcony to watch the sun climb, listening to the hiss and clatter of palm fronds that rattled in the morning breeze.

  I will do this, I thought. I am forty years old, and it is long past time. My life is my own.

  At last, I saw Karl on his way back toward the hotel, with Rosie trotting merrily ahead of him. I stretched and waved. The motion caught his attention. He paused, shading his eyes with his hand. When he saw me, he went motionless.

  It’s difficult and rather pointless to deceive yourself when you are dead, and I can admit it now: Karl was startled to see me waiting for him, still dressed only in a robe, but I chose to read his expression as mere surprise. There was a long pause before he shortened up on Rosie’s leash and stepped to the edge of the sidewalk, glancing each way for traffic. Something he saw made him raise his face to the sky, eyes closed. Then he looked at me and shook his head, smiling ruefully. He and Rosie darted across the street and were lost to my sight as they passed beneath the hotel marquee.

  Moments later, I saw what Karl had: Churchill’s long black automobile with miniature Union Jacks affixed to its front fenders. The car rolled to a stop at the Continental. The young driver Davis got out. I heard Karl’s heavy steps hurrying down the hallway. He and Rosie burst into the room just as the telephone rang.

  “I completely forgot!” Karl whispered hoarsely. “It’s Sunday! You must go—”

  “Yes, of course,” I was saying into the mouthpiece. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.” Stricken, I replaced the handset in its cradle.

  “I’ll take care of Rosie,” Karl said.

  “I should have made some excuse!” I cried, exasperated with myself. Perhaps if I had been in the habit of lying, it would have been different, but my mind just didn’t work that way. I lifted my hands in despair. “Karl, what on earth does one wear for a camel ride to the pyramids?”

  Galvanized, he threw open the double doors of the room’s tall san-dalwood wardrobe and considered the possibilities.

  Without thinking, I blurted, “And I had been hoping you would undress me!”

  Both of us froze, equally shocked.

  Eyes wide, I clapped my hands over my mouth, but the absurdity of it all suddenly blossomed. I began to laugh. An instant later, so did Karl. For a few precious moments, we were helpless in each other’s arms, wailing until we were weak.

  “They’re waiting,” I gasped and waved a hand toward the wardrobe. “Pick something! I have no idea!”

  Karl flipped through the clothing, pausing when he got to the sport suit Mildred had recommended in case I was invited to play golf or something. Wool flannel, in a smart navy blue, the jacket was fingertip length with braided trim around the cuffs. It looked vaguely equestrian, which seemed appropriate given that camels might be considered vaguely equine. “But it comes with a skirt,” I said.

  “Don’t worry,” Karl said. “Tourist saddles allow ladies to sit with modesty.”

  I snatched a cream-colored blouse off a hanger and dashed into the bathroom to change. I emerged still buckling a wide belt over the blouse. Karl held out the jacket. I spun into it and grabbed a tan cloth hat with a turned-back brim. Kid gloves in hand, I presented myself for inspection.

  “It needs one thing more,” Karl said. He selected a striped scarf and, coming close, knotted it cleverly around my neck. He stepped back, looked me up and down, and pronounced the ensemble “very smart.”

  “Now go,” he said. “You can tell me all about it when you get back.”

  Then he kissed me and sent me on my way.

  It would have been more thrilling, of course, had Karl kissed me on the mouth, but no matter. I flew down the staircase aware of the lingering sensations: his hands on my shoulders, his lips against my forehead. Now that my mind was made up, delay and anticipation could only make romance more delicious. I was off on an adventure, and Karl would be waiting for me when I got back.

  “Morning, miss,” said young Davis, holding the door for me. When he declared, “
Don’t you look nice!” I accepted the compliment without argument.

  The Churchills and Detective Sergeant Thompson had gone ahead earlier with the Coxes, Davis said, and so I had the grand car to myself. The weather had turned fresh and cool overnight. At home I’d have called it Canadian air, and it made my wool worsted suit seem as perfect as the morning. When we arrived at the staging ground, it became apparent that there was no British consensus about what to wear for this event. Miss Bell was off smoking by herself, dressed for the Arctic in high-topped button shoes and an ankle-length woolen coat with a huge fur collar that hid her neck. Her dark felt hat was squashed-looking and small, quite unlike the wide straw sun hat Lady Cox was wearing.

  “There is something infuriating about a man’s wardrobe,” Lady Cox remarked, fussing with the woolen cloak she’d pulled over a long day dress. “The only question he ever has to ask is, ‘Dinner jacket or tailcoat?’ ”

  The men, however, were as variously attired as the ladies. Several were in uniform, but headgear ranged from topee to field cap. Colonel Lawrence, Sergeant Thompson, and Lord Cox wore ordinary suits and neckties, their trilbies’ small brims turned up all round. Only the burly Winston Churchill had a topcoat on, and its added bulk made him look more than ever like Mr. Toad of Toad Hall.

  “I considered a bedsheet and a pillowcase,” he rumbled, “but Lawrence told me it was not the done thing.”

  “You just didn’t want to compete with me,” his wife teased, Clementine herself being swathed top to bottom in a head scarf and white canvas driving duster as voluminous as Arab robes. “I should have consulted with you, Miss Shanklin. A golfing suit is such a good idea! I brought knickerbockers but—” She glanced toward Miss Bell and leaned over to whisper, “I was afraid to wear them.”

  The atmosphere was festive and may have been fueled by something other than tea. Already giddy, I shook my head and smiled a demurral at the dour and thin-faced native who presented a brass tray offering me one of the little cups.

  A few yards away stood several large male pack camels. Laden with equipment boxes, wicker lunch baskets, and rolled carpets, the animals produced a constant bizarre gargling noise unlike anything I’d ever heard before. The smaller riding camels crouched nearby with ropes wrapped around their folded knees to prevent them getting to their feet. Dozing with long-lashed eyes half-closed, they seemed serenely indifferent to the bustle around them. Their only movement was to lower their heads now and then to rub their chins against the ground.

  Seeing me, Sergeant Thompson trudged through the sand, looking profoundly doubtful about this mode of transportation. “Tried to talk him into driving to Sakhara,” Thompson said, glowering at Winston, who’d gone off to speak with Lawrence. “He’s like a child. ‘Oh, goody! Camels!’ They’re picturesque from a distance, but when you get up close? Filthy, vile, stinking brutes.”

  “Attar of camel is unlikely to gain commercial acceptance,” I agreed, but really? I was as thrilled as Winston by the prospect of riding one.

  Each of us was led to a mount and informed of the animal’s name. Mine was Dahabeah, an austere and self-contained individual whose six-foot-long neck was slung with colorful woven lavalieres that jingled with tiny silver bells. Two camel boys gripped her tasseled halter on either side and looked at me expectantly.

  Dahabeah herself snaked her head out of reach when I tried to make friends by scratching behind her ears. One side of her split upper lip curled in distaste. What do you take me for? she seemed to ask. Some sort of horse? And then she spat.

  A week—a day, an hour—earlier, I would have shrunk from her, convinced of my own inadequacy. Instead, I laughed, transformed by a kiss and a man who had pronounced me handsome, accomplished, and brave.

  “Hold here, madams,” the nearer boy instructed. “Yes, and sit, so! Very fine, madams! Very comfortable, yes?”

  “Comfortable” was not the word that came to mind, but I smiled anyway and looked around to see how the others were doing. The ladies and most of the men sat sidesaddle. Winston, by contrast, had arranged himself astride, his thick legs gripping at a substantial hump while his feet, in street shoes and spats, dangled. This did not promise to be an effective tactic; Colonel Lawrence was resisting an anticipatory grin. He himself appeared to be sitting at home in an easy chair: legs crossed at the ankles, feet resting on his camel’s left shoulder as though it were a hassock.

  I settled myself the same way and tugged my skirt down to cover myself a bit better. “Hold tight, madams!” the bigger boy warned and slipped the tether from Dahabeah’s knees.

  Released, she lurched and rocked upright, back legs rising high before her forelegs straightened. All around me, women gave little shrieks that carried far in the still, cool air. Even a few of the men shouted their surprise. Miss Bell rolled her eyes at our amateur attempts to regain balance, but Lawrence laughed and traded amused commentary with a number of marvelously robed Arab dignitaries, who were evidently going to accompany us on horseback.

  Lady Cox immediately demanded to be let down. “I am far too old and spoiled for this nonsense. I shall go by auto and meet you there.”

  Beside me, Sergeant Thompson looked as though he’d have joined her, had the humiliation of such a decision been less than mortal. He confined himself to muttering his own peculiar dialect of “French” while his camel jacked herself upright. The motion very nearly pitched Thompson onto the ground. It would have been quite a fall, Thompson himself being an exceedingly tall man perched at a great height on a camel much larger than my own.

  “Nothing to grab but sky,” he snarled, fear making him angry. “How the hell do you steer this thing?”

  “Pull this, I think!” I held up a light cord that ran from the forward pommel to the camel’s right nostril.

  Thompson tugged on his, but the effect was not as hoped. Rather than circling clockwise, the animal swiveled her head around to look directly back at him with an expression so alarming, the policeman felt for his pistol by reflex.

  In the midst of all this European incompetence, the Arab horsemen called out advice, which Lawrence translated, sometimes. “The camels know where they’re going,” he said. “Relax and give them their heads.”

  That was easier said than done, of course, but after a certain amount of circling and roaring, the lead animal finally plodded off toward the pyramids on padded feet the size of dinner plates. Our caravan soon strung out into a line, just as one sees in storybook illustrations. The pace was not torrid, which was just as well, for the gait of a camel is complex and disagreeable. Each advance of four linear feet entailed a set of jerks, twists, and contortions. Up and down, side to side—those are familiar to anyone who has ridden a horse. A camel adds forward and back to the dance.

  All of us who were new to the experience concentrated mightily on keeping our seats while trying to discover some predictable pattern to the herky-jerky rhythm. After a few minutes, I was confident enough to raise my eyes and joke to Sergeant Thompson, “I feel like a cooked noodle!”

  Thompson made no reply, in English or in French, for his entire attention had shifted from his own plight to that of Mr. Churchill. I followed Thompson’s horrified gaze some twenty yards ahead. There, with stately slowness, His Britannic Majesty’s secretary for air and the colonies was, by degrees, tipping sideways off his mount. Topcoat billowing, round arms waving frantically, Winston clawed at the saddle with increasing desperation, searching for some purchase. At last he managed to get a grip, but not a reprieve. The saddle itself was only resting momentarily on the camel’s flank, and with each of the camel’s six-element strides it ticked … ever … downward.

  When the inevitable moment of separation came, Winston looked resigned to it, almost. I wish I could say that we were kind when he thudded onto the ground, but alas! Even his adoring wife, Clementine, was convulsed, and every attempt to stifle our laughter made things worse.

  “The animal must be an Egyptian nationalist,” someone shouted.

/>   “Offer her a caliphate!” someone else called out.

  To Thompson’s alarm, our Arab escorts wheeled their steeds around and raced toward Winston, who still lay glaring upward from the ground. “Christ!” Thompson cried. “They’ll crush him, and on my watch!” But no—these were superbly skilled riders on beautifully trained Arabian horses. With a splendid spray of fine yellow sand, they pulled up just in time and leapt gallantly to the ground, shouting their distress.

  “They plead with the great man,” Lawrence translated, straight-faced, “that he will, by God, exchange mounts with one of them, and not hazard himself again by sailing on a ship of the desert!”

  Growling, Winston rolled onto his hands and knees, stood himself up, brushed himself off, and looked around for his hat. “Tell them I started on a camel,” he ordered Lawrence, “and I’ll finish on a camel!” To the rest of us, he declared, “I’ll have you know I ranked fourth in my class of cavalry candidates at Sandhurst.”

  “Yes, and I’m quite sure your animal was aware of that,” Lawrence soothed as he slid lightly off his own mount and came to the side of Winston’s. “When she realized she’d have the honor of carrying you”—Lawrence heaved the heavy saddle upward—“naturally, she puffed up with pride. Then she felt how badly you rode and decided there must have been some mistake.” Lawrence bent at the knees, then rose to ram a shoulder into the camel’s belly. The animal exhaled with an audible rush of stinking breath and he jerked the belly strap tight before continuing: “Since she was obviously being ridden by some very common person, she decided to unload you as speedily as possible. So she let out the air, the girth loosened, and off you came.”

  Slapping the animal’s neck, Lawrence turned around. The schoolboy grin had been replaced by a workmanlike confidence. “It won’t happen again.”