Prodigies

by Francis King

  ‘Well, tell me and I’ll tell the coachman.’

  The dressmaker’s establishment was very different from Madame Molnar’s. There was a single large, airy, curtainless room, almost bare of furniture, with magazine illustrations of women in elegant clothes pinned up haphazard on its walls. A treadle sewing machine, operated by a pale, bright-eyed girl who looked as if she were no older than eight or nine, stood in its middle. A tailor’s dummy stood beside it.

  The dressmaker was astounded when Alexine told her what she wanted. Her speciality was to make exact copies of gowns brought from Europe, usually Paris, by her clientele. ‘I don’t understand, mademoiselle. You wish for an Egyptian costume?’

  ‘Yes. Something loose. Light. Something suitable for this heat.’

  The woman shook her head, frowning. Then she said reluctantly: ‘Well, I suppose it’s possible.’

  ‘Good. Now what material do you have? Something gauzy, filmy. I don’t mind if it’s a European material.’

  The woman stooped and picked up a bale off the floor. ‘This is a silk. But it’s very expensive, I’m afraid.’

  Alexine felt the sheer, grey material. ‘Perfect! But I don’t want just one robe. I want a number. What other cloth have you got?’

  Harriet was appalled when she saw Alexine setting off for her next lesson in one of the dresses made for her by the dressmaker within a mere two days. ‘You can’t possibly go out in that! It looks like a nightdress.’

  ‘It’s as comfortable as a nightdress. And as cool. What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘But what will people say? No stockings, slippers, that – that robe thing. You’ll only make a spectacle of yourself.’

  ‘Oh, by now, I’m used to doing that.’

  Soon Alexine had made enough progress in Arabic to be able to carry on conversations with Mahfouz. When they discussed the crew necessary for the voyage, he at once volunteered to put her in touch with a reis or captain – he knew just the man, totally efficient and honest – and a cook, who had worked at the French legation until he had quarrelled with the over-exacting wife of the new minister. Then there was the son of one of his brothers, who was learning to be a waiter. He would not expect to receive the sort of wages paid to someone with experience. He was a healthy, strong, willing boy, ideal for an expedition.

  At first Alexine was distrustful of Mahfouz’s eagerness to help. But eventually he won her over. He joked with her, even flirted with her, paying her extravagant compliments, at which she only laughed. She admired both his teaching abilities, so much superior to those of the former missionary who had tutored her in The Hague, and his eagerness to improve his own French. Soon, instead of taking Daan upstairs with, her, she would slip him some money and tell him to return in two hours. On the first occasion that she did this, he protested: ‘Oh, no, miss. Madam wouldn’t at all like me to leave you here all by yourself; but eventually he became grateful for the opportunity to slip around the corner to a café, instead of having to sit listening to all that chatter in unintelligible Arabic and French.

  One morning, Mahfouz was smoking a hookah on her arrival. The previous day he had surprised her by smoking a small cigarette, little more than a pinched roll of paper containing a few shreds of black tobacco, without first asking her permission. This time she was even more surprised.

  ‘I’ve never seen you smoke that before.’

  As often now, he had failed to get to his feet at her entry. He put his lips to the mouthpiece and there was a gurgling sound as he drew on it. He smiled up at her with his small, mica-bright eyes. ‘Better than cigarettes.’

  She flopped down on the floor beside him. ‘May I try?’

  He shook his head. Smiled. ‘ Not for a lady. No.’

  ‘Please! I’ve smoked cigarettes, you know.’

  He hesitated. Then he removed the ivory mouth-piece from the tube and wiped it on a corner of his soiled djellaba. He reattached it and then held it out to her.

  She drew on it. ‘Good. Very good. What is it? Tobacco?’

  ‘Partly,’ he replied evasively. ‘Other things too. Herbs. Good for the health.’

  She nodded. Soon, she felt euphoria, an irresistible tide, sweep through her. She had no wish to have her lesson. She just wanted to squat here beside him, sucking happiness in through the yellowing ivory mouthpiece already soiled with his saliva and the saliva of no doubt innumerable other people.

  ‘Do your women also smoke?’

  He shook his head and laughed. Then he put out a hand and gently prised the mouthpiece away from hers. ‘ Enough,’ he said. ‘Too much the first time isn’t good.’

  ‘Oh, please!’

  ‘No, no. Enough.’

  It was later that morning that she began to talk about the impossibility of chartering a steamer. The Italian minister had achieved nothing and, after extravagant promises, the French minister had been equally unsuccessful.

  ‘Maybe I can help.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Maybe. I’m lucky to have many relatives in the government. Also many friends. Do you wish me to try?’

  ‘Oh, please! It’ll make our whole journey so much quicker and easier.’

  ‘But it’ll cost you a lot of money. You realize that? In this country, miracles are never cheap.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t care about money. If it’ll buy me a miracle, then I’m perfectly happy to spend all the money in the world. How much did you have in mind?’

  When he mentioned the sum, she was briefly aghast. ‘You mean that’s just to get the steamer? It doesn’t include its actual hire?’

  He nodded, drawing deeply on the hookah. ‘That’s right. An expensive – a very expensive – miracle.’

  Briefly she thought, one hand playing with her bare toes. Then she nodded. ‘All right! Fine! Done! I’ll bring you the money tomorrow.’

  Chapter Three

  SEATED AT THE LARGE BUREAU which she had demanded to replace the elegant little escritoire in the sitting-room of her suite, Harriet was drawing up yet another of her lists:

  STEAMER

  Self

  Addy

  Daan

  1 reis

  1 pilot

  12 sailors

  8 chasseurs

  1 cook

  1 waiter

  2 maids

  DAHABIAH I

  Alexine

  Nanny R.

  I reis

  1 pilot

  10 soldiers

  12 sailors

  1 carpenter

  At that point she broke off. They had still to find a dragoman. Mr Shepheard had suggested a man, half Arab and half Greek, but the French minister had warned them against him: he was a drunk and a pilferer of any small objects left lying around. Mahfouz had said that he knew of an ideal candidate, someone called Osman Aga, but he had still to return from escorting two effete and demanding young Americans, heirs to fortunes almost as large as Alexine’s, up the Nile to Luxor.

  At first Harriet had been happy to be, as she saw it, chief of staff to Alexine’s commander. But now all these trivial arrangements weighed on her. If only Alexine would stop exploring the city either on the horse that she had insisted on buying or in the rented carriage! If only Addy would stop accepting every invitation sent to her, and endlessly reading all those novels!

  Eventually Harriet decided that she had had enough for a day. The sun was sinking, the air was beginning to cool. She would do what she was constantly telling Alexine not to do: go out for a walk on her own.

  Once she was down in the hot, smelly, overcrowded street, she regretted her decision. But obstinately she pressed on. ‘Madame! Madame! Here! Over here! Real bargain! Please! Come!’ On all sides the voices assailed her, in French, in English, even in German. From time to time someone particularly importunate would grab at her arm or her dress. Her parasol, bobbing above the heads of the crowd, made her particularly conspicuous.

  She was halted by a strong smell of scent. Ranged on a table outside a timber shack, t
here were innumerable bottles of every shape and size. ‘Yes, madame, yes!’ a bald man rushed out from the shack to greet her in French. ‘Try, madame, try! Come, come!’ He picked up a bottle, pulled out its stopper, and then held it under her nose. She jerked her head away. There was something disgusting about the smell, so sickly and penetrating. Essence of vomit, she thought. She hurried on, the man pursuing her, bottle in hand.

  At another stall, a man was selling caged birds. The sun glinting on their brilliant plumage might have been reflected off glass, so dazzling was it. Seeing this foreign woman, a potential purchaser, the man grinned at her, revealing a mouth almost empty of teeth, and then put a hand to one of the cages to open it. At once, with a creak of wings, a green and yellow bird poised itself for flight and, with disconcerting clumsiness, wheeled up into the air and landed in the branches of a dusty tree. Harriet looked up at it, both rejoicing in its freedom and wondering why the man had let it loose. Then she saw the slim, red cord fastened round one of the bird’s legs, to tether it to the wicker-work cage. Disappointment and anger overwhelmed her and she at once turned away.

  It was at that moment that she saw the two figures in black: the woman, head lowered, back humped, and the man as erect as a soldier on parade. Her arm was linked in his. It was Nanny Rose and Daan. They might have been mistaken for some elderly married couple who had escaped to Cairo from Northern Europe for their health. Harriet followed behind them, adapting her pace to the leisurely one set by Nanny Rose.

  The pair eventually halted at a stall selling what were clearly fake antiques. Ignoring the shopkeeper, they examined inexpertly manufactured object after object, from time to time setting one aside. Daan would pass an object to her or she to him. They would then nod in agreement or one of them would shake a head. Finally, they began their bargaining for the dozen or so pieces that they had singled out. Harriet continued to watch them from under the shade of the tree in which the tethered bird had alighted. The bargaining went on for a long, long time. They were surprisingly persistent. A sum having been finally agreed, the shop owner produced an osier basket and, having first wrapped each object in scraps of newspaper, placed one after another carefully in it. ‘ Well, that was a good day’s work,’ Harriet heard Daan say, as he hefted the basket.

  She decided to reveal herself. ‘ Nanny Rose!’

  ‘Oh, it’s you, madam!’ Nanny Rose cried it out not in pleasure, but dismay.

  Daan turned and bowed, the basket in one hand.

  ‘What a lot you’ve been buying!’

  Nanny Rose became flustered. ‘Just some souvenirs, madam. Presents for when we get home. Daan came out with me to help me. I could never have managed on my own.’

  ‘Are you going back to the hotel now?’

  The two looked at each other, undecided. Then Nanny Rose

  said: ‘Yes, I think so, madam. Yes.’

  The three walked back in silence, Harriet in the middle.

  It was two days later that the mystery of the purchases was solved.

  At breakfast, which she was eating late and therefore alone, Addy fell into conversation with a sunny young Swedish couple, in Cairo on their honeymoon. At one point, they told her of their extraordinary good fortune. They had wanted to take back with them some archaeological souvenirs of their visit, but had feared that they would be unable to discriminate between what was genuine and what was fake. By a happy chance, they had run into this dear old man and his wife in the lobby and had got into conversation with them. The man spoke little of any language other than Dutch, but the woman’s English was excellent. He was engaged in some sort of archaeological work and was, they discovered, selling some of his finds after having had a large sum of money stolen from him in the street. They had acquired from him three quite beautiful objects for what they were sure was a knock-down price. Addy must see them for herself.

  When Addy had told Harriet and Alexine the story, she asked: ‘Do you think that we should do anything about it?’

  ‘Do anything?’ Alexine laughed. ‘ No, of course not. Good luck to them. They’re only doing what everyone does in this place – turning a dishonest penny.’

  ‘But what about the couple?’

  ‘If they can afford a honeymoon in Cairo, then they can afford to be cheated.’

  ‘Have you no sense of morality?’ Harriet asked, in pretended shock.

  ‘None at all.’

  Then all three women laughed.

  ‘You know, we’re just racing through money.’

  ‘Are we?’ Alexine was indifferent, as she turned over the pages of the French-language Cairo newspaper.

  ‘I’m being serious. In the past seven weeks, the Bank of Egypt has given us two hundred pounds in gold, ninety pounds in silver dollars, a banker’s note for another two hundred to pay for the steamer, and a credit of five hundred pounds more.’ Harriet looked down at the ledger open before her. ‘We have to pay ten percent – ten percent! – on any credit.’

  ‘Oh, please! This is all so boring.’

  ‘Boring or not – we have to think about these things. I’ve had to write to Glyn’s for another two thousand pounds. And, oh yes’ – once again she consulted the ledger – ‘the bank in The Hague is in the process of transferring ten thousand florins.’

  ‘Good.’ Again Alexine laughed.

  ‘That horse cost far too much. Seventy pounds! I ask you!’

  ‘It’s an Arab, mama.’

  ‘Well, if you have an Arab, do you really need a white donkey as well?’

  ‘That’s for the trip.’

  Harriet sighed and pushed the ledger away from her.

  ‘Your father wanted only to make money, and you want only to spend it.’

  Alexine went over to the desk and bent down to kiss Harriet on the cheek.

  ‘You only live once,’ she said.

  ‘No doubt. And you’re going to be the death of me.’

  Chapter Four

  ADDY LAY OUT IN A HAMMOCK in a shady corner of the deck. Pince-nez low on her nose, she was reading Cousine Bette for the third time.

  ‘Doesn’t that French provincial world seem terribly far away?’ Harriet had asked her.

  ‘Yes, terribly. I never thought that such a world – small, ingrown, and riddled with envy and hate – would seem preferable to the one in which I was living.’

  ‘Oh, we’re not having so bad a time. It’s fun.’

  The wind had changed direction and, instead of being cool, was now hot. That morning Nanny Rose had carefully washed Addy’s hair and curled it for her, but already it felt sticky and limp. From time to time she pressed a handkerchief to her forehead, her cheeks, or the side of her neck. From below, in the saloon, she could hear Harriet at the piano. ‘It’s surprisingly good,’ Harriet had said, running her hands up and down the keys in one fluent arpeggio after another, when two huge, sweating, grunting Egyptians had carried it aboard and placed it where, after a lot of deliberation, she had decided that it should go. The endless noise from the crowds on the banks and from the servants and soldiers not merely on the steamer but on the two dahabias towed behind, was bad enough without that endless strumming. How was one expected to concentrate?

  Now, with a veering of the wind, Addy became increasingly aware of the smoke blown towards her from the monotonously thumping engine. She coughed, handkerchief to mouth, and then tasted the sulphur on her tongue. With an exclamation of annoyance she lowered her long, narrow feet in their morocco slippers down on to the deck and swung herself out of the hammock. There was nothing for it. She would have to go below, to read on her berth.

  At that moment, with a series of judders and a bump, the steamer moved alongside a rickety jetty. Why were they stopping yet again? It was pointless to ask. When they did so, their handsome, vain young Nubian janizary, Osman Aga, would strike yet another of his heroic poses, arms crossed over massive chest or heavily jewelled hand resting on one of the three revolvers that he carried at his slim waist, and would give a variety of
reasons: they had to take aboard fresh provisions for the crew; one of the dahabiahs was leaking; the engine had developed some defect; someone sick must be put ashore; they had to bake more bread; two servants had been left behind at their last port of call.

  Having finished his weeks of service with the two Americans, Osman had been delighted to take on the three women at a salary proposed by Mahfouz, who of course received a percentage of it, even higher than that exacted from his previous employers. Addy led the others in making fun of his conceit; but, as she remarked, he had so much to be conceited about – his physique, his excellent English and French, his aquiline nose, and above all a skin, the colour of a ripe aubergine, that glowed with health.

  On her way down to her cabin, Addy passed Alexine, who was leaning over the taffrail, her hair hanging untidily loose down the back of one of those ridiculous and embarrassing garments made for her in Cairo, her feet bare. Why did the girl have to let all standards slip? Not even a self-respecting Egyptian woman would go around like that.

  Crowding the jetty were a host of small boys, all totally naked. They were calling out to Alexine, and she was shouting back to them. Since their Arabic was so different from hers, misunderstandings were clearly taking place. When they did, laughter rang out.

  At the prompting of one of the boys, Alexine reached into the bag, purchased in one of the Cairo bazaars, that she wore slung around her neck and brought out some coins. She flicked one into the water and at once all the boys flung themselves off the jetty. For a moment, Addy saw the skinny, lithe bodies twisting and turning, like a shoal of giant fish. Then they vanished, so murkily brown was the water. Finally, one emerged, a silver dollar glinting between his teeth. A dollar! Was Alexine crazy? Now all the boys, the water dripping off them, began to shout out for more, more, more. Alexine placed another coin between forefinger and thumb and flicked it outward. Again there was that seething shoal of human fish, just below the iridescent surface of the water.