Bell of the Desert

by Alan Gold

  “No, Mr. Lawrence, I don’t want you to leave. I’ve enjoyed our many conversations. I hope I shall continue to enjoy them in greener climes, such as England on your return.”

  Again he remained silent, and out of embarrassment, Gertrude was about to speak when he said, “You know, Miss Bell, for a man as young as myself, it’s a privilege to be so intimate with a woman who has such a considerable knowledge of the Middle East, and archaeology and pottery . . .”

  “Intimate?”

  He flushed. “Intimacy of mind and purpose. Unlike good old Thompson who is little more than a librarian, you’ve lived and breathed the desert. You’re what I’ve always imagined for myself—at one with the sand and the impossible sky, dressing in the clothes of an Arabic Sheik, and riding a white horse alone through the dunes and into the sunset.”

  She smiled. “I’m afraid you’ve been reading too many of those dreadful penny romance novels, Mr. Lawrence. I’ve ridden through the desert, and it’s far more painful than beautiful. Talk to a desert Arab about the beauty of the desert, and he’ll think you’re mad. He’d exchange it at the drop of a hat for some of Britain’s verdant pastures, for Blake’s green and pleasant land.”

  He swirled his feet in the water and splashed her legs. Their feet, magnified slightly by the water, created gentle eddies as the river flowed over them. Their bodies were hot, but the water below the surface was cold, fed by the melt-waters of the distant mountains of southeastern Turkey. As she looked at her ankles and legs in the water, she was transported back to the moment she’d read the letter from Uncle Frank about dear Henry who’d frozen in the River Lar. She sighed in remembrance of what might have been.

  Breathing deeply, she said, “Anyway, Mr. Lawrence, you’re a young man, and the desert is no place for somebody like you to settle down. There are many dangers here for young men, solitude being only one of them. At your age, you should be enjoying the full benefits of English society.”

  “I’m not all that young, Miss Bell. I’ve lived more of a life than many men my age who remained in England and did little but attend school, university, and enter a profession.”

  Gertrude looked at him quizzically. What was he trying to say? “You indicated that there was intent to your coming to join me here. I wonder whether you’d care to reveal it?”

  Lawrence cleared his throat. He struggled to say something, but changed his mind.

  She took pity on him. “Is it something to do with Mr. Thompson? Or perhaps something about me? Something of a personal matter you wished to discuss?”

  He nodded.

  “About me?” Again, he nodded. “My travels? My life?”

  He shook his head.

  “Come now, Mr. Lawrence. We could spend the rest of the day in thrust and parry. What’s on your mind?”

  “I wanted to . . . not that you need to tell me . . . but if you were of a mind, perhaps . . . although I realize that it’s of a personal nature . . .”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Thomas! What?”

  “I wanted to know whether you . . . if there was a gentleman to whom you showed a particular fondness.”

  “Several. I am familiar with a number of gentlemen in London and in Constantinople and in Cairo.” She thought for a moment. “And in Jerusalem and Damascus. Oh dear, I do sound promiscuous, don’t I, but I travel a great deal, and when opportunity arises . . .”

  “Have you never thought of marriage?” he asked.

  She smiled. “The opportunity didn’t present itself, I’m afraid. But the German philosopher Nietzsche said that there are many more unhappy marriages than unhappy people. It isn’t lack of love which makes for unhappy marriages, Thomas, but lack of friendship within the marriage. I value my friendships greatly. Many men say they’ve fallen in love with me, or what they told me was love, but there were very few with whom I was friendly. Friendship is far more demanding than marriage, which is, after all, only a contract dealing with property and inheritance. That is of no interest to me. But friendship! True and honest friendship! Ah, now that’s where a man and a woman can truly be lovers . . . of the mind, if not the body.”

  He nodded, and remained silent for some time. She knew he wanted to talk to her about some physical or romantic matter and could have helped him out of his embarrassment, but decided that if he was to succeed with the process of finding a suitable mate, he really must develop the vocabulary. But after an interminable wait, she gave up on him finding his own voice, and said, “Are you discussing this with me for a particular reason?”

  Slowly, warily, as though he had suddenly come upon a coiled snake, he said, “I have grown fond of you since you arrived at the dig. I know it’s only been a matter of days, but . . .”

  “As I am fond of you, Thomas.”

  “No! No, I don’t mean that kind of fondness. I mean . . . I mean the other kind of fondness . . .”

  She reached over, and touched his knee. “Mr. Lawrence. I’m old enough to be your mother. I thank you for the compliment, but the difference in our ages . . .”

  “That’s why I’m fond of you,” he said softly.

  “Ah!”

  The sun continued to sink lower on the horizon, casting longer and longer shadows. The sky turned from turquoise to a darker blue. “Do you not find yourself attracted to younger women?”

  “I find them feckless and silly.”

  She thought back to her own three years of misery and disappointment, her coming-out seasons straight after Oxford, three years of uncompromising embarrassment as her parents had paraded her like some article in a shop window, her father and mother frantic in their efforts to find her a husband. They couldn’t understand why it was so hard, she was tall and very attractive and as rich as Croesus, but despite the dozens and dozens of eligible young men, she found them all, without exception, to be vapid and stupid and utterly unexciting.

  To her shame and horror at the time, but now far more understandably, she too found the fathers of the feckless young men far more interesting than their sons. And why was it that when a man was forbidden to her by the bonds of his marriage to another woman, even a woman he detested, she was so often attracted to him? Did she have some sort of romantic death-wish, she wondered.

  Mr. Lawrence continued, somewhat diffidently, “I find I lose interest in young women very quickly. They’re so unworldly and unwise. They blather and say silly things and when I try to talk to them about something in which I’m interested, I can tell that all they’re doing is feigning interest, but I can see that they’re waiting for me to change the subject and to talk about empty things like holidays and plays and visits to the seaside. Yet I seem to find their mothers of much greater interest. And more exciting.”

  “Believe me when I say that I completely understand what you mean. But do you also find you have more in common with these young ladies’ brothers? Are you more interested in a physical relationship with them?”

  He looked at her in shock. She smiled, and stroked his face. “My dear Mr. Lawrence, you may try to hide your persuasions from yourself, but you hide nothing from me. Perhaps more than any other English woman you will ever meet, I am a woman of the world. Nothing which I have seen, and I’ve seen many extraordinary things, shocks me anymore. I knew from the first moment of our meeting that you were ambivalent about your sex. As you grow older, you may find yourself drawn either to women or to men, but to whatever and to whomever you are attracted, you must obey the dictates of your body, and not be forced into a loveless and painful relationship just to conform to society. Remember the horror which Mr. Oscar Wilde suffered at the hands of the insufferable Marquis of Queensbury, and you’ll see the dangers of living a lie.”

  Lawrence shook his head in amazement. “You’re extraordinary. I’ve never met a woman like you,” he said.

  “And it’s unlikely that you ever will again. Yes, Mr. Lawrence, I’ve enjoyed the company of a number of very elegant and intelligent gentlemen. I’ve loved some of them to distraction, and have
given myself to a number of them, even those who were married, but whose marriages were disastrous. Because, you see, I don’t look on some church aisle as a sacrosanct passage to eternal fidelity. Good God, Lawrence, I’m on Earth for a good time, and I’m determined to have one. But that’s me, Thomas. That is my choice, and the knowledge with which I live daily. You, Mr. Lawrence, must make your own choices.”

  She smiled, removed her hand from his knee, opened the book, and began reading again. He sat there, looking glum and disconsolate. She took pity on him, and undid the top two buttons of her bodice. Putting her hand into an inside pocket of her blouse, she withdrew the tiny idol which she’d carried with her since the day Henry had given it to her.

  “My dear, many years ago, a young man with whom I was deeply in love, gave this to me. Do you recognize it?”

  “It’s a Hittite goddess. I don’t know which one without comparing her with other figurines. Aserdus, Hannahanna, Inara?”

  “She’s the Goddess Arinnitti,” said Gertrude

  “Ah, the sun goddess,” said Thomas.

  “She’s looked after me for many years, but I feel she’s probably more suited to a young man such as yourself than to a middle-aged lady like me. A young man who still has to find his way around the tortuous pathways of Arabia, and one who has to determine in which direction his body will take him. My sun is fading, whilst yours is in ascendance. It’s time for me to pass on her good fortunes to one who will make better use of her, so I’d like you to have her, in the hope that she fulfils your expectations and guides you to an accommodation with life.”

  Before Gertrude handed the goddess to Thomas, she kissed it, just as Henry had kissed it as they’d left each other all those years earlier in Teheran. Thomas took the idol, and kissed Gertrude on the cheek, thanking her.

  “Now,” she said, “why don’t you return to the camp, so I can continue my reading.”

  He stood, and she glanced at him surreptitiously as he walked. Not that she was sexually interested in him, but for the first time she noticed that his gait had a slight limp. Odd that she hadn’t noticed it before. That sort of limp often came from childhood accidents, and she determined to ask him about it at an appropriate time.

  He was a fascinating young man, yet one who exhibited all the hallmarks of a reject. But not to her! There was something about Thomas Lawrence which drew her in as a fascination, one of those inexpressible, even obscure ambiguities which could see him either as a footnote to history, or one who overcame all obstacles and succeeded beyond his wildest aspiration. Somehow, and she had no idea how, she was betting that in the coming years Mr. Lawrence would be the agent of her triumph.

  ~

  Central Arabia, Towards Hayil, February, 1913

  For the journey across the fearsome Nejd desert, the world’s harshest and most merciless wasteland, a boiling anvil of rock and baked sand, Gertrude had employed a veritable legion of servants. Fearsome armed guards, cooks, camel drivers, and porters, her entourage consisted of more than forty people, hired from the western edges where vegetation and trees still grew. Everybody in her party privately thought the English woman was mad to attempt such a journey, and made their thoughts known the first night around the camp fires until she responded in fluent Arabic that her purpose in traveling to the south of Riyadh was to interview Abdul Aziz ibn Sa’ud, who was camped there, and who Gertrude believed was intent on storming the city and reclaiming it for the Sa’uds and for Wahhabism. It had been twenty years since Abdul Aziz’ father, Abd al-Rahman, had been with her in Bucharest and sparked her interest in Arabia and the need for all the tribes to come together under one Saladin-like leadership if they were ever to throw off the shackles of being a conquered people. The father had failed to be a modern Saladin, but his son, Abdul Aziz, was spoken of in the most extravagant terms, and Gertrude was determined to meet with him. Not just to spend time in his company, but to attempt to explain to him the benefits of a friendship with Great Britain. If he was as extraordinary as people were saying, then she could and should be his conduit to Whitehall and Buckingham Palace.

  “But ibn Rashid is in control, Lady,” said one of her guards. “He is in Hayil. He will kill us for trying to see ibn Sa’ud. They are blood enemies.”

  “I know that, but I’m trying to gain information on what’s going on in Arabia for my government,” she said.

  “But you are a woman. You must not do this,” he informed her.

  “Arabs treat women as possessions. In England, we are almost equal to men.”

  The entire party of men shook their heads in amazement. Several hawked spit into the fires. “What a terrible place this England must be,” they commented.

  The following morning, they continued their slow progress towards Hayil and then on the long journey through the Arabian Desert southeast to Riyadh. As the camels were lumbering ever onwards through the rocks and sand, the guard who had spoken to her the previous evening drove his camel forwards until they were riding side by side.

  “Lady,” he said. “You are a great English?”

  She smiled. “No, I’m just an ordinary woman.”

  “You are not Sultana?”

  “No. Not royalty. Just an English lady.”

  “There are many like you?”

  “No, not many. Most are content to be wives and mothers. But I’m driven to see the world.”

  He nodded and remained silent for some time. Then he asked, “Why are you going to Hayil? The Emir is a boy. All his family has been murdered by all his family. Blood flows like milk on the ground of the Rashids,” and he hawked a gob of spit onto the sand at the mention of their name.

  “You support the al Sa’ud family?” she asked.

  “I support nobody. All are thieves and murderers. Allah will curse them and dogs will lick their balls. But why seek out Rashid and Sa’ud? We don’t understand. What can you learn from these sons of pigs?” he asked.

  “Information about what they intend to do. It might affect my country one day.”

  The moment she said this, the Arab burst out laughing. All the others laughed aloud, even though they hadn’t heard the joke. “But you live far away. You live in an oasis. How can what we do in the Nefud or the Nejd be of interest to you in your England?”

  “The world is a small place, and what happens in Arabia can affect what happens in my country which lies far across the sea.”

  Mystified, he reined back his camel and re-joined his companions. He softly told them what she’d said. They burst out laughing. The woman was truly stupid. But so long as she paid well, they didn’t mind.

  ~

  Three days later, the entourage ascended a granite plateau and saw the mud walls of Hayil far ahead. It was getting late, and they decided to make an encampment and finish their journey the following morning.

  As dawn rose and they shook off the freezing night air, Gertrude mounted her camel. She’d employed the guards to protect her from brigands and Bedouin thieves in the desert, but knew that if she were to ride towards Hayil with a large contingent, it would be too threatening, and would mean a battle. She told her men what she was about to do, and with money and gifts she set off to ride the three miles to the city gates. Knowing the protocol, Gertrude waited two hundred yards from the closed gates until they opened, and three riders came towards her.

  They circled her, came close and then retreated until they were assured she bore no arms. Then they came near her. She gave them gifts to present to the Emir until he was satisfied she was no threat. Then she waited alone, sitting on a camel in the heat of the desert. Behind her was her entourage, but she knew with absolute certainty that except for one or two loyal servants, if an army came out of the gates, they’d disappear into the desert like a mirage. In front of her was a small city with a massive wall behind which could lay her death or imprisonment or freedom, depending on whether the ruler accepted her gifts. What a world!

  It took half an hour in the rapidly heating air for them to r
ide back, and escort her into Hayil. She made the strangest sight the men of the city had ever seen. Dressed in blue linen trousers and a silk blouse, a thick fur coat and brimmed feathered hat which was covered by a silk keffiyeh, she was escorted through the narrow streets to a large building in the centre of the city. She entered the building, and was immediately impressed by the huge height of the ceiling and the colonnade around the walls. Dazzlingly colourful carpets of immense technical and artistic merit covered the floor and Islamic writing which she recognized as verses from the Koran were inscribed around the cornices and along some of the walls. Divans, on which lay bejewelled men and women, were positioned like carriages of a train. All were watching this extraordinary vision walk from the doorway to the foot of the throne, on which sat a bald and grotesquely fat man. She knew him to be Ibrahim, uncle to the sixteen-year-old Emir who was off fighting a battle in the north.

  “Your journey to us has been known for many days,” said Ibrahim.

  “What can be kept secret in a desert which has the eyes and ears of Rashid?” she asked.

  “You are known to me, English. You have traveled the lands of Arabia for many years. You have been in Al Quds.”

  “Jerusalem is a great and important city, Excellency,” she said, refusing to use the Arabic name for a place as holy to Christianity as it was to Islam. “It is also known as Zion by the Jews, whose claim and ancestry goes back fifteen hundred years before the birth of the Prophet Mohammed, peace and blessings be upon him.”

  “The Jews are newcomers to Al Quds, English. They have no place in the land conquered by our Prophet. We will drive them out. Now, why are you here?”

  “I am here, Excellency, to present you with gifts from my master George, fifth king to bear that name in the past two hundred years, and to ride beyond your city to speak with Abdul Aziz ibn Sa’ud. I need to find out what is in the minds of the Sa’uds and the Rashids. It is of interest to my king.”

  Ibrahim looked at her suspiciously the moment she mentioned the name Sa’ud. Barely able to contain his hatred, he hissed, “The Sa’uds are a dry and withered fruit, woman, full of bitter poisons. They are a band of dogs wild with hunger. They bark fiercely, but they have neither teeth to bite nor courage to fight and they cower in dark corners.”