“Your wife and child are in Europe, and you wanted me to stay? Why? For a dinner companion, light conversation around the table?”
“Miss Jüül, I’m a foolish and selfish man. My wife can tell you that.”
“She can’t. She’s not here.”
“I know that. I know, Miss Jüül.”
“I’m not going.” I must have known it was imprudent, what we were doing – foolish, yes, but also reckless, this playing at innocent chatter over dinner as war encroached. Mr. Brandt wasn’t the only selfish one. I’d already shared meals, played house with a man, and I knew where that could lead. Carl had been a widower. Though Mr. Brandt’s wife was gone, she was certainly not dead. It wasn’t up to me, alone, in any case, and if Mr. Brandt grappled with any kind of inappropriate desire, it wasn’t apparent. There were much larger tensions to contend with than our petty domesticities. I told myself that, in everything, I would be careful.
Mr. Brandt sighed heavily, leaned his brow against his fingers. “If you’re going to stay, we should reduce staff to only those necessary. The groundskeepers are all young men, the ones most likely to be swayed by those who believe I’m arming the enemy.”
“Are you?”
Mr. Brandt rubbed his mouth once, briefly, and looked to the far corner of the room. He cleared his throat. “That, Miss Jüül, is a difficult question to answer.” His eyes moved back to mine, his expression seeming like both a challenge and an apology.
“Is it?”
“I suppose our company is part of the vast machine which arms, well, everyone – enemies and allies and those who go from side to side and back again, depending.” He drummed his fingers along the edge of the table, watched their movement, then stopped. “It’s just going to get more difficult to figure out where anyone stands in this. It’s likely going to be best if we let all the groundskeepers go and don’t rehire for a time.”
“Who will care for the grounds?”
“Well, I was once good with a rake and shovel.”
For a moment, I thought he was serious, but I saw the slight pull of his grin. I looked back at him, stiff-faced. I didn’t feel much like joking and didn’t think he should either.
“Perhaps no one will. Perhaps we’ll sequester ourselves in this villa surrounded by withering and overgrown plants.” I could still hear the twist of his humour.
“That doesn’t sound very pleasant.”
“War never is. This is going to end someday, Miss Jüül. I don’t believe we’re in real danger, or I wouldn’t let you stay here, but I want you to believe that. I want you to feel safe.”
“Should I dismiss them tomorrow?”
“No, I will.” I was relieved. I’d already wrongly accused an entire group of groundskeepers of hurting Marta. I didn’t want to be responsible for letting go another crew.
A few days later, one of the staff approached me inside the villa. He was a bit older than the others and was the one who spoke for them. He didn’t ring or knock. I wasn’t aware he was there until I felt him behind me. I turned and he was so close that he had to bend his neck to look at my face. “I know what you say about us,” he said in English.
“I’m sorry?”
“As you should be. We Africans are not good enough for you?” He spoke through closed teeth.
“No, I –”
“You think we are too black? Savage, dangerous?” The man elongated the last word, said it with a French pronunciation.
“I, Mr. Brandt –” I began again, though I could think of nothing to say. The man took one of my hands, twisted my arm behind my back and yanked me into him.
“Mr. Brandt, Mr. Brandt. I hope he is enjoying you while his wife is away.” He said this into my ear, the smell dense with chewing tobacco. I closed my eyes and swallowed. Then he let me go and laughed. “You’ll be gone soon enough. You all will be. Egypt isn’t yours. Africa isn’t yours; it’s ours.”
* * *
That night at dinner, I told Mr. Brandt what had happened. He looked first at the table and then lifted his head, looked directly at me. Our eyes held. “That shouldn’t have happened to you.” We kept our eyes on each other. I could sense a waver, but he held it steady and so did I. Then he banged the tabletop with the flat of his hand, the silverware ringing out. “I should have made you go.”
I pushed away from my seat. “That’s your solution? Send the ladies away so that the men can play war with themselves?”
“How is that any better than letting you stay so you can prove some sort of point? You shouldn’t be in this kind of danger.”
“I wasn’t in real danger.”
“You don’t know this.”
I started picking up plates.
“Don’t do that. You know you don’t need to do that.”
“I am an employee. I can help the others.”
“Come with me,” Mr. Brandt said roughly as he stood. “I mean, please.” He adjusted his tone. “Come join me in the study.” He held an arm out to me as though to take my hand.
I didn’t move toward him. “Why?”
He dropped his arm. “We need to figure out how we’re going to ensure your safety. Leave those.”
I put the dishes down and followed him to a separate wing of the villa, into the office, where he closed the door. Mr. Brandt went to the sideboard first, took out two glasses and turned to me. “Do you think you’ve developed a taste for Egyptian whisky yet?”
“When? During one evening with your brother? No, I don’t think so.”
“Brandy, then?”
Mr. Brandt was already pouring. He walked toward me, the glass held out, but when I reached for it, his arm moved past, put the glass on the desk behind us. He was up against me, his body giving off warmth as I took a breath. I could feel how my rib cage moved his arm. He ran his hand lightly against my jaw, then cupped the side of my face. He leaned toward me or I reached toward him, it didn’t matter which. It was skin and lips and breath, the scratch of stubble on his chin, plump warmth of his mouth, smooth insistency of his tongue. He backed away from me. “My God, I’m sorry.” He picked up his glass, considered it. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
I took a step and stood in front of him. “Something is always going to happen.”
He put his glass down, brought his thumb along my lips, against my teeth. Hand over my hip, the top of my buttock, pressing into my lower back, pushing it against his thigh. “Not here.” Where would we go? Not the room he shared with Mrs. Brandt, I hoped. Please, not my own staff quarters. Mr. Brandt circled his thumb against my palm as we walked. Desire carved a line directly through me. When we got to a bedroom in the guest wing, he closed the door and we stumbled up against each other, fell onto the bed. Balanced over me, hand from my sternum, around each breast, palm flat on my stomach, pressure steady, he circled my waist, lifted my pelvis to his, heat pushing through our clothes. I could smell the salt and musk of his skin, pulled his shirt open, brought my mouth to his chest, licked and bit. I wrapped my legs around him, each of us pushing away our clothes. For a moment, we stopped, looked at tiny versions of ourselves reflected in each other’s eyes. Mr. Brandt lowered his mouth, waited. I ran my hands through his hair and tugged slightly. He nibbled at my lips, then licked as though to soothe them before he slipped his tongue into my mouth. I pulled at his hips, desperate, but he backed away from my face, began kissing his way down my torso. “Where are you going? I want you here.”
“Shhh.” He kept one hand on my breast, the other under my hips. The room spun, bed rocked like a boat. I gripped his head between my legs with two hands, bucked and gasped, and then he moved along the length of me, face to face, his body mine, mounting wave rising and rising until it broke, flooded crown to soles, the retreat as intense a sensation, a mass of water sucking away from shore, then calm, sweet collapse.
* * *
I rolled away from Mr. Brandt, kicked off the sheets tangled around me, lay open to the ceiling. He propped himself on one elbow. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long.” Traced my body with his fingers.
“You have?” I rubbed at the places he’d touched, a tickle rising, stifled a giggle.
Mr. Brandt raised one eyebrow. “You haven’t?”
I shivered, gathered the sheets around me. “Are you going to tell me now that we can never do that again?”
“Good Lord, why would I do that?” He pulled the blankets over us, rubbed my skin.
“Because you’re married.” As soon as I said it, I wished I hadn’t.
“I am.” He stopped rubbing, lay his hand flat on my stomach. “I’m not going to try to convince you of anything, Miss Jüül – of what will happen now, or later – all I know is I want to be with you.”
“What if you can’t?”
He looked surprised and, in that expression, I saw the slight frown that had been on his face when we first met.
“You want to, but we shouldn’t be together, we both know, and there will be a day when we can’t – what then?”
He took me by the hips, moved me so I straddled him and ran his hands from waist, along breast, collarbone, until he held my face. “What then, indeed?”
Night came on quickly, brought darkness but didn’t ease the heat. The sound of squalling birds filled the courtyard with morning. The sticky salt of sweat was dried on my skin, then heat broke along my body. I slipped into the cool water of a full bath, my head tilted back along the edge, throat exposed, Mr. Brandt’s – Hermann’s – lips there for a moment and then gone.
Thirty-Four
War made Cairo something other than it had been. So many Europeans left the country, and those of us who remained had a new kind of freedom. Oddly, the streets seemed safer to me. I walked on my own, as I hadn’t before in Cairo, for hours, out of the wide, palm-lined streets of Garden City into the tighter-wound, dusty roads that circled Ismailia Square. I would pass Shepheard’s Hotel, where Europeans stood on the balcony, umbrellas and parasols shielding their heads from the sun. I didn’t join them but walked among the Egyptians, all men and mostly touts who called up to the Europeans, offering them transport, assistance, even instant entertainment, prodding at small monkeys in red caps and little jackets until they jigged on demand.
Sometimes, I saw Egyptian women when I went into dress shops. Those in the same shops as I entered wore European clothing, yet their faces were most often covered with gauzy white fabric. Some smiled at me, eyes shining above their veils. Others kept their expressions wiped blank. In dressing rooms, shopgirls rolled silk stockings over my legs, slipped dresses over my head – all as I had once done for others. I had become used to the feeling of Hermann’s hands on my body, our skin together, and though my time in the dressing rooms with the girls was completely innocent, it was drawn of this need for more touch, a hunger. I had them pull dress after dress over me, to tie, hook and button them until I found those that made my body sing with how the fabric held tight or dropped loose from my body in the exact way I wanted. The way I wanted Hermann to see me.
One afternoon, I was fitted for a new kind of corset, one without boning, the soft fabric stitched instead with flexible seams. The shopgirl had to bring in several before we found one that fit as it should. “Still a bit complicated, but it feels wonderful,” I said.
“Doesn’t it? I’ve got one on as well. Just think, someday soon, you and I won’t have to wear them at all.”
“Imagine.” I knew from talking to girls like her in the shops that women’s fashion was increasingly considered a frivolity. Food and supplies were being rationed and eventually someone would object to the materials used in even corsets. I told myself it was for the war effort that I wore nothing under my dresses when I was at the villa, though one woman scoffing at corsets and slips did nothing, of course. Nothing and everything. For so long I’d held my body as a little fortress, seams and stitches and the fine bones of corsets holding me in place. Now, I wanted as little between me and the world as possible.
* * *
I didn’t confine my outings to the European districts. I walked block after block of markets, spices and textiles hanging along the roads, cats and kittens weaving in and out of my legs, mewing. Some days, I would keep going until the streets became narrow lanes, the haze thick with dust. Donkeys and goats pushed past me with their rank smells, children toddled barefoot alongside feral dogs, and I could feel the gaze of women from behind veils heavier and darker than those of the women in the European quarters. Alleys twisted into cramped squares where men gathered, pointed and yelled, though not at me particularly. To escape the noise, there were times I would find my way to the river and hire a boat to take me out as far as they could to where it widened toward the gulf. From there, Cairo was a wash of grey and green, a diffuse glow to the city as though perpetually in sunrise or sunset. On the river, I could finally feel a breeze, the air seemed clear. The city retreated and the hills were bright and golden, a belt between water and sky.
I went to the pyramids alone one afternoon. I’d been looking up at them for months from inside the city. At the base, I hired two Bedouin guides. “Take me to the top.”
“You, madam? You will make it?”
“I will try.” It was difficult to keep my skirts from catching on my boots as I climbed. The stones were both rough and as soft as powder. With each step, I felt like I nicked the stone a bit, looked back to see if I’d left a mark, scarred the surface. Toward the top, the heat pushed into me and my palms felt raw, calves burned with exertion. The Bedouins circled me, one taking my hand, the other behind me, steadying my wobbling steps or pushing lightly on my back. They managed to coax me to the top. Once there, they held out their palms, put their fingers to their lips as though to silence me and looked carefully down the four sides. “No soldiers,” one said. Below us, reservist troops were setting up camp, white canvas tents like rows of miniature pyramids in the desert.
“Australians, like they are on adventure holiday,” the other said. They spoke over each other about each country’s troops as they asked me who I thought were the strongest fighters.
I was being asked questions like a man, like someone who might have opinions that I could offer. “Well,” I began, “I don’t know much about the Australians, but I think the Germans might be the best soldiers, physically.”
They nodded, serious.
I repeated something I’d heard Hermann say. “But perhaps the English are fiercer. The Germans shoot soldiers in the back, but the English hit entire countries in the bank.”
The men grinned, delighted. “Yes, yes, madam! This is exactly as we think!”
So, I’d gained some allies in this war. Two impoverished Bedouins with a Danish mistress masquerading as a wife, pretending to have opinions about war and force. I was simply someone carrying on an affair in a country of dusty ruins that I’d once considered one of the wonders of the world. From where I was, the pyramids seemed made of stone so soft that I could have cut into them with a penknife. Below, more tents were erected. When we came down, soldiers stood and lifted their hats to me, said, “Ma’am,” in Australian accents, and I wished I’d said something more generous about them.
On my walks alone, I did not get used to the times I would take a wrong turn into a lane with painted ladies pushed out of doorways onto street corners. Men saw me and propped these girls and women out in the open and pointed, as though I might be interested in them simply because I was white and I was alone. By that time I was wearing the most recent European styles, looser fitting dresses that stopped mid-calf, some with dropped waists and sailor collars. Perhaps the way I looked confused them. The girls they pushed toward me looked as young as eleven or twelve, and those older than teens seemed to be all one age to me, though I wasn’t sure how old. My own age? Under the paint and robes, the women and
girls alike were dead-eyed, some dotted with scabs. I wondered if I could do anything for them, find someone, an organization perhaps, that would take them away from these men, give them shelter. The world was at war. Who was I to walk free along the streets of Cairo, tucked into my new soft corset, my light fabric skirts swinging around me? I was no one, I knew, and I could do nothing. This is what I told myself.
* * *
Staff continued to return to Europe until only three remained. Hermann went to work each morning, and I was left in a nearly empty villa. Mail arrived sporadically and what news I got from home told me about the financial troubles of our farm holdings with rations lean and both Anton and Soren gone to the front.
One evening, when I returned from my walk, Hermann came into the foyer, stood and watched me before he said, “You were out on your own again.”
I had taken off my hat and was pressing the pins back into my hair, damp with humidity, as I turned to him.
“You know that I don’t like that. It worries me.”
“And you know it’s no more dangerous out there than it could be in here.”
Hermann stepped toward me, ran his hands down my arms. “I’ve taken precautions against that. Out there, in the city, if you get into danger, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“That’s right.” I felt like this much of the time – like there was so little I could do to control my environment, the people around me, what they might do, for good or for bad. I hadn’t expected that Marta would be attacked, that I would be threatened. Hadn’t expected that I would be with Hermann now, spending nights with heat rising off our skin, fans cooling us enough to fall asleep beside each other.
Hermann pulled me to him, took more pins from my hair, unwound it. “I want to keep you safe. I don’t want to lose you.”
“You want to keep me.” A kept woman. “But what happens when she returns?”
Little Fortress Page 19
