He turned to the woman and she backed away from us and into the foyer. “That’s Mrs. Nielson.” Hermann still hadn’t looked at me directly. He ran his hand through his hair, exhaled. “Miss Jüül, you can’t be here right now.”
“Who is Mrs. Nielson?”
“New staff.” He’d lowered his voice to a whisper. “She’s back, Marie. Mrs. Brandt has returned. You can’t be here.”
“Where am I supposed to go?”
“You are supposed to be in Alexandria with Onkel.”
“That’s why I’m here. Onkel, he’s – he hasn’t returned to the apartment. I went to the hotel. They told me there’s been a raid on one of the baths, that he’s likely been apprehended –”
Hermann took both of my hands and looked at me for the first time. “Miss Jüül.” I felt the burn of tears in my eyes. He reached for my shoulder. “Marie, this has happened before. Don’t worry. Onkel knows the right people to call. He may have to spend a couple of nights in prison, but he’ll be out –”
“Don’t worry? Your brother’s in an Egyptian prison, I’m sick with worry and God knows what else, there is a strange man guarding the front gate, and look –” I lifted my chin in Mrs. Nielson’s direction. “Your new staff member is staring as though she’s scared of me. Don’t worry, Hermann?”
He backed away from me and turned, held out an arm, palm open toward me, as though trying to hold still a pet or a child. “Mrs. Nielson, will you please take Miss Jüül to the –”
“Take dear little Miss Jüül where?” Mrs. Brandt’s voice was in the foyer.
Hermann’s arm dropped, his hand by his side.
“I haven’t even had a chance to say hello, have I?” Mrs. Brandt walked slowly across the foyer and I watched her – we all did. Her height sheethed in a simple light-green gown, fair hair rolled and gathered, her steps heavy and slow. “Miss Jüül, let me see you.” She motioned when she reached the middle of the foyer. I stepped toward her.
“Ingeborg,” Hermann started.
“Hush.” She held out one finger to her husband but her eyes were on me. “You said that Miss Jüül was on her way back to Denmark and yet, look, here she is.”
I stood, so small, in front of her, felt myself red with heat, with something more – anger, perhaps, shame.
“Where have you been hiding her, darling?”
“Mrs. Nielson, could you –” Mr. Brandt started.
Mrs. Brandt interrupted him. “Come a step closer, Miss Jüül.” I moved slightly toward her, willed myself to look directly in her eyes. “You don’t look very well, Miss Jüül. Is there something wrong?”
I didn’t answer.
“Are you unwell?” She took a step closer. “Did you come here for my husband’s help?”
Still I said nothing.
“I’m afraid you may be confused. It is you who we hired as help, and I’ve been told that you were not good help. Not good help, at all. In fact, I’ve been told that you were neither reliable nor trustworthy.” She leaned toward me, her mouth close to my ear. “You thought you could keep things from me, did you?”
“Ingeborg, that’s enough.” Hermann pulled her away.
“It certainly is enough. Get her out of here.” She came toward me again, her neck splotched with pink.
Mrs. Nielson stepped between us, her hand on my elbow.
We’d gone a couple of steps when Mrs. Brandt said, “Miss Jüül?”
I turned to her.
“I trusted you. Remember that.”
I shook out of Mrs. Nielson’s hold. “It wasn’t trust. You didn’t see me as a threat, as someone your husband could –”
There was a sharp pain across my cheek, the sound of a slap. I hadn’t realized what happened. Hermann had his wife’s arms behind her as she yelled, “Get her out of here!”
I brought my hand up to my face, felt the heat there, and Mrs. Nielson pulled me away.
* * *
A car was waiting, the guard from the front gate opening the door. Once he shut it, I saw him say something to Mrs. Nielson before she got in, but I couldn’t hear their words. The car circled the dry fountain, left the grounds. “Where are we going?”
Mrs. Nielson looked as though she were tired the way those who care for children are tired. “I am escorting you to the station, Miss Jüül, where I will purchase a ticket to Alexandria on your behalf and see you onto the train.” Her tone suggested that I shouldn’t ask more questions.
I tried to close my eyes against the heat. Nausea rose again and I clasped my stomach with both hands. I didn’t want to say anything more to Mrs. Nielson, so I leaned forward to the driver. “Stop the car, please.”
Mrs. Nielson put a palm on my chest and pushed me back. “Please, sir, keep driving.”
“I’m going to be sick!” My body began to shake as a retch spasmed up my throat. I held it back but as soon as the driver pulled over and stopped the car, I stumbled out and vomited. When I turned back, Mrs. Nielson passed me a handkerchief, holding it out of the door with two fingers. I took it and daubed my mouth, got back into the seat. “Thank you.”
“You shouldn’t have done that.” She must have known that if I could’ve prevented it, I would not have been sick. “You should not have come back to the family home.” What did this woman know about the family home? So little. What did I know about what I should and should not do? Nothing.
* * *
I was sick most of the way back to Alexandria on the train and hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours. Onkel was there when I returned, his lip cut, a bruise around his swollen eye. I dropped my bag and went to him. “Onkel! What happened?” I put my hand out toward his face, then stopped. I didn’t want to hurt him.
“I could ask you the same, Miss Jüül – you don’t look so good either, love – but I know what happened. My brother wired. Quite a pair we are.”
“I went there to tell him that you were gone, what I’d heard –”
“I know, and for that I’m thankful. I suppose my brother told you that I could sort it out myself?”
“He did.”
“Well, seems money is speaking less during the war rather than more, which is surprising. Or perhaps my powers of persuasion aren’t what they used to be. In any case, after a three-day stay in Alexandria’s least-illustrious cells, I’m now out.” I nodded, wondering if I should feel relief. None of this seemed comforting. “Don’t worry, your Hermann has sent word. He’s going to try to get here as soon as possible. It may take some time to get out from under Mrs. Brandt. In the meantime, you, my dear, need a nice long sleep.”
I left my windows open that night. With the sheers closed, I listened to the sounds of insects struggling against the fabric, the long, low horns of boats in the harbour.
* * *
I’d been careful. I’d counted months in cycles, made notes in my calendar, blocked off days. And yet, there was the tenderness in my breasts, cravings for salted fat, jellied sweets, chips of ice. If I did eat, my stomach lurched, saliva pooled beneath my tongue. Onkel found me one day, my hands gripping the back of a chair, bent at the waist, hanging my head. “Good Lord, Miss Jüül, are you not well?”
I stood upright and turned, kept a hold on the chair with one hand as the room spun. “I’m fine.” I pressed my forehead with my fingertips. “Just tired. I’ll go lie down for a bit.”
“It’s all taking a toll on you, isn’t it – the separation, the secrecy?”
What secrecy remained? Perhaps Onkel was thinking more of his own situation. “I suppose it is – and I suppose it should.”
He didn’t say anything more as I left the room.
I lay down, palm against my stomach, and Onkel knocked lightly, came into the room with a damp cloth. “Put this over your forehead. It may make you feel better.”
I thanked him. Where there had been Kn
ud before, there was Onkel now. How was I in this situation again, alone but for a single man unconnected to the trouble I was in? My mother had told me, as a child and young woman, what challenges we do not meet, God will keep sending us opportunities to improve. Perhaps he also sent me the same kind of helpmates, as though to set into relief my pattern of lack.
Thirty-Seven
A month later, word came that Hermann was arriving. Everything was arranged. Someone other than him, a secretary, wrote the letter. Could it have been Mrs. Nielson? Sunday, June thirteenth. Through Onkel, I told him I’d meet him at the station, wanting every moment with him in Alexandria. I watched Hermann looking for me, hand hooked at his hip, the other tapping an unknown beat into his thigh as he scanned the platform. When he saw me, he smiled like a boy, but as he came toward me, I saw his eyes were dull, his cheeks hollowed out. I felt pain twist in my gut. He pulled me to him. “Thank God, Marie.” His breath traced along my jaw to my ear. “Have you been all right? Has my brother been taking care of you?” He backed away from me just enough to cup my face, then ran his hands along my neck, shoulders, arms. “I’m so sorry that all this has happened.”
I wanted nothing more than this.
When we got back to the apartment, Onkel was out. Hermann dropped his bags inside the door and came to me. “My God, I’ve missed you.” I backed away from him and led him to the bedroom where, without saying anything, I started to undress. A sound came from his throat – a soft growl, a moan – desire across each of his features so fierce I thought he might cry. My hands mapped each part of his body. He’d lost weight and his ribs were visible, clavicle close to the surface. But he grew with my touch, reddened, and I believed that I was a balm for him, a cure. The sounds he made moved from his mouth to his throat into his chest and then through him into me. We were resonant with each other. I believed this.
The next morning, Hermann seemed distracted, his thumb and forefinger along his brow again and again. I sat across the breakfast table from him. “What is it? Is it –” I was going to say her name.
“Marie.” Hermann made a triangle with his hands on the table, seemed to examine them. “I know about –” He looked up. “I know about your condition.”
I didn’t say anything for a moment and he kept his eyes on me. There was a kindness there, but he looked so very tired. “How? I – Was it Onkel? – I haven’t said anything –”
“Jüüly, I know you too well. Onkel told me that you haven’t been well, have been getting sick a lot, but I knew as soon as I saw you.”
I looked at the table, the grain patterned across wood like water against sand. “I’m sorry.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke nor moved, then Hermann pushed his chair from the table and stood enough that he could pull me onto his lap. “We’ll find a way to make this all right.”
I sobbed with something like relief. When he said we’d find a way, I thought it would be all right for both of us.
* * *
In the afternoon, Onkel was there, a forced cheerfulness to his voice. “Well, lovely Marie, are you ready for your appointment?” He held out his crooked arm as though to lead me to a dance floor.
I turned to Hermann. “What appointment?”
“I’ve made an appointment with a doctor, for peace of mind. I want to know that everything is – that you’re all right.”
“Are you not coming?”
He smiled at me, encouraging, then looked away. “I need to inquire about some tickets.”
He was being so vague, withholding; yet he’d said tickets, plural.
At the office, the doctor shone light in my eyes and ears, pinched my skin to see how much colour it retained, laid a stethoscope, like a disc of ice, on my chest, my belly. He took my measurements, tape to skin, and scratched his pencil against a pad. I wondered to where Hermann was booking tickets and what would happen to the Cairo household. There was so little there that either of us needed; nothing that couldn’t be replaced, apart from ourselves. We had our skin, we had our hair. We had the parts of each other that fit together, the parts that we could each hold. Other than that, what was there? Measurements and records. Paperwork and legalities. Documents would be sent from his Cairo office, and certainly Onkel could handle the business for a time. Once we’d relocated, Hermann could continue in his capacity. I thought of Sven. Would he send for the boy? I adored him, but I was sure Mrs. Brandt wouldn’t be separated from her son.
The doctor tore paper from his pad. “You can get dressed now.” He looked at my face for the first time, his lips pursed and then moved into a quick, tense smile before he turned and left the room.
* * *
When we met back at the apartment that afternoon, Hermann said, “I have a surprise.” Tickets, I imagined, though I didn’t know to where. “But first, shopping.”
“Shopping?”
He put his hands around my waist. My shape hadn’t changed much yet. “I thought you’d like something new.” He took me to the part of Alexandria where the society ladies shopped. I was measured, again, and fitted, as I’d once fitted the ladies who came into the shop in Copenhagen. How long ago that seemed. I’ll never be that girl again, I thought. I’d never be a shopgirl again.
In the last shop, H slipped into the dressing room after the girl had left. “Do you need any help, miss?”
“Oh, these stays – they feel a bit snug. So tight. You wouldn’t be able to loosen them, would you?”
“I’m at your service.” From behind, he unhooked each eye with one hand, the other pressed between my legs. He turned me around, peeled away the undergarments like a husk and kissed his way down my torso. He stayed there, his heat and his mouth between my legs, warmth mounting there, until he spun me around again, and I gripped the back of the chair. We watched each other moving in the mirror until I closed my eyes and clamped my mouth to stop from calling out. The shop ladies averted their eyes or looked at us with disapproval as we left the store, both of our arms weighted with bags. I wanted to laugh, to say to them, “It doesn’t matter! You don’t matter! None of this matters!” Because none of it did then.
Hermann had hired a car and he loaded the dress, hat and boot boxes into the back. “One more stop.” He took me to a photo parlour. “I want a photo of you, something professional. And one of you and me together.” The photographer sat me on a chair, then took my hat off and tucked a flower behind my ear. He adjusted my shoulders, tilted my chin, a hand down my spine as he said, “Like this,” and marked the angle I should sit. Hermann watched. Once the photographer had taken some of me on my own, Hermann joined me. This time, the photographer did nothing. We knew how to be together, though for the photograph we sat formally. The photographer disappeared underneath his black hood, and we were washed in white light before the flash crackled and burst.
Thirty-Eight
When we returned to the apartment, I saw new luggage lined up in the hall. I was giddy with it – the smell of soft leather, the starred patches of light still in my vision from the photographer’s flashbulb. “Leave everything here except what you want to wear to dinner,” Hermann told me. We left the apartment and Hermann pointed to a motorcycle parked in front of the building. He placed a helmet on my head, ran his fingers along my jaw and strapped it under my chin, then reached for his own. I pulled up my dress to ride to the restaurant, felt the heat of the machine between my legs and the warmth of his back as I pressed against him. Everything was vibration and warmth, not only our bodies but also the place we met the world, air and skin humming on contact.
At dinner, Hermann leaned to me. “Oh, Marie. Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?” He paused. “I want to – This isn’t –”
“What?” I laughed, light-headed with what he might say next. A proposal of some kind. Not of marriage, of course – he was still legally bound to Mrs. Brandt and I knew that dissolving their marriage would take time.
> “I can’t believe –” He turned his face toward the room, tightened his jaw, then looked back at me. “I can’t believe that this will be the last.”
“What are you saying? The last what?”
“No, you’re right, this won’t be the last. I won’t believe that. It will just – it will take some time.”
“What will?”
“You know that it’s not safe for you here now, in Egypt. Cairo is out of the question and I had thought – I thought that I could keep you in Alexandria for some time, but things are precarious here.”
“It’s not as though we’re anywhere near the front.”
“Mrs. Brandt, Marie. She already suspected, but then you came to the house –” He looked at me as though he were both guilty and complicit, helpless on both accounts. “I’ve managed these couple of days away, but she’ll find out somehow. I just can’t – I can’t keep you hidden away here. And there’s the –”
He couldn’t finish the thought so I did it for him. “The baby.”
“Yes.” He reached across the table for my hands. I pulled them away. He sighed, looked around the room before back at me. “I know of a place, in Italy.”
I waited.
“A cloister, but not strictly religious, more of a sanctuary.”
“You’re sending me away to a cloister?”
Hermann didn’t answer, nor did he look at me. He spoke evenly and quietly to a place on the table in front of him. “You can rest there. There’s a doctor. He’ll know what to do.” He looked at me then, his eyes steady. “About the child – a safe delivery and a way to find a home for it. You’ll be well taken care of.”
I stared at him, heat building behind my eyes. “Our child!” I said so loudly that several other patrons turned, stared at us before averting their eyes. I lowered my voice. “You’re suggesting I give our child away? That I’ll be ‘taken care of’? What about you?”
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