The Second Mrs. Astor(54)
“All the way back then,” he answered, grave. “You are the only one who’s ever asked me about reading it, you know. The only one.”
“I really enjoyed it.”
“You’re a very charming liar.”
They laughed together, hushed, and she came upright, treading as he did, feeling the liquid pushing back and forth through her open fingers, buoying her body and legs.
“What a strange mistress Fortune has turned out to be,” Madeleine said.
“Strange, and marvelous.”
“Yes,” she agreed, gliding closer. She wrapped her hands behind his neck so that they bobbed together, their fronts and legs deliciously brushing. “Marvelous.”
*
So they’d said the words after all. And the words had taken nothing away from them, their dark and precious bond. The words had only added another flavor, smoky sweet, like the night.
CHAPTER 19
My first sight of our dahabiya came under a searing, cloudless sky, with light and shadows so brittle every line of the vessel shone sharp. She’d been scrubbed and provisioned and freshly painted, forest green and bone white and ochre, a fanciful scrollwork of blue decorating her prow. She was smaller than the Noma but not by much, with twin wooden masts and an awning of apricot covering her open top deck.
As I stood at the edge of the Nile and watched the crew queue up to greet us, the overhang of the awning lifted and fell with the breeze, one tassel at a time, as if waving to us.
The name painted upon her side was Habibti. Beloved.
Your father stood beside me in the sun with his hands on his hips, taking it all in. When the captain approached, bearded and layered in robes, Jack handed me Kitty’s leash and walked with him down to the landing. I stayed back a moment to watch them, your father nodding and asking questions, nodding again whenever the captain gestured to this part of his boat or that.
I didn’t need to have the Habibti’s virtues described to me. I had no doubt this was the finest vessel to be found on the river. Jack would not have hired anything less.
Here is the moment I remember clearest from that morning: your father beginning to move toward the gangplank, the waiting crew, then stopping, turning to look back at me. As our eyes met, he grinned, boyish, and lifted his open hand to invite me to join him, all alight with the sun.
We stepped aboard the dahabiya together, feeling the languid, steady pulse of the Nile rolling gently beneath our feet.
Oh, I hope you have his smile. I hope I get to see his smile again, through you.
February 1912
Abydos, Egypt
They took a hired motorcar to the temple of Seti I, because it was nearly an hour trip from the river even so, and renting horses instead—the more common method of reaching the ruins—would have meant riding in the sun for three hours or longer. As it was, they had decided to camp overnight by the ruins, as the only hotels available were, in the words of Izz al din, their captain, unfit for anything but rats and their fleas.
Madeleine sat in the back of the canvas-topped touring car, crammed against Margaret’s daughter Helen, Margaret herself squashed up against the other door. Jack sat in the front with their driver, a handsome young man in a pristine white galabeya, who had shaken each of their hands with great ceremony and introduced himself as Thabit, the best dragoman to be found in all of North Africa.
Izz al din had given a shake of his head at that, but as he was the one who had recommended him as a guide from the masses thronging the landing, it seemed he had nothing to say aloud about it.
Madeleine didn’t know if Thabit was the best dragoman, but it did seem he had the best automobile in Abydos, which meant that at least it had a roof attached to the chassis. Their tents and baggage and supplies all followed in a second motorcar, along with a few of the crew from the Habibti, roasting in the open day. Kitty, too much of a wild card to bring along overnight, remained behind on the boat in the care of Rosalie and Robins, stealing scraps from the galley and napping in the shade.
For a while, they drove surrounded by camphor trees and green fields, sugarcane, barley and wheat, all lush with the abundant water of the Nile. Huge, placid water buffaloes standing alongside the road lifted their heads as they passed; dogs barked at them; children popped out randomly from the stalks and reeds, running dangerously close, their hands outstretched for piastres. Thabit would press the horn and weave around them, hardly slowing. More than once, Madeleine had to hide her eyes.
The trees and verdant fields faded away, gone as the water was gone.
The sands began, long and barren and endless.
Helen Brown, auburn-haired and gray-eyed, and looking like a younger, prettier version of her mother, lifted her chin and closed her eyes and breathed deep, her hands clamped around her knees. Madeleine couldn’t tell if she was happy or merely queasy until she spoke.
“Isn’t it devastating, Mrs. Astor?” Her voice was nearly drowned by the commotion of the engine.
“Sorry?” Madeleine said loudly.
“The air. The history. One soaks it all in and can’t help but be changed by it. A soul-deep sort of change. Shifted. Devastated, but in the best way.”
Madeleine smiled, doubtful, but then turned her face to the open window and supposed that Helen was right. They traveled along the heat-shimmered path of ancient gods, on their way to walk over and through the burial sites and shrines of lost kings. So many other souls had crossed this desert land before them, had lived and worshiped and perished here, leaving behind only brick and clay, stone and metal, alongside the fragmented remains of the pharaohs’ immense riches.