30

Yasmine’s research had confirmed Zeinab’s relationship to Napoleon and indicated that she had been executed after the Campaign left Egypt. A girl of sixteen, presented by her father as a gift to Napoleon, out of greed for a position as the head of the al-Azhar imams. The great historian al-Jabarti had described her in his chronicles as tall and dark, slim and fragrant. Napoleon had taken a fancy to her when he saw her. She took off her face veil and wore revealing clothes, and was seen getting into the imperial carriage to go to Napoleon’s house.

The great historian had written in his diaries documenting the event,

And on Tuesday, August 4, ad 1801, the daughter of Sheikh al-Bakri was brought in, having been one of the women who engaged in debauchery with the French, by two men appointed by the Vizier. They went to her mother’s house in the district of Gudariya after sundown, and brought her and her father and asked her what she did, whereupon she repented. They asked her father what he said, and he said, “She is no daughter of mine,” so they broke her neck.

 

Yasmine sat back, overcome with the injustice that had befallen this girl, her death to atone for a crime of which she was blameless. A girl of sixteen: what had she experienced of life or of seduction to make the emperor fall in love with her? He was a man of the world, a roué with a profound knowledge of women. Her father had offered her up to him like the sacrifices we make to the gods to appease them and make our wishes come true. She had been different from the other women he could choose from to take as lovers; she was beautiful and innocent.

Even stranger was that after all this research, all this testing and reading, she had found no information on Zeinab’s relationship with the artist. There was no mention at all of her meeting him: how had he kept their relationship a secret, she wondered, from prying eyes, when everything had been so public?

She could not sleep that night. The end of Zeinab’s tale kept her awake, the fate of a girl she had never known, who had passed away long centuries ago: why had she suddenly come to her, to look anew into her world, as though refusing to rest in peace after all these years?

The next morning, Yasmine was subdued. Sherif noticed over breakfast. “You look like you didn’t get much rest.”

“That’s about right. You could say I didn’t sleep at all.”

“I didn’t know I’d had that much of an effect on you,” he joked.

Should she tell him that it was only one person, a girl, who had been giving her sleepless nights since she had been given the task of restoring that painting? “I was online,” she said, “searching through books and al-Jabarti’s diaries and other documents. I was researching Zeinab al-Bakri, the subject of Alton’s paintings, but I couldn’t find a single piece of information that said there was anything between them.” She took a frustrated sip of her coffee. “The director of the Military Archives assured me that there was. And the book he gave me hinted that the artist was Napoleon’s rival, and that when Napoleon found out, he wouldn’t let his paintings be displayed in a museum or be included in The Description of Egypt. He wasn’t just his rival, you see,” she explained, “he was his opponent, against his policies, his injustice and oppression. That was why he painted Napoleon as a tyrant or a weakling.”

“But what about the lock of human hair?” he asked. “Was it really her hair?”

“To find out,” she said, “we’d have to find where she was buried and take a sample to compare. But she was beheaded and her head mounted on the Citadel, and no one knows where she went after, or what trash heap they threw it on.” She shook her head. “What makes me so mad is that the people who set themselves up as judges to sentence her never lifted a finger to stop her doing it in the first place,” she said, “much less stand up to Napoloen and try to stop him from taking up with her. According to their own code of honor, they ought to have done that, instead of waiting until the Campaign left. The only thing they were good for was standing around her on the scaffold cheering as she was executed. But not one of them could stand up to Napoleon’s carriage when it picked her up. They were too cowardly.”

She ate slowly, preoccupied. “I don’t know whether to tell the secret or not,” she said, “although it would be an exciting discovery. It could cause a stir. I could publish something saying ‘Human Hair Found in Painting During Conservation,’ or ‘Why a French Artist from the Campaign Had His Paintings Removed from The Description of Egypt’ or even ‘Whom Did Zeinab al-Bakri Love? The Military Commander or the Painter?’”

“Maybe,” he mused, “you should let the girl rest in peace. To society even today, her relationship with that artist would be considered a sin, and she would be doubly condemned, deemed once again a loose woman. A girl her age, and in that era, the lover of two men? What would people think of her?”

“But her love for the artist would mean it was never true that she was in love with Napoleon—that she was forced into a relationship with him, and that would mean she was unjustly executed.”

“I think you should keep her secret.” He looked at his watch. “I think I should go now if I want to be in time for my flight.” He said goodbye with a warm hug. “I’ll miss you.”

She touched his cheek. “I’ll be on the first flight back as soon as I’m done here.”

She watched him go, pulling his carry-on bag behind him, until he was out of sight. She felt lighter, as if a heavy burden had lifted, a burden she had carried since she had found the painting.

It had been so much more than a painting to her: it had been a voice sent through the ether, bearing her a message.