FIFTY-EIGHT

Harriet stood next to her aunt, in the front pew of St. Mark’s. The church was pleasantly dim and cool, the air permeated by a faint, woody aroma, the walls lined with stone plaques to memorialize English people who had died in Alexandria. Some of the tablets were inscribed in both English and Arabic; the curling, fluid lines of the Arabic looked graceful, more fitting to eternal spirits, Harriet thought, than the straight lines of the Roman letters.

Yael’s voice was off-key, sharp in Harriet’s ear. The last strains of England’s green and pleasant land died away and Yael put the hymn­book on the slanted wooden rest. As they sat down, side by side, Harriet glanced over her shoulder at the men of business and their wives, the bespectacled administrators and palm-helmeted hunters, the military families en route to India. Even here, she could not help searching for Eberhardt Woolfe, her eyes scanning the rounded, stooped, and stout figures for a tall angular one. She breathed in the smell of incense and closed her eyes, praying to God, briefly and urgently, to let her see Eberhardt Woolfe again.

She wanted to apologize to him for her stupidity in entering the tomb. Explain that she’d been intending to ask him a question. Let him know that she had wanted to stay.

The thought was too painful to pursue. She and Louisa were leaving that night, for London. Aunt Yael was remaining in Alexandria. Harriet opened her eyes and looked up. In front of them, set high in the wall, was a stained-glass window. Jesus was on the cross, his head hanging, his pale limbs drooping with a balletic grace, toes pointing down toward the brow of the hill of Calvary. Below, a blue-cloaked Mary kneeled on the ground, her face upturned. The light poured through the gold and red and blue glass, each splintered piece jewel-like and translucent.

At the lectern, the Reverend Griffinshawe raised his arms in the air. Harriet hadn’t seen him since the day he called at the villa. The Reverend looked well, his face filled out and his surplice starched and spotless.

“As many present here today know,” he said, “we have in recent weeks launched a collection for our less fortunate neighbors in Alexandria. People cannot apply themselves to the study of the Bible or the English language when their stomachs are empty. Our sister Miss Heron”—he gestured in the direction of Yael—“has taken it upon herself to distribute rations to the poor mothers and infants in her ophthalmia clinic. If you’d care to say a few words, Miss Heron, for the benefit of those who are new.”

“Thank you, Reverend.” Yael stood up, holding her prayer book in her hands, and turned to face the congregation. She peered at them through the thick spectacles and Harriet had a momentary vision of her aunt, depicted in stained glass, looking down at the congregation through a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, her feathers forever aloft over her head.

“As Christians, it befits us to love our neighbors as ourselves. It makes no difference if those neighbors are Mohammedans, who, after all, worship the same God as we. And before spiritual hunger can be met, bodily needs must be furnished. Through no fault of their own, the mothers I’ve been fortunate to become acquainted with are unable to feed their children at the present moment. They feel the same hunger that we feel. Suffer the same frailty of the flesh. If our Christianity is worthy of its name, I hope we will all do what we can to come to their aid. Thank you.”

She sat down, unflustered, as the worn blue velvet pouch began to make its way along the pews, passed from hand to hand, the chink of coins audible as the Reverend began his last reading. Aunt Yael had been a figure of fun in London, in her comical bonnet, setting off for out-of-the-way church halls, volunteering at the home for fallen women. Harriet thought that her parents, not through words, had told her an untruth about her aunt and what she was made of. Until now, she hadn’t had eyes to see the truth for herself.

•  •  •

It was past noon by the time they stepped out of the doors of the church. The sun was high, white in a white sky, the light blinding, the heat radiating up from the sandy ground. A line of carriages waited outside the church, their drivers stretched out on the seats, the horses’ heads hanging, motionless apart from ears that twitched, tails that flicked over their haunches.

Two black-shrouded figures standing in a doorway called out greetings to Yael; she lifted her hand in a wave. She turned to her niece, took her hand, and drew her under the shade of a spreading tree.

“Harriet, dear,” she said, looking at her through her thick lenses, raising her voice over the rattle of the wheels of a passing carriage. “Is it your wish to return to London with your mother?”

Harriet shook her head. “No, Aunt Yael, it isn’t.”

“You know that I shall be staying on in Alexandria for the foreseeable future. I shall be moving to the house where we hold the clinic. I could provide a home for you, a modest one, if you feel your health and spirits are better here.”

“Could you, Aunt? Do you mean it?”

“Yes.”

Harriet felt a great rush of hope spring in her chest. Almost as soon as it arrived, it began to subside. She pictured Louisa’s sun-browned face, the shorn hair that had given her mother the air of a martyr, the alteration in her, so absolute since their departure from London. Louisa had cast off her stays and bustle, her high standards of housekeeping, her concern for Harriet’s every breath. She wanted only to gaze at the flowers in the garden of the villa or watch Suraya’s children playing. Sometimes she sang.

“Mother isn’t herself, Aunt Yael. I have to look after her.”

Yael did not disagree. She fingered the crucifix she wore around her neck, holding the two outstretched arms of the cross between her thumb and forefinger.

“Don’t make the mistakes I made, Harriet. If you are not to marry, then don’t spend your days doing what the world wishes you to do. Find out what the Lord wants for you, dear, now that you are well again. And do it with thy might. Did you care for Mr. Soane?”

Again, Harriet shook her head. “I thought I did. I care for someone else. Do you remember the man with his piano, Aunt?”

“Indeed. Did it arrive safely? Very difficult items to transport, pianos.”

“I think of him day and night.”

“Does he wish to marry you?”

Harriet averted her eyes.

“I believe he has a wife already.”

“I see. Well then, you must put him out of your mind entirely, Harriet.”

Harriet nodded, unable to meet the gray eyes that mirrored her own.

Yael patted her hand.

“Marriage is not the only way to a life. And you know that what I have will one day be yours.”

“Thank you, Aunt. But that is a long way off.”

“I daresay.”

Yael raised her hand for a cab and a brougham drew up beside them. It was their final farewell. Yael was going to distribute rations at the clinic; she opened the place every day. She and Louisa had said their goodbyes after breakfast; Harriet had been surprised by the affection that seemed to have grown between them.

Yael spoke to the driver in Arabic and helped Harriet up onto the seat. As the driver cracked his whip on the ground, the horse raised its blinkered head and moved away from the church, under a thin avenue of trees, their leaves unmoving, drooping with thirst. Harriet turned and waved.

Sitting alone in the cab, passing on into the old part of the city, Harriet stared out. Merchants sat cross-legged in front of empty shops and children played marbles in the dust; veiled women stood in twos and threes in dark doorways; beggars slept on straw mats in the shadow of the mosque. The city looked strangely lifeless, as if in wait for something.

•  •  •

In the Cairo railway station, Eberhardt Woolfe stood in a place from which he could keep an eye on the great clock. He had a cup of Turkish coffee in his hand and his suitcase was on the ground at his feet. It was empty. He had not been able to think of anything that he required, other than to find Harriet. The train for Alexandria departed in fifteen minutes and his ticket was in his pocket. On arrival he intended to go directly to the office of the Anglo Ottoman Bank, find out the whereabouts of the villa, and go to her.

The clock struck the half hour and he finished the coffee and hurried toward the platform.