Part 27 (1/2)
The fanning slowed. ”Oh, for a gla.s.s of wine.”
”We must drink as little as possible, though.” With empty stomachs and thickened blood, he explained, liquor would hit them like a hammer. ”You'll become tipsy, you may fall into a sleep from which I won't be able to wake you.” He wondered if she'd ever been properly drunk.
She fanned his face. When the temperature finally plummeted in the middle of the night, they'd need blankets, but now this moving air was minor bliss.
The veins in her hands were so much smaller than his. Scale, to quote Max-for by now the word all but belonged to him-was an integral part of female fascination. His thumbs were big and meaty next to her small, sharply angled ones. Her fingernails were glossy pink ovals, with lunular white at the cuticle. His own were twice the size, flat and square as stepping-stones. Her wrist was especially alluring-a second pale throat marked beneath its translucent skin with a faint fretwork of veins.
”Have you ever had rak?” he asked.
”No.”
”It's pleasant, made from anise.”
”I've seen Charles and Paolo drink it. You mix it with water, don't you, and then it turns cloudy and white? Quite the magic elixir.”
”The water dilutes it. It's strong brew, like whiskey or cognac.” He looked questioningly at her. She shook her head. She'd never drunk them either, she said, except medicinally, for a quick jolt of warmth after a frigid outing. ”And I rubbed brandy on Trout's gums for her toothache.”
”La pauvre Truite.” He patted her hand, briefly, determined not to make any gesture in concert with the rak that bespoke a seduction. Women were rightly leery of drinking with men.
She hugged her knees. ”Do you think we shall see her again?”
”I don't know.”
”But what do you feel?” she importuned. ”What do you intuit?”
He closed his eyes to subtract her worried expression from his calculation. What did he think? He hadn't a clue. ”Her disappearance is a complete mystery.”
”Yes.” She was wiping her neck. The notch at the clavicle had always seemed to him fas.h.i.+oned for a human finger to press upon. ”I'm ready to try the rak,” she said, as if resigning herself to a chancy medical procedure. ”But shouldn't we give some first to Max and Joseph?”
”When they wake.” Reaching into a camel bag, he pulled out the first of two unopened bottles and filled two cheap gla.s.ses. ”Drink it slowly,” he cautioned.
”I shall.”
”And when you're done, I'll take you back to your tent. You'll be safe there, with the guard.”
She didn't answer.
He sat down Indian-style, facing her on the rug. ”Slowly,” he cautioned again.
For the longest time, she sat poised but unmoving, her attention lapsed or wandering. Some epileptics were like that, he knew, carried off by pet.i.t mal seizures, physically but not mentally present. His own fits, alas, were of the grand mal sort, and unmistakable. Thank G.o.d, the mere fear of having an episode had never triggered one. What a humiliation that would be. Yet another reason not to wed: shame. Shame of a condition equated with madness. Shame at the thought that someone might observe him doing things he himself would never see or remember. Flailing, frothing at the mouth, falling down, convulsing, his hands twitched into claws, face grotesquely contorted. This, too, had driven him into reclusion.
She was staring at him. ”I thought perhaps you'd make a toast.”
”Yes. Of course.” He couldn't say why exactly, but he found this remark so winsome that he wanted to cry. Again! What was it about this English spinster that brought his emotions gus.h.i.+ng forth? Or was it simply the trip itself? Every day in Egypt he seemed to have become more sensitive, more easily moved. He lifted his gla.s.s. ”To Max. To Max and Joseph's recovery.”
”And to Trout,” Flo added. ”May she be unharmed.”
”Unharmed!” They clinked gla.s.ses.
”It tastes like licorice,” she exclaimed. ”No, wait!” She inserted the tip of her tongue a second time into the clear liquid and savored it. ”h.o.r.ehound.” She didn't know the French word for this candy.
Gustave's first swallow only served to spike his thirst to a more unbearable level. He wanted to down the whole gla.s.s, but restrained himself, if only to set an example.
”Let's have another toast,” she said.
”Excellent. Your turn.”
She took this seriously, ruminating like a child who still believes in the omnipotence of her thoughts, as if the toast might take immediate effect in the world. ”Let's drink to Pere Elias and Pere Issa.”
”To the twins!”
With this second splash of stinging sweetness, his tongue came alive.
”I've been wanting to ask you something,” Flo said suddenly. She took a substantial gulp of liqueur.
”Please.”
The wind began to gust against the tent, its walls ballooning slightly in and out.
”Are the hospital matrons in Rouen drunks?”
”What a strange question! Not at all. I never saw drunken women at the Hotel-Dieu. Only the good sisters.”
”That must have been wonderful, to live in a hospital.” She took another sip. ”I would have loved that. My mother said hospital women were lower than servants, and loose.”
He was amazed. He'd never seen anything untoward at the Hotel-Dieu, but then he hadn't been allowed in the wards themselves. ”What do you mean?”
”f.a.n.n.y said they hang about for immoral purposes. Because, you see, our matrons belong to no religious order.”
”Yes, in France they are all nuns.”
”I'm starting to feel the rak,” she said. ”In my knees. And how ever shall I toddle off to my tent with melted knees?”
He chuckled. ”Don't worry-it will pa.s.s. And then you'll get sleepy.” He decided not to tell her the other possibilities-lewdness, panic, uncontrollable laughter, pa.s.sing out, throwing up. The less she knew, the better.
”Tell me about your father.” Her gla.s.s was half empty.
”Have another sip,” he suggested. Christ, he was thirsty. ”He was a great doctor. My brother, naturally, followed in his path. He, too, has an excellent reputation.”
”Bully for him.” She dipped her tongue into the gla.s.s, a hummingbird visiting a dangerous flower, then quaffed the rak.
”But he couldn't save our father.”
”I'm sorry.” She picked up the book he'd been reading, The Odes of Horace, then c.o.c.ked her head and stared at him, waiting for the next revelation.
He didn't blame his brother, he told her. ”We're not close, he and I. We're nothing alike, for one thing. He's far more conventional.”
”My sister, too. She belongs in the eighteenth century!” She drank another mouthful. ”She lives for needlework and poor-peopling.”