Palace Circle Part 9

"Sometimes they are called a fez, and sometimes a tarboosh-and only men wear them, my lady."

"But you don't wear one, Adjo. Is that because you are a cahir?"

Adjo folded his hands in front of him. "No, my lady. It is because I am not a Muslim. Only Muslims wear the tarboosh and I am a Copt."

"And is a Copt a Christian?"

"The Coptic faith is one of the earliest forms of Christianity, my lady."

Delia enjoyed her conversations with Adjo and despite herself she also began to enjoy organizing her social life, and Petra and Davina's social life. Nearly every evening she and Ivor attended a formal function of one kind or another, either at the residency, the home of the British high commissioner, which was only a stone's throw from Nile House, or at Abdin Palace. Meanwhile, Petra and Davina were enjoying almost limitless freedom, for they had no school.

"The only one of excellent repute is the Mere de Dieu and the girls can't attend until they are twelve," Delia said reasonably when Ivor complained.

They were on their way to the high commissioner's birthday party. As the limousine purred its way down Garden City's main boulevard, Ivor said, "One of King Fuad's Egyptian advisers, Zubair Pasha, has suggested that Petra and Davina might like to have lessons with his daughter, Fawzia. She's nine, like Petra, and the girls could be chauffeured to his home every morning. It isn't far."

"And Davina?" Delia asked doubtfully. "She's a full year younger. Will she be able to keep up?"

"I don't know," Ivor said truthfully, "but as there seems to be no other suitable alternative we'll simply have to give it a try."

"Fawzia has an older brother," Petra said after she and Davina had finished their first week of lessons. "He's fourteen and he's very moody. I don't like him."

"Well, that doesn't matter, does it, honey?" Delia was in the middle of writing a letter to Jerome and she laid her pen down reluctantly. "He's so much older than you, that you'll never have much to do with him."

"No. I suppose not." Petra hesitated and then said wistfully, "He goes horseback riding out by the pyramids and sometimes Fawzia goes with him."

"Horseback riding?"

Petra now had her full attention for suddenly Delia knew what would lift her spirits. She would begin riding again. Not the genteel, Rotten Row riding which was the only kind she had indulged in for the last few years, but hard, fast, challenging gallops. The kind of riding she could do in the desert.

Making her daughter almost as happy as she was, Delia said, "There's a hotel out by the pyramids called the Mena House and it has stables and horses for hire. We'll go there on Sat.u.r.day and I'll arrange for you to have lessons. If Fawzia's brother can ride out by the pyramids, then so can we."

Petra threw her arms around her mother then ran to tell Miss Gunn. Delia picked up her pen, eager to share her new resolution with Jerome. Riding in the desert wouldn't end the ache in her heart, but it would at least ease it.

Her life began to settle into a routine. Though there was formality at the residency and stultifying rituals at Abdin Palace, in all other aspects life in Cairo was far more relaxed than in London. Mornings were spent either riding over hard-packed desert sand, or swimming in the Mena House pool. Later Delia would meet with friends for coffee at one of the two Groppi's tearooms, where the ice cream and the honey-drizzled pastries were to die for. Other days she would have coffee on the terrace at Shepheard's where there was a grandstand view of snake charmers, jugglers, and conjurors.

During the heat of the afternoon she rested at Nile House, the air cooled by the gently rotating mahogany paddles of a giant ceiling fan. Late afternoons were often spent at the Gezira Sporting Club, which was set on an island in the river and where there was always a wonderfully compet.i.tive sporting event taking place. Ivor played tennis there two or three times a week and they both enjoyed the polo matches.

Early evening was c.o.c.ktail time. Dinner was often at the British residency-where three hundred could be seated for dinner comfortably-or at Abdin Palace, where the Oriental splendor was stupefying. If there was no formal function then she would dine with friends at Shepheard's or the Continental; sometimes, though not often, Ivor would join her. She was soon one of the diplomatic community's most successful hostesses, with everyone prizing an invitation to Nile House.

Jerome, often accompanied by Jack, visited at least three times a year. On such occasions Ivor often found a pretext for being in Alexandria. When Ivor was home, Jerome would want to sightsee farther down the Nile and as Ivor would then find he had vital business at Abdin Palace no eyebrows were raised when Delia acted as guide.

On these excursions Jack remained in Cairo, good-naturedly enduring Petra's blatant adoration.

On Ivor's annual visit to England Delia always accompanied him with Petra and Davina. For a few short weeks she was then able to renew her friends.h.i.+ps with Clementine and Margot-and spend time with Jerome.

Their long separations never became any easier. Though none of her friends told her, she was sure there were occasionally other women in his life; women he didn't love as he loved her, but who were there nevertheless.

"For how much longer are we to remain in Cairo?" she asked Ivor despairingly at the end of 1925. "Surely the prime minister can find someone to replace you?"

"He could find someone to replace me as a financial adviser to King Fuad, but he couldn't find anyone to act as a mentor to Prince Farouk. The years I've spent earning Farouk's trust can't be thrown away, Delia. When he comes to the throne, he has to be a friend of Britain. It's the prime minister's belief that I have great influence with Farouk. That being the case, it's my patriotic duty to remain in Cairo. I'm sorry, Delia. Believe me, I wish things were different."

She turned away to hide her tears. For Ivor, Egypt was made bearable by the presence of Kate Gunn who, now that Petra and Davina were too old to need a nanny, had replaced Mr. Willoughby as his secretary. For Delia, there was no such comfort. The only thing that made life bearable was that Petra and Davina loved Egypt and had no desire to live anywhere else.

Unlike their mother, they never counted days off a calendar in the weeks leading up to a visit to London and both of them had been so appalled at the thought of going to school in England that Ivor arranged for them to attend Mere de Dieu in nearby Samalik Street.

"When they are older," Ivor said, "Petra can finish her education in England and go on to either Oxford or Cambridge."

When Petra celebrated her sixteenth birthday she showed no inclination to return to England.

"I might be academically able to go to Oxford or Cambridge, but I'm not interested enough," she said to her mother with some of Delia's Virginian bluntness.

"Jack's at Balliol," Delia said, trying to tempt her. "He thinks you'd love Oxford."

"By the time I went to St. Hilda's, Jack would no longer be at Balliol."

It was true and Delia knew that the battle was lost. When her elder daughter dug her heels in, nothing on G.o.d's good earth would make her change her mind.

The day after Petra's adamant refusal to continue her education in England, Delia attended a garden party held at the home of one of Cairo's leading socialites, Princess Shevekiar. The princess, who had once been married to King Fuad before she had obtained a near-impossible divorce, was neither young nor beautiful, but she adored having young and beautiful people around her and was a great party-giver.

Delia was not surprised to see Fawzia's twenty-one-year-old brother, Darius, among the guests.

During the seven years she had lived in Cairo, Delia had become very fond of Fawzia, whose mother had died before the little girl was old enough to remember her. Darius-as Petra had pointed out years ago-kept himself very much to himself.

Unexpectedly he now made a beeline toward Delia. She was forced to admit that, moody or not, he was extraordinarily handsome. He always dressed in Western clothes and today he was wearing a gray-striped s.h.i.+rt and casual white trousers, a lock of his sleek black hair falling over his forehead.

He stood silently at Delia's side for a moment or two, surveying the other guests-nearly all British-and then said, "Are the British going to live in Egypt forever, d'you think?"

She was too startled to give him any kind of a reply and he said tightly, "They promised to leave in 1883. Did you know that? And they promised again in 1922 when they allowed us our so-called sovereignty and put Fuad on the throne. But they are still here. Are they ever going to go?"

"I don't know." It was a question no one had ever asked Delia before. She tried to imagine Cairo without the British and couldn't. "Don't the terms of the protectorate state that Britain will leave the moment Egypt is capable of managing without her?"

"We're capable now!" His olive skin was tight over sharp cheekbones. "How would America respond if she was in the position Egypt is? You would act, wouldn't you? You would kick the British out, wouldn't you? And don't say you wouldn't, because a hundred and fifty years ago, that's exactly what you did!"

Delia looked around and was relieved to see that the British high commissioner wasn't within earshot.

"I don't think the situation was quite the same," she said. "And you have to take into consideration the help Britain has given Egypt. All the hospitals, schools-"

"The hospitals and schools have been for the English, not the Egyptians. The British have never drilled a well to bring drinking water to one of our villages. They never established medical services for Egyptians. They've never built schools or housing. They've never done anything to improve the living conditions of the ordinary Egyptian. They don't care how the vast majority of us live. They never even see the poor areas."

It was such an extraordinary outburst when half of the other guests were either high-ranking British advisers or civil servants, that Delia wondered if he was drunk.

"Westerners don't know the real Cairo," he said, his eyes narrowing. "They just see the British residency, Shepheard's, Groppi's, the Gezira Sporting Club, and the shops in Soliman Pasha Street."

From a little distance away Princess Shevekiar caught Delia's eye and waved gaily. Too near for comfort she saw Ivor in conversation with Ismail Sedki Pasha, the Egyptian prime minister.

"Seeing other parts of Cairo isn't an option, because it isn't safe," she told Darius reasonably, wondering if what he'd said was true.

"It would be safe with me. I could show you what the city is really like. Where would you like to go? The Citadel? The Mokattam Hills? The Old City?"

She could tell by the expression in his eyes that he was perfectly serious-and that he wasn't drunk. She also knew what Ivor's reaction would be if she were to tell him she was leaving the garden party in order to explore the less salubrious parts of Cairo with Zubair Pasha's handsome twenty-one-year-old son.

"The Old City," she said, deciding to merely leave Ivor a message saying she had left the garden party early and that he wasn't to worry. "How are we going to get there?"

"By tram," he said, and she could tell that he expected her to cry off going.

She was deeply shocked, but she only said, "That's fine, but not dressed like this. We need to stop at Nile House so that I can change into something a little less noticeable than a garden-party dress."

He nodded, seeing the sense of her suggestion. Five minutes later, after she left a message for Ivor with a footman, the two of them walked out of the garden.

"I don't suppose you've ever been on a tram before?" Darius said as they stepped from the gharry that had brought them from Nile House to the Number One tram stop at Ezbekiya Gardens.

"No." Delia was well aware that no one she knew had ever traveled on one either. "But I've always thought it looks far more exciting than traveling by car."

Within seconds of boarding she discovered that it was more than exciting. As the tram rumbled along the crowded streets it swayed like a s.h.i.+p in a gale. Delia also discovered that it was excruciatingly uncomfortable and that the smell of stale body odor was almost more than she could stand.

"The tram only goes to the old Roman fortress of Babylon," Darius said as with difficulty she resisted putting a handkerchief over her nose and mouth, "but since it's the very oldest part of Old Cairo, it's a good place to start."

"Babylon? That's a bit Old Testament, isn't it? Why is it called Babylon?"

"No one knows for sure. It's thought that one of the Pharaohs brought prisoners back from Babylon in Mesopotamia and that they were later given the site as a free colony. They named it after their homeland."

It was an interesting theory and one she doubted anyone else could have told her.

Once off the tram he took her into the old fort. She had expected to see only a few crumbling stones. Instead, the walls were ma.s.sive in parts and the sandy s.p.a.ce they enclosed was ma.s.sive too. There were alleyways and gardens and five churches, some of them very pretty, all of them Coptic.

"Over there," Darius said, pointing across the courtyard, "is a lone synagogue that has quite a claim to distinction. The prophet Jeremiah is buried beneath it."

She was about to ask if they could take a closer look, when he said abruptly, "This isn't what I want you to see. I want you to see the people living outside the golden triangle of Garden City, Shepheard's, and Abdin Palace. I want you to see the streets of Old Cairo. They aren't far away. Just a short walk."

It was a walk from one world into another.

As they plunged into a maze of medieval alleys, the first thing that overwhelmed her was the stench. Not just cooking smells but unwashed bodies and raw sewage. The place was claustrophobic. Everyone was crowded into pa.s.sageways so narrow that hardly any sunlight penetrated. Even with Darius at her side, protecting her, she was jostled in a way she had never experienced. The noise was incredible. Everyone seemed to be shouting at the top of their voices.

There were no other Westerners. Everywhere she looked she saw only turbans, red fezzes, hijabs, and all-covering veils.

Heaps of rubbish were everywhere. Tawdry shops, some little more than holes in walls, sold uncovered food. Ragged children had flies swarming around their eyes and their mouths. She had flies buzzing incessantly around her.

It was so hot, so fetid, that she could hardly breathe.

"People here live two or three families to a room-with no running water and no sanitation. Half the children die before they are five," he said grimly, sidestepping a pile of refuse. "How many of your friends at Shepheard's and the Gezira Sporting Club are aware of that, do you think?" His voice was taut with anger. "Our King doesn't care that Cairo's poorest live like this, and wealthy landowners like my father don't care, either."

Just when she thought she was going to faint, he said tersely, "Had enough?"

She nodded and they turned left into a crowded bazaar. "Back to the fortress," he said, making no comment on the indescribable poverty they had just witnessed.

At the far end of the bazaar they reached a street that was a little broader, a little less crowded. Heat s.h.i.+mmered up from the ground and she watched Darius drop some coins and a beggar grabbing at them and shouting a grateful "Shukran! Alhamdulillah!"

As a muezzin called the faithful to prayer, Darius said abruptly, "Do you speak any Arabic?"

"I can say 'good morning' and 'good evening' and I know that 'shukran' means 'thank you' and that 'Alhamdulillah' means 'thank G.o.d.'"

"That isn't much after seven years."

Not for the first time she noticed that he avoided ever addressing her as Lady Conisborough.

"Maybe not," she said, aware that their relations.h.i.+p had changed. "But as all the Egyptians I meet speak either English or French or both I've had no need to study Arabic. And it isn't an easy language to learn."

"Maybe not, but when you make your home in a city, it's polite to be able to speak a little of the language, don't you think?"

She nodded, wondering what Ivor's reaction was going to be when she announced she was going to learn Arabic.

"You won't be the first member of your family to learn Arabic," he said. "Davina asked Adjo for lessons a long time ago."

"She did?"

Her surprise was so obvious that he said, "She didn't want her father to know in case he put an end to them."

They reached the tram stop and Delia saw with relief that the tram going back to Ezbekiya Gardens wasn't as crowded as the one they had taken out. When they were seated on one of the dirty slatted seats, she said, "Even though my husband is a friend of your father's, you don't like him, do you?"

"You're right," he said. "I don't like him. I don't like any British, except for Davina who is, after all, half American- and Jack."

"Jack?" Delia felt as if the day's surprises would never end. "I didn't realize that when Jack visited you and he spent time together."

His eyes met hers. "That," he said drily, "is because when Jack visits Cairo, his father travels south, to Aswan. And that when he does, you go with him."

To change the subject fast, she said bluntly, "Are you more than just a nationalist, Darius? Are you one of the students at Fuad I University that my husband calls revolutionaries who ought to be imprisoned?"

"Yes," he said without hesitation. "I am one of the students your husband would like to see imprisoned. I want the British out of my country. I want Egypt to be ruled by Egyptians- not a king the British put on our throne, a king who is three-quarters Albanian. As long as Fuad is on the throne Egypt will never become independent."

She looked behind them swiftly to make sure no one was sitting near enough to overhear him.

He smiled. "Even if people overhear me, no one who travels by tram is going to take issue with what I've said. Outside the palace circle-a circle that includes my father-Egyptians want Egypt for Egyptians. It's as simple as that."

The tram rattled and swayed. At every stop more and more gal.a.b.i.a-dressed fellahin got on board. Delia remained silent, knowing that her own situation wasn't either plain or simple. She couldn't tell Ivor that Darius was a revolutionary. If she did he would refuse to allow either Petra or Davina to visit Zubair Pasha's home again.

And she would have to admit that she sympathized with Darius's position that the British were in a country they had promised to leave years ago.

Even as it was, the sights she had seen that afternoon were going to strain her relations.h.i.+p with Ivor, for she was certainly going to tell him that as an adviser to King Fuad he should advise the king on how to help his impoverished people into the twentieth century-something he would say was none of his business.

He would simply not understand, but Jerome would.

Jerome.

Apart from brief interludes, they had been separated for seven years. How much longer was their separation going to last? For how much longer could she remain the most important person in his life when he so seldom saw her and when so many young London socialites were, she was sure, only too willing to take her place in his heart?

Part Two.