Blue Damask Read online

  “I,” she started and then stood up straighter and composed her face to make it as professional as possible. “I have not determined that you are stable enough to discontinue treatment. And I have not completed my notes…”

  He burst out laughing, then tempered the volume with a look at the walls of the tent. “Elsa, Miss Schluss, you are dressed like a blonde Bedouin in the wilds of the Syrian desert. You do not look like a psychotherapist.”

  “Well, yes. There is that,” she said and allowed herself to smile back.

  He took her in his arms then and kissed her firmly. When he came up for a breath he whispered, “For show. They are watching us.” But his lips were warm and Elsa, who had not been kissed so well before, had trouble believing him. His prickly beard scratched her and he was not as clean as she would like, but he smelled very masculine. His shoulders were hard and his arms strong and firm. It felt good in a comforting way.

  She said softly, aware of the listeners, “I am glad to see you, too. You were in terrible shape two days ago. They dragged you away in a straightjacket.”

  “Did they? Please let us sit down. I have had a rough day.” He still held one of her hands and pulled her down to the carpet and sat with folded legs and a soft groan. “I don’t remember.”

  She sat across from him near the flickering lamp. “Let me look at you,” she murmured. He let her take his left arm and turn the wrist up so she could look at the underside. Her stitches were still firm on his left forearm, and there was no sign of serious infection, though the deepest part of the cut near the inside of his elbow was puffier than she would have liked to see. She wanted tincture of iodine for it. The bruises on his face were fresh and she remembered how he stood on the truck bed and the tentative way he sank to the carpet. He may have broken ribs. His words were sometimes accompanied by a wince when he inhaled.

  Her hand went for his collar to take a look at his chest.

  “Oh, don’t be the surgical nurse, now,” he said as he caught her hand and held it. “I have been beaten before. It is standard operating procedure. Nothing is broken, just bruised. They know what they are doing in the Foreign Service.”

  “Mr. Marshall did this?” She freed a captured hand and moved it toward his cheekbone where the purple bruise swelled.

  “Oh, no. Archie doesn’t have anything to do with this kind of hands-on work.” He waylaid her probing hand to his lips instead of his cheek.

  “Good,” She said firmly.

  He raised an eyebrow as he kissed her fingers. She made herself clear, “He is tasked with your care, he shouldn’t permit rough handling of your person.”

  “Never. Not even when I called the colonel a sadistic son-of-a-bitch.” Her fingers were touched lightly with his lips, one then the other then the other. He closed his eyes and his dark lashes rested on the lower lids as he kissed her palms. She was aware it was more difficult to speak because something was wrong with the air in the room.

  When he opened his eyes they were very dark. Dilated. She wondered if he had been given opium. Opium made one’s eyes dark and glistening like that. She had administered enough to know it when she saw it.

  “Why did they tell me my wife was in this tent?” His voice was soft, but she could see he wanted a hard answer.

  “I didn’t know they told you that,” she answered truthfully. She leaned closer to him so they could speak confidentially. The cold desert night air was creeping in through the seams where the wool met the sand and from the flap at the front. It was dark enough that the feeble lamp cast only a small circle of its golden glow around them. He was warm, and it was cold in the spaces that were not him.

  “Why would they think you were my wife?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t tell them I was.”

  “What did you tell them?” He brought his face even closer to hers. She could smell him again. Gunpowder. A metallic tang like the steel of oiled guns. Unwashed man and cigar smoke. Leather. Horse. Petrol.

  “Elsa.”

  She snapped back. “What?”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “They thought I was your…” She tried to remember what Farmadi had called her. “Your ‘moll’. I assumed that meant ‘acquaintance’. I told them I was your therapist.”

  He gave a short chuckle. “And you are, you are.”

  She frowned. “Of course I am your therapist,” she told him. “It is their error if they think I am your wife.”

  “They will expect us to behave as husband and wife.”

  “Gott im Himmel, Mr. Sinclair, do they expect some kind of peep show?” She turned her head to look closer at the walls of the tent. It was too dark to see beyond the circle glow of the little lamp. She stilled her breathing to better hear any men outside.

  “Probably not,” he mumbled. “Either way we sleep together tonight, Schatze.”

  “So be it,” she answered him, looking around. “Here or in that mud hut. I must sleep somewhere and so must you.”

  “So be it,” he echoed, though his voice sounded less sure. “I am still a prisoner.” He lay himself down on the thick rugs and reached for a folded blanket near the tent pole. “Come, wife.”

  She removed the veil and wadded it up to use as a pillow. She arranged her dress before lying down next to him. They faced each other on the ground.

  “It is cold,” she said.

  “Not really,” he answered, he lifted the edge of the blanket and settled it on her.

  They stared at each other. She tried to see his mind in the cast of his face, and could only see distrust and defeat. She sighed. “What happens tomorrow?”

  “I sell my soul to the highest bidder.”

  “No,” she breathed. “You do not have to sell your soul.”

  “They will drag it from my body and hold it up and take bids.” He moved closer and put an arm over her shoulders. He must have thought it was the cold that caused her to shiver.

  “I will not permit it.”

  She heard that low chuckle he often made in his throat. It was not humor, but more like resignation and there was always this little catch at the end that sounded like a sob or a groan, like he laughed and cried at the same time

  She listened for any sounds from outside the tent that might indicate someone was listening. She spoke softly just in case. “After they dragged you away, they put me in a car. They said they were taking me back to the hotel. But they didn’t. They took me out to the country. They tried to knock me out with ether.” She looked at him seriously.

  He frowned. “Ether?”

  “Yes. One of the men put it in a handkerchief. He was going to put it on my nose and mouth.”

  “How did you escape?”

  She told him.

  His face changed as he digested her words. “I heard that three ministry men were murdered by the locals. France controls that village, and the ministry sent people to the French to complain. Things were done.”

  She waited for him to say more, but he did not. She asked him, “What things?”

  “Things.” He turned to lie on his back. “What did you do after you got out of the car?”

  She told him about walking until her shoes fell apart, and then about Farmadi.

  “I see.”

  “What did they tell you?”

  “They didn’t tell me anything, Schatze. They said you had left for Istanbul. The story I heard about the three headless men in Ad Dumayr I heard through Ozgur just today. I had no idea you were involved.”

  “Tell me what happened to you. You woke up,” she prompted.

  “I woke up and asked about you and Marshall. I was told not to bother myself about you and to focus on the task at hand.”

  “What made them think I needed to be dismissed?” This had been bothering her since the general had given the orders to take Sonnenby away. Marshall went to a lot of trouble to get psychological treatment for him prior to his travel to El Zor. It seemed the Foreign Office dismissed her rather perfunctorily without
a debriefing or her opinion of Sonnenby’s mental competency.

  He turned his head to the side and his hair fell in his eyes. He brushed it back and said, “They wanted nothing to do with a German woman. You are still the enemy. Marshall has been severely chastised for bringing you along. The idea that I needed a therapist was ridiculed. Marshall has a formal reprimand in his file now.”

  “I see.”

  “Right,” he said. He squeezed her hand. “You see what I mean, now? How it doesn’t matter? I need to get you home again, Elsa. You shouldn’t be here. I still am non compos mentis. If I survive this, I will be returned to the hospital. Everything I own is in trust to the crown. Marshall promised to get me out and to a doctor.”

  “Mein Gott,” she said.

  “Yes. I feel like that, too. I want a long bath and a short whiskey.”

  “Exactly what I would prescribe,” She stood up and adjusted herself because the files were digging into her middle and making it impossible to get comfortable enough to sleep.

  “What’s that crinkling noise?”

  “My work. Your military files.”

  He shook his head. “I shouldn’t be surprised by anything you do anymore.” He pushed back the blankets and got to his feet. He moved silently along the edges of the tent, bending his neck, listening.

  “I couldn’t let them be lost,” she said softly.

  He seemed satisfied that if there were listeners, they were not close. “You should lose them. They don’t mean anything anymore.” He went to the tent’s opening and stood by the flap.

  “Of course they do. They are the key to your therapy.”

  “You may look at those files all you want, but what good is a man’s life on paper when his body is in a shallow grave?”

  She stared at him.

  He said, “Close your mouth, Elsa. You can’t possibly be that shocked. What did you think was going to happen? Do you remember the Turk on the train? The car in Istanbul? I will not survive this adventure. They brought me out here to parade me before my relations and remind them of a pact made between two men thirty years ago. Both of whom are dead. I am just the invitation to this ball, but I won’t be dancing.”

  “Can you not tell me what this is all about?” She could not stand still. She moved to the side of the tent and then to the other.

  “The Turks--” he lowered his voice. “Most of the people who live here have no idea that the foreigners are coming to take their land. Some didn’t even know their government backed the wrong side in the war. Both the Anglo-Persian and the Turkish Petroleum Companies have a great deal of money invested in this area and the French want it. The British want it. The Turks want it. Even the Germans still want it. They fight about it now in boardrooms and government offices. If the company puts derricks on their land the tribes will tear them down. This can’t happen. People will be exterminated to protect the wells. So they must be convinced to welcome them.” He took her arm as she passed him to stop her from pacing. “Can you see this now, Elsa?”

  “And why are you involved…specifically?”

  “My father had a very intimate relationship with these villagers.” He stared hard at her. “He offered his wife to their leader as added incentive on the negotiations he made some thirty years ago, and he had the shares to prove it.” He squeezed her arm as he said it and his eyes clouded over. “He had some favors, bought with my mother’s cu…” He dropped her arm and went back to the flap and looked out. His back hunched like he’d been struck in the abdomen again.

  “Consent?” She tried to finish for him.

  He did not turn to face her. “No. ‘Consent’ is not the correct word.”

  Elsa pressed her lips together. Her thoughts were as jumbled as the crumpled paper pressed to her middle and tied with her sash. He was right. Her dissertation seemed completely unimportant now. His suicidal tendencies, moot. A suicidal man doesn’t fear murder. Why cure a man on his way to his death? She raised her eyes and looked at him differently. Not as a patient. He stared back. Not as a patient.

  “And what will happen to me?” she asked him. She did not care what the answer was; she wanted to watch his eyes as he told her. He dropped the flap and came back to her. He put his hands on her upper arms below her shoulders and looked directly at her. There it was. He did care what happened to her.

  He said in a low voice, “If the general finds you, you will be considered an inconvenient witness and will conveniently disappear. If I die, Ozgur will be obligated to take you as his wife. He has two already. Are you prepared to change your religion and learn a new language and live in the dirt and be a man’s slave?”

  “No,” she told him. “Therefore you are forbidden to die.”

  He did not change his expression. “Unlike you, I do not have a choice in the matter.”

  “There is always a choice,” she lowered her eyes. “I just haven’t thought of all the options yet.”

  He gave her a wry smile. “Commendable, but futile.”

  “The tribesmen will not permit the British to kill you.”

  “Elsa, as soon as they realize how they have been betrayed, they will kill me themselves.”

  “I will not p—“

  “Yes, I know you would not permit it. But there it is. The worst part is that the French and British think that killing everyone will leave a nice empty space for their derricks. But there would be a terrible blood feud. It makes no sense. It is crazy.” He squeezed her gently when he said that. “But the Allies think that since they won the war, they rule the world.”

  Her knees went weak and she lowered herself to the bright red rug.

  Sonnenby followed her down on one knee and crossed his arms over his thigh. “What is it? What are you thinking?”

  “The only solution is for the tribe to kill the British and bury their trucks in the sand. This must be what they are planning.”

  “That is exactly what Mehmet wants to do.”

  “Does Mr. Mehmet have guns?”

  “Of course he has guns. He has a Vickers and a Lewis and they are dragging a howitzer up from God knows where.”

  “They outnumber the British.” She said it in a flat way, like talking about an attack was different from doing it.

  Sonnenby said, “Women and children will be killed.”

  “I am well aware of what big guns will do.” She had cared for those who had survived such attacks and washed the bodies of those who did not. “Then they must evacuate. Sneak the women and children out before the fighting starts.”

  “There are too many in this city. Right now we are in a camp on the outskirts. There is the whole town of Deir El Zor closer to the river with houses and streets and buildings and telephones and electricity. I told you what Mehmet wants to do. But the older men want the gold that has been promised. They do not want to evacuate or to attack. Either way, this whole area will be like a disturbed anthill, Elsa. You can see that. There will be no peace for anyone, anywhere. For decades.”

  She put a hand on his arm. “You are exhausted and injured, whether you admit it or not.”

  He made that humorless chuckle again and shook his head. “In another day and time, Miss Schluss, I would enjoy taking you for a ride in my motorcar and buying you a lemonade and perhaps attend an evening concert in London. But this is it. It is over. I do not know what will happen to you after I am dead. The general may conveniently lose you in this beautiful wasteland and apologize to Doctor Engel with all the courtesy of the British Government. It appears they already have tried.”

  “How can you be so fatalistic?” Her mind raced, no longer thinking about the files.

  “Fatalistic?” He was looking at her now as if she were crazy.

  “I do not believe you are suicidal,” she told him.

  He stared at her. “I have tried to kill myself many times. Those are the facts. It should say so in your files. I keep trying and failing. I tried in Acre, in Cairo, in Aleppo. I tried in Crete, in St. Johns and on the shores of Ist
anbul at Gallipoli.”

  She recognized the names from the commendation file. She tapped the file beneath her gown. “You were a hero in those places,” she said softly. “You acted with extreme courage. You saved many men and made the missions successful. It says so in here.” She leaned closer. “They gave you a medal.”

  His face hardened and he said nothing.

  Elsa shook her head slowly. “You wanted to die, so you did what the other men were afraid to do. You marched toward death instead of away from it.”

  He said, “If I try to kill myself in a hospital room I am insane. If I do it on a battlefield I am a hero. If I snap a man’s neck on a battlefield I am courageous and virtuous. If I do it in a tavern I am a foul murderer.”

  He was right. She had nothing to say to that. She stared at the carpet for a long while, thinking. He was silent. She could hear him breathing. Neither of them moved. She thought about the nature of futility. If a man wants to kill himself, why should he not be given that freedom? Does he not have the right to make that decision? He did not chose to be born, but once born is his life not his to do with as he pleases? Long or short, rich or poor, kind or cruel? Elsa grimaced.

  She was studying a field that championed individuality, yet at the very core presupposed a very firm middle ground. There was an idea of how a man or woman was supposed to think and feel. There was a right way and a wrong way. There was normal and deviant. If a man kills himself in a fit of despair because he is ill with depression or narcotics or strong drink it is a physician’s responsibility to stop him. But what if he is perfectly sane and reaches the decision through logic and reason? Who has the right to stop him? Is suicide ever reasonable?

  “Elsa.” His voice was soft and had a tone of finality. He was saying good-bye.

  She looked up. “I don’t want you to kill yourself.”

  He did not answer, but turned his head and searched her face with his dark eyes. She saw the long lashes blink. Beautiful lashes. And such a fine aquiline nose, and high cheekbones that made his eyes wide and deep. He was beautiful. She had not thought about that before. When he was her patient his appearance was not relevant, but now she thought of him as a wounded soldier like so many she had watched die. Her grief preceded his death. She tried to imagine him lying there as a corpse.