Blue Damask Read online

  “I did know that.” Elsa tried not to sound defensive.

  “Nomads tend to live by trading and looting and the blood and hair of their goats and sheep and camels and horses.”

  “I knew that too.”

  “If you build a well and a derrick, it belongs to whoever can defend it. It is that simple. If you build it where the tribes graze their horses and sheep and goats and camels, it is theirs. If the oil destroys the grazing, it is pulled down. The Turkish Petroleum Company cannot send a garrison to guard every derrick.”

  Elsa leaned back against the house next to him. “And Paris and London?”

  “They prepare poison gas bombs for their planes. Clear the way for their pipelines, barges, railways and derricks.”

  She did not answer. There could be no answer. She thought about Sonnenby. Surely he knew this. Marshall must. What were they really doing in El Zor? She turned her head to face Descartes.

  “So do you know why Lord Sonnenby was brought to El Zor?”

  “You are certain you are not Lady Sonnenby?” he asked.

  “I am certain.” She held up her left hand and showed him her naked ring finger.

  Descartes said, “There was a Lady Sonnenby here thirty years ago.”

  “So I have heard,” she prompted, though she was annoyed he deflected an answer to her question.

  He groaned softly. “The Talisker is all gone?”

  “No, there is plenty. Are you in pain?”

  “My leg feels like it is on fire. Every movement is like a twisting knife. It did not hurt like this yesterday.”

  “I had to cut away at some tissue to get at a few of the stones. It will be sore.”

  “Sore. Mon Dieu. Sore. If this is ‘sore’, what do you call real pain?”

  “I have sedatives in the case. Let me have it, I will give you some.”

  “What kind of sedatives?” He looked at her with interest. “Opium? Laudanum?”

  She shrugged. “And Luminal.”

  “Hypodermic?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, I do not want to be knocked out.”

  “Then you do not want that drug.”

  “So you do have laudanum?”

  “I do, though what I have is too dilute to relieve your pain completely. I have it mixed as a mild sedative for nerves.”

  “Do you suffer from nerves, mademoiselle?”

  She looked at him pointedly. “No, Monsieur Descartes, but my patient certainly does.”

  He thought about this for a moment. “Let me have some of your laudanum, then. I do not want to be so drugged I cannot respond if there is an incident tonight, but I cannot rest with this knife in my leg.”

  “Do you think there will be an incident?”

  “If I did I would not be lounging against Mehmet’s house. No. Most likely it will be tomorrow or next week. But I am alive today because I consider all contingencies.”

  She got up and went to the canvas where he had piled his supplies and dug out her briefcase. She carried it over to the doorstep where the light from the oil lamps inside shown on the stones of the threshold. First she placed the package of letters and the silver frame inside. Then she felt under the clothing and the papers until the thick glass bottle was located. She drew it out and held it up and shook it a little to see the level of liquid inside. Elsa handed it to Descartes.

  “Just a little,” she warned “or you will soon be snoring.” She remembered his reaction to the whiskey and wondered. He probably needed to sleep.

  He unscrewed the metal top and lifted the bottle to his mouth and swallowed. He replaced the top and handed it back to her with a smile. “Merci, ange.”

  “I am no angel,” she said as she put the laudanum safely between the folds of the blue damask in the case. “Tell me about Lady Sonnenby.”

  He rearranged himself to sit propped against the house again. “She came out here with her husband as a holiday from a London winter in ’93. It was very fashionable back then to travel to the near east. Petrie and Budge were in Egypt, and discoveries were being made in Babylon. Very fashionable. But Lord Sonnenby was not interested in the weather or in antiquities. He was interested in petroleum and was keen on securing an agreement with the locals to permit surveys and free passage of his geologists,” he smiled at her and raised an eyebrow, “and engineers to move about without being skewered by the Bedouin.”

  “He left her in the custody of the sheikh while he and his men trekked up and down the Euphrates looking for shale. The sheikh was less interested in oil and became quite fond of Lady Sonnenby.”

  Elsa made a face, though she knew he couldn’t see it in the dark. “I find that less than convincing. Something else must have happened.”

  “True. Lady Sonnenby was very beautiful. Any man might be tempted. She had blue eyes like you, and her hair was very fair, like yours. She was tall and slender and had a beautiful voice. She used to sing.”

  Elsa was aware that he was staring at her. “And?” she insisted when he paused too long.

  “How can I say? The previous Lord Sonnenby was a brutal man. Some say it was because he was slight and short and had red hair and was covered with freckle spots. Such deficiencies often create brutal men.”

  “Are you saying he beat her? What are you saying?”

  “I am saying she did not like him much because he was an unpleasant man, and welcomed a charming and courteous suitor.”

  “That is not the version I heard.”

  “Oh?” he sounded sincerely surprised. “You have heard a different version?”

  She refused to repeat what Sonnenby had told her. “I was told the elder Sonnenby was generous with what was his for the purpose of negotiating commercial gain.”

  “Hmmmm,” Descartes relaxed lower against the house as the laudanum worked on him. “There may have been circumstances agreeable to all three parties involved. Mehmet tells me Lady Sonnenby spent weeks in his father’s tent while her husband was in the field, looking for shale and hunting with falcons. He says she was not ravished, if that is what you are hinting.”

  Elsa blushed in the darkness, as she had indeed been wondering about how Lady Sonnenby felt about the ‘negotiations’. Mehmet was a strikingly handsome man, tall and broad-shouldered with clear strong features and luminous dark eyes like his brother. If he looked anything like his father she could see Lady Sonnenby being a willing participant in the negotiations over land use.

  “Was she here just for that one winter?”

  “Mehmet says she returned every year for three years, and then showed up one summer with the current Lord Sonnenby when he was five years old.”

  “And then?”

  “That was the last time Mehmet saw her. After that Sonnenby brought the boy with him every year until he entered school at ten, then after that summers until he was fifteen.”

  “Why did Lord Sonnenby need to come back every year?”

  Descartes shrugged. “How can I know? Mehmet was telling me about his brother, the current Lord Sonnenby. It is possible the elder Sonnenby enjoyed the weather, or the hunting, or perhaps Medjel wanted to see the boy. He must have known the child was his. Mehmet said that his father and Lord Sonnenby would be gone for days at a time. He and his little half-brother would spend their days doing what boys do when parents are absent. Getting into trouble.”

  “Mehmet’s English is excellent. He obviously went to school to learn it,” she challenged him. “And ‘Mehmet’ is a Turkish name, not Bedouin.”

  Descartes nodded. “He was sent to Istanbul by his father. He learned English there in school. Apparently the father needed him to read English correspondence for him. I understand Medjel was completely illiterate but Lord Sonnenby, the previous Lord Sonnenby, kept him updated as to the negotiations in London.”

  “Do you know what Mehmet studied?”

  “Certainly. Geology. We attended a conference together some ten years ago.”

  Well then. Geology. Elsa tucked her veil tighter a
round her shoulders. She doubted the letters in her case were from Lord Sonnenby. The air was getting cooler now and the breeze picked up. She was no closer to knowing why the Foreign Ministry had gone to the trouble of removing Sonnenby from an asylum and forcing him to return to Syria. She tried to think of what only Sonnenby could accomplish. Something only he could do here. Beside her she heard a sharp snore and knew that even the small amount of opium in the mixture had taken Descartes out.

  In the doorway a shaft of soft yellow light fell upon the threshold. Someone had lit a kerosene lantern. Minutes later three men in dark thobes and keffiyahs moved silently, taking positions around the house. One near the larger tree, another near the well and the third some distance away between the house and the river and the track that led to El Zor.

  None of them acknowledged her presence. Two were armed with rifles. Elsa froze in place, forcing her eyes to see as much as possible in the gloom. There were no sounds from within the house except whimpers from the infant and the occasional footstep and a soft feminine voice of a mother speaking to her child. If the women and children inside were not alarmed, then this was not an attack. The men must be guarding the house. She turned her head to look at Descartes. His mouth hung slack, and a light snore emanated from his chest every third or fourth breath. She should sleep too. But she could not even close her eyes.

  Descartes said that he had been told that Sonnenby was hurt. Again. She felt for her briefcase. Having a hand on it made her feel more secure. It took the edge off the unpleasant feeling of having no control of the situation. She knew it was a psychological palliative and welcomed it. She caressed the leather.

  Sonnenby had been attacked on the train, in the car, on the boat, at the ministry offices, and now in El Zor. Mr. Marshall had told her it had been a Turk who tried to kill him on the train. Sonnenby had said the men in the car were also Turks. How could he tell? The man on the boat who stole Lady Sonnenby’s portrait had been a Bedouin tribesman. She tried to remember Mehmet’s face when Sonnenby and he were talking. It could have been Turkish or Arabic, either way she could not understand them, but the expressions on their faces she could understand. Sonnenby had been deadly serious. Mehmet intensely interested. Sonnenby could have been telling Mehmet why he was really here.

  Mehmet’s face had changed halfway through the conversation and became angry, though obviously not at Sonnenby. He had looked up at the sides of the tent and his eyes moved like a man remembering something, then he looked back at Sonnenby and asked him something in a tone of voice that sounded full of grief. Elsa tried to piece that together. She remembered the hurt sound in Mehmet’s voice as the two men separated, after she had accused Sonnenby of lying.

  And then Mehmet disappeared. Sonnenby went back to the British without him. And then the guns and the planes. Descartes is now concerned that Mehmet is gone and warns he will not come back alone. Elsa was usually careful not to jump to conclusions, but it appeared that was the only leap she could make. Sonnenby must have been sent to convince Mehmet to accept British terms. And instead he warned his half-brother to escape. And now Descartes thinks Mehmet has gone to rally the tribes into an orchestrated attack on the British interests. Sonnenby must know this. He sent her with Mehmet, to keep her safe. This must mean he believes she would not be safe with Marshall.

  She let her breath out loudly and the guard nearest her turned his head. Descartes had slid further down the side of the house, still propped head and shoulders against the brick, but twisted in an uncomfortable way. Elsa got up and pulled him by the arms until he way lying flat on the ground. He didn’t wake. She put her fingers on his neck and then cupped his cheek. His fever was no longer hot, but he was still warmer than normal. She set his fedora on his chest and sat down again near the step. She knew she could go in the house with the women and sleep more comfortably on a red rug with a soft cushion, but she preferred to be outside where it was cooler and she could watch the guards.

  And Sonnenby. What had happened to twist his mind so badly that he would lose consciousness? It could be physical. She rubbed the briefcase harder. She had already read all the medical files. Nothing suggested seizures. He would not have been in military service had he been so afflicted. No. It had to be something else. Some of her shell-shocked patients had panic attacks so severe they resulted in loss of consciousness. The men would dash about, wild eyed and screaming before they dropped like stones. But Sonnenby’s episodes were never accompanied by frenzy. Except that time on the train. And when he had chased the intruder on the ship? Davies had said he looked over the stern rail at the churning water some six or seven stories below and then collapsed.

  Perhaps it was the exertion. A sudden change in blood pressure, or adrenaline depletion. A heart condition would drop him like that. She rubbed her forehead. There was no amnesia. He could remember what he had been doing up to the point to collapse. Elsa was leaning toward a diagnosis of extreme anxiety coupled with something physical.

  He had long bouts of rational behavior punctuated by violence, like many with war trauma, but the loss of consciousness and then the catatonia was unusual. She wanted to find those reports and read them again.

  If she moved closer to the doorway she could use the shaft of light from the kerosene lantern to read. She looked at each of the guards. They were fairly relaxed. It would be safe to read for an hour, and then she promised herself she would sleep. It was also time to unite the two sets of files. The military and school records were still strapped to her body. She untied her sash and shimmied until her papers fluttered to her feet. She bent to pick them up, tapped them to keep them straight, and then placed them inside the briefcase with the medical reports.

  Then her fingers touched the letters. She looked up and around. Soft nighttime breezes moved the leaves of the trees and she could hear the men murmuring to each other as they kept watch. An occasional snore from Descartes told her he would sleep soundly for a while.

  She could read a few of the letters. Just a few before she slept. She arranged them chronologically, then slid her finger across the flap of the first envelope. As she suspected from the elegant handwriting, this letter was not written as a communique from Lord Sonnenby to his business partner. This letter opened with, “My dear Medjel…”

  Elsa read quietly, the first letter, then the second, and after the third she knew she would not sleep until she had finished them all. There were twelve. The writer must be Lady Sonnenby and they were written for her lover, though the language she used implied that she knew someone would be reading them aloud. The letters were filled with the minutia of her daily life, included detailed descriptions of young Henry and his infancy and early childhood. She told Medjel about the baby’s first steps, his first word, and his general health. Every now and then, she would include an endearing term, or express a longing to see him again, but these references were very brief and spread throughout the correspondence. She ended each letter with “you are rohi, my love” but there was never a signature.

  Elsa folded the last one and tucked it away. It seemed Sonnenby had the wrong idea about his parents.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Elsa woke suddenly, papers rustled under her cheek. She returned the file and the letters to the briefcase and clasped it securely shut. She looked at the guards and saw they were absolutely still and intensely focused on the road. She listened until she heard the faint sound of hoof beats. She crawled to Descartes and quietly woke him.

  “Monsieur. Someone is coming,” she whispered.

  “Mon Dieu.” He rolled on one elbow and then let her help him to sit propped against the house. The hoof beats slowed and then disappeared, though the guards did not relax. Elsa heard the metallic click of a rifle being carefully readied. She gathered her briefcase close to her body and considered going into the house. Descartes was trying to stand, but could not get his feet under him. Elsa could not leave him outside. She set her briefcase on the threshold and moved to put her hands under his arms. Desca
rtes took her arm, and bracing himself against the wall, staggered to his feet.

  She did not speak, but gave his arm a little tug toward the entrance to the house. He shook his head and pointed his chin toward the guards. He extended a hand towards the tarpaulin as if he were pointing an invisible pistol at it. His index finger finger pulled the imaginary trigger. She nodded, understanding. Elsa helped him inch his way along the house, one hand on the wall until he could reach for the pile of supplies. The guard nearest them kept his eyes on them both.

  Descartes retrieved the pistol and rolled the cylinder expertly. He nodded toward the entrance to the house again and widened his eyes to insist that she enter.

  Elsa picked up her briefcase, and when she was certain Descartes could stand without falling, she went inside. The two women were huddled in a corner. The little girl was on the Turkish woman’s lap, the infant on the Bedouin’s. The little boys were nowhere to be seen. Both women stared at her, frightened. She made a gesture with her hand to keep them still and quiet. She held on to the thick wooden beam that supported the sides of the doorway and the lintel and peered out.

  The four men had taken defensive positions. Two of them were down on one knee with the rifles to their cheeks. Descartes was propped against the brick house with his pistol ready. The hoof beats became loud and moments later she could see the riders coming through the tall coarse grass that grew in the space between the river and the desert. There were two horses and two riders. She strained her eyes to see if the men approaching were tribesmen or Europeans. The man in front was wearing a billowing head cloth and a black agal, the man behind was bareheaded. The horses and riders became larger with every minute and soon she could tell that the man in front was wearing dark trousers and a suit coat with the keffiyah blowing behind him. He was shouting.

  “Salaam! Salaam!”

  The rifles wavered. One of the guards spoke to the others. Descartes lowered his pistol. “Que je sois damné,” he murmured and then turned to her and said in English, “It is your Sonnenby.”