He Shall Thunder in the Sky - Elizabeth Peters [6]
“That is very flattering, my dear.”
“Flattering be damned! He thinks I am only fit to sit in an office and give advice to pompous young fools who won’t listen to it anyhow. He thinks I am too old to take an active part in this war.”
“Oh, my dear, that is not true!” I threw my arms around his waist and kissed him on the chin. I had to stand on tiptoe to reach that part of his anatomy; Emerson is over six feet tall and I am considerably shorter. “You are the strongest, bravest, cleverest—”
“Don’t overdo it, Peabody,” said Emerson.
His use of my maiden name, which had become a term of affection and approbation, assured me that he was in a better humor. A little flattery never hurts, especially when, as in the present case, it was the simple truth.
I laid my head against his shoulder. “You may think me selfish and cowardly, Emerson, but I would rather you were safe in some boring office, not taking desperate chances as you would prefer, and as, of course, you could. Did you accept?”
“Well, damn it, I had to, didn’t I? It will interfere with my excavations . . . but one must do what one can, eh?”
“Yes, my darling.”
Emerson gave me such a hearty squeeze, my ribs creaked. “I am going to work now. Are you coming?”
“No, I think not. I will wait for Nefret and perhaps have a little chat with her.”
Emerson departed, and after assuming a comfortable garment I went up to the roof, where I had arranged tables and chairs, potted plants and adjustable screens, to create an informal open-air parlor.
From the rooftop one could see (on a clear day) for miles in all directions: on the east, the river and the sprawling suburbs of Cairo, framed by the pale limestone of the Mokattam Hills; to the west, beyond the cultivated land, the limitless stretch of the desert, and, at eventide, a sky ablaze with ever-changing but always brilliant sunsets. My favorite view was southerly. In the near distance rose the triangular silhouettes of the pyramids of Giza, where we would be working that year. The house was conveniently located on the West Bank, only a few miles from our excavations and directly across the river from Cairo. It was not as commodious or well designed as our earlier abode near Giza, but that house was not one to which any of us cared to return. It held too many unhappy memories. I tried, as is my habit, to keep them at bay, but Emerson’s gloomy remarks had affected me more than I had admitted to him. The war had certainly cast a shadow over our lives, but some of our troubles went farther back—back to that frightful spring two years ago.
Only two years. It seemed longer; or rather, it seemed as if a dark, deep abyss separated us from the halcyon days that had preceded the disaster. Admittedly, they had not been devoid of the criminal distractions that frequently interrupt our archaeological work, but we had become accustomed to that sort of thing and in every other way we had good cause to rejoice. David and Lia had just been married; Ramses was with us again after some months of absence; and Nefret divided her time between the excavation and the clinic she had started for the fallen women of Cairo. There had been a radiance about her that year. . . .
Then it had happened, as sudden and unexpected as a bolt of lightning from a clear sky. Emerson and I had come home one morning to find the old man waiting, a woman and a small child with him. The woman, herself pitiably young, was a prostitute, the old man one of the city’s most infamous procurers. The sight of that child’s face, with its unmistakable resemblance to my own, was shock enough; a greater shock followed, when the little creature ran toward Ramses, holding out her arms and calling him Father.
The effect on Nefret had been much worse. In the clinic she had seen firsthand the abuses inflicted on the women of the Red Blind district, and her attempts to assist the unhappy female victims of the loathsome trade had taken on the dimensions of a crusade. Always hot-tempered