The Falcon at the Portal - Elizabeth Peters [124]
“If that isn’t just like Emerson,” Cyrus exclaimed. “Tell him there’s a rattlesnake in the bushes and he goes straight for it. I guess maybe I’d better get along over there and sit on a rock with a rifle. Cat, my dear, you going with Amelia?”
“I would love to. It will be delightful buying things for a child again. How old is she, Amelia?”
“We will discuss details on the way,” I said, finishing my coffee. “We will lunch in Cairo, I think; it is later than I had realized. You will both dine with us this evening? We have much to talk about.”
“We sure do,” Cyrus muttered. “I’ll just get my coat and be on my way.”
“And I will get my hat and handbag,” said Katherine. She fixed her steady, compassionate green eyes on my face. “Amelia—”
“Later, Katherine. You and I have much to talk about too.”
Men are very well in their way, and even more useful than women in other ways; but they are simply incapable of comprehending certain things. The long ride into Cairo gave me a chance to converse privately with a woman on whose intelligent advice I relied. I had not realized how desperately I yearned to confide in a friend. By the time we reached the Muski I was hoarse from talking.
“I do apologize, Katherine,” I remarked in some embarrassment. “I had not meant to say so much.”
“You could pay me no higher compliment, Amelia. You are my dearest friend; I owe my happiness to you. I only wish I could do more to help. It is hard to see one’s children in trouble and be unable to relieve them.”
“They are not children; they are young men and women, and must solve their own problems. I deplore Ramses’s unfortunate habit of reticence; he has always been like that and probably always will be; but just between you and me, Katherine, I am very proud of him. It is Nefret with whom I am vexed at the moment. Really, life was much simpler when I had only murderers and thieves to deal with.”
Men may jeer, and they do, but shopping does have a salutary effect. I had never bought clothing for a little girl; Nefret had been thirteen when she came to us. It proved to be unexpectedly pleasurable. Katherine gently intervened once or twice, pointing out the impracticality of the garment I was considering, and mentioning certain practical items that had not occurred to me. We were loaded with parcels when we returned to the cab, and I had ordered a number of articles to be sent on.
We took luncheon at Shepheard’s. Katherine saw my eyes wandering. “You are looking for Nefret, aren’t you?”
“Foolish of me,” I confessed. “It did occur to me, though, that she might have come here. She hasn’t many friends, you know. She and Ramses and David have always been so self-sufficient—too much so, perhaps. It will be a great relief to have Lia with us again. I know Nefret talks to her more confidentially than she does to me.”
“That is only natural,” Katherine said.
“Yes.”
“So you aren’t going to call on her friends this afternoon?”
“It is too awkward, Katherine. How can I go round asking if they have seen her without admitting that she has run off and I don’t know where the devil she is? Curse the girl, she has no business worrying us this way. Not that I am worried. Not at all. Gracious, look at the time. We still must stop by the Amelia”
So we did, and found several of Fatima’s nieces, including the much-maligned Karima, already hard at work. A brief discussion with Karima convinced me there was little for me to do. I knew Fatima would insist upon inspecting the premises herself and adding the final touches—including rosebuds in the washbasin and dried petals between the sheets. Not even Emerson had dared object to these procedures (in fact, I rather think he liked them though he would never have admitted it).
I dropped Katherine off at the Valley of the Kings, since she wanted to bathe and change before coming on to us. Ramses and Emerson had not yet returned, but the