The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters [30]
Ramses looked round for Nefret, and saw she was deep in conversation with Daoud’s wife, Kadija, a very large, very dignified woman of Nubian extraction. According to Nefret, Kadija had a lively sense of humor, but the rest of them had to take that on faith since she never told them any of her stories. She was obviously telling one now; Nefret’s cheeks rounded with laughter. Ramses went to join them. He was disappointed but not surprised when Kadija ducked her head and slipped away.
“What was so funny?” he asked.
Nefret slipped her arm through his. “Never mind. It loses something in the translation.”
“But I understand Arabic.”
“Not that sort of translation.” She laughed up at him and he thought again, as he did several dozen times a day, how beautiful she was and how much he loved her. That lost something in the translation, too.
“Yusuf isn’t here,” she said, a look of puzzlement replacing her smile. “That’s rather odd. As the head of the family, courtesy would demand he welcome us back.”
“Selim says he isn’t well.”
“Perhaps I ought to go to him and see if there is anything I can do.”
“I don’t think your medical skills would help, darling.” Poor Yusuf’s world had been overturned the past year when he had lost his two favorite children. Jamil, the handsome, spoiled youngest son, had fled after becoming involved with a gang of professional thieves. He had not been seen since. Jumana, his sister, had found a happier ending; fiercely ambitious and intelligent, her hopes of becoming an Egyptologist were being fostered by the Vandergelts and Ramses’s parents.
Nefret understood. “I didn’t realize it had hit the poor old chap so hard.”
“Neither did I, but it isn’t surprising. Having his daughter flout his authority, refuse the fine marriage he arranged for her, and go off to become a new woman—educated, independent, and Westernized—must have been almost as great a blow as discovering that his best-beloved son was in trouble with the law.”
“Greater, perhaps, to a man of his traditional beliefs,” Nefret said. “Is it true that he disowned her and refuses to see her?”
“Who told you that?”
“Kadija. She tried to reason with him, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“Selim said the same. It’s a pity. Well, we’ll send Mother round to talk to him. If she can’t set him straight, no one can.”
“What about Jamil?”
“According to Selim, there’s been no sign of him. Don’t get any ideas about trying to track him down. There’s a trite old proverb about sleeping dogs.”
“All right; don’t lose your temper.”
“I thought you liked me to lose my temper.”
“Only when we’re alone and I can deal with you as you deserve.”
Before he could respond to that, his mother came back and began organizing everyone. The women of the family carried Sennia and her luggage off to her new quarters. His father refused to budge; he was having too fine a time making plans for the season’s work. He insisted that Ramses and Selim join him, but he lost Nefret to his wife. The two of them went off with Fatima.
“So, Selim,” said Emerson. “Have you got a crew together? I hope you didn’t let Vandergelt take our best men.”
“He has hired my father’s cousin’s son Abu as his reis, but we will have a full crew, Emerson. There is not much work here now.”
Emerson did not ask about Yusuf. He was too busy making plans for work to begin the following day.
A series of high-pitched shouts from the children who were playing on the veranda heralded a new arrival.
“I might have known you couldn’t leave us in peace for a few hours,” Emerson grumbled; but he went quickly to meet the newcomer with an outstretched hand.
Cyrus Vandergelt’s leathery face creased into smiling wrinkles. The American was dressed with his usual elegance, in a white linen suit and polished boots. “Yes, you might,” he said with a grin. “No use trying to sneak into town unnoticed—just got your telegram a while ago, but I’d already heard you were here. Good to see you. Here’s somebody