Tomb of the Golden Bird - Elizabeth Peters [121]
Laughing, I gave her a little hug. “He isn’t here. You need not whisper.”
“We brought a number of books for him,” David said. “And I expect there are more in that parcel your other grandparents sent.”
“But they are not from me,” Charla said, unconsoled. “And I don’t have enough money to buy nice presents for Grandpapa and Mama and Sennia and Selim and Fatima and Kareem and—”
“Perhaps you have too many friends,” I suggested.
Charla was not amused. Shaking her curly head, she put me in my place. “You keep saying a person cannot have too many friends, Grandmama.”
“That is true.” I regretted my little joke, for I knew her distress was genuine. For all her faults she was a loving little soul.
“Your friends don’t care about expensive presents,” Ramses said gently. “Why don’t you write a nice letter to each of them telling them that you love them?”
“What an excellent idea,” I said. It would keep her occupied for hours.
“I can’t draw pictures or write very well,” Charla murmured. “I am not as clever as David John.”
I met Ramses’s eyes and saw in them the same sense of remorse that had seized me. Why hadn’t I realized that our constant scoldings (though often deserved) of Charla and our praise of David John had made his sister feel less loved than he? As a student of psychology I should have known her tantrums might be caused in part by frustration and resentment.
“Yes, you are,” I said firmly. “You have different talents, but yours are as worthy as his.”
Ramses echoed this statement, but without visible effect on his disconsolate daughter.
“I’ll tell you what,” David said. “Supposing you and I put our heads together and think of something. I understand you are very nimble with a pair of scissors. Perhaps your grandmama has some old magazines she can spare. We will cut out pretty pictures and make little books for everyone.”
“We will all help,” I said, with a grateful look at David.
“Not too much,” said Charla, her face brightening. “Or it won’t be my present.”
With Charla’s enthusiastic assistance we acquired the materials for the little books—colored paper and crayons and bright ribbons to tie the pages together—and made a quick call on my friend Marjorie Fisher to see if she had any old magazines to spare. She gave us several and promised to collect more from the ladies of Luxor. Her reward was a huge hug from Charla, which she returned with interest.
By the time we reached the Winter Palace, Charla was her old self, skipping along with her hand in that of her father and speculating loudly about the variety of sweets that might be available. David and I followed them, carrying Charla’s purchases so that no one would suspect they belonged to her. (Thanks to private negotiations with the shopkeepers, the meager contents of her little purse had proved adequate.)
“Thank you, David,” I said in a low voice. “I am ashamed I haven’t taken more pains to commend Charla. David John gets most of the compliments.”
“I am an expert at walking the tightrope between competitive children,” David said with a laugh. “It’s more demanding even than excavation.”
The others had not yet arrived, so we commandeered a table on the terrace and settled down to wait for them. Luxor was at its most festive, since the hotels catering to foreign visitors put up Christmas decorations, and the Coptic shopkeepers had taken up the custom of celebrating the season with crèches and candles and fairly dreadful holy statues. It is amazing how, once an idea catches on, everyone tries to emulate and outdo his neighbors, in quantity if not quality.
I always enjoy watching people, particularly when they are unaware of being observed. The couple standing on the steps below, she in a fashionable flannel suit and he in the best of Bond Street tailoring, both extremely red in the face, appeared to be arguing. Was their marriage