Baker's Woman Read online

  “He is all anyone could hope for even in a Nubian servant. We’re very fortunate,” Sam said, reaching under a cushion for a bottle still warm from the day’s heat.

  “Awfully thoughtful, too, for one so young. And he learns English faster than I learn Arabic.”

  They sipped warm cognac as the moon rose, then went into the tent and dropped the canvas flaps. They undressed and lay on the silky carpet to make love slowly, quietly, while only a few yards away the men finished their work, unrolled their beds, and lay like the animals, under the starry sky.

  “Being out here on the desert in the night, I feel I’m in a fairy tale, as if we’re the only people in an enchanted world.”

  “I am delighted you feel that, too, Florence. We are very much alone, and so, ‘Let us possess one world; each one hath one, and is one.’”

  “Another poem.”

  “Mmm-hm, Donne, the passionate priest. He knew love-making was holy.”

  On the second morning, and the third and fourth, Florence became adept at rising in the dark, eating quickly, and settling into the ride. That was the best time, before the sun’s blinding brilliance burned her eyes and parched her skin, before stinging winds cracked her lips and dusted her eyeballs. Sam regularly reminded her to take frequent sips of water.

  On the evening of the seventh day, Florence slipped heavily from the back of her kneeling camel and stumbled toward shade, pulling off her hood and trying to remove the cloak. With a faint cry, she suddenly pitched forward into the sand.

  * * *

  In seconds Sam was at Florence’s side. He lifted her in his arms and, shouting to Achmed, carried her to a level place. While the men erected their tent, Sam knelt and held her head up as he bathed her face with water Achmed brought. He untied the cord to remove her cloak and felt heat radiate from her body. Her eyes were open but seemed not to see as Sam dribbled the last drops from the canteen on her collar. She groaned when he shouted for someone, anyone, to bring more water.

  “Sam, Sam, what’s wrong?”

  “You’ll be all right. It’s the heat. You’re all right.”

  He took a water-soaked towel from Achmed and put it around her neck, then held a cup of water to her lips. When her cot had been set up, Sam lifted her onto it and loosened her clothing.

  He pulled off her boots and rubbed the hard, knotted muscles of her calves until her spasms ceased. Her breath continued in short, ragged and shallow gasps; white lines drawn from her nostrils to the corners of her lips made her flushed face into an alarming mask.

  The men had raised the tent, and they carried Florence on the cot into it. Achmed placed a basin of water and a stack of linen towels beside her, and Sam bathed her face, arms, and hands and then sent Achmed to get the medicine chest. He stripped off her clothes and pulled the sheet across her body so she might cool gradually without chilling. Achmed returned with the case and stepped back to stand outside the tent. Sam continued to apply alcohol, rubbing her feet and legs and patting her torso and arms. Gradually her breathing eased and muscles no longer contorted, yet her face remained impassive. When at last she opened her eyes, they were clear and focused, and Sam gave her a sip of water. She ran her tongue across her lower lip.

  “My head is pounding- I’m dizzy.”

  “It will pass. We’re getting your temperature down. You have heat prostration.”

  He could feel her pulse still pounding at a great rate and sent for boys to fan the evening air into the tent. At last he stood up, peeled off his clothes down to his drawers, raised all the tent flaps, and rolled out a carpet between their cots. When he bent over her again, he saw beads of sweat form on her upper lip and forehead, a sign that her body was cooling itself now, and he sent the boys to their meal.

  Florence mumbled that she couldn’t see well, and he murmured assurances until she drifted off to sleep. He stayed at her side and stroked her twitching limbs, losing all sense of time until she woke and whispered that he should go to bed. He stirred some sodium bicarbonate in a glass of water and then lifted her head from the pillow so she could sip it. She sighed and fell asleep.

  Only then did he notice that on the table in front of the tent, Achmed had left his dinner plate with an iron pot inverted over it, and beside it a lantern glowed. Sam washed up and drank a whiskey, then settled himself at the table and read his medical book while he ate. Later he wrote in his journal and lay down on his cot, listening as her breathing eased.

  Finally, he allowed himself to sleep.

  * * *

  Florence awoke in the dark, her pillow pressing hard on the back of her head, her legs heavy, and her belly hollow. But she wasn’t dizzy. She turned her head toward a pale yellow light and saw Sam bending over a book. She didn’t say a word, knowing he would get up and come to her.

  There was no need. He had done enough. She closed her eyes.

  When next she awoke, the light was gone, and she heard him breathing evenly on his cot and felt comforted.

  She awoke to heat and light, and she knew from the intensity of the glare that the sun was high. Panic sent a buzz along her nerves, tightening her stomach and making her head hurt. Hearing Sam’s voice outside, she drew a deep breath.

  “Sam, what are you doing? Sam?” She tried to keep the desperation from her voice. “Sam?”

  His silhouette appeared in a triangle of light as he held back the tent flap.

  “Why didn’t you wake me? We must ride. We can’t stay here.”

  “I’m well enough.”

  “Be calm, dearest. I wanted you to sleep every minute you could. You’ve been very ill. Achmed will bring your breakfast. If you can sit up and eat, maybe we’ll set out later, after the worst of the heat. We will wait, however, as long we need to. We’re less than a day away from Abu Hamed.”

  “You’re so very good to me- I hate being so much trouble.”

  “I don’t like that sort of talk, Florence. We’re human and need each other’s help from time to time.”

  “I know, I know. I’ll try not to say it.”

  By late afternoon when she had eaten a little food and had walked a short distance, she insisted she was well enough for the journey. Her head no longer ached, and she did not admit that her entire body felt bruised and broken. But Sam was firm in his decision to wait until morning.

  The next day, though still weak, she felt able to do a few hours’ ride. Sam rode close by her side, watching and reminding her to take a swallow of water often. As time passed, she kept in mind that the river was near; soon the air would feel fresh, the wind gentle. And the day’s end might mean a cool bath in the tin tub, if not in the river itself.

  Before they could see it they could feel the Nile in the air, and at last the caravan reached Abu Hamed. They unloaded the camels and set up camp, and Achmed and his helpers filled her tub with water before taking their own plunge in the river.

  After dinner, Sam moved the table and brought out pillows, and they lounged like Bedouins on their carpet; Sam poured two glasses of cognac and toasted her with a smile.

  “You are lovely like this, your hair falling free!”

  “And hands and face as dark as a Nubian’s.”

  “Allow me to praise you, Florrie.”

  “Please do. I need it. That sunstroke cost me a good bit of self-regard.”

  “I know the feeling. Illness knocks us off balance and puts the lie to our illusions of immortality. You’ll not find much to match that stretch you came through.”

  “That’s comforting. I can cope with inconvenience and some pain, but I hate being helpless.”

  “Tonight, Florrie, let’s sleep under the stars.”

  “Out here? The camels will watch us.”

  “Yes, out here. Camels have already seen everything. And just look up! Have you ever seen such a sky?”

  She had not. Stars filled the black sky from horizon to horizon, and she felt almost ecstatic, so alive, and not merely well but deliciously healthy again.

  For e
ight days they rode south from Abu Hamed along the Nile. Potable water was not hard to find, and inhabitants cultivated date palms, lemon and fig trees, and a readiness to barter with the travelers. The groves and irrigated croplands mitigated the equatorial heat. At night when they heard the rumble of the sixth cataract, Florence remembered the first of the rapids and dreamed of wind and water on her face and the river pounding the boat under her feet.

  * * *

  Just north of the mouth of the Atbara River, the trade route from Cairo to Khartoum joined one from the Red Sea, a junction that had become a caravansary and the thriving market town of Berber. Slender dahabiahs anchored in the Nile, and traders and travelers from the north and east crowded the market.

  “All these people! Are they Europeans?”

  “Many are. It’s fashionable for the wealthy and adventurous to visit Egypt. Writers come, too – Flaubert and Bayard Taylor, an American poet, and photographers du Camp and Frith and others whose works have given us glimpses of the splendor of its ancient monuments. Cameras and methods for developing the photographs are rapidly improving.”

  “But do they come the way we did?”

  “Probably not. Notice how small those boats are. They can handle the rapids or be transported around them. Some travelers come by way of the Red Sea, too.”

  “But you said Africa is unknown.”

  “Most of it is, and we shall see such parts, my dear. We’ve much ahead of us yet.”

  They camped a few miles south of the town in a place known to their drivers for its kraals for animals and spaces for camps near the river bank. The Atbara River was merely a rivulet in a sheet of glaring sand, but they found a grove of drought-hardy trees and pitched their tent. Florence was happy to be in one place for a while, to read her books and rest.

  Meanwhile, Sam, who needed no rest, took Achmed with him to the Berber market every day. They returned with tins of food from England and apples from somewhere in the north and plums from Eritrea.

  “It’s a busy place, the crossroads, and I am learning a lot from everyone I’ve talked with.”

  “About where we are headed?”

  “For wherever we might choose to go. Traders know Khartoum well and say it’s an interesting place. A trader just in from the Red Sea spoke of the beauty and the temperate climate in Abyssinia and Eritrea.”

  Sam wasn’t ready to talk to her of a plan he’d begun to formulate, and having seen enough of the market for a while, he stayed in camp and attended to paper work. He set up a table under a tree on the bank of the parched river bed and wrote notes for entries in his journal. He tried using some tinted paper to lessen the glare but found it useless. The real problem was that the heat made the sheets so dry they cracked when he folded them. Florence suggested he keep a pot of water boiling nearby, and she brought him a steaming pot of tea. When he held a sheet of paper above it, the page went limp and the ink ran.

  “So much for that dandy innovation!”

  “It seemed to be a good idea. Perhaps a different mixture of colors would make ink that wouldn’t run.”

  “But I’ve no other material for making ink. I shall return to scribbling in my cumbersome books of good rag paper.”

  By mid-day as they strolled along the banks, they saw turtles burrowing into sand and an occasional crocodile lying like a log at the stream’s edge. Sam repeated a story he found hard to believe: the traders said that when the spring flood comes down the Atbara, it transforms the desert in a single night.

  In June, on the first day of summer, Florence and Sam were undressing for bed when they heard the first rumbles, which soon grew to a deafening roar as rocks tumbled and rolled through the ravine east of their camp. They ran out in time to see a wall of water and debris rushing down the riverbed, a cacophony that set off shrieks and whistles from birds and monkeys. Bushbabies howled and squealed as they scurried for high ground, and a hyrax ran into their tent, gazed at the lamp, and abruptly ran out.

  When it became evident that their camp lay well above the flood’s path, they watched in awe as the river spread to its banks, the noise diminished, and a fresh wind swept down its course.

  In the morning they beheld a world transformed. Each barren tree and dry bush was springing to life along the Atbara’s banks. As the parched soil drank the water, tamarind and flame trees sprouted tiny green shoots, and the fresh, moist air smelled of springtime. They walked beside the river to the harbor, where boats rode on high water, and to the market square, where a crowd had gathered.

  A festive mood was evident in the camaraderie among traders who had seen this freshening year after year and travelers who had doubted the stories they’d heard. In shops and cafes many carried or wore a flower bud or a green twig plucked from shrubs.

  Khartoum was only eight days away on the caravan route along the Nile, but Sam now seriously considered a change in their itinerary, a change addressing two major concerns. One concern was Florence’s stamina: Since her sun stroke, he believed she needed more time to become acclimated, but he couldn’t say this to her, lest she blame herself for delaying their journey. The other was a flaw of his own: his insufficient command of Arabic. All along he’d been troubled by difficulties that arose from his dependence on dragoman Mustafa or on Achmed. That must not continue. Almost from the first day on the dahabiah, he had castigated himself for not having enough Arabic to be fully in command, and he vowed to be independent of interpreters. He and Florence, too, must become fluent in Arabic, familiar with its many dialects, and must learn something of the Bantu languages.

  Everything he’d learned suggested that the temperate climate of the Abyssinian highlands would serve as an ideal respite. In addition to the language, he could study the botanical nature of the region, perhaps update Burkhardt’s catalog, and perhaps publish.

  After he’d worked out the details in his mind, they strolled along the river, and he chose the time to present the plan to Florence.

  “Abyssinia’s climate is mild and the terrain beautiful, land so fertile we could grow a garden in no time.”

  ‘‘Sounds inviting,” she responded, but she was watching birds in the trees along the river bank.

  “I used to read John Burkhardt in school,” Sam said. “He was a great botanist who wrote books about Africa fifty years ago. Now few other than traders travel to the highlands because of the emperor and some unruly tribes. It can’t be too bad.”

  “Ummhmm,” she murmured. “Yet, if some traders go …”

  “There’s some trouble between Copts and Muslims.”

  “What was it you told me about Copts?”

  “They’re Christians, fourth century. That priest in the Roman ruin was a Copt.”

  “And what are you saying now?” She had begun to listen.

  “You want to go there? Why now, Sam?”

  “It’s an old civilization, an interesting landscape.” Sam saw he now had Florence’s full attention, for she had stopped in the path and was facing him. “And we’d have time to learn, maybe even to master, Arabic languages.”

  “What about our plan to go as far as we can up the Nile? What’s wrong, Sam? Are you doing this because of my sun stroke? You think I’m not well enough?”

  “Florrie, I have many reasons for not plunging ahead. I’m in dead earnest about the Arabic. As to the rest, yes, I think we could use time to get used to the climate.”

  “I know I am not as vigorous as usual, but I don’t think – I mean this is not necessary!”

  “And I don’t believe you should object to my concern. That aside, you must believe I’m sincere about our preparations. You know I have detested depending on Mustafa. I also think we can have a splendid time.”

  * * *

  During that walk while Sam talked about Abyssinia, Florence had been caught up in memories of Bucharest, of spring bursting upon the gray city, of tiny green buds on trees and shooting up from flower beds. Sam had taken her in his arms, kissed her, awakened her senses. She had wanted
to cry and to laugh and hadn’t understood why.

  She missed Adrianna and the familiar European places and voices. Those days were easier, despite her ignorance, than their life now.

  Adventure could be tiring. A rest might be good for them both, and learning more Arabic would surely be good. She was also certain that their clothing was all wrong for the climate. They had brought lengths of Egyptian cotton, and she meant to turn them into less confining, cooler garments.

  Sam was right. Abyssinia was a good idea.

  Chapter 14

  Abyssinia

  The trader who was familiar with the farthest and least known parts of Africa provided much of the information Sam needed, and all of it supported his decision to take time out. Koorshid Aga assured him that in the most remote parts of Africa, tribes traded with Arabs and knew their languages. He spoke of Abyssinia’s natural beauty and civilized people. Farmers and herders, he said, lived peacefully despite the emperor.

  “I know a European man who has lived for years in Sofi and will be useful to you. If you want to go, I can provide camels and drivers. You are welcome to use my warehouses in Khartoum for any equipment you want held until you return.”

  “Let’s say we have a tentative agreement. Your services meet every need. Ensha Allah, we shall go ahead after I have talked with my companion.”

  “I am honored to serve you; ma el salama!”

  “He’s a true entrepreneur,” Sam told Florence, “ready to do well for himself by making customers happy.”

  “Doesn’t ‘aga’ mean he’s a Turk?”

  “Arabs use ‘Aga’ as an honorific. Koorshid is actually a Circassian from an enclave in the Caucasus Mountains northeast of the Black Sea. Neither Russians nor Turks have ever subdued that wild and independent region.”

  “You believe he’s honest? You trust him?”

  “I do. I asked several reliable men before introducing myself to him, and talking with him convinced me he is both straight-forward and competent. He runs boats up the Nile to Gondokoro, caravans from here to the Red Sea, and sends his traders out from those bases. He may prove valuable to know in future times, too.”