Blue Damask (24 page)

     Elsa got to her feet.  “Rest, Mr. Marshall.  Stay down for a few minutes.” She turned to Sonnenby.  “How long before they come after you?”

     “The plane will fly over Deir El Zor any minute, now that dawn has come.  When the pilot sees that the trucks have been turned over and burned and the machine guns are gone and the bodies mutilated in the streets, he will fly back and report it.  I guess it will take at least three days for the French or the English to mobilize and return with armored cars and more guns and planes.  And bombs.  The English have bombs, but not locally.  They will have to be moved from the depot.  We have three days.”

     “Bombs?”  Elsa hugged herself.

     Sonnenby put an arm over her shoulders.  “We will be gone by then.”

     “Where?”  She looked around.  There was the river to the east.  To the west Damascus and the French regiment.  To the north, El Zor and to the south the desert.

     He squeezed her.  “Don’t worry.”

     Elsa slapped his arm away and took a step back.  “
Zum Teufel
with your ‘don’t worry’!”  Descartes started to laugh but stopped when Elsa glared at him as well. 

     “
Schatze,
” Sonnenby soothed. “We go into the wilderness.  I won’t let them get you.”

     “No,” she said.  “They won’t ‘get me’.  I am not worried that they will ‘
get me’
.”   She ran a hand through her hair and moved past them all to collect her briefcase by the door.  “What about Mr. Mehmet’s wives and children?  There is an infant in there.”  She looked at each of them.

    Sonnenby said something to the remaining tribesmen who apparently agreed, for one of them called to the women inside the house while the other began to fill his water bags at the well.  Sonnenby then said to her, “These men are Mehmet’s cousins.  They will take his family to his brother’s house.  The boys are there already.  Mehmet would have sent them yesterday, but he knew he had you to care for.”

     She was speechless for a moment before she asked, “He endangered his family for me?”

     “He did it for me, actually.”  Sonnenby said before turning around and facing Descartes.  “Who are you?”

     The geologist extended a hand and Sonnenby took it.  “I am Jean-Philippe Descartes, no relation.”

     They shook hands and Sonnenby asked, “What are you doing here?”

     “I am in the employ of the Republic of France.  I am here to look after national interests, much like Mr. Marshall, here.”

     “I see,” Sonnenby said.  “You understand that from the air you will look like an Englishman or a German to the pilots?”

     Descartes laughed without humor.  “As a matter of fact, I do know.  I spent twenty minutes in a
wadi
yesterday pondering that very thought.  I should paint the Eiffel Tower on the top of my hat so at least the French pilots won’t shoot me.”

     “That damned tower looks like a huge oil derrick.” Sonnenby said dryly and Descartes laughed loudly this time.  Sonnenby continued, “You will come with us.  You don’t want to be anywhere near here.  Do you know Maysalun?”

     Descartes’ face became very still and his laughter ended abruptly.  “I was there.”

     “You won’t want to be there again,” Sonnenby said.  “We go south and east.”

     “There are not enough horses.”  Descartes waved a hand at Elsa.

     “She will ride with me.  That your pack?”  He pointed to the canvas pile by the door.

     “It is.”

     “You have food in there?”

     “No,” Descartes’ face fell.  “Mehmet promised me supplies in return for…”  he stopped.

     Sonnenby lifted the edge of the canvas and flipped it back.   His eyes passed over the crates quickly and stopped at the long box.  “Guns.”

     “Some.”

     “More than supplies were offered to pay for this, I think.”  Sonnenby flipped the canvas back to cover the box.

     “Gold, too.”  The two men stared eye to eye.

     “I thought so.  You are a traitor to your government
monsieur
?”

     Elsa thought these might be fighting words so she stepped forward, ready to leap between the two men if necessary to stop a scuffle.  But Descartes appeared to have no reaction to the word ‘traitor’.  They both turned to look at her as she moved.

     “Don’t let him get his hands on you,
monsieur
,” she gasped out.  “He can kill you with his hands.”

     “I am not going to kill him.” Sonnenby appeared puzzled and a little hurt.

     “You pulled a gun on him just now!”

     Descartes broke the tension with a laugh.  “
Mademoiselle, monsieur
, I assure you I am not offended.  And yes, I am a traitor to my government.  I have been in the Levant twenty years.  I have received nothing but courtesy and hospitality and deep friendship from the people here, more so than I ever received at home.”  His voice became bitter.  “After Maysalun I am no longer a Frenchman.”

     Sonnenby extended a hand to him again and Descartes took it.  “We have an understanding, then.”

     “This is outrageous,” Marshall was sitting up, holding his neck.  “We are surrounded by raiders, thieves and murderers.  Look what the Turks did to the Armenians.”

     Sonnenby and Elsa and Descartes stood and stared at him.  Descartes and Sonnenby exchanged a glance and Sonnenby said, “Churchill sent a memo condoning the use of poison gas to exterminate the people who live on top of the oil.  According to my government, the oil belongs to Britain.”

     Descartes said, “According to my government, the oil belongs to France.”

     Marshall held a hand over his throat.  “And there are four corporations who want all of it.  The Germans knew what they were doing, damn them to hell.”

     Elsa, who had never been political in her life, stomped her foot.  “How dare you!  Spices in India, opium in China, diamonds in Africa!  I should…”

     “Please, please,” soothed Descartes, “let us not start another great war.”

     Elsa crossed her arms over her chest.  “Then do not say such things to me.”

     Sonnenby turned away from them and collected Descartes’ pack horse and walked the animal back to the house.  He said softly, “It was the death of your prince that started this whole damned thing,
Schatze
.”

     “His
murder
,” she snapped.  She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.

     Descartes took her elbow.  “Don’t cry, don’t cry,” he wiped her eyes with a handkerchief he took from his pocket.

     Sonnenby stopped.  “What?  Is she crying?”  He dropped the reins and took Elsa away from Descartes and held her to his chest.  “
Schatze, Schatze,
forgive me
.
I only wanted to stop you from arguing with Archie.  Please.”  He stroked her hair and she felt him kiss the top of her head.  “You can never win an argument with Marshall.”

     She sniffed and blinked until the constriction in her throat relaxed enough so she could speak.  “It was unseemly to discuss politics at a time like this.”  At least that is what she meant to say.  It sounded like babbled words to her when they came out of her mouth, but Sonnenby gave her a little squeeze as though he knew what she meant.  But how could he know?  He couldn’t know.

     A hand on her wrist made her turn around again.  Marshall had gotten up and walked over to them.  He was looking at her with sad eyes.  “I am sorry,
Fraulein
Schluss.  Please accept my apology.  I am not myself.”

     She bent her head.  “It is I who should apologize.”

     “Stop.  All of you.  The war is over.”  Descartes had his mare packed and was leading her toward his other horse.

     Marshall pressed his lips together in a straight line and his eyes darted over everything and everyone without moving his neck.  Finally they rested on Elsa.

     “There is something I must do before we leave,” he said to her.

     Sonnenby agreed.  “You need to change your pants.  One moment,” he said.  He stepped into Mehmet’s house and said something in Arabic to the women.  When he came out he held a pair of men’s trousers.  “You can wear these,” he said.  Mehmet will be in Bedouin dress for the rest of his life.  He won’t need these again.”

     Marshall took the trousers from him and both men locked eyes.  “That is not what I meant, but thank you,” he said.

     Elsa immediately went for Marshall’s belt buckle but he stopped her with his hand.  “I can change my own trousers,
fraulein
.”

     She disagreed.  “You should not bend your neck, Mr. Marshall, and you have lost a great deal of blood.  You will need assistance to keep from fainting.”

     “I will help him,” Sonnenby told her.  “There are some things a man would rather not reveal to a woman until he knows her better.”  He was trying to make light of it, but Marshall’s eyes reflected the memory of a Bedouin knife at his throat.  Elsa did not argue.

     Sonnenby held Marshall up against the house with a hand on his shoulder.  Marshall emptied his pockets first then undid his belt and dropped the soiled trousers. Sonnenby knelt to help him step out of his shoes.  Marshall fumbled as he tightened the belt, as if his fingers wouldn’t work properly.

     “You need to rest at least an hour before you can ride again,” she told them both.

     Sonnenby looked to the air.  “The planes will be here before then.  We can’t be close to the house.  We need to get down near the river.”

     “I can ride,” Marshall insisted.

     Descartes called to them.  “Air west!”

     All eyes went to the sky as the low drone of an engine reached them.  Sonnenby took her elbow and pushed her toward his horse.  “Get on,” he said.  “We leave now.  I will take care of Arch.”

     Elsa rode astride behind Sonnenby on his horse.  Two planes circled Deir El Zor to the northwest.  They could hear the faint rattle of their guns. Neither of the planes broke away to fly along the river, but Descartes said the next group that arrived would be more thorough.  He led the way down to the river and to a wide shallow flat some miles downstream from Mehmet’s house.

     Near noon they had travelled far enough from Deir El Zor that Sonnenby felt it was safe to stop and water the horses at the river’s edge.

     Elsa was concerned. “Mr. Marshall should not be so filthy with such a wound.  Is there no time to bathe? Can we not rest?  Look at him.  He is going to fall from his horse.”

     “Stop,” he called and the others reined in their horses.  The animals immediately dropped their heads and began to work on the river grass.  Sonnenby signaled for her to slide off the horse’s rump.  Her feet hit the soft ground at the water’s edge and sunk a few inches, soaking her shoes.  It felt wonderful.  He said to the others, “We will stop here for an hour, then continue.  Rest the horses,” he added, with a glance at Marshall.

     Elsa took off her shoes and untied her sash.  The current was too strong for her to go into the river, but at the edge she was able to pour water over head with a small cooking pot that Descartes gave her.  She rinsed days of sand, dust and grit from her hair, then worked on washing what she could of the rest of her without soap and without taking off her dress.  To the left and the right of her she could see the men doing the same.  Marshall would need help.  She would bring some water and some cloth to him when she was finished.

     Sonnenby said they were going south and east along the Euphrates.  There was no bridge and the river was too deep in the middle for horses.  They could cross, but would have to leave the animals behind unless they could find a ferry.  There were plenty of fishermen who would carry a person across for a small fee, but Sonnenby said it would be too dangerous to be seen and reported.

     She wondered what he had planned. She squeezed the leather shoes, wringing as much water from them as she could.  In this dry air, nothing stayed wet very long.  Her shoes would dry on her feet.  Her hair was another matter.  It needed it be combed as it dried or it would knot up.  She divided the wet mass into three segments and braided them over one shoulder and down over her breasts.  She tied the end with a thong as tightly as possible.

     The sun had tanned her face, but burned the end of her nose.  She touched it lightly and winced.  Her veil was thick enough to protect her head and cheeks most of the time, but unless she wrapped her whole face her nose took the full on blast from the desert sun.  She squinted up at it now.   It was April.  She could only imagine the inferno of August.

     She finished with her hair and veil and scooped up some water for Marshall. She brought a pan of water to him.  He sat upright in the grass near his horse.  He tried to smile at her but it was more like a grimace.

     “You’ll feel better if you get some of this sand and dirt and blood off.”  She looked at his shredded coat and vest.  He must have been slashed several times in a knife fight before going down.

     She dipped a clean cloth in the pot of water and wiped Marshall’s cheek and ear carefully over the wound. The bandage she had put there this morning was still good, and she didn’t want to disturb it for at least a day.  She opened his bloody shirt through the slashes to get at his neck and chest.

     Marshall watched her bathe him without moving his head.  “I have something I need to do before we go too much farther.”

     “Is that so?”  She finished his chest, then picked up his hand and wiped the crusted blood from his nail beds and between his fingers.  She dipped the cloth in the water again.  “What could you possibly need to do?  We are out in the wilds of Syria about to be strafed by the French and the English in their cold-blooded flying machines.”  She wrung out the cloth and began on the other hand.

     “I hold Sonnenby’s power of attorney,” he said.

     She wiped his hand and it started to bleed from a defensive cut across the palm.  There had been so much dried blood on his hands she had not seen the thin wound before.  She held it to the sun to see it better.  “I need to get something on this,” she murmured to herself.

     “Elsa.”

     She looked at him.

     “I hold his power of attorney.”

     “Yes. I heard you.”

     “If anything happens to me, he is helpless.  Helpless.  Do you understand?”  His face was deadly serious.

     “No,” she told him.  “I do not understand.  It must be important, though.  You are quite flushed now.”  She put her hand on his forehead.

     “I want to transfer durable power of attorney to you.” He swallowed painfully.  “Right now.”

     Elsa sat up straight.  “What?”

     “I have calculated the odds, and you are the one most likely to survive.  I must create a document that gives you power of attorney.  If I die Sonnenby will have no rights.  He is
non compos mentis
right now.  Do you know what that means for him?”

     “I know exactly what that means,” Elsa said.  She released his hand.

     Marshall continued, “He has no legal rights, his property is held in trust by the crown.  He can sign no documents, he can engage in no contracts.  Do you see?  He can be sent back to St. Mary’s and no one could get him out again.  Ever.”  His eyes turned inward.  He touched his neck with two fingers and murmured to himself, “it was that close.”

     “I am an Austrian citizen,” she wondered.  “Will it be legally binding?”

     “If you sign it and Descartes witnesses it.  If it is challenged, at least there would be some legal proceedings that might get him re-evaluated by a court-ordered doctor.  Say you will sign it.”

     She nodded.  “I will.”

     “Don’t tell him.”

     “I won’t.”  She finished cleaning his hands and forearms.

     Marshall said, “Descartes has paper and ink.   I will draw it up tonight.”

     She patted his shoulder.  “Rest.”  Elsa stood and made her way back to the other men

     Sonnenby greeted her with a smile.  “How is he doing?”

     “He will be fine if the wound does not become infected.”

     “Good.”

     “When will we stop for the night?”

     He pointed down river.  “There is a village a few hours from here, but I am not sure we should stay there.  I want to stop within walking distance, and then go in after sunset to hear the news and buy some food.”

     The sun was very low when Sonnenby called for them to stop and take the saddles from the horses.  He and Descartes set up a fireless camp in a circle around the pile of supplies and put three of the horses on pickets.  He kept Marshall’s horse saddled. Elsa and Marshall were put near the wall of the river basin.  Descartes sat between them and the river, cleaning his pistol before the sun set.  Sonnenby walked up and down the river looking to the darkening east.  Elsa guessed that was where Mehmet had gone.

     Marshall sat very still.  Elsa had her briefcase on her knees and unclasped it.  “I have some laudanum, Mr. Marshall.”

     “That was supposed to be for Lord Sonnenby.”

     “Yes, well apparently he doesn’t need it.”

     “You think he is cured?”

     “Laudanum is not a cure, Mr. Marshall.  Just a sedative.  Everyone needs that sometimes.”

     “I know what laudanum is.”

     “Do you want some?”

     He turned his shoulders instead of his neck to get a better view of the river valley.  “Do you think they will come tonight?”

     “No.  Lord Sonnenby said it would be days before they could get an army to the river, and we are already a day away from El Zor.”

     “I’m not talking about the French.  Or the English.”

     “Oh.”  Elsa frowned, as Sonnenby had said nothing to her about what Mehmet was doing, or where he was.  Or when he might show up.  And with how many tribesmen.

     “Best leave the laudanum in your case.  I want to do some writing tonight.”

     She leaned back against the ravine wall and relaxed.  A cool breeze from the water stirred as the sun set and blew welcome relief over them.  Descartes finished with his pistol and relaxed as well.  The landscape was silent but for the cry of some river birds and the sound of the water.  The crunching of the horses on the tall grass added bucolic sounds to the evening.  “Hard to think of this as a war zone,” she murmured.  “It is so peaceful.”

     Sonnenby marched toward them and picked up the reins of Marshall’s horse.  He swung into the saddle and said to Descartes, “I may be gone a few hours.  Be concerned if I am not back at midnight.”  He cued the horse and took off to the south at a gallop.

     Marshall sat propped against the clay wall of the ravine, his knees drawn up to make a support for the writing board Descartes loaned him.  He worked slowly, dipping the pen and keeping his hand steady.

     Elsa watched him until it was too dark to see.  They were not to build a fire, but there was nothing to build one with anyway.  How did people cook without wood or charcoal?  She wondered what had been in the brazier in Mehmet’s house.  Kerosene?  She told herself she wasn’t hungry.

     Marshall let out a long sigh and handed her the pen.  He pointed to the bottom of the page and Elsa signed without reading it.  Descartes lowered himself to a crouch beside them, she handed him the pen and he signed with a flourish.  Marshall blew on the paper and stared at it in the fading light.  “A man’s life in ink.”

     Descartes agreed.  “I don’t know how he ended up insane.  He seems perfectly normal to me.”

     Marshall looked up at him.  “We think we own our lives, don’t we?”

     Descartes rubbed his chin before he lurched to his feet and walked down to the river where the pack horse was picketed.

     Elsa leaned forward, looking closely at Marshall’s face.  His eyes were wrong.  She said, “Lord Sonnenby wouldn’t leave us here if he thought we were in danger.  Let me give you some of the laudanum.  You will feel much better.  Just a little, to take the edge off, Mr. Marshall.  Suffering is not good for the soul.  It just makes the soul hurt.”

     He opened his hand on the grass as an answer and Elsa put the bottle of laudanum in it.  Marshall tipped the little bottle and handed it back to her.

     “Thank you again.”

     “
Bitte
,” she said as tucked it away in the case.  She smiled as she caressed the cover of the briefcase.  “I am so relieved to have this back.”

     “I am pleased as well.  Put this in it.”  He handed her the power of attorney.

     “You know,” she started thoughtfully as she tucked it away with Sonnenby’s files, “That missing photograph of Lady Sonnenby was in Mehmet’s house.”  She didn’t mention the letters.

     “Fascinating.”  Marshall said.

Elsa hoped he was resting better.  “Yes.  It is difficult to imagine Lady Sonnenby here in this wilderness,” she said.

     “She used to come frequently in the winter.”

     “Oh?  Did you know her?”

     “We had been introduced.  Lord Sonnenby and I conducted business in town.  We did not socialize.  She died the year I joined the Foreign Service.”

     “How did she die?  Was she ill?”  This was a question she had wanted to ask Sonnenby, but never had a chance to approach it properly.  One did not just dig at a damaged psyche with a dagger.  It must be done with finesse.  She was sorry she could not analyze Lord Sonnenby properly, asking him to keep a dream journal and having him come to her office every week to talk to her about his fears.

     “She died suddenly.  A fall I believe.”

     Elsa sat up.  “A
fall
?”

     “Yes.  She fell from a height.  Not the stair, though.  I think it may have been a balcony of some sort.”

     She asked, “Does Lord Sonnenby have a history of seizures?”

     “Oh, no.”  Marshall said.  “There was no evidence he ever had seizures.”

     “And his father?”

     “Which father?”

     “Mehmet’s father.”

     “Not that I know of, though I am not sure that sort of information would have made it into the records.  Why?”

     “Something drops him like a rock, like a seizure.  Very unusual. Perhaps a brain injury or a heart condition, or sudden loss of blood pressure. I will need a sphygmometer to know for sure. I am afraid I have been doing most of my analysis of Lord Sonnenby without him being present.”

     Marshall gave a short laugh.  “It was not supposed to be this way.  We were supposed to have a dull five days of travel culminating in a speech, a celebratory dinner and a departure.”  He made himself more comfortable propped against the earth wall.  “Now look where we are.  Far from a ballroom,
fraulein
.  Far from those delightful flutes of champagne.”

     She changed the subject. “What else can you tell me about Lady Sonnenby?  I can see that she was very beautiful.”