arrived at the double doorway to the Grande Suite. The newlyweds were also newly shod, he noticed: he in patent black with buckles, she in gold sandals flung impatiently where they lay. Impelled by a lifetime of obedience, Jonathan stooped and placed them side by side.
Reaching the top floor, he put his ear to Frau Loring's door and heard the braying of a British military pundit over the hotel's cable network. He knocked. She was wearing her late husband's dressing gown over her nightdress. Coffee was glugging on a ring. Sixty years of Switzerland had not altered her High German by a single explosive consonant.
"They are children. But they are fighting, so they are men," she announced in his mother's perfect accents, handing him a cup.
The British television pundit was moving model soldiers round a sandbox with the fervour of a convert.
"So the Tower Suite is full of whom tonight?" asked Frau Loring, who knew everything.
"Oh, some English mogul and his cohorts. Roper. Mr. Roper and party. And one lady half his age."
"The staff say she is exquisite."
"I didn't look."
"And quite unspoilt. Natural."
"Well, they should know."
She was studying him the way she always did when he sounded casual. Sometimes she seemed to know him better than he knew himself.
"You are glowing tonight. You could light a city. What is going on inside you?"
"I expect it's the snow."
"So nice the Russians are on our side at last. No?"
"It's a great diplomatic achievement."
"It's a miracle," Frau Loring corrected him. "And like most miracles, nobody believes in it."
She handed him his coffee and sat him firmly in his usual chair. Her television set was enormous, bigger than the war.
Happy troops waving from armoured personnel carriers. More missiles racing prettily to their mark. The sibilant shuffle of tanks. Mr. Bush taking another encore from his admiring audience.
"You know what I feel when I watch war?" Frau Loring asked.
"Not yet," he said tenderly. But she seemed to have forgotten what she had meant to say.
Or perhaps Jonathan does not hear it, for the clarity of her assertions reminds him irresistibly of Sophie. The joyful fruition of his love for her is forgotten. Even Luxor is forgotten.
He is back in Cairo for the final awful act.
He is standing in Sophie's penthouse, dressed--what the hell does it matter what I wore?--dressed in this very dinner jacket, while a uniformed Egyptian police inspector and his two plainclothes assistants eye him with the borrowed stillness of the dead. The blood is everywhere, reeking like old iron. On the walls, on the ceiling and divan. It is spilled like wine across the dressing table. Clothes, clocks, tapestries, books in French and Arabic and English, gilt mirrors, scents and ladies' paint--all have been trashed by a gigantic infant in a tantrum.
Sophie herself is by comparison an insignificant feature of this havoc. Half crawling, perhaps toward the open French windows leading to her white roof garden, she lies in what the Army First Aid Manual used to call the recovery position, with her head on her outstretched arm, a counterpane draped across her lower body, and over the upper part the remnants of a blouse or nightdress, of which the colour is unlikely ever to be known. Other policemen are doing other things, none with much conviction. One man is leaning over the parapet of the roof garden, apparently in search of a culprit. Another is fiddling with the door of Sophie's wall safe, making it plop as he works it back and forth across its smashed hinges. Why do they wear black holsters? Jonathan wonders. Are they night people too?
From the kitchen a man's voice is talking Arabic into the telephone. Two more policemen guard the front door, leading to the landing, where a bunch of first-class cruise passengers in silk dressing gowns and face-cream stare indignantly at their protectors. A uniformed boy with a notebook takes a statement.
A Frenchman is saying he will call his lawyer.
"Our
Reaching the top floor, he put his ear to Frau Loring's door and heard the braying of a British military pundit over the hotel's cable network. He knocked. She was wearing her late husband's dressing gown over her nightdress. Coffee was glugging on a ring. Sixty years of Switzerland had not altered her High German by a single explosive consonant.
"They are children. But they are fighting, so they are men," she announced in his mother's perfect accents, handing him a cup.
The British television pundit was moving model soldiers round a sandbox with the fervour of a convert.
"So the Tower Suite is full of whom tonight?" asked Frau Loring, who knew everything.
"Oh, some English mogul and his cohorts. Roper. Mr. Roper and party. And one lady half his age."
"The staff say she is exquisite."
"I didn't look."
"And quite unspoilt. Natural."
"Well, they should know."
She was studying him the way she always did when he sounded casual. Sometimes she seemed to know him better than he knew himself.
"You are glowing tonight. You could light a city. What is going on inside you?"
"I expect it's the snow."
"So nice the Russians are on our side at last. No?"
"It's a great diplomatic achievement."
"It's a miracle," Frau Loring corrected him. "And like most miracles, nobody believes in it."
She handed him his coffee and sat him firmly in his usual chair. Her television set was enormous, bigger than the war.
Happy troops waving from armoured personnel carriers. More missiles racing prettily to their mark. The sibilant shuffle of tanks. Mr. Bush taking another encore from his admiring audience.
"You know what I feel when I watch war?" Frau Loring asked.
"Not yet," he said tenderly. But she seemed to have forgotten what she had meant to say.
Or perhaps Jonathan does not hear it, for the clarity of her assertions reminds him irresistibly of Sophie. The joyful fruition of his love for her is forgotten. Even Luxor is forgotten.
He is back in Cairo for the final awful act.
He is standing in Sophie's penthouse, dressed--what the hell does it matter what I wore?--dressed in this very dinner jacket, while a uniformed Egyptian police inspector and his two plainclothes assistants eye him with the borrowed stillness of the dead. The blood is everywhere, reeking like old iron. On the walls, on the ceiling and divan. It is spilled like wine across the dressing table. Clothes, clocks, tapestries, books in French and Arabic and English, gilt mirrors, scents and ladies' paint--all have been trashed by a gigantic infant in a tantrum.
Sophie herself is by comparison an insignificant feature of this havoc. Half crawling, perhaps toward the open French windows leading to her white roof garden, she lies in what the Army First Aid Manual used to call the recovery position, with her head on her outstretched arm, a counterpane draped across her lower body, and over the upper part the remnants of a blouse or nightdress, of which the colour is unlikely ever to be known. Other policemen are doing other things, none with much conviction. One man is leaning over the parapet of the roof garden, apparently in search of a culprit. Another is fiddling with the door of Sophie's wall safe, making it plop as he works it back and forth across its smashed hinges. Why do they wear black holsters? Jonathan wonders. Are they night people too?
From the kitchen a man's voice is talking Arabic into the telephone. Two more policemen guard the front door, leading to the landing, where a bunch of first-class cruise passengers in silk dressing gowns and face-cream stare indignantly at their protectors. A uniformed boy with a notebook takes a statement.
A Frenchman is saying he will call his lawyer.
"Our
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