Nile Shadows

Oh, and one other thing, added Ahmad.

Be careful not to make any stray remarks about Catherine the Great or Cleopatra, or about lost family fortunes or about someone called Uncle George. At least not until you have a sound feel for the conversation. I'm not sure those topics are still sensitive, but they might be. Of course, any allusion to human height or size would be out of the question, just cause for immediate dismissal from their queendom, but I don't have to tell you that.

Ahmad smiled happily. He sighed.

They're foolish old dears, no doubt about it. But they're a rare pair and basically very friendly, and certainly likable when you get to know them.

Precisely, agreed Liffy, nodding. All rumors have verified that since long before Churchill got out of short pants and began reaching toward the tiller.

He turned back to Joe.

Now then. Let's start at the beginning again and make sure we've left nothing out, because memories which include everything can be tricky.

Liffy paused.

Now in the beginning there was Egypt and the Nile, and the Sphinx and the pyramids. . . But also in the beginning, strangely, curiously, there were these two tiny women, twins, called Big Belle and Little Alice.

And in the beginning these sisters, who are the Sisters . . .

***

Free the serfs, thundered Big Belle to no one in particular as she moved stiffly across the room, the declaration apparently a mere pleasantry meant to take the place of a remark on the weather.

Of the two tiny sisters, Big Belle was slightly shorter. But she was also bulkier, which perhaps explained why she was commonly known as Big to her sister Alice's Little, although neither one of them was ever so known to her face, according to Ahmad. Both of the tiny ancient women were wearing old shawls and cotton slippers.

Big Belle stopped in front of the chair where Joe was sitting and held out a glass, her face severe.

You said whiskey, young man. Will that do? It's Irish, but I have to warn you, it's Protestant. Jameson's.

Can you manage?

I can, said Joe. As far as I'm concerned, drink is beyond tribal strife.

Big Belle put her hands on her hips and beamed. Standing, she seemed about as tall as Joe was sitting.

Good for you, she boomed. I always appreciate a man who leaves politics and religion at home when he comes calling on a woman.

Chirping noises rose from across the room, from the chair where Little Alice was sitting.

Women, trilled Little Alice. When a man comes calling on women. You know as well as I do, Belle, that Joe came to call on both of us. He brought two beautiful nosegays, or are you trying to ignore that?

Little Alice smiled sweetly across the room at Joe.

You'll have to forgive my sister, she chirped. Belle's so short, poor dear, she sometimes tries to forget there are taller women in the room. But I suppose it's only human nature to try to ignore the things that bother us. I'm almost five feet tall, you see, and I've always had a willowy figure.

Big Belle still stood with her hands on her hips, beaming, in front of Joe.

You're not a hair over four-feet-eleven, she called out over her shoulder, and you've been skinny since the day you were born.

Little Alice sat up straight in her chair.

Well at least I'm not four-feet-ten like some people, and I've never been stout because of all the chocolates I eat.

Better than that dairy mess you pick at, boomed Belle over her shoulder.

Yogurt is very healthy, Alice called out. And it has always kept me willowy.

Willowy? thundered Belle. How can anyone who's four-feet-eleven be willowy? Anyway, I'm sure Joe didn't come here to hear about your obsession with being skinny.

Belle smiled at Joe.

You'll have to forgive my sister. The reason she starves herself into being skinny is because she thinks it makes her look younger. Can't face her age, never could. Younger sisters are like that, I suppose. Just desperate to stay young forever.

How much younger is she? asked Joe in a normal tone of voice. The two sisters had been shouting at each other across the room, apparently because one of them was hard of hearing.

How much younger? said Belle. Eight minutes, more or less. But the way she talks, you'd think it was forty years.

Some people whisper, Alice called out, because they're afraid their lies will be overheard. Where's your knitting, Belle?

Belle left Joe and went to look for it. Joe sipped his whiskey and gazed around the room.

***

It was an unusual sitting room they had led him to, an airy old-fashioned sunroom on the side of the houseboat that faced the river. High narrow windows rose one beside the other from floor to ceiling, interrupted in the middle by a windowed alcove where a pair of tall French doors, as tall as the windows, opened onto a narrow veranda beside the water. The moon had already set at that late hour, but since the sunroom was mostly windows and all the curtains were pulled back, the stars and their reflections off the water would have been more than enough to have lit the parlor. A few candles flickered here and there but their only purpose seemed to be romantic, to cast a soft play of shadows over the scene.

Most of the furniture in the room was made of light airy wicker, ghostlike and insubstantial, painted white.

Occasionally some handsome old mahogany piece would turn up in the dream, solidly rooted among the floating wicker shapes.

A small portrait of Catherine the Great hung at one end of the room, a portrait of Cleopatra at the other end. Both had been done long ago in pen and ink, apparently by the same artist, and both were badly faded. The portraits weren't meant to be realistic, the figures represented being strictly Victorian in dress and concept, the one imperial and opulent and haughty, an autocratic woman at court, the other playful and hinting at sensual delights in a vaguely Oriental manner, thoroughly proper in keeping with Victorian precepts, yet also suggestive of the hidden recesses of a nineteenth-century Turkish harem.

Both portraits, in fact, might have been meant to represent unsuspected aspects of a giggly little Queen Victoria in the frolicsome days of her youth, before she took on the burdens of empire, the tiny future queen having decided to succumb to fantasy one rainy afternoon in some castle or other, and abandoned herself to the secret joys of dressing up, as little girls were known to do. This impression was reinforced by the fact that the young faces in the two portraits were close enough in appearance to be the faces of twins. Tiny twins. Yet even in the portraits, the girlish figure of Catherine the Great was noticeably bulkier than the girlish figure of Cleopatra.

There was also a beautiful antique harpsichord in one corner of the parlor.

All together the sunroom was a magical setting by starlight, despite the number of wicker chairs and wicker settees crammed into it. Joe guessed that as many as thirty or forty people could have found a place to sit in the room at any one time, more if any degree of intimacy had been allowed. Of course the Sisters had been famous hostesses when they were younger, so perhaps this vast array of spectator seats beside the Nile was only to be expected.

Yet with only the three of them now in the room, a certain melancholy air to the parlor was unmistakable.

An inevitable feeling of time having slipped away on the currents beyond the open French doors, taking with it a host of memories of laughter and gaiety and leaving behind these hauntingly empty wicker shapes as ghostly reminders of other worlds and other eras, forgotten now elsewhere surviving only in the hearts of these two tiny ancient women.

Big Belle found her knitting and stiffly arranged herself in a wicker chair beneath the portrait of Catherine the Great. Little Alice cocked her head at the portrait of Cleopatra and nodded wistfully, as if hearing some echo flit