Nile Shadows

You're making things up again, said Big Belle. The year was 1878, the year Pius IX died. You're trying to move up dates to make yourself seem younger than you are.

Thick-thighed, whispered Little Alice.

Belle gazed at her sister affectionately.

I'll have you know the men I've been acquainted with have always preferred women with some meat on their bones.

Tra-la, twittered Alice. And especially the bones women sit on?

And what's that supposed to mean?

Just that if they hadn't fancied a plump bottom to begin with, they wouldn't have been coming around to see you in the first place. After all, you were known as Big Belle for a reason.

Belle smiled with satisfaction.

On that account, I never heard a single complaint from any man. They were always pleased and often ecstatic.

I'm sure they were, said Alice. Why wouldn't they be? Those kinds of men always did prefer you.

When men go oystering, replied Belle, there are those kind and then there are the other kind. And as I recall, the latter were always talking about you in the cafes. Pretty Little Alice and her pretty little mouth. Oh I remember.

Do you now? But how did you know what they were saying in the cafes, Belle? I always thought cafes were for silly people and you only went into town to see your stockbroker?

And a good thing I did, too. If I hadn't, I can't imagine where we'd be today. The Lord only knows what would have become of us if our future had been left in your hands.

Belle, really. This houseboat was a gift to whom, I might ask?

And who has paid the bills on it for the last forty years, if I might ask?

Alice tossed her head.

Money has never meant anything to me, that's true enough. I've always been a gypsy at heart. Who cares about money? Who cares?

Belle sniffed.

That's easy for you to say. Nothing more substantial than a daydream has ever meant anything to you.

Dimitri, mused Alice. His ironing woman was a Copt, I remember. She had the Coptic cross tattooed on her wrists and she spoke Italian because she'd been educated by nuns.

You'd be the one to know, said Belle. You always did like to poke around in the servants' quarters.

Because I always found them interesting, that's why. More interesting than the people who strut in drawing rooms and put on airs. Servants have fascinating things to tell you. That's where I learned to read hands and Tarot cards.

Put on airs? What's that supposed to mean?

Just that that Croat or whatever he was, that Dimitri, was a terrible bore. Oh Belle, he was. Admit it for once.

He was Montenegrin and fabulously wealthy, and if you'd had an ounce of sense you could have asked him for that villa and he would have given it to you, instead of just those little porcelain trinkets.

Money money money, never anything but money. I like my shepherdesses and I don't give a hoot about money.

Of course you don't, why should you? Haven't I always been here to see that we're provided for?

But he was such a bore, Belle. All he could talk about was his tedious researches into the Balkan aristocracy. I mean really, who could care about such a ludicrous notion? That and his daubs, as he called them, those cheap paintings he bought in Europe and insisted on attributing to unknown pupils of various seventeenth-century masters. Dimitri indeed. That Croat.

You may say that now, but I'll have you know the stocks I recommended he give you that Christmas paid excellent dividends for decades. Right up until the last war, thank you.

Well you ought to thank me, Belle. If there were any dividends, I certainly earned them. Do you know he actually told me once that Albania was a good place to buy paintings? Ah ha, I thought, now it's all going to come out. A mysterious tale about stolen masterpieces and a secret castle high in the Albanian Alps known only to dissolute Russian princes and unscrupulous Levantine art dealers. That's what I imagined, but when I asked him why Albania was a good place to buy paintings, his answer was that they were cheap there. Can you believe it? Of course paintings were cheap in Albania, why wouldn't they be? What kind of a painting could you have found in Albania sixty years ago? Or today, for that matter? Of course they were cheap, how ridiculous. They were utterly worthless.

Stop prattling, said Belle. There are no Alps in Albania. Don't become overexcited just because we have a male guest, you're not a fifteen-year-old flirt anymore. Stop squirming and try to compose yourself.

Would you like more sherry?

I think I will have a little more. Being reminded of Dimitri makes me thirsty. . . . Arghh. Always that sticky starchy taste gumming up my throat before the guests arrived for dinner. And there was never any relief from it. An hour later, between soup and fish, just when I was beginning to be able to swallow normally again, Dimitri would come prancing down to my end of the table and wiggle his eyebrows and whisper something about a quick private stroll down to the bushes at the end of the garden. Between soup and fish, mind you, and I would even have to make up the excuse we gave our guests. Dimitri indeed. . . . Arghh. What a Croat. You're right that there was nothing aristocratic about the way he got through a dinner.

Belle had put aside her knitting and was stiffly crossing the room to Alice's chair, a decanter in her hand.

Her left arm was hanging down in some strange way, Joe noticed, and she almost seemed to be dragging her left foot. She poured from the decanter into Alice's glass.

Is that all I get, just a half? My throat's suddenly dry as can be.

Your nerves, dear. Remember what the doctor said.

He's a silly young fool.

That's as it may be, but we know what happens when you drink too much sherry. Remember what happened that last evening with Dimitri.

I do remember too, said Alice. We were getting to the end of dinner and the savory was just about to be brought in, when Dimitri came prancing down to my end of the table and wiggled his eyebrows and whispered the usual whisper, and I just stood up and smiled and spoke very clearly to the guests, most of whom were his business associates.

Please excuse us, dears, but Dimitri simply insists we race down to the end of the garden so I can taste his very own savory behind the bushes, the sticky starchy kind, tra-la. But start right in because we'll be back in a minute. Dimitri's always very fast in the garden, or anywhere.

Little Alice laughed.

And that was the last I saw of him and his boring stockbroker crowd. Dimitri bolted faster than he'd ever done anything in his life, even behind the bushes.

Alice, said Belle affectionately. Try to behave yourself. I just can't imagine what Joe must be thinking.

Belle was stiffly, slowly, returning to her chair. Was her face set like that because of pain? wondered Joe.

Alice emptied her sherry glass at a gulp. She smiled across the room at Joe.

I did drink too much sherry that evening, she confided, and I am excitable. And I'm also impulsive and changeable and not the most practical person in the world, just as Belle says. But we are what we are, aren't we? Belle has a head for solid facts and dates and things like that, and I just don't. When I remember things I think of colors and patterns and impressions. It's just the way I am.

Belle had resumed her knitting. Joe noticed her loving glance at her sister.

You used to paint beautifully, said Belle.

Oh no, not beautifully, but I enjoyed it and that was the important thing. It was a way of expressing myself. I