Nile Shadows

Someday she may finish it, I don't know.

Shyly, Alice looked up.

Or maybe not? Maybe she can't bring herself to finish it and the story of Alexander the Great will just go on and on forever, like the Nile?

Little Alice smiled.

It's true that people are affected by where they live, and we've lived here so long it's almost like a dream.

Oh yes, we're ancient and we know it. Sometimes I think we're as old as the pyramids, so much has passed by us here.

She laughed.

But I'm chattering again, aren't I? Belle's right, I just can't help myself. But you see I never wanted to become old and even now I don't feel old, even though I look a hundred and ten, more or less. I know it sounds strange, but inside I feel exactly the same as I did when I used to go for my runs early in the morning and I'd come back and find Belle sitting on the porch, reading, and Mother would bring us cookies and milk. Inside, it's still me.

Little Alice frowned.

And I could never picture myself living like those little old ladies you used to see around here, who never appeared in public until the sun went down. You used to see them gathering like old crows on the corners of small empty streets just after sunset, shaking their ancient hats and chatting in French with Greek or Armenian accents, or Syrian or Maltese accents, and then they'd go strolling off in a cluster along the flowered railings to their daily card game in some damp darkened room that you knew would be cluttered with heavy Moorish-style furniture, the arabesques and mother-of-pearl gleaming feebly in the gloom, the fragile inlaid filigree all gummed up with dust.

I hate dark rooms, whispered Little Alice. And I don't want to look like an old crow in some ridiculous old- fashioned hat, and I hate those tiresome card games old women play and the heavy gloomy furniture that always goes with them. I like things light and airy and I never wanted to be old, and somehow I've never been able to picture myself that way. I know I'm as ancient as the hills but I don't feel that way. I feel as if I'm just still me.

Little Alice abruptly smiled.

But here I am prattling again. Tell me, do you like Egypt? It's changed so much since we first came here.

Originally, Belle and I were on the stage and that's why we never married. In those days actresses never got into families. Nowadays it's different, but it used to be like that.

You must have been very young when you came to Egypt, said Joe.

Oh yes, we were. With white camellias in our shining dark hair. And it was unforgettable, that first sparkling winter we were here, nearly three-quarters of a century ago.

Was it that long ago?

Yes, that's when it was. We came for the opening of Aida, for the first performance of Aida that was ever given anywhere. But we didn't come as wealthy tourists or as the guests of someone who was wealthy. We were poor then and we didn't know a soul in Egypt and we came as slave-girls in Aida, just two little slave-girls off at the back of the stage. Aida opened at the khedivial opera house in honor of the opening of the Suez Canal, and there were guests from all over the world in Cairo then, and not one of them paid a penny for anything. Everything was free, given by the Magnificent, the khedive Ismail. The shops and hotels all over Egypt just sent in their bills to the minister of finance, who paid the lot of them without a murmur. The road to the pyramids was built then, so the Empress Eugenie could visit them in her carriage.

Little Alice nodded to herself.

And even though we were just slave-girls in the production, we began to attract a certain amount of attention, because we were twins, I suppose. And before long we were being invited around to dinners and to sunset sails on the Nile, and then later came the beautiful houses, the villas that were museums of china and carpets, the rarest in the world. And Belle had her residences and I had mine, and it was lavish, I can tell you. We used to call on each other in our carriages or meet along the river somewhere, and then in the evenings we'd be sitting in our separate boxes at the opera, in the first tier, our breasts covered with diamonds and every pair of glasses in the house turning from one of us to the other, looking to see what we were wearing and watching to see which gentlemen we spoke to, and with how much enthusiasm.

Little Alice smiled shyly.

People used to talk about us in those days but I don't suppose they do anymore. I don't suppose people even remember we're still alive.

Oh yes they do, said Joe. And there are all kinds of mysterious tales about the mysterious sisters who live in a rambling houseboat on the Nile.

Little Alice clapped her hands in delight.

There are? Still? Even though we're a hundred and ten, more or less?

Little Alice grew wistful.

What kinds of tales? Where do they say we came from?

Ah, now that's the most mysterious part of all. Nobody claims to know where you really came from, but one story is that you were Russian princesses running away from a family scandal. An uncle had gambled everything away in Nice, or some such thing, so friends bundled the two of you into a sealed train in St Petersburg one cold winter night, at the Finland Station, and you went abroad with the best of old Russia in your suitcases and never went back again.

It sounds like a nineteenth-century novel, whispered Alice happily.

It does, doesn't it? And then there's a totally different story, just as intriguing, about the two of you being Hungarian actresses who went to Paris at a young age and became a hit there. And another story begins in Venice, and another in Vienna, and just on and on. There's no end to them really, and one is more exotic than the other.

Little Alice smiled, looking down at her hands.

Just imagine, she murmured. Isn't that lovely. . . . Uncle George would have liked that, she added with great feeling.

And who was Uncle George, said Joe, if you don't mind my asking?

No, I don't mind. We loved him a great deal and we both like to talk about him now. It didn't used to be so easy. . . . He was our mother's brother and he was the only relative we had, the only family. He ran the pub in the village where we grew up. It wasn't much of a pub but that's what we used to call it. When Belle and I were children we cleaned up for him there. We mopped the floors and carried in the firewood and did the washing up. We always thought it was very exciting to be in such an adult place.

You were English, then, originally?

Yes, from a little village near York. Our father had worked in a factory and he was killed in an accident when we were babies, so Mother took us back to her village. The only thing we ever knew about our father was that he was a laborer and drank a lot because he was unhappy. Mother never talked about him, Uncle George told us what we know. Apparently our father used to beat Mother when he drank, we overheard Mother and Uncle George talking about it once. And then after he died Mother made quilts and things like that to sell, but it was really Uncle George who made life possible for us. He was a bachelor and he helped out with our food and our clothes and other things, and the presents Santa Claus gave us at Christmas, and the presents we received on our birthday, were always from Uncle George.

It was Uncle George's cottage that we lived in when Mother took us back to her village. It was small so he moved out back into the shed and let us use the cottage. He made wonderful things with his hands, mostly for us, but he must have been unhappy too because he also drank a lot. He was a kind man and very gentle and he was always so good to us. When we were children, there wouldn't have been any Christmases for us without Uncle George.

Little Alice gazed down at her hands.

He drowned himself in the millpond one New Year's Eve. He went down there alone in the darkness and