City of Jasmine

Miss Green opened her mouth, but Mr. Rowan chose that moment to burp again, this time a little less discreetly, and he lifted his glass of arak in my direction. “To desert endeavours,” he proposed. We all clinked glasses and drank deeply. And somewhere overhead in one of the gilded cages a little bird began to sing.

At the sound of the glasses, Halliday turned his head. “I say, what sort of toast is this? Are we celebrating?”

“We are toasting Mrs. Starke’s appreciation of ancient history,” Mr. Rowan proclaimed, his vowels only slightly slurred.

“She does indeed,” Halliday agreed. “What was that bit of poetry you quoted at me? Something mournful about all human things and decay and monarchs?”

He wrestled with the words for a moment before I cut in and repeated the quotation.

“‘All human things are subject to decay, And when fate summons, monarchs must obey.’”

Mr. Rowan nodded into his arak. “Donne, isn’t it?”

“Dryden,” I corrected, baring my teeth in a smile. He smiled back and I saw his own teeth were almost aggressively yellow.

Miss Green flapped a hand. “All those metaphysical poets—they all run together in one’s head after a while.”

“Dryden wasn’t metaphysical,” I told her quickly. “He was Restoration.”

“Was he?” Her tone was polite, but she was clearly bored talking of poetry.

Mr. Rowan perked up. “I know a bit of poetry.” He cleared his throat. “‘There once was a man from Nantucket—’”

Miss Green cut him off before he could finish, but Aunt Dove leaned over, her expression consoling. “Don’t worry, Mr. Rowan. I like a good dirty limerick myself. Have you heard this one?” She launched into a verse I didn’t dare let her finish, but before I could stop her, Halliday cut in smoothly with a little laugh, changing the subject slightly.

“I’m not surprised at Mr. Rowan knowing only limericks. Archaeologists are scientists, Mrs. Starke. You’ll seldom find stonier ground to sow the seed of poetry than that.”

Mr. Rowan gave him a thin smile. “I don’t know. I should think a bureaucrat would be even more lacking in imagination.”

Halliday smiled in return. “I daresay you’re right, Mr. Rowan. After all, an archaeologist must look at a handful of clay bricks or crushed pots and be able to recreate the past. I suppose that requires a prodigious imagination.”

Aunt Dove raised a glass. “In my experience, all souls are receptive to poetry provided they are sufficiently lubricated. To arak and the Restoration poets,” she pronounced.

We toasted them and the conversation turned to war reparations and the moment to invite myself to the dig passed fruitlessly. I shredded a pastry in my fingers as I listened to the others talk. And, upon my most recent revelation, drank several glasses of arak in quick succession. After a long while, Mr. Rowan’s chin slid to his chest as he gave an audible snore.

Miss Green gave a low chuckle. “Time to see this one to his lodgings, I think. It’s never a party until someone’s drunk too much arak.” She waved off our efforts to pay our share of the dinner, insisting it was an honour, and we were bowed out of the restaurant by the sleepy staff.

We delivered the archaeologists to their modest lodgings—academic expeditions were not well enough funded to permit them to stay anywhere more exclusive—then Halliday saw us safely to our hotel, although he made a hasty exit when Aunt Dove mentioned her stamp collection. He gave me a meaningful look as he took his leave, and I smiled warmly at the lingering feeling of his hand on my shoulder.

Aunt Dove and I said good-night and went to our rooms. I washed and put on my nightdress and opened the pierced shutters to the spill of silvery moonlight. From the high ivory minaret of a nearby mosque, I could hear the muezzin’s call to prayer, the Salat al-Isha, the evening invocations that remembered God’s presence and dwelt upon the quality of Allah’s mercy.

I turned down the lamp until it was the merest suggestion of light, a pinprick of something that was not quite darkness, and slid into bed. The call faded away, and after a while I heard the bells of a Christian church chiming in the night. A chill breeze passed over my face, ruffling my hair. Suddenly, some sense of otherness roused me, a shadow that detached itself from the wall and moved close to my bed.

I had kept my hand under the pillow, and as the figure moved, I curled my fingers around the grip of the tiny mother-of-pearl pistol Aunt Dove had given me in Italy. With one smooth gesture, I leaped up to a sitting position, opening the lantern and levelling the pistol at Mr. Rowan. And when I spoke, my voice was perfectly calm.

“Hello, Gabriel.”

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