Dreamers of the Day

After helping Rosie and me back up into the cart, Colonel Lawrence climbed aboard himself and gave the dragoman directions, using Arabic and gestures. “It’s not far,” he told me. “Ten minutes, across the river.” For the whole of that time, the colonel filled the silence with travelogue and chat. The boulevard we rode upon divided Cairo in two, he told me. The western half was frangi, or French—the word was used locally for anything foreign. The whole district used to be inundated yearly by the Nile’s flood, but after European engineers dammed the river, it was possible to build on the high ground. Foreigners were allowed to settle, and frangi Cairo came to look like a southern European city, filled with banks, hotels, consulates, and Art Nouveau residences. There was even a Sporting Club with a race course. To the east was beledi Cairo, the real city, in his opinion, where ordinary Egyptians lived and worked amid mosques, coffee shops, tiny stores, little factories, markets, and schools.

The Continental Hotel was frangi, set in the Gazirah neighborhood, a quiet enclave popular with Europeans. “Gazirah means island,” the colonel said, as the dragoman turned off a broad boulevard onto a handsome bridge that crossed one of the Nile’s strands.

The Europeans I’d seen at the Semiramis were a group of British officials. “Winston and his Forty Thieves,” Lawrence called the delegation. They had been assembled for a few days in Cairo to finish some business left undone at Versailles. Much of it had been decided years ago, in London and Paris, but details remained to be worked out.

I nodded and murmured as he spoke, touched by his kind awareness of my speechless embarrassment. Only when we arrived at the Continental did I feel capable of asking the question that made my cheeks burn. “Colonel Lawrence, at the Semiramis … Was it my dog who was objectionable, or was it myself?”

He sat still a moment, staring at his shoes, which were as scuffed as a schoolboy’s. “To a Muslim, all dogs are objectionable,” he informed me, “but those with short legs are especially to be despised.” He glanced at me to see if I was “buying it.” I must have looked skeptical, for he added, “I have no idea why, but that is the case.”

“And Miss Bell’s suggestion that I—? That the doorman thought—?”

“Oh, don’t mind Gert,” he advised with a patience that reminded me that he’d also found it necessary to overlook her tactlessness. “She really is quite extraordinary. There’s a saying here: If you think you understand Middle Eastern politics, they haven’t been explained to you properly. Gerty knows every nuance. No one in the West can match her. Still, she can be a bit—”

I didn’t catch his last word, but I confess: I supplied my own.

With that, he left the cart and disappeared inside the Continental, returning presently with the news that Miss Bell had been as good as her word. At her telephoned request, my room was ready; the deposit paid to the Semiramis would be forwarded to the Continental by the local Cook’s branch office.

When I tried to thank Colonel Lawrence, he giggled again—this time, I gathered, to indicate the absurdity of gratitude for a small service willingly undertaken. A bellman appeared to transfer my luggage from cart to lobby. Lawrence apologized for leaving me on my own. He had to return to the Semiramis “before Gert sorts out Mesopotamia on her own,” whatever that meant.

There was the dragoman to pay. He wanted ten piastres, given the extra trouble he’d been put to, but we settled on eight. When I turned to say good-bye to Colonel Lawrence, he was already halfway down the block, apparently intending to walk back to his hotel. Farewells, I was to learn, were a nicety the colonel frequently found dispensable.

Rosie was indeed made welcome, even though she chose to relieve herself just outside the entry. (“Better out than in, madam,” said the very dark gentleman who whisked away the evidence.) A few minutes at the desk, and two bellmen were assigned to ferry my things up three flights of stairs and down a quiet, carpeted corridor at the end of which was an ornately carved door. This was opened to reveal a high-ceilinged and airy room. “Will this do, madam?” I was asked.

“Oh, yes!” I breathed. “Oh, it’s perfect. Thank you.”

With Rosie in my arms, I stepped outside through tall French doors that opened onto a little private balcony overlooking a formal green garden. The first brilliant stars had begun to appear in an ultramarine sky. Palm trees slanted on the horizon, black against a tangerine sunset.

“Look, Rosie!” I whispered. “We’re in a Palmolive ad!”

While I stood rapt and idle as a princess, my things were unpacked and hung up or folded neatly into drawers. Feeling quite worldly and experienced, I waited to tip the gentlemen until their tasks were completed to their own satisfaction.

Alone at last, I peeked into the bathroom and was delighted by gorgeous cobalt tiles, a deep copper tub, and thick white towels stacked high on a shelf. I served Rosie a drink from a china whatnot dish and ran a bath for myself. She wriggled under the bathmat and fell asleep while I soaked in pleasantly tepid water.

Refreshed, I made a call downstairs to inquire about room service. I was informed that Miss Bell had already ordered a supper to be delivered to my room at eight-thirty, but that it was ready to be sent up right away. Minutes later, it arrived on a rolling cart, complete with a plate of meat scraps and a bone for Rosie. There was even a stack of newspapers to lay out for the dog afterward. It was a very nice gesture, and I thought better of Miss Bell for it.

Thus a day that had begun in heat and noise 14 0 miles north, in Alexandria, ended as I slipped between crisply ironed sheets in a quiet Cairo hotel. Rosie nosed beneath the light cotton coverlet and corkscrewed round and round, all the while producing the wheezes and mutterings peculiar to dachshunds attempting to get comfortable for the night. At long last she settled and sighed and slept. I expected to do the same momentarily. I was as tired as I had ever been in my life: the journey, the heat, the novelty, the anxiety, the bliss of arrival! But sleep would not come.

Instead, the scene at the Semiramis played over and over in my head. Humiliation is not the same as embarrassment, I realized. If you know yourself to be clumsy and never pretend otherwise, you might well be embarrassed when you trip over your own feet upon entering a room, but you won’t be ashamed. You can laugh at yourself and shrug the embarrassment off.

Humiliation, by contrast, does not merely require open recognition of an acknowledged foible. Humiliation is public exposure of some secret vanity. You might gaze into a mirror holding your head just so, and your eyes sparkle at your own best self. Then perhaps you leave a bathroom at college, for example, thinking that you really look rather nice this morning, all things considered, only to overhear someone remark, “Good Lord, if I looked that bad, I’d never go out in daylight.” You discover that not even your own modest opinion of yourself is shared. You are not merely homely but also deluded, and vain, and ridiculous. That is humiliation.

And someone had lied to me, but who? Colonel Lawrence or Miss Bell? Was it a short-legged dog or a bare-limbed woman who had aroused such animosity? Was the lie a kind one, told to spare my feelings, or a harsh one, meant to cut a potential rival who had dared to be friendly with Miss Bell’s own dear boy?

Or had each of them told me a part of the truth? Certainly there was something about Lawrence’s tone that might have implied, Yes, I was lying about why the doorman blocked your way, but I found a perfectly good explanation that saved your pride, and that’s merely good ma