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“The clown is drunk.”
I started. Tauseret was awake. “What clown?”
“The clown I made throw you off the train,” she said. “The one who opened to me when he clutched your ring amidst the shirt at your throat.”
“Um, is this helpful?” I asked.
“We shall see,” Tauseret answered. “He’s telling everyone about a dream he keeps having. A Musky strumpet’ tells him over and over to rescue Abel at tomsjunction in the state that is Iowa. He thinks it’s because he feels guilty about what he did to you, but he’s too stupid and mean of heart to feel guilt.”
I was sure the clown’s carrying on like all possessed wouldn’t do me a bit of good, but I didn’t say so, I just put my face in my hands.
“Ankhtifi?”
I turned to her.
“Unbind my arms,” she said. Her voice trembled, but she tilted her chin up and tried to look proud. Well, I thought. If she is ready, then so must I be. There are no experts here, However, a horrid idea slipped through my mind—what if I removed the bandages, and her arm came off in my hand? I gulped.
Her arms were wrapped separately from her body. They stretched down her torso and were crossed and tied at the wrists below her waist. She wiggled the fingers that poked through the bandages. They were no longer clawlike, but long and elegant; the nails that had been yellow were still ragged but were now colored peach. This gave me faith. I tugged at the torn linen at her armpit and tried to unwind it, but her arm pressed too close to her chest. For a moment I was stymied, but then I pulled a serrated knife from one of the picnic hampers and used it to cut the old linen all the way down to her wrists, and I peeled the fabric away. Her limbs were plump and firm, and I exhaled in relief.
“All is well,” Tauseret said. Was it me she reassured or herself?
I set to unwrapping her fingers, but my hands trembled, for if I slipped, I might touch her in a personal place—a place I imagined to be no longer arid as the desert, but as hot and moist as the Nile Delta. I bit my lip. I fumbled. Sweat beaded on my brow. When I pulled the tube of fabric from the final finger, she took my hand with a strength I didn’t expect and pressed it close to what I had carefully avoided. I flooded with warmth.
“Free my wrists,” she whispered, and let me go.
I sawed at the bonds in a slipshod hurry and tried not to think of the tightness in my loins.
She raised her arms and examined them. She turned them this way and that, bent them at the elbow, flexed her fingers, opened and closed her hands. “I never thought I would do that again,” she said. She held her arms out to me, and I pulled her to a sitting position. Her skin was soft.
She loosened the wrappings around her neck, then ripped the remnants of linen back from her skull like an offending cap and tossed them aside. Dark hair, matted and dusty, fell past her shoulders. She shook it around her, creating a cloud of particles in the air. She sneezed and laughed. “I had a shaven head when they wrapped me,” she said. “How odd.” She tugged at her locks and grimaced. “I may shave it off again.”
“Wait,” I said, and retrieved my brush. I sat behind her on the edge of the trough and smoothed the tangles from her hair. Her tresses were thick, with a slight wave, and under the dust had a sheen that defied reason. She leaned her head back and made a throaty sound like a purr. I knew that movement, I knew that sound, and my body responded so fiercely that I had to bite back a moan. I bent and kissed her by her ear, and she uttered something guttural and encouraging in a language I didn’t know.
The kiss left grit on my lips, and this brought me some sort of sanity. I wasn’t sure what I made love to, nor what the consequences were. I stood.
“Won’t you help me with my legs?” she asked.
“It doesn’t seem right,” I said.
“Why?” she asked. “You are my lover.”
“I don’t remember that,” I answered, half lying.
“Then, it’s time to give you new memories,” she answered, and smiled sweet enough to melt any man’s resolve. That face! I had seen that face before I ever met this woman in the flesh. She truly was the woman of my dreams.
She braced herself on the sides of the trough and raised her lower limbs with newfound strength. I cut the fabric above her knees and wound the linens that bound her legs together down toward her feet. Sometimes the material frayed and came apart, and I had to pick at the ends to get it started again. There were many layers, and soon the bottom of the trough was littered with ancient yellow cloth, like an untidy nest. I peeled the last layer away to the tops of her thighs with growing wonder.
I had seen many showgirls in my young life, and most had had sturdy and shapely limbs, but I don’t think I had ever seen legs as perfect as hers. She raised them one at a time and bent them at the knee. She stretched them and curled her toes. I wanted to kiss and worship them and damn the dust. I choked and realized my mouth hung open. I snapped it shut and hoped she hadn’t seen.
She hadn’t. She was too intent on worryi
ng the wrappings at her chest. Perhaps they squeezed her now she had filled out. She freed an end and passed the shreds around her, hand to hand.
“What are you doing?” I gasped.
“Finishing,” she said as if I were foolish.
I wanted to tell her to stop, I thought I should run and find her a sheet, I knew I should turn my head away, but I stood there too hypnotized to move.
