Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russel

Author:Mary Doria Russel [Russel, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: prose_history
ISBN: 978-1-58836-675-7
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2008-08-14T04:00:00+00:00

For the next few days, Karl and I met frequently, sometimes for breakfast, sometimes for dinner. Whenever he had a few open hours, we strolled through parks and visited museums. We ate falafel in flat bread and mahshi—vegetables of all kinds stuffed with spiced rice and tomatoes and onions. We drank cup after cup of sweet, thick coffee and talked and talked while Cairo’s kaleidoscopic populace passed before us. What I remember from that week is not so much what we did or saw but the warmth of Karl’s presence and the sound of his pleasingly accented voice, rising and falling.

His world was so much wider than my own, so mostly I just listened, smiling, when he tossed off international observations like “The English are the only people on earth who pay vast sums to private schools designed to cripple their children emotionally. In Germany, we do that at home. Not as efficient, but far less expensive.”

Or, “In the past twenty years, Egypt has been ruled by a khedive, a sultan, a king, and a constitutional monarch whose parliament has just been spanked and dismissed. Throughout all these, the British have maintained order, but they will receive no thanks for it. And if the radicals succeed in gaining Egypt for the Egyptians? It will be chaos. The Egyptians couldn’t organize a beer festival for themselves.”

Or, “Agnes, the war had nothing to do with the archduke! It was planned for years. The Prussians told the kaiser, ‘Germany will be at the peak of military power between 1913 and 1915 , but France will catch up by 1916.’ When a footrace is to begin, a shot is fired, yes? But the gunshot is not the reason for the race. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was not a reason for the war. It was merely the gunshot that began it.”

Not everything was serious, for dear little Rosie was always with us, waddling along with a sailor’s rolling swagger. In stores or cafés that catered to Europeans, she was welcome; elsewhere Karl would bluff his way in with her or wait outside while I explored on my own.

With so much walking, you might have thought that dog would be as slim as six o’clock, but Karl persisted in feeding her from the table, and she got tubbier by the day! She’d stretch up and go pitty-pat on his knee. He’d lean down to put his ear close to her delicate muzzle. “Can you hear, Agnes?” Karl would ask me, his eyes sparkling. “She is saying, Baksheesh! Baksheesh!” And then he’d slip her another bit of pita or a shred of lamb. Once I returned from a museum visit to find Rosie fast asleep in Karl’s arms, flat on her back with her short legs twitching. “She is dreaming of ancient times,” Karl whispered with soft solemnity, “when sausage dogs were tall.” Then he added thoughtfully, “Foolish, isn’t it? Such love we squander on these little dogs …” By the end of the week, it

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