March 2010 Archives

Dear Readers,

Soon I will be crossing the Atlantic on a troop transport all the way to England --- certainly not the Lusitania! I am stopping at Ware Hall first on my way to the Continent to find Edward. Maybe the Dowager Lady Ware has heard something about him.

Then where do I go? Paris? Germany? Italy? Arabia? I have lots of decisions to make.

Edward, where are you? The whole wide world is the place where I must  look.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. You should read the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb.

Dear Readers,

What do I need to pack on my trip to find Edward? Should I pack for a long time or a short time? Will I find him right away? Will it take months? Years? Should I take drafts on all of my savings account? I suppose I should be prepared for anything.

He could be in Arabia. He could be in Syria. He could be in Iraq. Who knows? I might have to hire Arabs and camels for what amounts to a Safari in Bedouin country --- whatever you call that.

So I will take everything I can and then some, far more than I took on my journey on the Lusitania.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. You should read the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb.

Dear Readers,

Who could be holding Edward hostage? Could it be Ali from the Lusitania? Mohamed? Osama? Could it be Ib'n Saud, the preender king Arabia? Could it be another Arab I haven't named?

Somebody must have done something with him. I haven't heard from Edward in a long time, though I have written him. He would write unless he was a captive.

Edward and Lawrence are always running into unsavoury types. What can I expect?

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. You  must read the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb.

Dear Readers,

How do I sneak away from Pittsburgh? My mother and father will be opposed to my going anywhere. I will probably be locked in my room if I threaten to go after Edward. I have to be stealthy and clever. The best way is to trick everybody.

I will have to buy my own tickets and do my own planning. I can't let them know anything. When it's time to go, I have to just disappear and make everyone ask, "Where is Dora?" By then it will be too late.

I figure I will wait until my parents are gone to the Duquense Club in Pittsburgh. I will sneak out of my room, down the stairs, into the car, and drive to the trolley stop. From there I will go to the train station and then the Cunard Pier in New York. The problem will be finding a ship that has not been requisitioned for the war effort. Ever since the Lusitania, almost every ship has been taken out of service.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. You must read the first volume of my  memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb.

Dear Readers,

How do I find Edward? It's supposed to be top secret. None of the British military people will help me. Do I ask the Arabs and the Bedouins where they last saw Sidi Lawrence?

Maybe I had better bring lots and lots of money for bribes. I will need them if the Arabs are like that trader named Mohamed.

But I know I will find him. All I need is determination. I acquired that on the Lusitania.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley

Dear Readers,

I bet Edward regrets breaking off our engagement. I remember when I last saw him. He gave me my Crusader engagement ring to remember him by. He clung to me at the dock at Liverpool in late May, 1915 when he was shipping off to the Dardanelles. He took me aside into a crowd so he could kiss me. I really got the idea he did not want to do without me.

He has written so many letters to me! Who will he write to if he has no fiance? It must have been in a moment of despair that he wrote those fatal words, "I must break off our engagement." In fact, didn't he say he was breaking it off not because he didn't love me but because he did?

I must go to him. That is the only way to convince him of his error. After all, he was not on the Lusitania and does not think like a Lusitania survivor.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. If you want to find out about my adventures during the Great War, read the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb.

Dear Readers,

I read Edward's letter over and over again. I cannot believe what I read. How could he be ready to break off our engagement just because of an assassin? I told him about the saboteur in Pittsburgh long ago. He did not say anything then. Why now? What is so much worse?

Is there something Edward is not telling me? He sounds very somber and grave all of a sudden. That is not like the Edward I knew.

Maybe Lawrence told him that he was taking chances with Prince Ali, Mohamed, and Osama. But didn't Edward already figure that out?

If Edward had been on the Lusitania I bet he would not think the same way.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. Read the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb.

Dear Readers,

I cannot allow Edward to break up with me for no reason at all. I am going to have to go to Arabia and find him. I am going to have to convince him to change his mind. Wish me luck!

My parents are not going to like the idea. They want me to stay in Pittsburgh. Rita Jolivet would understand. But she lives in New York. I have not seen her much since the Lusitania.

Mr. Bryne would be against it, too. He would tell my parents and get me in trouble. I'll have to keep my own counsel and buy my own ticket on a transatlantic troop ship, or whatever is still sailing to Europe in 1918 during the Great War.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. Read the first volume of my memoirs, King Abullah's Tomb.

Dear Readers,

Helga had better not call me again. She has called me one time too many. I don't like to answer the phone and hear her simpering at me.

I know this has nothing to do with KIng Abdullah's Tomb, but I'm warning her anyway. Stay away! All s he does is threaten me, tell me how she will kill me or kill Edward, and then laugh. I'd like to shot her with my Walther PPK.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. I hope you read the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb.

Dear Readers,

I'm glad that witch, Qabihah, has shut up --- at least for the moment. I don't want you to be bothered with her ravings, which are the ravings of a madwoman. You see the people I have to deal with. Helga von Wessel is bad enough. But Qabihah is somebody I shouldn't even have to acknowledge. Imagine claiming that you have supernatural powers! And at  one point of my story someone I know, who is usually very sensible, believes her. He consults her, and that gets him into all sorts of trouble.

Who? That wold only make the problem worse to tell you. It would be like spreading a mistake around the world when really I want to conceal it. If I could, I would erase it.

But take my word for it, leave Qabihah alone. Don't go to Cairo, and don't visit her. Forget about her oleanders. They are just another plant to me.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. You will want to read the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb. At least Qabihah wasn't on the Lusitania.

Dear Readers,

Edward must be breaking up with me for the benefit of someone. I get the idea that Ali and his cohorts read Edward's letters to me. He wants to deceive them into thinkikng we are not going to be married.

He thinks they will loose interest in me if I become disassociated with him.

I'm not sure if this is true. I think it's too late. Married or not, they have my number.

Sincerely yours,

Dora BenleyTomb
P.S. You should read the first volume of my memoirs, Kng Abdullah's Tomb. The Lusitania's only the beginning!

Dear Readers,

There's an Oleander Bush with your name on it. This is probably true everywhere in the world. That particular bush calls to you and speaks to you when none of the other ones does.

How do you hear it speak? You have to be very quiet and alone. Then the voice you hear whispering into your ear is your oleander..

If you listen closely they will all tell you to come to Egypt and meet your plant.

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah, Witch of Cairo
P.S. Read all about me in Dora, Lady Ware's, memoirs, Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

It is early 1918. I've just heard from Edward in a letter dated late last year in 1917 that my fiance wants to end our engagement! I certainly don't share the sentiment. I've been eagerly waiting for almost three years to marry Edward. I've been wearing his Crusader engagement ring. I've picked out a wedding gown and veil. I even have a maid of honor, Rita Jolivet. My mother keeps on asking me when the wedding will be.

Besides what else am I supposed to do? Who else am I destined to become except Edward's wife? I lost my virginity to him almost three years ago. I feel as if we belong to each other no matter what. If it means danger, I don't care. I'll put up with it.

Edward sounds as if he's in despair. He probably doesn't know what he's talking about.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. Read more about my adventures in the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb. The Lusitania has prepared me for this.

Dear Readers,

My oleanders can talk. You enter my garden, and you hear voices, women's voices. They call to you in a whisper. They say your name. You listen. You go looking for a shapely young woman who seems to have called to you.

Visitors have called them the Sirens. They are beguiling, bewitching. You cannot resist them even from afar. People have confided in me that they heard a voice calling to them in their sleep. They awakened. They followed the sound all the way back to my garden. They could not rest until they reached the oleander bush that had been summoning them.

In a way one of my bushes has your name on it. It is your destiny to meet that oleander, that neriuim. You cannot outrun your fate.

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah, Witch of Cairo
P.S. You can read all about me in Dora, Lady Ware's, memoirs, Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

Edward worries about my safety from Prince Ali. He wants to protect me from saboteurs and assassins here back in Pittsburgh. But I don't see what it has to do with breaking off our engagement!

That is a horrendous idea. That would mean the murderers win. Besides, if they are really after us, nothing will dissuade them until we are dead. We might as well confront them head on and not hide from them.

Does Edward have some other motive for breaking off our engagement? What don't I know? What has been going on in his life. He writes me long, long letters, but perhaps he doesn't tell me everything.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. Read more about me in the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb. It starts with the Lusitania. It ends with Edward in Arabia with Lawrence.

Dear Readers,

Come to Cairo! Visit my gardens behind my house. They look like paradise now. My oleander is in bloom. Pink blossoms abound. They surpass all the other flowers, including the roses.

My oleanders look like pretty pink ballerinas dancing in the breeze that makes them undulate, dip, and reach. Sometimes I play waltz musi, especially the Blue Danube. I let it drift out to the garden and embrace all the plants.

It looks like heaven here, that Moslem paradise where you go. You can imagine the lovely girls feeding men grapes and figs. They could do it on a bench just around the corner from the last oleander.

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah, Witch of Cairo
P.S. You can read all about me in Dora, Lady Ware's, memoirs, Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

I cannot believe it. I read to the very end of Edward's long, long letter. In the last PS he broke off our engagement. He asked me never to write to him again. His reason? He says Lawrence for what he really is --- a poker player who takes too many chances.  He is involved with too many intrigues and plots and risks getting killed and getting his adjutant killed with him.

He says he doesn't want to risk getting me killed, too. That is why he is letting me go.

But I am certainly not ready to let Edward go!

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. Read more about my adventures in the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb. If I could survive the Lusitania, Edward can survive these saboteurs, too.
 

Dear Readers,

Why don't you stop by and visit me when you are in Cairo? Do you dare after everything that I've told you? You have nothing to fear. I would receive you as an honored guest and customer.

I am always loyal to my customers. In fact, I have turned down business in the past when it came from the enemies of those who were my already established clients. I have to have some way to sort it all out, and I have to be loyal to someone.

There is loyalty among thieves and among witches, too.

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah, Witch of Cairo
P.S. If you want to read more about my adventures, read Dora, Lady Ware's, memoirs, Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

After Mohamed and Osama scrambled out of King Abdullah's Tomb, Lawrence appeared and rescued Edward. Immediately they rode to the periphery of the town and climbed up above it. Edward immediately noticed an assassin taking aim at Lawrence and fired to defend his Colonel.

But Lawrence pretends that nothing is going on and orders Edward to act the same way and to say nothing to any of the Bedouins. Instead Lawrence orders Edward to take a photo of Petra from atop the  heights where ancient altars lay.

Apparently a little assassination attempt was nothing to Lawrence of Arabia.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. You can find out all about me in the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb. Lawrence should have been on the Lusitania.

Dear Readers,

What do I do to make sure that others don't destroy the oleander bushes that are both my livelihood and my claim to fame? it would be easy for vengeful people to enter my estate at night and set fire to the bushes or even chop them down. But they don't dare. Why don't they dare? It's easy. The reason is the Oleander Asp.

Long ago I raised a family of poisonous snakes and set them loose in my oleander garden. The rumor spread throughout the city. Cairenes became afraid to go anywhere near my property. Even people who come here in the daytime for perfectly legitimate reasons don't want to enter my garden --- not even the gardener who insists upon wearing a special protective outfit!

Yes, the Oleander Asp  is the key to my real security here in Cairo. Trespassers quake to disturb the peace and tranquility of my grounds.

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah, Witch of Cairo
P.S. Read all about me in Dora, Lady Ware's, memoirs, Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

In his most vivid letter yet, Edward describes how he could not cling onto the ledge. He fell into the dark hole in the ground. By morning a shaft of sunlight illuminated the floor. A mummy was lying in one corner. At the same moment he heard men climbing down a rope into the tomb.

Edward played dead. He saw Mohamed and Osama take hold of scrolls found in a wall niche and tear them to pieces. Mohamed explained how King Abdullah stole the scrolls from the Prophet centuries ago and came to Petra to be King. These are heretic scrolls, the false editions of the Koran. The men who paid them want them destroyed.

Mohamed and Osama think they hear somebody from above. They rush to escape the tomb. On the way out Mohamed kicks Edward in the buttocks.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. Read more about my adventures in the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb. This is about as far from the Lusitania as you can get!

Dear Readers,

One of my oleanders has been named after me, the Qabihah bush. It is the one that sits right outside my front door, the one that greets all my guests. No one can enter here without seeing it.

Rumors has started that I hide in the bush when I want to metamorphose myself into another form. At times someone decides to get revenge on me. It is said that I have killed somebody that they like. They swear vengeance against me. They come to my house with a gun. I am not there!

Do you believe I have such power? Don't expect me to tell you! You can either believe or disbelieve at your own peril.

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah, Witch of Cairo
P.S. Read more about me and my special powers in Dora, Lady Ware's, memoir, Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

Edward wrote to me in his long, long letter about how he was pursued by brigands in Petra. After they had made noises and distracted him so he would wander away from the protective group, they started to chase Edward about the ancient, deserted city. He ducked into all sorts of buildings. At one point he got caught on the branch of an oleander with lots of pink blooms. He raced down narrow passageways between buildings with footsteps pursuing him. Finally he took refuge in a darkened building.

But there was no floor! He felt himself falling. He caught onto the edge. He found himself kicking his legs above an abyss.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. You may read much more about my adventures in the first volume of my memoirs, King Abullah's Tomb. You may start with the Lusitania and end with Edward falling into the tomb of the ancient monarch.

Dear Readers,

Meet Rose. She is a flirt. All the guests to my manor house go to talk to her. It is not difficult. She grows right outside my dining room window. In fact, you can smell her odiferous blooms wafting into the room and caressing our cheeks. She says, "Come, follow me!"

This is the most crafty poisoner of all my plants. Sometimes my clients invite their victims to dinner. They pretend that my house is a restaurant. Naturally the victim must be from out of town, somewhere besides Cairo. I seat them in my dining room right beside Rose, the Flirt.

Inevitably Rose will tempt them to wander outside into my garden. They will want to put their hands all over her flowers. I volunteer to cut some blooms for the table. We pin a corsage to their breasts if they are ladies. If they are gents, we will make a boutier.

In a day or two I usually get a note from my client. They brag how their victim has died. Frequently the corsage or boutier is still pinned to his funeral clothes. Once the victim even left part of his fortune in his hastily dictated will to none other than the Rose, the most beautiful temptress of them all.

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah, Witch of Cairo
P.S. You can read more about me in Dora, Lady Ware's, memoir, Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

Edward and Lawrence entered Petra through the narrow passage between the red sandstone cliffs known as the Siq. Edward saw the shadow of somebody hovering above them and asked Lawrence why they were lingering there so long eating lunch. Lawrence explained that this was the way that Alexander and the Romans had entered Petra thousands of years ago.

Lawrence pointed out graffiti by Arab Wahabbis.They had also defaced and destroyed statues. They were Arab fundamentalists who followed a desert sect that did not believe in living in buildings. They lived in tents and worshiped rocks instead such as the Black Stone in the Kabba in Mecca. As iconoclasts they valued civilization very little. He explained to Edward that they worked for Ib'n Saud, who in turn worked for the Turks. They were enemies.

While making their way through the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Petra, Edward lingered too long gawking at monuments. He was lost.


Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. You may read more about my adventures in the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb. Remember, it starts with the Lusitania and ends with the Arab Revolt.

Dear Readers,

Every time one of my oleanders kills another victim, there is another body. Everybody knows that a body lying around your house can get you in trouble --- big trouble. But likewise, if there is no body, it is unlikely that you will be convicted of anything.

I provide another service for my best customers. I have erected a marble house on one side of my garden. Inside you will find little urns on shelves, a kind of columbaria. I even have a team of body snatchers if you don't want to clean up yourself. We provide cremation and markers --- with false names.

The structure is guarded by poison asps. An oleander grows beside the locked door. Half of Cairo's secrets are buried here.

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah, Witch of Cairo
P.S. You can read more about me in Dora, Lady Ware's, memoirs, Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

Edward sent me a letter so long that I had to stay up all night long reading it. I will be several days telling you about it as if took me several days to tell you about the Lusitania. It began by talking about Mohamed, the merchant that Edward and Lawrence keep on running into all over the Syrian Desert. He was angry at Lawrence about the matter of the humidor and the cigars. He threatened to stop coming to his encampment. Lawrence said, "Good riddance!"

Mohamed said he was going into the desert to see about some Turks. A caravan was coming in that direction. Some of Lawrence's men volunteered to go with him.

The Bedouins thought they saw a Turkish column in the distance. Lawrence set out to find his missing men who had followed Mohamed into the desert.

They traveled several days, the first water, the second water, and the third water. They stopped wherever there were watering holes. In the distance they saw the sacred mountains of Edom. Then came the red sandstone rocks. They had arrived on the outskirts of Petra.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. Read more about my adventures in the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb.

Dear Readers,

Meet the oleanders called The Sister Fates. In my garden grow three bushes intertwined. No one can decipher where one begins and the other ends. How do I know three grow there? I planted them that way.

When I draw nectar from The Sister Fates, one of three things happens: 1) the victim dies instantly 2) the victim lingers and then dies, giving him a chance to change his will 3) the victim almost dies, and then suddenly recovers, teaching him a lesson and making his more respectful of the powers that be.

This is the poison to use if you want to teach someone a lesson and put the fear of God into them. The Sister Fates are like a roll of the dice.

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah, Witch of Cairo
P.S. Read about me in Dora, Lady Ware's, memoirs, Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

Rita Jolivet called and invited my family and Mr. Byrne to New York to watch her make a movie about the Lusitania. We were on the set of Lest We Forget. We met other Lusitania survivors such as Charles Lauriat who wrote a book on the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. Rita took us to other movies, too.

Unfortunately it was April of 1917. Wilson declared war. The Senate voted for war. So did the house. Before we returned home to Pittsburgh, America was at war against Germany.

Edward's war has spread to America. That should make Colonel Lawrence happy.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley

Dear Readers,

I want to tell you about the Circe Oleander that grows all alone in a special place in my Cairo garden. It is positioned next to the plashing fountain. You can see the bush's reflection in the surface of the pond. It is by far the most beautiful and enchanting oleander bush I grow.

Circe was a witch in ancient Greece who held Odysseus in thrall and would not let him go on his way home to Ithaca from Troy after the Trojan War. She sang to him. She looked deep into his eyes. He was bewitched.

Circe's nectar is bewitching. You cannot get enough of it. It is the best thing you ever tasted. It mimicks the taste of the food that is your favorite. Some have told me it mimics chocolate. Others have insisted it is like the finest red wine. Still others have decided it is like a juicy beef steak with lots of mushroom gravy. To others it is caviar. Many would think it is like the juiciest grapes, nectarines, or apples that grow in the Garden of Eden.

I have never been able to ask each of these people exactly why they say what they do. The reason? They are too quickly dead!

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah, Witch of Cairo
P.S. You may read much more about me in Dora, Lady Ware's, exciting memoir, Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

I finished Edward's letter about Lawrence. Edward fired, but the sniper escaped. He ventured out into the desert, but he could not find the Colonel. He assumed that he had been kidnapped.

Edward said he was not  used to command, but he had to take over. The Bedouins expected him to lead them. He divided the Bedouin force into units who were supposed to look for Lawrence and report back to him. He took his unit toward Damascus.

One night when he could not sleep a young woman sneaked into his tent and awakened him, telling him she had come from Sidi Lawrence who had been captured by the Turks and imprisoned in Deraa. She told him Lawrence had sent her to tell Edward to bring money to ransom him.

Edward collected money in the camp for a bribe. He rode his camel toward Deraa. The young lady guided him toward the prison. He found Lawrence declaiming verses from the Gilgamesh epic. He gave him the Turkish piasters he had managed to collect from the Bedouins. Lawrence gave them to a guard. The young lady gave Lawrence her camel and Edward and Lawrence rode back to the encampment together.

Lawrence told many stories. But Edward caught him one night with the humidor. He was taking something out of it that he was trying to conceal from Edward. When Edward went past Lawrence's tent the very next night, the humidor was gone.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. You may read more about my adventures in the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb.
P.S.S. There was really a young woman in Edward's tent? I wonder who she was!

Dear Readers,

 I promised you yesterday that I would introduce you to my other oleander bushes. I have a shrine set up in the middle of the garden dedicated to the ancient gods and heroes from classical times when the most famous poisoners of all times practiced. Here is where the Odysseus rose in planted in the most prominent place of all.

What is different about this plant? What is its personality or rather poisonality? Odysseus is sneaky. The taste of its nectar is sweeter than the taste of all the other sap from all the other plants. That way it can be more effectively mingled with food and drink and not be detected. It is most suitable for poisonings at the table or banquet.

The Penelope plant grows in the shadow of the Odysseus plant as is most fitting. Instead of being sneaky, Penelope is subtle. Her nectar can barely be detected. It is tasteless. It is most fitting for poisonings done by stealth over a long period of time so the poison can accumulate in the victim's body before it finally strikes and kills. Penelope is patient and will prevail in the end.

So you see, my favorite nerium bushes are like people. They come in all the shades of the rainbow.

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah, Witch of Cairo
P.S. You can read more about my marvelous exploits in Dora, Lady Ware's, memoirs, Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

Edward wrote me that Lawrence ran into an assassin in the desert. He and Lawrence were out there blowing up railroad tracks. A train went past full of Turks. They did not shoot at Lawrence. But a sniper behind a rock did.

Edward ran to help Lawrence. He found him rolling on the ground laughing. The Colonel declared that no one could assassinate him. God had sent him to defend the Arabs. Edward argued with him that he was not immortal and would probably get killed. He would make his adjutant get killed, too, and his fiancee wouldn't like it.

Lawrence was finally persuaded to come back to the encampment where he found two Bedouin brothers arguing with each other over a piece of jewelry. One accused the other of having the Evil Eye. He sat on the ground and judged the case, pretending that he had powers to see into their souls and minds. They feared him greatly, especially his famous powers for fighting the Evil Eye.

An old crone, a lady who was visiting the encampment, by the name of Qabihah appeared to tell Sidi Lawrence that he had blue eyes like the sky peeking through the vacant eyes of a cow's skull lying in the desert. She thought he had special supernatural powers.

The two discussed how Lawrence had acquired such powers. Qabihah decided he had gotten them in Carchemish when he was excavating the Hittite ruin with Leonard Woolley before the Great War. One of the ancient Babylonian kings on a carved stela had looked at him and given him more than mortal insight into human affairs. Qabihah said that was the danger of associating with the ancient, hoary dead.

Just at that moment Edward saw the sniper raise his gun behind another plinth. Metal flashed. Edward fired.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. You may read about my adventures in the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb.

Dear Readers,

You may think of oleanders as just a bunch of plants, anonymous plants at that. You might imagine them to be like blades of grass that grow between the stones of the walkway as weeds. But no! Each of my precious plants has a name even though I own hundreds of them.

Athena is my favorite plant. It is also the oldest. She grows closest to my quarters inside the Cairo mansion where I reside. In fact when she blooms, her pink flowers brush against my windows. Athena is the most reliable plant. She always blooms earliest in the season. Her blooms fade after all the others. Her brew is also the most potent. I charge my clients the most hefty price to use her nectar in my magical brews. She never fails me, and she never fails my clients.

The Owl is the oleander growing right beside Athena. I think the name is suitable. Athena the Goddess of Wisdom, the Goddess of Athens, the one who helped the crafty Odysseus, is frequently pictured with an owl sitting on her shoulder. The Owl is her helper and her assistant. She adds her blooms to Athena's. Sometimes they are intertwined and hard to separate.

Together these plants and I rule Cairo and very nearly the whole Mediterranean world.

I will tell you about my other plants tomorrow and the next day and the next day after that.

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah, Witch of Cairo
P.S. You may read more about me in Dora, Lady Ware's, memoirs, Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

I just read Edward's latest letter about his escapade in Damascus with Lawrence of Arabia while I was eating lunch with Michael. We were sitting on the lawn in the front yard by the stump of an old tree where my mother had planted pansies. We were eating Viola's picnic foods.

 I told Michael that Edward apparently preferred Lawrence to me. The Colonel must be fetching in his desert attire. And Edward left me to Michael. He mentioned that Mr. Byrne was loyal and dependable. He'd been around since the Lusitania.

Michael called my bluff. He said that if I was serious I would send the Crusader ring back to Edward and marry him. But I wouldn't, would I? And I had to admit that Michael knew me too well. I was stuck for the long haul just like Penelope waiting for Odysseus.

That night I wrote to Lawrence himself, pleading with him to release Edward. I said that Edward's  mother and I needed him more than Lawrence needed an adjutant.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. Read about my adventures in the first volume of my memoirs entitled King Abdullah's Tomb.

Dear Readers,

It has been many years since I ruled with the Sultan. During those years I have lived in retirement and seclusion. But I am still the Storm Center of Cairo. Nothing happens in this desert city that doesn't pass through me first. Even now that we have new British masters changes nothing. The men from northern climes have become equally embroiled with me.

They have heard of my reputation. They know to show up on my doorstep if they want something done. The British governor has contacted me through an intermediary when he wanted a rival eliminated. Merchants have told me that I am worth my weight in gold. One presented me with just that after I got rid of his chief competition. An English m'lady or two has not thought me beneath them. They have given me money to give them their freedom from their husbands.

The nerium has become very popular in the gardens of Cairo. People like to imitate me, but rarely do they gave the will to act as I act. In fact, I have been told that the oleander has been renamed the Qabihah bush along the Nile.

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah, Witch of Cairo
P.S. You may read of my adventures in Dora, Lady Ware's, memoir called Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

Edward wrote me a long letter about his escapade in Damascus. He and Lawrence dressed up as women in black abayas. They rode for a week to reach the capital city of Syria. Lawrence insisted on drinking hot coffee underneath a sign advertising lots of German marks for his capture dead or alive. That made Edward nervous. Lawrence called my fiance an old woman.

Then Lawrence strode into the city to look around. Edward had slops dumped on his head from an upper story window. Lawrence bought Syrian beer and washed him off with it. When they neared the River Barada, there was an explosion. The city walls in that area near the dock collapsed. A golden goo poured down the street after them.

Edward ran. Later he found Lawrence none the worse for the wear. The Colonel escaped by climbing into a barrel until the goo stopped flowing, for after all the goo turned out to be nothing more harmful than honey. Edward admired the Colonel for his cool and how he thought well under pressure.

Lawrence ran through a Syrian laundry and changed his clothes. They left to ride back to their encampment. Lawrence told lots of stories. One of the Bedouins said, "Sidi Lawrence is the greatest of the sheiks."

Then Edward thanked me for sending my little gift. Naturally he was referring to my silk stockings. So this is how Edward occupies himself instead of coming home to me!

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. Read more about my adventures in the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb, that starts with the Lusitania and ends up with Lawrence in Arabia.

Dear Readers,

The Sultan that I served reigned for thirty years. For thirty years I ruled Cairo through him. But after that length of time he was overthrown and murdered by a new king who wanted to have nothing to do with me. By then I was no longer a nubile young thing, and I was told never to show my face at the Palace again.

Still the people held me in such superstitious awe that though I was proscribed, no one dared to lay a hand on me. I retired to my house in the Arab Quarter and continued to be an object of Fear and Dread as the Lady Of The Oleander.

My income was invested in foreign enterprises mostly tied up with the British. But in case I needed pocket change I hardly needed to do a thing. Almost every day someone knocked on my garden gate seeking the relief that the oleander promised. Some sought to rid themselves of their husbands or wives. Others wanted to free themselves from a business partner that they despised. Still others longed to be free of a hated government official who did nothing besides persecute them. I could afford to pick and choose, but in many cases I decided to oblige them.

I continued in this capacity for many years. I was still the Lady Of The Oleander when my story intersected with that of Dora, Lady Ware, during the Second World War.

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah, Witch of Cairo
P.S. You may read of my adventures in the memoir authored by Dora, Lady Ware, called Hitler's Daughter. And no, I am not she. I was born long before the great Dictator of World War II.

 Dear Readers,

When Mr. Byrne and I got back from the trolley wreck we told my father what had happened. He immediately cabled Sir Adolphus Ware, Edward's father, complaining about Ali. He asked if Ali was still at Ware Hall or if he was gone. My father could not believe Ali was in England.

Sir Adolphus Ware wrote back a couple of days later saying that Ali was not at Ware Hall. He had left the property at the same time Edward shipped off to the Dardanelles and I left to go back to Pittsburgh with my parents. He cannot imagine why Ali would show up in Pittsburgh.

My father said that response showed that you could not trust Europeans, not even Englishmen, not even Edward's father!

Since the trolley wreck my father won't let me leave the house or grounds. I spend my days walking up the driveway to the mailbox by the road and back again, waiting for Edward's next letter. I cannot imagine what horrible thing will happen in the world beyond my house next. It all started with the Lusitania and it gets more explosive all the time.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. My adventures during the Great War are detailed in the first volume of my memoirs, KIng Abdullah's Tomb.

Dear Readers,

Once I left my father's house I took up residence in the Arab Quarter of Cairo in a mansion with an extensive garden. Immediately I ordered my servants to plant rows of oleander bushes and to spend their time cultivating them. They were the source of my power. I did not mean to neglect them.

Now that I had removed the threat of putting a master in charge of me in the guise of a husband, I was free to do as I pleased. I meant to hold court. I invited the prominent men of the city to my house to feast. When I was running low on money, I took one of them as a lover. (You must get the idea that I was rather attractive and well-endowed in those days to judge by how my suitors had acted). The chosen one showered me with gifts. I returned the favor by making his enemies my enemies.

One of my devices was to invite the enemy to dine. Then I poisoned him at dinner by mixing the sap of the oleander leaves in the dressing for the salad or in the sauce for dessert. Sometimes I mingled it with the gravy for the meat. At other times I sent the enemy a bouquet of flowers. One of them would be an oleander sprig well-concealed in the center of the arrangement. Or I would send it to his chief wife. My lover would know what I was doing and he would approve. Sometimes I met their children in the street and offered them honey treats produced by my poisonous hive.

Woe to the lover who fell afoul of me! He would soon perish, and he knew it. My lovers were eager to placate me, not to rule me. They jostled each other for position and sought my favor. But I would take on no more than one at once no matter what they offered me. The nectar of the oleander was so omnipotent it became like a love potion, or elixir.

Word about me got around. Soon the King of Cairo, the Sultan of Old Cairo, made me his lover and told me the arrangement was permanent. I rose to a position in the city superior to his wives. I, in effect, became the Sultan of Old Cairo myself.

And what did I owe it all to? The oleander bloom!

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah, Witch of Cairo
P.S. You may read about my further adventures in the fourth volume of Dora, Lady Ware's, memoirs entitled Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

After we left the Tic Toc Restaurant, Michael and I boarded a Shannon Drake trolley headed for the South Hills and Bethel Borough in particular. After we got through the tunnel and were on our way through the woods, I saw Ali get off the trolley behind us. Not long after that our trolley went off the tracks and crashed perching itself precariously one hundred feet above the roadway.

Michael said if we could survive the Lusitania, we could survive the trolley wreck. We made it out of the front of the trolley just as a flaming tree crashed into it.

As we headed away from the wreck I saw Ali standing on the hillside above the track. I pointed at him and exclaimed, "He did it!" It was sabotage, just as  he had set off the second explosion aboard the Lusitania.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. You can read more about my adventures in my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb.

Dear Readers,

After my third suitor ied, hte gossip grew vicious. At night passersby threw melons and eggs at our house. They scrawled graffiti, and it was ugly. Some said:
MERCHANT, WHY DO YOU HARBOR THE LADY OF THE OLEANDER?

Others said:
PERHAPS MOHAMED WANTS TO TAKE OVER THE CITY HE WILL SEND THE LADY OF THE OLEANDER AFTER THE SULTAN NEXT

Several weeks passed in this fashion before my father summoned my weeping mother and me to the dining room table. He told me that if I refused to marry, he could not afford to keep me in his house anymore.

The next day I was given an hour or two to pack. Then my father summoned a litter bearer to take my away. Before I left he gave me a purse of money.

"This was to be your dowry," he said. "Use it well."

I smiled. The money was just what I needed. It would be enough to set me up in business. What business? Think of the bees buzzing around the oleander bush, and you know.

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah, Witch of Cairo
P.S. You can read all about my further adventures in Dora, Lady Ware's, memoirs entitled Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

I was going downtown to meet Michael for lunch. But when I was reading Mr. Klein's book, The Lion And The Mouse, and T. E. Lawrence's and Leonard Woolley's book, The WIlderness of Zin, I looked up to see Ali staring at me. I raced into Kaufmann's and looked at hats only to glance up to see Ali behind me in the mirror. I quote from the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb:

She picked up the first hat she came to, a garden or travel chapeau style. It was made of straw, edged with brown velvet and dotted with dream foulard trim. the ribbon on top was tied on one side. The sales clerk pushed a mirror in front of her so she could appreciate the effect. When she peered into the glass, she saw Ali behind her.

I raced up the escalator to the Tic Toc Restaurant. I met Mr. Byrne waiting for me. He went to investigate and escorted me to a table beside the window. When Ali entered the restaurant, Mr. Byrne got a waiter to throw him out, saying, "Your kind can't lunch here."

Ali cast me a murderous look as he left the room. I fear he will not give up. I have made a terrible enemy.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. Ali's been following me ever since the Lusitania!
P.S.S. You can read more of my adventures during the Great War in my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb.

Dear Readers,

After my second suitor was killed and rumors about me started to be told around the city, my father laid low for about a year. I thought he would be too cowardly to try to marry me off again. I imagined he would let me remain single as I wished. But after a year was up he had dealings with a merchant who came through Cairo only about once a year on the caravan routes. He sold fancy oriental and Persian rugs to the best families and had not had a chance to be influenced by local gossip. In addition he was of a rather independent frame of mind.

I was astonished when the rapscallion merchant showed up in the garden in the atrium of our house one day and announced that I was to become his bride. I rang for the servants and asked them to put the man out, but they backed away and ignored me. The man quickly grabbed and kissed me. I smacked at him, but he only seemed amused. No one would come to my aid even when the man raped me and then promised to return tomorrow.

That night my friends and informants told me that he was boasting to everyone that he knew that he had tamed the shrew. I debated with myself about whether to go into hiding. Then I came up with a plan.

I had noticed that my oleander were in bloom. Large numbers of hone bees gathered around them and then flew off to pollinate other flowers in our garden. I followed the bees on their daily journeys and discovered that they were building a honeycomb behind the palm tree on the far side of the garden.

I harvested honey and had it made into honey sweets for my self-appointed fiance's next visit. I was waiting with a plate of them beside a cup of wine. He thought it was proof of how well he had conquered me when I smiled and handed him a candy.

The next day I learned that my third suitor was also dead, poisoned by the bees in the hive who had first flown to the oleander and then to the honeycomb. My father knew nothing of this. Neither did our neighbors. But the kitchen staff started even worse rumors about me and fled for fear of poisoning.

Someone carved my name in the red sandstone arch outside the city along the Nile River. They wrote:
BEWARE THE LADY OF THE OLEANDER! SHE WILL PREY ON YOU NEXT.

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah
P.S. You can read about my further adventures in Dora, Lady Ware's, fourth volume of memoirs entitled Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

Edward has written me from the camp of Lawrence of Arabia describing how Prince Feisal makes coffee. Apparenlty in the desert to say he makes coffee all day long is the same as saying that he is very hospitable. And manners in the desert requires him to crush the coffee beans himself.

Edward seems to do a variety of things as Lawrence's adjutant. He not only keeps track of his mail. He acts as a personal secretary and boy Friday. He also attends banquets and feasts with his commander --- that is when he is not planting tulip bombs to blow up Turkish railroads!

After describing all these things Edward writes me that he wants me to send him something of mine to remember me by. He is very lonesome for me. There are no women around anywhere --- just a trader named Mohamed who provides cigars for Sidi Lawrence in return for Lawrence's antique humidor.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. Edward sounds as if he's having more fun than I had on the Lusitania, that's for sure!

Dear Readers,

Once my first suitor died, my father attended the funeral. Then within the month, he introduced me to still another suitor. My father had the idea that I should marry men his age who were either widowers or already had multiple wives. He did not care how I felt about the situation. He cared only that he made proper alliances with his business associates, for he had made a fortune in the spice trade from the coast of Arabia Felix.

My second suitor was even worse than the first. He was a sadist who expected his wives to wait on him hand and foot. I was to be the lowest in rank. I had heard about his eldest wife. She would beat me brutally. In addition, he expected me to bow down to him when we met. I was mortally offended.

So I took the only action open to me, the only action that allowed me to be myself, Qabihah. I fed his horse when he was dining with us, knowing that on his way home he would have to pass through one of the most unsavoury sections of Old Cairo in the days before the British cleaned things up before the turn of the last century.

The next day my father was distraught at the dinner table, reporting to us that his best friend was dead. It must have been an evil Ginn. For his horse suddenly dropped dead in the worst section of town. Then he was set upon by thieves, robbed, and killed as he tried to defend himself.

I, Qabihah, kept my freedom. People began to gossip that there was an evil fate associated with me, and they became wary and spooked. One old woman on a street corner whispered aloud as I passed in my litter, "She is the Woman of the Oleander."

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah, Witch of Cairo
P.S. You can read about my later exploits in Dora, Lady Ware's, memoirs entitled, Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

Viola put the letter on the dining room table. I read it aloud to my parents and Mr. Byrne while we ate dinner. Edward informs me that he is the adjutant to Lawrence of Arabia responsible for handling the Colonel's correspondence with the British War Department. He went to Lawrence to report that the most recent letter had disappeared. He was met with a diatribe about how incompetent the War Department is in conducting the war. Lawrence claims that he intends to win in Arabia and chase the Turks out despite the War Department. He is using such tactics as blowing up railroads with tulip bombs instead of confronting the Turks --- supplied by the Germans --- head on in battle.

Edward also included a PS and a PSS just for me. He says he reads Mr. Klein's Lion and the Mouse that I sent him and thinks about me at night time. He wants me to send him a picture of myself. Of course I didn't read that part aloud. He suggests that we might be married next Christmas, 1916. But even that is indefinite. He hints, just like the British ambassador did, that our wedding is dependent upon the end of the war.

Oh, Edward, is seems as if my life is dependent upon the end of the war! Until then I am just waiting to live.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. You would think the Lusitania would be enough. Now it's the camp of Lawrence of Arabia. You can read all about my adventures in King Abdullah's Tomb, the first volume of my memoirs.

Dear Readers,

I was the most beautiful girl in Cairo decades ago --- many, many decades ago in the past century before the Great War, even before the British came to Egypt. My reputation spread far and wide, though I was clad in a black abaya like all young girls and did not appear in public. My father was wealthy, so I received countless suitors who vied with each other for my hand in marriage.

My father decided I was to marry a rich banker who already had three wives and join his harem. I was to be the youngest and the most nubile. But I thought he was hideous. I glimpsed him when I sneaked out of my room and peeked down through the latticework at him as he talked to my father in the garden in the atrium of our house. So when I was introduced to him at dinner and then was left alone in the garden with him and his roving hands fondled me and pinched me, I decided I would not marry him.

I went to my father and told him of my resolve. He barked at me and told me I would marry the man he chose. I saw how it was, so I would have to resist the marriage on my own. I walked in our garden alone for three whole afternoons before a pink flower blew down in my path and caught my attention. I looked up and beheld the tallest oleander bush on our property.

I looked down at the fragile pink blossom and saw power, power to assert my will. I pretended to go along with my father's decision to marry the rich old banker. But the next time I was left alone with him I let him kiss me. I made sure he brushed his lips against my right cheek.

The next day my father came to me in tears. He announced the death of the banker. The  marriage was off. I had freed myself with the use of nerium, or oleander.

I will tell you more stories about myself and how my power grew as I learned the possibilities of that most poisonous of all plants of the Mediterranean.

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah, Witch of Cairo
P.S. Read about me in Dora, Lady Ware's, memoir entitled Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

Dora, Lady Ware, has gotten enough of a chance to talk to you. She's been doing it for months now. Even that other creature, Helga von Wessel, has gotten her turn to address you. But until yesterday I never broke my silence.

I, Qabihah, am an Arabian witch. I have powers that other mortals do not possess. I have lived longer than almost anybody else.  The powers of nature augment my own. If I could change myself into another living form, I would become nerium, known to the ancient Romans as the most powerful and oldest plant that grows along the shores of the Mediterranean all the way from Morocco and Portugal to Turkey and then eastward into Asia to the state of Sri Lanka and even Yunan southern China.

Mortals bow and quake before the bush where flowers grow in clusters at the end of each branch and bloom in white, pink, red, or yellow. They gasp when they see the 5-lobed corolla with the fringe round the central corolla tube. The distinctive sweet scent sends wise mothers indoors, carting their children and pets with them. And woe be to the horses and cattle that have to remain outside in its presence! They must fend for themselves or die. Even a wildfire that gets started near the all-powerful plant can poison them with its noxious fumes. And if a honey bee has landed on one of its beautiful but deadly pink blooms and carried the taint to another flower or plant and the cattle graze on that plant, their day has come.

When I walk through the bazaar in the city of Cairo where I live, I wear a nerium bloom pinned to my black abaya. Everyone knows it is I and they make way. They cringe back against the walls of buildings to let me pass. They flee down dark alleyways, fearing contact with the demon god Oleander, to give nerium its more popular name. Sometimes I am alone in the square in a city teeming with people.

When I die someday --- if a sorceress like me can even die, and at my age I wonder --- a nerium will bloom on my grave. I will need no other marker. People for ages to come will know who I am.

Always yours,

Qabihah
P.S. Read more about me in Dora, Lady Ware's, memoir called Hitler's Daughter.

Dear Readers,

My father talked to President Woodrow Wilson. Why? Just listen.

My mother realized that we had to leave for England within the week if we were to arrive in time for the December 22 wedding. And yet we had not heard from Edward. My father got tired of hearing weeping and screaming women. So he called Wilson. He told him he was a passenger aboard the Lusitania and a prominent Pittsburgh businessman. He asked how to track down Lieutenant Ware and T. E. Lawrence. Wilson suggested he call the British ambassador. Finally we found out that Lawrence and Ware were both sent on a secret mission. I asked the ambassador if Edward would be back for Christmas. The man said he was sorry. Edward would not be back until the end of the war.

Sincerely yours,

Dora Benley
P.S. You can read all about my adventures in the first volume of my memoirs, King Abdullah's Tomb.

Dear Readers,

You haven't met me yet, but I live in the Arab Quarter of Cairo in a quaint old house with an elaborate garden. You can smell your way to it. The sweet scent smells like perfume and pervades the alleyways of Old Cairo. Ask and everyone you meet will direct you to my house. They have probably visited it themselves seeking their dreams.

Follow the aroma to the land of the dark pink blossoms. Dwarf petite pink oleanders, or  nerium to use the Latin word, with their long, narrow green leaves and multiple blooms give character to the hedges of my garden. The blooms form in clusters at the end of each branch. You will see the bushes growing eight feet high along every wall of my garden and in every nook and cranny.

I also raise honey bees in hives along the back wall of the garden. I harvest the honey and make a dessert like the Greek dish, baklava. I also prepare candies and sell them in the Cairo bazaar fpr a good price. Why do I charge so much? My candies have special properties unlike any others sold in the city and probably the country and the world as well. You need only to make a wish and it will come true if you serve someone you love with one of my honey treats.

Sincerely yours,

Qabihah
P.S. If you want to find out more about me, you should read the writings of Dora Benley, now called Lady Ware. I appear in Hitler's Daughter, the last volume of her memoirs.