The Girl in the Quarter Rossetti

"Gebrail waited while the Englishman disappeared for half an hour into the Bazaars' pungent labyrinth. Visiting, perhaps. Now he'd seen the girl before, surely. The girl in the Quarter Rossetti: Coptic, probably. Eyes made impossibly huge with mascara, nose slightly hooked and bowed, two vertical dimples on either side of the mouth, crocheted shawl covering hair and back, high cheekbones, warm-brown skin.

Of course she'd been a fare. He remembered the face. She was mistress to some clerk or other in the British Consulate. Gebrail had picked the boy up for her in front of the Hotel Victoria, across the street. Another time they'd gone to her rooms. It helped Gebrail to remember faces." ^[1]

"'. . . who did say? I know her . . . Zenobia the Copt . . .'

'. . . Kenneth Slime at the Embassy's girl . . ." ^[2]

S. Stencil on V.: "...from a young, crude Mata Hari act in Egypt [...] while Fashoda tossed sparks in search of a fuse [...]" ^[3]

"Disguise is one of her attributes." ^[4]

References

1. ↑ Pynchon, Thomas, V. a Novel, J. B. Lippincott and Co., 1963, p.84
2. ↑ Ibid., p.91
3. ↑ Ibid., p.386
4. ↑ Ibid., p.388