The Case of the Golden Greeks

by Sean McLachlan

  “These are excellent,” Moustafa said, leafing through the volume. “I cannot match this quality.”

  “Few can. The illustrator is one Howard Carter, an Englishman and the best archaeological draftsman of this generation. He’s wasting his talent, however. Now he’s off in the Valley of the Kings thinking he’ll discover the undisturbed tomb of Tutankhamun.”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  “Fanciful is the better word. All those tombs were plundered centuries ago. He would be better off sticking with illustration. Sadly, the man has contracted gold fever. Be that as it may, I would be very happy if you could find the time to make some sketches for my book. I know that Augustus will be keeping you busy, and no doubt in danger, but if you can it would be beneficial to both of us.”

  “I will try my best, sir.”

  “Perhaps you’ll find something that will make a good journal article to follow up the success of your first.” The scholar tapped the stack of books he was lending Moustafa. “These will be of some help, but you are for the most part entering unknown territory.”

  “We will be leaving soon. I’ll read as much as possible and get them back to you before we go.”

  “Nonsense! Take them with you.”

  Moustafa looked at the books uncertainly. “Are you sure, Herr Schäfer?”

  “Quite sure, I have plenty of other books to read,” he said with a chuckle. “Ah! Here’s our coffee.”

  Aziz entered with a tray. He made a point of pouring Herr Schäfer’s coffee first, even though Moustafa was the guest.

  Moustafa seethed. This was what colonialism had done to Egypt, made the servants think they were above the scholars. Of course, Moustafa knew that he would have never become a scholar if it wasn’t for colonialism. It was the Europeans who had started the investigations into Egypt’s past. Most Egyptians didn’t care.

  As Aziz finally got around to pouring his coffee, Moustafa wondered if, when colonialism ended, they would lose the good things that came with it along with the bad.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Taiyer ibn Akbar would buy anything and never tell a soul who he had bought it from. Big or small, old or new, it made no difference. Carpets, shoes, brass lamps, furniture—as long as it was stolen, Taiyer ibn Akbar would buy it.

  Taiyer ibn Akbar was an older man with a paunch pressing against the fabric of his yellow djellaba. He wore a white turban to hide his balding head and although he had no beard, his gray and black stubble was shaved so rarely that he might as well have had one. One eye was milky white, the other sharp and penetrating. Faisal couldn’t decide which bothered him more. Still, he had done good business with Taiyer ibn Akbar.

  “What do you have for me today, Faisal?” he asked in a voice made friendly by greed.

  They sat in the back of his junk shop, piled high with all sorts of goods covered in a deep layer of dust. Chairs, bed stands, side tables, candlestick holders, all lay in a jumble so high it obscured the view from the street outside. Most of this stuff never sold. It had been here from the time when Taiyer ibn Akbar’s father had owned the shop. All had been purchased honestly, and acted as a screen to hide the true business that went on in back. Often homeowners who had experienced a robbery would scour the bazaar for shops like this, hoping to spot their stolen property, little knowing that stolen property never went on display.

  Taiyer ibn Akbar sat behind a small hexagonal table inlaid with mother of pearl. It had been beautiful once, probably adorning the house of some rich Ottoman merchant from the time of Faisal’s great-grandparents, whoever they were. Now it was battered and scratched and stained and many of the bits of inlay had fallen out.

  Faisal set down his bundle and slowly unrolled the cloth to reveal the bright silverware inside.

  Taiyer ibn Akbar took in a sharp breath.

  “Well, well, Faisal. You have outdone yourself this time!”

  “I’m a good boy, aren’t I?”

  “A good boy? Ha! You are an excellent thief, and that’s even better.”

  Faisal wasn’t sure why that compliment didn’t feel good.

  Taiyer ibn Akbar picked up each utensil one by one and studied them in the dim sunlight filtering in from the front.

  Faisal swelled with pride. These were the nicest things he had ever brought him.

  Taiyer ibn Akbar put down the last utensil, looked at Faisal for a moment, and said, “One hundred piastres.”

  Faisal almost shot through the ceiling. One hundred piastres! That was more money then he had ever held in his hand!

  But then his street cunning took over. One hundred piastres was a lot of money, sure, but this silverware was worth way more than that.

  “Two hundred piastres,” Faisal said.

  Taiyer ibn Akbar scoffed. “Come now. They are used, and look at this design. They are easily recognized. I will have to sell them to a middleman who will ship them to Alexandria to sell there. That cuts into my profits. I’ll give you a hundred and ten.”

  “Are you trying to rob me? I nearly fell out a window getting these, and also—” Faisal caught himself before he let slip about the gunfight, “—also had to run from the servants. I won’t sell them to you for less than a hundred and eighty.”

  “Nonsense. Because you are a good boy I’ll give you a hundred and twenty. I cannot go any higher.”

  Faisal felt anger burn in his skinny chest. Calling him a good boy only so he could rip him off? Faisal felt like taking the silverware back and storming out of the shop.

  But Taiyer ibn Akbar was the best fence he knew. The others were even stingier, or if they saw such a nice prize might clout Faisal over the head and take the silverware without paying.

  “Enough of this. We both know we’re heading for a hundred and sixty,” Faisal said.

  “Forty.”

  “Sixty!”

  “Fifty.”

  Faisal paused. A hundred and fifty was probably the best price he could get.

  He was about to say yes when he looked down at the silverware and felt a tug of regret. They were so nice. He had never owned something so nice. Why did everyone have nice things except him?

  But that was foolish. What would he do with a bunch of European eating utensils? He ate with his hands, like other Egyptians. Well, maybe a knife to cut some meat, when he had meat, or a spoon when he ate soup, but usually with soup he just drank it from the bowl. He didn’t even own a spoon. And a fork? What would he do with a fork?

  He picked out a knife, a spoon, and a fork.

  “I want to keep these,” he said.

  Taiyer ibn Akbar stared at him, baffled.

  “Why?”

  Faisal didn’t know.

  “I just want them.”

  “Don’t be silly. If you break up the set, it’s worth a lot less. You know that!”

  “Only pay me a hundred and twenty then.”

  Faisal was shocked by his own words. What was he doing?

  “I’ll give you ninety,” Taiyer ibn Akbar grunted.

  “A hundred and ten and not a milleme less. I know every fence in Cairo.”

  Taiyer ibn Akbar smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. “Look, Faisal. We have done some good business together, haven’t we? I have always given you a good price. Now let me give you some good advice. I see the way you are looking at these things. You’re thinking ‘I own nothing nice. I should keep these.’ But what will you do with them? They’ll only get stolen by one of the other street boys. And even if you hide them well, silver gets tarnished after a time. You have to take care of it, and you don’t know how to do that. Look, I’ll give you a hundred and fifty, and we’ll order some falafel from down the street. My treat. What do you say?”

  Faisal’s stomach grumbled. He hung his head, fiddling with the three shiny, beautiful utensils in his hand.

  “No,” he said at last. “I want a hundred and ten and I get to keep these.”

  He couldn’t look at Taiyer ibn Akbar when he said it.

  �
��You’re a very foolish boy,” Taiyer ibn Akbar said with a sigh. Then he threw up his hands. “Very well, a hundred and ten it is! But don’t come to me in a week’s time trying to sell them. The set will be long gone by then.”

  The fence paused in the hope that Faisal would reconsider, but he held firm.

  Faisal was very busy for the rest of the day. First he snuck into the alley behind the Englishman’s house. It was half filled with trash and heaps of cracked bricks and bits of broken old furniture. No one came back here, and that suited Faisal just fine. He climbed the sheer back wall of the Englishman’s house, using handholds and toeholds in the cracked old masonry, some of which he had dug out deeper with a little chisel he stole from a carpenter’s shop. He was the best climber in Cairo, and going up the wall was as easy as going up a flight of stairs.

  Which was just as well, because he made a lot of trips up and down the wall that day.

  First he hid away his set of silverware. Then he went down and bought a nice thick cushion, a deep green in color. He bought a bright yellow cloth too, and a new pair of sandals to replace the ones that were wearing out. Edmond had given him his first pair of sandals, and he felt bad that they were wearing out, but there was nothing to do but replace them. At least he still had his nice blue djellaba.

  Faisal took all those things up to his little shed on the roof. Then he went back down.

  He bought some carrots, and some cucumbers, some bread, and a whole roast chicken.

  As he climbed up the wall the final time, the smell of that roast chicken made his stomach growl louder than Mohammed al-Hajji’s voice when he gave the call to prayer.

  It took all of Faisal’s willpower not to gobble the chicken as soon as he got to the roof. Instead he set the food to one side. He took an old box from the junk he had piled up in front of the door of the shed. That pile kept anyone standing on the roof from noticing that he had cleared the inside of the shed of all the other junk. He put the box in the center of the clear space, and laid the yellow cloth over it. Smoothing it out, he placed his new cushion in front of the box. Then he set out his knife and fork and spoon and placed the food at the center of the box.

  He unwrapped the newspaper from around the chicken and was about the throw the paper away when he realized that if he did that, he’d stain his nice new yellow cloth.

  Silly boy, he could hear Taiyer ibn Akbar saying in his head. You forgot to buy a plate.

  Faisal groaned. What a stupid mistake!

  Oh well, he had some money left over. He could buy a plate tomorrow.

  He looked at the chicken, licking his lips. He picked up the knife and fork. The knife was easy, but how did you hold this fork thing? He tried to remember how the Europeans did it at Shepheard’s Hotel, and realized he had never paid any attention to that. He just held it in his fist like the knife.

  He jabbed his fork at the side of the chicken and it shot off the box and landed on the floor with a splat.

  Cursing to himself, he picked the chicken up, dusted it off, and put it back on the box.

  No, not a box, he corrected himself. A table.

  This time he was more careful and got the fork in the chicken without the chicken getting away from him.

  He hacked into the chicken with the knife and tore long strips of it off with the fork, gnawing away at the end until he got to the fork. The last bit he had to bite carefully off the fork so he didn’t crack his teeth against the metal. He got the hang of it soon enough. Then he discovered it was easier to spear the chicken with the knife to hold it steady, and rip off chunks of meat with the fork.

  The cucumbers were even easier. All you had to do was stab the fork into the middle of the cucumber and chew away at both ends. It was very efficient, because instead of picking up slices of cucumber from the table with your hand, you could have the whole cucumber right next to your mouth and eat it as fast as you wanted.

  The Europeans were very clever about some things.

  Oh, he nearly forgot!

  He stopped hunching over his food and sat up straight. Europeans always sat up straight when they were at a table, and spent as much time smiling at the others around the table as they did eating their food. They also stuck their noses in the air.

  Faisal practiced that, pretending the Englishman and some other Europeans sat around the table. Not Sir Thomas Russell Pasha. Faisal didn’t like him. Maybe the Englishman’s friend with the motorcar. He seemed all right.

  And so Faisal ate his food and kept his nose in the air and pretended to talk with the Englishman and the European with the motorcar. They talked about all the things Europeans talked about when they sat at a table eating. Faisal wasn’t sure what those things were, but he talked anyway.

  “I went in my motorcar to see the moving pictures today,” he said to one of his pretend friends.

  “I went to the big hotel with the fence around it and ate there. I went in my motorcar, of course,” his friend replied.

  “Maybe we should go to the moving pictures this afternoon,” Faisal said.

  “Oh yes. Shall we go in my motorcar or yours?”

  It was hard to eat with your nose in the air. Maybe that’s why so many Europeans were skinny even though they were all rich.

  That was a funny game. A bit silly too. But fun.

  And the knife and fork made the food taste better.

  ***

  Even though eating at home was a lot more fun now with his table and his European utensils, Mina’s ful stand was his favorite place to eat. The beans were always fresh and they always made it with extra vegetables and lemon juice, just the way he liked it. And it was only half a piastre.

  And he got to see Mina.

  Mina was his best friend. She was the only one of his friends who had a home. Sure, it was just a little lean-to made of reed mats by the side of the street behind their ful stand, but there were plenty of children who lived in places just as bad who turned up their noses when he passed. Mina didn’t. Even Mina’s parents didn’t do that.

  Mina was also the only one of his friends who believed him when he said he worked for the Englishman. When Mina’s father had wrenched his back and couldn’t work, Faisal had given up some of his pay to get the Englishman to take him to a doctor. The Englishman himself had come to the ful stand to talk with Mina’s family. The look on their faces! They had always laughed when he said he worked for the Englishman, and then he and the Englishman had walked up side by side and Faisal introduced them.

  The doctor had fixed up Mina’s father in no time and the ful stand was doing better than ever. Mina didn’t have to help out so much anymore and had time to play.

  As Faisal strolled up to the stand for breakfast, he saw Mina and a few of the other girls playing pick-up-sticks.

  When Mina spotted him, she skipped over.

  “Hey Faisal!”

  “How’s your father’s back?”

  “Still good,” she said. “He’s getting more business than ever.”

  Faisal could see him by the ful stand of green and red painted wood, ladling out the seasoned chickpeas to a crowd of workmen. The stand was in front of the tall stone wall of a rich man’s house. Just beyond the stand was Mina’s house, a lean-to of papyrus reed mats.

  “I have another job with the Englishman. I’m going to have to go away for a while.”

  Mina cocked her head. “Go away? Where?”

  “To Bahariya Oasis,” Faisal said.

  “Where’s that?”

  “In the Western Desert,” he said, gesturing vaguely to the west. “I thought everyone knew.”

  “Why would he want to go there?”

  “He’s looking for gold, plus a man who kills Europeans.”

  Mina giggled.

  “It’s true!” Faisal said.

  “Come on. Where are you really going?”

  “To the Western Desert. You know how foreigners love old things. There was another foreigner who dug up old things who got killed and my boss is looki
ng for him. Plus he’ll probably dig up old things and sell them in his shop for lots of money.”

  “There’s nothing in the desert except sand and Bedouin.”

  “That’s what I thought too, but the Englishman said there are some old temples and tombs and things there.”

  Mina looked concerned. “Aren’t those places dangerous?”

  Faisal puffed out his chest. “Sure, but I went to Khadija umm Mohammed. Look.”

  From beneath the neckline of his djellaba he pulled out a charm tied on a leather strap around his neck. It was a strange stone of shiny green, with magical writing etched all over it by Khadija umm Mohammed herself.

  Mina leaned closer to look at it.

  “That looks powerful,” she said. “Khadija umm Mohammed is the best sorceress in the neighborhood.”

  She saved you from getting married to that fat old man, he thought.

  “She sure is,” Faisal said. “I had to work hard to get enough money to buy it.”

  Mina raised an eyebrow. “Work?”

  “For the Englishman! You can’t buy charms with stolen money. Everybody knows that. They won’t work if you do.”

  Faisal’s stomach grumbled. Mina laughed.

  “Well, I hope you don’t buy ful with stolen money!”

  “Of course not,” Faisal replied, wondering if money he tricked out of the Englishman counted as stolen money. They walked over to the stand, where Mina’s father greeted him with a smile and a wave. He served Faisal a big portion.

  They sat against the wall a little way from the crowd as Faisal ate.

  “Mina, aren’t you going to play?” one of the other girls called over.

  “In a minute!”

  The girls gathered into a huddle and whispered among themselves, giggling.

  “How long will you be gone?” Mina asked, turning back to Faisal.

  “It takes ten days to get there. I guess it takes ten days to get back too. I don’t know how long we’ll stay.”

  “He needs you for all that time?”

  “I told you, I do stuff for him. Like, um, taking messages.”

  Faisal had almost let slip about breaking into houses. Mina didn’t like that sort of story.