Footprints in the Desert

by Maha Akhtar

  “Are you suggesting that I do?”

  “Of course! Look at this dress you want to wear. It’s for an eighteen year old who weighs at least seventy pounds less than you.”

  Yvonne scoffed.

  “And look at your hair color, Yvonne!” Saydeh continued. “It’s blonde! And you’re not a natural blonde. Have you ever heard of growing old gracefully?”

  “Pshaw!” Yvonne grunted. “Speaking of hair … what about yours?”

  “I color my hair too, but it’s much more natural.”

  “Who can tell with that stupid scarf you always wear around you head?” Yvonne taunted her. “You could be bald for all we know.”

  “I’ve had it with you, Yvonne! I can’t understand how your husband can stand being around you …”

  “Don’t bring him into this …”

  “You only care about yourself,” Saydeh shouted. “All this poor girl is doing is trying to help you …”

  In the midst of all this, the two strangers got up and left. But a few minutes later, another two came and sat down at the same table. Rania muttered an excuse and went into the kitchen. She peeked through the back door, hoping that Salah would miraculously appear. But the alleyway was empty.

  Meanwhile, Fatmeh walked through the curtain.

  “Rania, can I go upstairs? I have to prepare a few things for Rabih that you can give him later.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Everything all right?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you except that I have a bad feeling about the strangers who just walked in.”

  “Should we call the police?”

  “And say what? They haven’t done anything. And this is a café. They are allowed to come in and have coffee.”

  “Don’t worry, Rania. I’m sure its fine.”

  “Yes, you are probably right,” Rania replied. “Salah and Rabih have made me paranoid.”

  Inside the cellar, Rabih sat up when Salah emerged through the tunnel.

  “We’ve got trouble, brother,” Salah took a deep breath.

  Rabih’s brow furrowed.

  “Ahmed Jemmal’s men … ,” Salah began. “They have Nassim, one of my boys who was my ears and eyes in the souk.”

  Rabih nodded, worried. “Do they know I’m here?”

  Salah shrugged. “They know you’re in Cairo … and they think you’re here. At any rate, they’re watching the café and keeping a very close eye on Rania.”

  “Ya Allah!” Rabih rubbed his forehead. “I need to get out of here. I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to her.”

  “I’m worried they might snatch Rania, just like Nassim, in order to get to us.”

  “Do you know where Nassim is?”

  Salah nodded. “Lawrence found him. I’m waiting for him to tell me when we can go in and get him. He’d better be getting him out soon, or I will go in there myself.”

  “How is it going in the Hejaz?”

  “Slow.” Salah was disgusted and annoyed, not to mention weary. “The British are not advising Faisal well.”

  “Why doesn’t Lawrence become the liaison?”

  “That may well be on the cards.”

  “Tante Saydeh! Please, both of you, not another word,” Rania pleaded. “Now we are going to fix this issue with the dress right now, all right? Khalas! I’ve had enough.”

  She turned to Noura.

  “Noura, what is the story with the dress? Can it be fixed?”

  “Akeed! Of course!” Noura said. “But it will not look like the pattern Madame Yvonne originally chose. It will still be beautiful and it will look lovely.”

  “And if she wants this pattern?” Rania asked.

  “Then we have to buy more cloth and start again.”

  “So what would you like, Madame Yvonne?” Rania asked.

  “She should have gone to a dressmaker in the first place instead of pretending to know everything about everything,” Saydeh remarked.

  “Tante Saydeh! Please!” Rania put a hand on her shoulder to stop her from confronting Madame Yvonne again.

  “Why do you have to be such a know-it-all?” Saydeh jabbed again.

  “Why do you have to be such a nosy pain in the ass?” Yvonne hooked back.

  “Ladies!” Rania cried in exasperation. “Stop it … seriously, or I will ban you from coming here.”

  The women fell silent.

  “Now, Madame Yvonne,” Rania turned to her first, “why don’t you let Noura work on this dress and make something for you? And if, when you have tried it, you don’t like it, then we will try and find another solution … but give her a chance.”

  “Why don’t we just put her in a burlap sack,” Saydeh muttered, “and throw her in the Nile?”

  Rania glared at Saydeh.

  “Now, is that an acceptable solution?”

  Madame Yvonne nodded.

  “Good!” Rania let out a deep breath.

  In the meantime, the second pair of men had gotten up and walked away.

  Rania went over to their table and began clearing away the empty cups and plates. She happened to look outside and her heart jumped into her throat. On the other side of the alley, she saw two men, wearing black pinstriped suits and black Fedora-style hats. Both were smoking and looking over at the café and the floor above it. They were the same men who had come in the day Rabih stumbled through the front door. She watched as they stubbed out their cigarettes and began to walk over, hands in their pant pockets.

  Before she had time to do anything, the bell on the door jingled. The two men sat down at the table she’d just cleared.

  “Sabah al-khair,” Rania said, wishing them a chilly good morning. “Can I help you?”

  “You know, we were so saddened when your café was closed the last time we were here, that we decided to come back,” one said to Rania.

  Rania stared at them, her expression blank.

  “Yes, your café seems very popular with the locals,” the other added.

  “What do you want?” Rania hissed.

  “We would like two coffees and two narghiles.”

  They definitely looked and sounded Turkish. Even though their Arabic was perfect, they still had traces of an accent.

  While she was putting fresh water in the narghiles and preparing the tobacco, Yvonne came into the kitchen. “I would like a narghile as well,” she told Rania.

  “Very well,” Rania said quickly. “Why don’t you go back into the café, Madame Yvonne.” She took the older woman’s arm and steered her toward the curtain that separated the kitchen from the café. “I’ll bring the narghile out to you with the other two.” Rania didn’t want Yvonne in the kitchen, just in case.

  But Yvonne was not to be maneuvered. She turned around and sat down on a stool. “Who are all these strange men who’ve been coming in all morning? I’ve never seen them here before.”

  “No … ,” Rania said, while she formed three tobacco patties.

  “They are well dressed.” Yvonne nodded approvingly. “Give me a little more hashish in my tobacco,” she added, looking over Rania’s shoulder.

  “You really want more?” Rania asked.

  Yvonne nodded.

  Rania pretended to put some more of the resinous cannabis in Madame Yvonne’s narghile, but when the older woman wasn’t looking, she put it back in the terracotta jar. She’d already had two glasses of lime juice well laced with gin.

  Suddenly, the curtain was drawn aside and the two men walked in. Rania took in a sharp breath.

  “We were wondering what was taking so long?” one of them said as the other walked around the kitchen, looking at everything, picking up spice bottles, touching the copper pots, running his fingers over a bowl of fresh fruit.

  Yvonne looked at him quizzically. “What is he doing?” she asked out loud.

  “Would you please go back into the café?” Rania said, slightly breathless. “I
do not allow my customers in the kitchen. I will be right out with the narghiles,” she said, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

  “But she’s a customer.” One of them pointed to Yvonne.

  “Madame Yvonne is my friend, not a customer.”

  Yvonne puffed with pride at her special privileges. “Yes!” she said. “Besides, what’s your hurry?” She jumped up, standing in front of the one who was standing next to Rania. “Narghiles take a long time. You have to heat the coal, prepare the tobacco, make sure the water is fresh … Now go back out there … Shoo! Shoo!” She gestured as though she were sweeping away a stray cat.

  “Yes, yes, we know how narghile is made, old woman,” he said in a nasty tone.

  Yvonne drew herself up to her full height and puffed out her already large chest. “Who are you calling old?”

  The man sniggered.

  “How dare you?” Yvonne raised her voice. “Just who do you think you are?” She poked her finger in his chest.

  “What’s happening here?” Saydeh came rushing in. “Ya Allah! What’s everyone doing in the kitchen? Rania?”

  Rania bit her lip.

  “What’s through here?” one of the men asked when he saw the staircase beyond the slim archway.

  “That is private.” Rania went and stood in front of him.

  “Come on, Sir! He must be upstairs.”

  Upstairs there were sounds of footsteps and the creaking of furniture.

  “Come, Sir!” the other man said. “I hear him. He’s upstairs.”

  He pushed Rania out of the way and tore up the stairs with his superior close behind.

  “You can’t go up there! That is my home!” Rania shot up behind them.

  “What are they doing?” Saydeh put her hands on her face incredulously. “Who are those men? Who do they think is up there?”

  Yvonne shrugged.

  Suddenly, they heard a loud scream and saw the two men come barreling down the staircase barely able to keep their balance.

  “Get out of here!” the women heard Fatmeh shout. “How dare you come into my room? Wait until I tell the police … that you were harassing me!” Fatmeh was holding a broom, standing at the top of the stairs.

  Saydeh and Yvonne looked up at the top of the stairs curiously, while the two men began picking themselves off the kitchen floor, wincing and moaning from their fall down the staircase.

  “I wasn’t feeling well, so I was lying down,” Fatmeh said. “And suddenly these two men kicked the door down. Can you imagine what would happen to them if my husband finds out?”

  “Those bastards!” Yvonne swore. “Throw me that broom,” she told Fatmeh.

  Rania appeared from behind Fatmeh and came down the stairs with the broom and handed it to Yvonne.

  “Get up!” Yvonne hit the Turks with the straw end of the broom. “You cowards! Get up and get out immediately! How dare you come in here and harass us women. We’ve done nothing to you.” She swished the broom against them as if she was trying to sweep them out of the kitchen.

  Saydeh took a bucket of water and threw it on them. “Take that, you cads! That’ll cool you down. Now out with you … both of you! Whatever it is you’re looking for is not here. So don’t come back or else we will call the police.”

  “Don’t worry! We’ll be back,” one of them said.

  “Take your threats somewhere else!” Yvonne swept their feet, pushing them toward the door as the two of them danced around, trying to avoid the broom. “Come on! Out!”

  Finally, with a big push, Saydeh and Yvonne shoved them out the front door. A cheer went up from the table of shopkeepers. Yvonne and Saydeh looked at each other and started laughing.

  “Good work, Yvonne!” Saydeh put her hand out.

  “That was good, with the water,” Yvonne acknowledged and shook Saydeh’s hand.

  “Who were they anyway?” Saydeh asked as they walked back, arm in arm, to the table.

  “Allah knows,” Yvonne replied.

  “Where’s Rania?” Saydeh asked, looking around.

  “Probably upstairs with Fatmeh. Poor Fatmeh,” Yvonne said, shaking her head, “what a fright she must have had seeing those two men.”

  Saydeh nodded her agreement.

  “But what was she doing upstairs lying down in the middle of the day?” Yvonne asked.

  There was silence for a moment before Saydeh broke into a big smile.

  “Shoo?” Yvonne said.

  “She must be pregnant.”

  “You think so?”

  “Of course!” Saydeh said. “She doesn’t talk much about her husband, but she is relatively newly wed.”

  “I don’t know …”

  “Why else would she be lying down on Rania’s bed?”

  “Yes … well, I suppose …”

  While Saydeh and Yvonne speculated about whether or not Fatmeh was pregnant, Rania and Fatmeh were laughing uncontrollably.

  “You are incredible, Fatmeh!” Rania said. “That was hilarious! Did you see the look on that man’s face when you went after him with the broom?”

  “It was all I could find up here.”

  “And then Madame Yvonne and Tante Saydeh literally swept them out of the café … that was too much.” Rania was holding her sides with laughter.

  “Lucky I was up here.”

  Chapter Nine

  Omer Erdogan paced his office.

  What happened at the café is unacceptable! I have idiots on my team! How could they have let a couple of old women get the better of them? He had been in Cairo for months and Masri continued to slip through his fingers. How was that possible? He had the best team of agents with him from Constantinople and his men here knew the city like the back of their hand.

  “Sergeant Celik!” Erdogan called out.

  “Yes, Sir!”

  “I am getting tired of this cat and mouse game with Masri.”

  “Sir?”

  “Bomb the El-Khalili bazaar.”

  “Sir? The whole bazaar?”

  “Yes,” Erdogan replied without blinking. “As much of it as we can.”

  “Sir, this is a British protectorate.”

  “Yes, Celik, I am well aware. But do I need to remind you that we are in the middle of a war? In any case, I want to make it look as if the British did it. That will drive a nice wedge between them and the Arabs.”

  “What about civilian casualties, Sir?”

  “I don’t care about collateral damage.”

  “If you say so, Sir.”

  “Find cases of British dynamite. Buy it, steal it … I don’t care how you get it. And make sure you keep the crates that have ‘British Army’ burned on them. We will leave those lying around for the Arabs to find.”

  “I want bundles of dynamite placed directly around the café and within a one-mile radius. I want to be positive that we get Masri and Farhat.”

  “It will take us a couple of days to get all of that into place, Sir.”

  “And I want them all attached to one fuse … so we have one massive explosion.”

  “Very well, Sir. I will get working on it.”

  “Let me know when the preparations have been made. I want to give the order to detonate myself.”

  Celik saluted and left.

  Erdogan stroked his chin. Why didn’t I think of this before? I’ll just blow them all sky high. How dare they all insult me? They will know who they are dealing with. Smiling, he congratulated himself on his plan.

  Carrying Madame Yvonne’s half-made dress in a linen bag, Noura wove her way along the cobblestoned lane, heading toward Rania’s. She’d worked on the dress with the sewing machine at home, but she needed Madame Yvonne to try the bodice before she finalized it. She’d asked Amira to look after Siran and she took a tram to the Al-Hussein mosque. Sitting on the tram, looking out at the city, Noura smiled. She was really looking forward to seeing all the women in the café.

  As she entered the souk, she was unsure of the way to the café, even though she’d writte
n it down. Somehow, she got lost and walked round and around in circles. An hour later and just about to give up, she came to a small square that she thought she recognized. She went down a narrow lane at the end of which she saw the small alley at the back of Rania’s Café.

  As she approached, she saw a man kneeling on the ground at the back door of the café. He looked like he was digging. Suddenly, he got up. Noura quickly hid behind a doorway. The man looked around, adjusted his jacket and fixed the knot in his tie, and walked away. A few houses away from the café, he fell to his knees and did the same thing. He took something out of a satchel he was carrying on his shoulder. It looked like a cable. He got up and walked to the end of the lane, unwinding it from a spool as he moved. Hidden in the doorway, Noura watched him until he finished. After he turned the corner, she waited a few minutes before she went to investigate.

  And there, carefully hidden under a small stack of rocks outside the back door of Rania’s Café was a bundle of dynamite. Noura’s heart started to beat faster. She ran to the next doorway where she’d seen the man kneeling and there, too, she found the same. Following the cable the man had camouflaged under leaves, she found the next bundle. Noura walked all around the block and down the lane and there were bundles of dynamite every hundred yards. Oh my God! I’ve got to warn Rania … the shopkeepers … everyone …

  Noura banged on the back door of the café.

  “Rania!” Noura shouted. “Rania! Open up! It’s me, Noura!”

  “Noura … !” Rania said, surprised.

  “Rania, you’ve got to get out of here! We’ve all got to get out of here!”

  “Why? What has happened?”

  “There’s dynamite outside this café and all down the lane. And there may be more!””

  “What? Where?”

  “Behind the back door to the café and all around the block until the end of the lane,” Noura said, pointing toward the square she had come from.

  “Oh my God! Look, can you get Salah?”

  “There’s no time. We don’t know when it’s going to blow.”

  “Noura, listen … there’s a friend of Salah’s hiding in the café. He’s hurt and he can’t move quickly.”

  Noura shook her head in anger. “Why the hell is he involving you?”