Copper pots and carpets are for sale, as are clothes ready to buy, cloth ready to be sewn, and cloth still being woven on looms—cotton, lamb’s wool, and goat hair. A man takes a live chicken from its cage and with one quick blow, chops its head off—blood splats on his robe, mixing with the blood of chickens now roasting over hot coals. “Genuine” papyrus paintings of pharaohs in chariots and dancing girls with their bosoms bare can be purchased for the cost of a pack of gum back home. There are flutes, drums, bells, cymbals, jewelry, and spices.…
Goods are everywhere; there are no bare spaces, not even the passageways themselves, some so narrow we are almost shoulder to shoulder with merchandise.
The exotic Eastern marketplace is everything I imagined and nothing I expected. I’m sure if I looked close enough, I would find frankincense and myrrh, and perhaps behind the public facades of shacks lining alleys, I could buy treasures looted from the tombs of pharaohs.
“I find the stench of a marketplace insufferable but his lordship enjoys contact with the natives,” says Lady Warton, fanning herself with a very pretty pink silk fan that has the design of small flowers on it. “He served in Morocco for a year with the Foreign Office, advising the local officials about growing grains.”
“He’s a farmer?”
“Of course not! He has farmlands on his estate. Naturally the farming is overseen by his manager, not by his lordship.”
“Of course,” I murmur, keeping myself from wondering aloud why the Foreign Office didn’t send the farm manager to Morocco instead.
Ragged beggars with bodies so dirty that their skin is hardly discernible from their fouled rags come up to us with outstretched hands and heartrending pleas. “Baksheesh, baksheesh…”
Lady Warton glares at them and swings her umbrella to shoo them away. “Go away, go away.”
I give them coins, remembering my mother’s admonition whenever she saw a person with a deformity: “But for the grace of God go any of us.”
“Feeding lice only causes them to multiply,” she says.
“Sorry.”
Finding myself ill at ease with her insufferable attitude of superiority, I button my lips as any well-mannered guest should. The boys in the newsroom have an expression for her ladyship’s type, one that I willingly embrace: rich bitch.
Lady Warton had obviously been born with a silver spoon—one filled with vinegar. She and her pompous husband no doubt believe that their position in the world is due to nothing less than the divine rights of kings, rather than an accident of birth.
Surrounded by strange sights and smells brings to mind a book I’d read, the adventures of Allan Quatermain, the hero of H. Rider Haggard’s tale King Solomon’s Mines.
“Isn’t this place exotic?” I offer.
“Exotic? My dear, you are surrounded by half-naked, unwashed natives who eat and drink things that poison the stomachs of civilized people. The Côte d’Azur is exotic. This is a wasteland.”
“I find it captivating. Egypt is a place to come in search of adventure. If I had been born in a different time and place, perhaps I could have been an adventurer searching for lost treasures.”
Lady Warton stares at me as if I have something dribbling down my chin.
“Are you feeling ill, your ladyship?” I ask.
“Frankly, my dear, I am deeply disturbed and puzzled by the concept of a young woman tromping around wild animals and savage natives in search of treasure. That is certainly not a proper ambition for any woman.” She surveys me with a look of contempt that sweeps from head to toe. “One has to wonder how a young woman who possesses ideas that are the proper attributes only of men was raised.”
I turn away and bite my lip. I’ve learned to rein my temper because being a reporter carries with it the necessary evil of having to deal with all kinds of people, but I draw the line at remarks about my upbringing. If she says another word about my mother, I will knock her on her noble fanny.
My reaction to her is aggravated by my resentment of people who have licked the cream off the top all of their lives. Not having to earn their bread, they don’t understand that there is more to life for women than just being the helpmates and sex slaves of men.
I soon wonder if we aren’t going in circles, for the alleys seem to be a confusing intricate network of passages that all seem to repeat themselves.
“Does your husband know where he’s going?” I ask Lady Warton. “I’m lost in this maze.”
“His precious sister in England specifically requested that he get her a trinket from a particular dealer she heard about here, so we must humor him.”
We enter the jewelry section, where tiny merchant shacks offer jewelry boxes and trinkets of every kind, from copper bracelets to gold chains, anklets, and nose-rings of leaden-looking silver and brassy gold.
Lord Warton says, “We’re getting close, I’m sure of it.”
His wife leaves me to join him and Von Reich drops back to walk with me. He takes my arm as we stroll along, watching beggars and the purveyors of “ancient” artifacts competing to relieve people of their money.
“How do they talk?” I ask him.
“Who?”
“Trees. Do they speak to people passing by, that sort of thing?”
“Only with the written word. You see all around you the elaborate artful swirls and waves of the Arabic language, none of it decipherable to us of the West. Those flowing lines are sometimes repeated in nature, on tree leaves, carved in the sand by the wind—”
“So the pattern on a leaf is interpreted as words, and fanatics start shouting it’s a message from God.”
“Exactly.”
I confess, “I’m afraid I’m not doing too well with Lady Warton. I don’t want to be a bad guest, but anything I say seems to offend her.”
“You’re at a disadvantage, trying to hold a conversation with a woman who has never used her brain. As you pointed out with the Bible story, that trees talk here should not come as a surprise. Egypt is part of the Holy Land, a place of mystery and magic, where an angry God sent plagues of pestilence to punish a stubborn pharaoh, where staffs turn to snakes, and the sea itself parted for God’s favorite.” He squeezes my arm. “But you must appreciate that it is also a place of dark magic, of pharaohs with eternal lives, mummies that rise from their graves—”
“And a sphinx that gallops across the desert—and eats foreigners.”
“Ja! In this ancient land there are few precise boundaries between what is … and what might be.”
“I’m not a person who embraces the supernatural. Perhaps because so much of my life has been spent on keeping a roof over my head and putting food on the table, I leave the uncanny to those who have the time and energy. But ever since I walked out on deck this morning and saw Egypt through mist and darkness, I’ve felt something.” I shake my head. “I can’t explain it, and certainly won’t share it with my editor in a cable for fear he’ll believe I have brain fever, but I’ve had a sense of not being alone.”
We come into a clearing where a crowd is gathering around a man standing on a small mound and holding a staff.
“You have to see this,” Von Reich says, and steers me toward the man who wears a long black robe and white turban that rises to a peak and has a dark green band.
“Good Lord!” I exclaim. “That’s a snake, not a hat band.”
A cobra fanning its neck and showing its fangs is wrapped around the turban.
“That evil creature is looking at me,” I tell Von Reich. There is no doubt about it, the thing is staring right at me.
“Nasty devil, isn’t he?” he says with a laugh. “It’s easy to see why the pharaohs used the cobra as a symbol of their power over life and death. The Egyptian cobra they call the asp is one of the most venomous snakes in the world.”
“What happens if it gets off the hat?” I ask.
“Someone dies. But it’s sewn on so it stays wrapped around the turban and can’t move its head enough to bite.”
&n
bsp; It doesn’t look sewn on to me. “The man’s a snake charmer?”
“More than that; he’s a Psylli, a magician who handles snakes,” Von Reich says. “They’re not just marketplace entertainers. Psyllis are descendants of an ancient tribe of desert people who work wonders with snakes, especially the Naja haje, the deadly Egyptian cobras. They’re exposed to snake bites while still young and claim they have an immunity. They’re said to be servants of Wadjet, the Green One, the Egyptian goddess with a snake’s head.
“Stories about them go back thousands of years. A Psylli was sought out by Julius Caesar to draw out the poison from Cleopatra when she had an asp bite her, but she was already dead when the magician got there.
“An even older tale is from the Bible. The pharaoh’s magician-priests who dueled with Moses and his brother Aaron were Psyllis.”
“The ones who turned staffs into snakes?”
“Yes, their favorite trick, and it is a clever bit of conjuring. Today they earn more money drawing out snakes from people’s houses than from entertaining people. It’s not uncommon for snakes to get into houses and once inside they can be impossible to find—until a cobra reaches out from under your bed and bites you.”
I shudder at that thought.
“Psyllis go into homes and sing a tune that the snakes find seductive enough to leave their hiding places.”
The magician speaks to the crowd and Von Reich interprets the gist of what is being said.
“He’s going to show us his power over snakes and then he will forever immunize people from snake bites—for a price, but not a bad investment considering how many people die of bites in the country.”
I’m wondering how many people die from the “cure” when Von Reich grabs my arm.
“Watch this!”
The man raises his staff into the air and points it in our direction—then tosses it right at us. The wood rod hits the ground and instantly turns into a wiggling snake that coils and rises up, fanning its head.
Gasps erupt, including mine, and we move back. Von Reich keeps his own cane in front of the serpent to attract its attention as we backpedal.
The four of us regroup and walk away, the snake having been captured and placed in a sack by one of the magician’s attendants.
“Please, tell me how it’s done,” I say to Von Reich as the Wartons stop to examine a rack of jewelry. Aboard ship he had told me that he was an amateur magician and showed me several clever card tricks.
“Obviously, the man calls upon the snake goddess to empower him.”
A man with a big flamboyant mustache has to have an ego to match, so I play on his conceit to draw out the answer. “I’m sorry, I just thought you might know, being a magician yourself.”
He pretends to look around to see if anyone is within hearing range.
A man coming toward us is selling scarabs and I keep an eye on him as we walk. The “beetles” were the most powerful amulets of the ancient Egyptians, used to ward off evil spirits, to slay enemies, and now to fleece tourists. I’ve already decided that I would pin one on my dress as a memento of Egypt.
“The Naja haje cobra has a unique characteristic,” Von Reich says. “A spot on the back of its head when pressed causes the snake to extend itself full length and become rigid. It snaps out of its paralysis when it’s tossed by the magician and hits the ground.”
I raise my hand to signal the scarab seller to come over but he turns to a man who is suddenly by his side. The man’s wearing a hooded robe, a djellabah, but a distinguishing feature of his clothing draws my attention: British Army boots.
It’s the bike rider I’d seen earlier.
From the expression on the scarab seller’s face, I sense tension between the two of them. The seller turns to move away and the hooded man grabs a scarab and abruptly spins around and starts to walk toward us.
The scarab seller yells in Arabic and the bike rider breaks into a run but he goes only a few paces before an Egyptian steps in front of him, his back to me, and I see the flash of a blade.
It all happens so quickly; I see it, but my mind won’t accept it—the Egyptian has stuck a dagger into the gut of the bike rider.
Murder is being committed before my eyes.
The dagger man shouts, “Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!”
God is great!
5
The two men face each other, so close that the bike rider grips the wrist of the assassin as if they are about to dance, his face a mask of surprise, his mouth open, almost as if the assault left him with an unfinished question, asking why.…
The assassin pulls the bloodied dagger out of his victim’s stomach.
Staring down, the wounded man puts both hands over the spreading patch of blood on his abdomen.
The assassin strikes a second time, shoving the blade into the man’s abdomen again. The bike rider’s legs fold and he drops to his knees, then onto the dirt as his attacker holds the bloody dagger high in the air yelling again, “Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!”
He turns toward us, dagger in hand, his robe splattered with the victim’s blood.
“Shoot him!” Lady Warton shouts to her husband.
Lord Warton seems paralyzed, frozen in place, his jowls quivering as he stares at the dagger man.
My feet won’t let me move. Like the British lord, I just stand and gawk at the man coming at us with a bloodied blade.
Von Reich pulls out a double-barreled derringer and fires. The bullet knocks the man back, his own face mimicking the surprise that his victim had shown only moments before as he falls backward onto the dirt.
Quick strides bring Von Reich hovering over the man. The assassin looks up and says something in Arabic as Von Reich takes careful, deliberate aim and fires, the bullet catching the man in the center of his forehead, snapping his head back against the ground, his legs twitching, and then he is perfectly still.
The second shot brings me out of my trance and I rush to the bike rider who has gotten back up on his knees. He clutches at me, grabbing at my clothes. Seeing him close up, I realize he’s my neighbor passenger on the Victoria who made such an unorthodox departure from the ship earlier.
I try to hold him up but he slips back to the ground and I kneel beside him and cradle his head. “Get a doctor, he’s still alive!”
He grabs me, pulling me closer.
“It’s all right, we’re getting a doctor.”
He’s trying to tell me something and I let him pull me inches from his lips as he whispers something I don’t catch. “What?”
“Amelia … Amelia…”
That is all he says before he fades in my arms and I feel the life slipping away from him. He spoke with a British accent.
Lord Warton grabs my arm, and pulls me up and away from the man.
“We must get a doctor!” I yell.
“There’s nothing you can do.”
“No!” I struggle to get back to the man, hoping he might still be alive but knowing he isn’t.
Lord Warton’s holding me tightly as he pulls me away while Von Reich and others crowd around the body. He finally releases me when Von Reich takes my arm.
“He’s dead,” Von Reich says.
I jerk my arm away. “Leave me alone!” He’s right, there’s nothing I can do, but I need time to gather my wits and let it sink in.
“What did he say to you?”
“Amelia.”
“What?”
“His wife’s name, Amelia, that’s all he said. We must get him a doctor, maybe there’s something…”
Von Reich shakes his head as he reloads his pistol. “A doctor can’t help him now.”
“You poor dear,” Lady Warton says, leading me away with another firm hold on my arm. “His lordship and Von Reich will take care of everything. You’ve been through enough.”
Lord Warton looks up from kneeling beside the bike rider and yells to her. “Go back to the boat. Von Reich will see that you get there safely.”
“
But we can’t just leave.” I plant my feet firmly in the ground. “The police—”
“You’re not in America!” Lady Warton snaps. “This is not a civilized country. If we are to sail with the Victoria, we must hurry to the carriage before we get involved in a deadly dispute between two natives.”
“Natives? The man’s a British passenger on our ship.”
“Why do you say he’s British?” Von Reich asks.
“I saw his face … heard his voice—”
They steer me back toward the bazaar entrance as we talk.
“I saw and heard what you did,” Lady Warton says. “His face was brown, he’s obviously a native.”
“No, I’m sure he’s British.”
“That’s not possible,” Von Reich says. “He appeared Egyptian to me.”
“You had a momentary glance at a hooded man,” Lady Warton says.
“I saw his face.”
“He’s brown.”
“Not his legs.”
“His legs? What about his legs?” she demands.
“His robe pulled up when he fell off his bike on the road. I saw white skin.”
Lady Warton gives Von Reich an exasperated look. He shakes his head and says, “Nellie, I saw only brown skin.”
“I know what I saw. He spoke English.”
“Many Egyptians speak the Queen’s English. We run the country,” Lady Warton says.
Holding back tears, I raise my chin and stand my ground. “The man is a passenger on our ship. I will not abandon him even in death.”
“I’ll take another look at the man,” Von Reich says. “Keep going, we can’t have the carriage leave without us when word spreads of trouble.”
He hurries back in the direction we had come. Still gripping my arm firmly, her ladyship deftly marches me out of the maze and straight to the carriage as easily as if she’d left bread crumbs to guide us.
We’re at the carriage when Von Reich comes back, breathing hard. “I’ve examined the man thoroughly.”
“Arab?” Lady Warton asks.
“All over.”
“I have to see for myself.” I start back for the entrance to the bazaar.
“Get involved and you’ll be detained for questioning,” Von Reich says.
The Illusion of Murder Page 3