Circle Around the Sun

by M. D. Johnson

  “It is, my dear, a question of cultural values. Ghulam is from a culture alien to you. We are, despite my roots, very westernized. It is that way because I married an English woman. The cultures are very different and Ghulam’s is far stricter than I would have anticipated. Surely you saw this in him. I do not understand the duality of his nature. On the one hand he lives with you, much against my wishes I might add, and then plays the slighted husband after he has compromised you in the first place. If I were true to my Berber culture he would be dead by now for dishonoring my family, then again, so would you. Which is, I suppose why I live in England where I don’t have to bother with such foolishness.” He touched her cheek, “Amina, trust no one but yourself. There is a quote from the Christian Bible which mentions ‘trust’ in the context of ‘do you trust your left hand?’ It is something to remember. Amina, trust only your blood relatives and yourself. And by way, Mrs. Offland’s friends and political views are not unknown to your mother and I.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Emily left Chester at dawn, having said her good-byes to both parents. She then telephoned her landlady in Heidelberg to ensure that all was well, to let her know she would be gone for a few months longer and that the rent would be paid by banker’s draft. That completed, she put her favorite eight track tape into her tape deck and adjusted the volume on her speakers to blast out “Spill the Wine”. She sang along to the music and drove toward the Birkenhead side of the Mersey Tunnel and on to Liverpool.

  The sounds and smells of Liverpool would always remain locked in her brain. She changed the tape to Gerry and the Pacemakers “Ferry Across the Mersey” which always made her cry. Like the Beatles “All you need is Love” and “Penny Lane”, these songs made her proud of her connection to the City of Liverpool. Who cared if her family home was in Chester? Emily had actually been born in the Liverpool Royal Infirmary which made her a genuine Liverpool Girl. There was nothing like the sound of the boats on a foggy morning or the shrill cry of the seagulls outside of the Pier Head where the great ocean liners came in and the ferries discharged their passengers from Cheshire. Liverpool had the Tunnel, it was true, but the fun was crossing the river by ferry. She regretted not doing so the moment she heard the sound of the gulls. She loved everything about the place. The ‘Scouse’ accent coupled with the biting sarcasm of the people and the diversity of the population. Liverpool was so much more than the Mersey Sound. It was the home of brashness and revolution. Marx, Lenin and Engels also had strong ties to Liverpool, as had Adolf Hitler, who allegedly lived there as a young man. Writers like the American Nathaniel Hawthorne or the present day Bertrand Russell, whose contributions to society from Physics to Physiology earned him international recognition were connected to Liverpool. The now frail octogenarian Lord Russell of Liverpool was no stranger to her parent’s home. This city was the only place to be. She would, she vowed never forget Liverpool, although some strange sense of foreboding told her that it would be decades before she would see the place again. For the rest of her life, whenever she heard the cry of seagulls she would feel it was Liverpool calling her back, no matter where she was; such was the supremacy of her birthplace.

  “We don’t care what your name is boy, we’ll never turn you away,” she sang along with Gerry Marsden speeding up Princes Road, making a left this time on Selbourne Street and up to Granby Street. She was making very good time.

  She parked with relative ease outside of a bay-windowed house on Northbrook Street near the corner of Granby Street intersection and looking right then left and crossed over the road to the front door of ‘Sammi’s Bazaar’. She saw police “Panda Cars”, as the Mini Minors were called and an ambulance outside of the shop. A stretcher was being carried out by two St. John’s Ambulance Brigade members. The body on it was covered.

  “Move over now. C’mon now move along.” Police in civilian clothes were coming out armed with notebooks. Uniformed officers were keeping back the crowd that was gathering around the door way. A man cried in Arabic, “Allah shall accommodate him in paradise.” Another man openly wept and Emily was distracted by a thin man standing at the back of the crowd facing her. It was Aby Swerdlow. He signaled her, saying nothing but gesturing with his eyes and turning his head slowly. She mingled with the crowd, listening to them talking and weeping in turn.

  “I was trying to get in with his morning paper you see,” said one man in heavily accented English. “Oh my goodness, they found him on the floor. His throat had been cut!”

  “No. He had no wife or children.”

  “Just him. Alone.”

  “They must have been after money.”

  “Sammi had no fuckin’ money, Man. He broke ahways, like me. The man got nuttin’ and I tell you there was no sign of breakin’ in. Anyway. Look to me lak he let someone in,” said a man with a lyrical sounding Jamaican accent.

  “All I saw was a man who looked like an Arab. He walked past me. Dressed like a real gent, he was. Lovely suit on. I’m in tailorin’ so I know good cloth when I see it. He had this funny perfume on. Must have been an Arab, you know?” a woman said to a constable taking notes.

  Emily moved closer to Swerdlow who was backing away into his own shop next door to “Sammi’s Bazaar”.

  “Emily,” he said in a hushed whisper, “Sammi gave me this last night. He told me to tell you that he had been threatened. He knew something about a ‘mole’ in British Intelligence.” Handing her a manila envelope, he said, “Give this to your husband. He will explain everything. And Emily, don’t trust British Intelligence. Sammi didn’t! But he said tell you, ‘Insha’ Allah, the last time I saw him.”

  Emily said, “Thank you Mr. Swerdlow,” wiping tears from her cheek. “It means ‘A lot when cast, a pattern makes for eyes that see. God’s will it is, what chance may come, Man’s deeds are all his legacy.’ Oh God, Mr. Swerdlow, who could have done this?”

  “Probably closer to home than we realize. Just take this and go. I’ll give you this package to hold. It is just a ream of paper, but if they stop you just tell them you’re a customer. Keep in touch with Mrs. Offlands and I’ll tell her what happens.”

  Within minutes she had made her way back through the crowd, turned the corner and was in her car taking off her raincoat. As she put on her sunglasses and pulled a scarf, Islamic style over her head to cover her face, she noticed a few yards ahead of her the familiar figure of Tony Shallal with a uniformed police officer turning the corner.

  Don’t panic, she said to herself. For some reason, she turned and waved to no one, then continued driving slowly and calmly past them. She did not turn on Granby Street; instead she went straight up Northbrook Street to Kingsley Road and turning onto Princess Avenue headed south until she reached Speke Airport some six miles away.

  The airport was tiny in comparison to Heathrow or Gatwick. Within a few minutes she had parked her car where Mr. Offlands would later retrieve it and return to her parent’s home. She entered the revolving doors to the airport lobby, boarded the first flight to London-Gatwick and within no time was fastening her seatbelt as the small commuter plane took off.

  Gatwick Airport was loud, crowded and overbearing. She walked up to the British Airways desk and without any problem cashed in her ticket, losing surprisingly little money on the transaction. She then toted her luggage to the first ladies room she could find. It was empty. Within minutes she had removed the plain outer covering of her carry-on bag, placing the large bag inside the smaller one which had a plaid pattern. Taking out her raincoat, she strategically covered the larger case with it; she then took out an Egyptian traditional robe called a “galabia” followed by a “hijab” to cover her head and face. Leaving the bathroom she walked across the lobby to the Middle Eastern Airlines desk and bought a ticket for the next flight to Cairo, which was leaving in two hours.

  Being relatively well disguised, she knew the chances of her being stopped, recognized or disturbed were slim. But it was also highly unusual, if not downright improper
for Muslim women to travel alone, even in 1970. She walked to the desk where a flight attendant was checking the passenger list.

  “Excuse me,” she said in a deep throaty and accented voice, “Unfortunately, I must travel alone. I am returning home to attend my sick father. I am Emily Desai.”

  At the mention of her English first name he glanced upward at her.

  Knowing as an Arab and a Muslim that he would not dare ask her to completely remove her hijab, she motioned as if forced to do so, lowering her eyes to the floor in apparent shame, tears spilling down her cheek.

  “No, no, it is not necessary Miss Desai. Sometimes we are forced to take their names when we live here. I have sisters too.” He continued, “We will board in one hour. There is a ladies waiting room. You will be safe there. I will take your carry-on bag.”

  She lowered her head in gratitude, not looking directly into his eyes, fearing she would offend him.

  Exactly one hour and fifteen minutes later she had boarded the plane and was settling in for the long direct flight to Cairo. Soon after take off she was greeted by a smiling young steward who offered her hot tea and orange juice with a caramelized biscuit. She was grateful for the snack and knew that one of the bonuses of traveling on this airline was the delicious food. Not too much later, she ate a cold lunch of shrimp, chicken, a Lebanese salad, and finished her second 7-Up.

  For the first time since she left Germany, Emily felt relaxed. She was aware of movement underneath her robe. Her child was kicking softly against the wall of her belly. At last she felt at peace. Maybe her son, as she now felt sure it was a boy, was glad to find his roots.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “What the hell do you mean Tony?” Beresford eyed the younger man incredulously.

  “She’s left the country Archie. The girl has gone to Lebanon via Cairo.”

  “Oh Jesus wept!” Archie Beresford sighed, “And you’re trying to tell me that this could not have been prevented?” Beresford reached for his intercom.

  “Archie! She’s not a criminal; she just has strange friends who are potentially interesting to us.”

  “And the object, Tony, was to cultivate her as an asset for future activity, was it not? Which,” he added sarcastically, “will be bloody difficult to do in Beirut under the eye of her fanatical husband.”

  “Actually, our people in Cairo can keep her in sight.”

  “Get de Crecy in here, will you?” Beresford called into the intercom on his desk.

  Wilfred de Crecy was a tall, muscular young man with the build of a professional runner. He was a former Gordonstoun graduate and ex-SAS paratrooper who had opted after a service injury to further offer his capabilities to Her Majesty’s Government for more perilous tasks. De Crecy was also a linguist who spoke Farsi, Pashto, and Arabic in many dialects as well as the standard German, French and Italian. His greatest plus was that his appearance enabled him to pass for anyone of Southern Mediterranean or Middle Eastern origin. De Crecy’s ancestry was wholly European; his forbearers had arrived in the British Isles with the Norman Conquest. His aquiline nose and olive skin had made him the subject of much bantering at school, but he was proud of his aristocratic bloodline which he traced back to one Adelaide de Crecy of Gourney-sur-Marn, France prior to the conquest. De Crecy’s flair for languages made him highly sought after upon the completion of his education at Gordonstoun, one of the toughest character building schools in the world. It was there he first met a much younger Tony Shallal.

  “Afternoon my dear boy. How do you feel about a trip to Cairo?”

  “Christ Archie, what now? Ali Baba’s camel’s gone missing?”

  Shallal, unfamiliar with such liberties toward Colonel Beresford was quite taken aback. “Show a little respect de Crecy. Pushing it a bit, aren’t you?”

  “Actually Tony, the Colonel and I are almost related. Sorry, it probably did sound disrespectful, but I thought you knew. He’s engaged to my mother.”

  And once more, Tony Shallal, a man of intellect, charm, and obvious talent in the arena of service to one’s country was on the outside. In five years it had never failed! The British, he had learned, were ultimately more clannish than Arabs, and much less ethical.

  Shallal was given his orders later in the day. He was to leave for Lebanon, lay low in a safe house and wait for further instructions. Wilfred de Crecy, as was his due being an “almost” relative and utterly well connected, would fly to Cairo, stay at Hotel Garden City or even the Embassy itself and live the life of luxury at the expense of Her Majesty’s Government while observing the pretty young woman Emily Desai. There had to be, Shallal thought to himself, a legitimate reason why these things were continually happening. Being passed over once again! Those juicy assignments were always given to the “chaps” of noble ancestry, not the garden variety peasants. Shallal was in their eyes just another little wog upstart, while de Crecy just resembled an Arab and was thus not quite as offensive to the British intelligence establishment. Perhaps, Shallal often thought, he should one day surrender his British Nationality and become an American. Now there, he believed, was country where origin didn’t matter and equality for all was protected by constitutional law.

  In retrospect, Shallal wondered why the hell he had become a “spook” in the first place. He had done well after Gordonstoun, won a place at Leicester University, read History and Sociology and had himself mastered five languages besides his native English and Arabic, including Russian, Italian, German and Farsi. His decision to work in the field of intelligence had been an easy one. He was frankly star struck. Yassir “Tony” Shallal had been fascinated with the world of espionage since childhood. Envisioning himself as James Bond after seeing the film “Dr. No” in 1962, the “great game” had been his sole objective at university. He was not surprised when he was tagged by the strange little men from Whitehall who usually kept track of the upper six percent of young prospects at “better” places of higher education. Shallal knew even then that the only spanner in the works had been the question of his race. There was in England at that time no major opportunity for advancement outside of his own counter-culture. He was three quarters Iraqi. Moreover, he liked being three quarters Iraqi. Yassir “Tony” Shallal had no desire to pass for anything else. That was it, pure and simple. Tony Shallal, whose family left Iraq in the early thirties for England just after the death of King Faisal, was a ethnic Iraqi first and a Briton second, and in the late nineteen-sixties he had no idea that one day he would ever consider the merits of ethnicity versus place of birth.

  The Shallal family was wealthy and had cultivated friends of longstanding in England. Living there had been the obvious choice. The roots of alliance had grown strong between both countries since the British had installed the puppet monarch in 1921. The tribal factions of his ancestral homeland had continually rebelled against the British and when the king died it was unsafe for the Shallal family to remain. Many of them settled in Jordan, but his father, Abdul Salam, a man of ample proportion, took gold bars along with his stock portfolio and left his troubled home for the security of Shalford Meadows near Guildford in Surrey, the heart of England, home to fencing and cricket! The Shallal family had made good investments and their knowledge of Middle Eastern politics left them in good stead as both consultants and trainers to many European nations. So it came as no surprise that Yassir, whose academic prowess earned him a first in Political Economics, chose the Civil Service as a career.

  What had surprised the entire Shallal family was that despite their affluence they were snubbed by polite society from Guildford to London and Tony Shallal never forgot how it felt to be on the outside, although he was certainly too polite to ever mention it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  It was 2 p.m. on a typical March day when the red and white 707 jet landed at Cairo Airport. An overhead sign read 68 degrees with a humidity level of 65 degrees and rising. Despite the north-easterly breeze it was still extraordinarily oppressive. Emily moaned to herself, hati
ng hot weather. The robes she was wearing aggravated her even more. The Customs officials were polite and respectful and guided her first to her luggage and then to the exit where a small crowd had gathered around the glass door.

  A small yet statuesque woman impeccably attired in a black linen European suit with an amber silk scarf draped over her head and shoulders was standing next to a tall thin Sudanese man in a striped floor length cotton robe which resembled, Emily thought, a Victorian striped nightshirt with a long sleeve polo neck underneath. The man was holding a sign which read in the English Alphabet “DESAI”. Emily raised her arm slightly. “It is she,” the woman cried, “Our little princess is here, suitably attired and modest to boot. Oh what a turn up for the books! Ahmed, get her bags!” and the tall man who walked with such great dignity nodded his head in salute and left the woman, who was striding quickly towards Emily. “Oh how like my sweet Mamman you are, mais enfant! She did not have your hair color, but you resemble her so much. Is that yours or is it dyed?”

  “It’s all mine Aunt Jack, curls and all. I brought lots of duty free perfume and chocolates,” Emily said, handing her the red paper bag from the Airport Shop in Heathrow.

  Outside the airport the sights and sounds of Cairo were overwhelming to Emily. She had never seen such crowds nor such a disparity between people. As they waited outside for the Yacouta’s ivory Mercedes sedan to pull up, Emily was aware of the almost celebrity persona her aunt commanded. It seemed as though everyone knew her. The arrival of the car proved to be the high point of the day for many of the people watching. The four year old 300E was sleek, polished and driven with pride by Ahmed. His grin was infectious, the onlookers around him stared but he was completely at ease with his role as housekeeper, driver, best friend and confidant to the middle-aged woman who had entrusted him with her life since her husband died of a heart attack two years ago. He pulled up near the curb, got out and put Emily’s luggage in the car.