by Jo Chumas
He turned and began to walk away, satisfied with her subservience to him and convinced that she would not try anything dangerous or stupid.
She stood up and flipped the length of rope in the air. Lassoing him around the neck, she pulled as hard as she could, straining against his strong young body as it struggled to pull away. Then she grabbed the revolver. She pointed the revolver at the boy, who now lay squirming on the floor, and backed away in the direction of Farouk’s shoe. Never moving the gun away from the boy’s face, she crouched down, retrieved the small penknife, slit the bandages that gagged Farouk’s mouth, then cut through the rope that bound his arms to the chair.
Farouk grabbed the revolver, leapt out of his chair, snatched the end of the rope around the boy’s neck, and pulled it until the boy’s face was pink.
“Don’t kill me,” he whimpered, wide-eyed.
“I’m just going to tie you up, my friend,” Farouk said as he bound him to the chair.
“Quick,” she said as Farouk dressed.
Farouk slipped the revolver into his jacket pocket, took Aimee by the hand, opened the door, and peered around.
“Can you run?” he said.
She didn’t answer. Shaking, her face and throat coated with dust, her limbs hardly able to bear her own slender body weight, she clasped his hand tightly, and they scrambled over the dunes towards the desert road.
“Who the hell are you?” she stammered hoarsely as they ran squinting in the merciless sun. “And what are you mixed up in?”
The journal of Hezba Iqbal Sultan Hanim al-Shezira,
Cairo, August 25, 1919
“Yallah,” I scream. “It’s Saiza. Her baby is coming. She needs us, Nawal.”
Nawal and I run out of the hammam back to the palace. In a moment, we are by Saiza’s side. Saiza is dripping with perspiration, and her eyes are bulging out of her head. Poor child. Her belly is so round. Her eyes are so scared. Her maid fusses over her, draping her with red silk, rubbing perfume into her feet, combing her hair, preparing her for the arrival of the child she longs for. Saiza lies on a long, low chaise, curled up on her side, her robes wet with sweat, her eyes shut so tightly that she has not seen me arrive. I whisper her name gently in her ear. Then I kiss her cheek.
“Her time is very near, mistress,” Mohammud, Saiza’s eunuch, says.
“We must get her to the birthing chair as soon as she has the strength to move.”
I put my arms around her and try and lift her up. Nawal helps. Saiza grits her teeth and pushes.
“Hezba,” she says with difficulty, “I hear your husband has come. You must go to him. You shouldn’t be here.”
I stroke her hair, pushing it off her face.
“No,” I whisper, “I will stay with you.”
“He will be angry with you if you are found here. You must go.”
I do not say anything. I swallow hard and look for reassurance in Nawal’s face. She is holding Saiza’s hand and kissing her fingertips. The baby makes another push, and Saiza screams again. She squeezes the life out of my arm. I fear her eyes will burst out of their sockets.
“Mohammud, bring the mistress some sherbet to drink.”
Mohammud pours a small glass of sherbet, and I put it to Saiza’s lips.
“There, this will make you feel better.”
Just then four lower eunuchs enter the room and start to perform for Saiza. They do acrobatics, run and jump and fall about, laughing in front of her. They climb on top of one another’s shoulders and form a column, balancing their weight carefully. Then they stage a mock fall and land on the Persian kilims with a thud before jumping up and doing more somersaults. Saiza watches them and starts to laugh. It is precisely the distraction she needs. Saiza lies back on her divan and smiles. She stretches out her arm for me.
“I am scared, darling,” she says with a little pant.
I know what she is talking about. It is only three years since I went through this.
“I know. I know,” I say. It is as though it were yesterday, with the pain of my son Ibrahim’s birth. I can feel his bulbous black head forcing its way between my legs. I can feel the pain spreading like fire from my toes to my neck. I can feel my body split in two. I can see his little body slithering out onto soft cotton. I can smell blood. I can hear my own violent screams shuddering through me.
I kiss her cheek again and nuzzle her neck. She is burning up. And I watch her eyes flutter in exhaustion. The birthing maids bathe Saiza’s forehead. The eunuchs light candles, casting dreamy shadows on the mashrabiyya and the mosaic tiles of the floor. The clowning eunuchs are brought instruments to play, and soon the mournful sounds of ouds and lutes are heard.
Then I hear the loud echoing voices of the men returning from their evening entertainment. Their laughter wakes Saiza from her sleep. Her body spasms again as her baby pushes forward. She raises herself from her pillows to encourage the baby’s pushing.
“Hezba, Nawal, help me,” she screams.
“Darling sister, we are here,” I say, squeezing her hand.
I massage her belly. I can feel the baby moving under her skin. Then Saiza goes deathly white and lunges forward onto the floor. Suddenly, she is on all fours.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Aimee and Farouk walked alongside the desert road in a low trench hidden by the dunes, stopping every now and again to rest. Covered in sweat, with matted hair and dirt-smeared faces, their wrists sore from the rope, they were exhausted and dehydrated. The sun beat down mercilessly on them as it descended slowly in the west.
“I can’t go on,” Aimee cried out, stumbling towards the shade of an old palm. She stood with her back to it, surveying the vastness of the desert horizon, angry that he hadn’t answered her questions.
“Why don’t you answer me, Monsieur Farouk or Alim or whoever you are?”
He came and stood next to her, studying her pale complexion and dark features. He didn’t trust her. He was sure he’d seen some expression in her eyes, something deceitful, as though she were acting a part, the first time they’d met at the magazine launch, and then again in the garden of his house. He had wondered on those occasions whether she was taking him for a ride, and whether she and her husband had been in it together. He’d been taken in—perhaps—by her youth, but she could be a spy working for Issawi. He scanned the horizon, determined to be careful now, to watch his words. He’d have to feed her a story, something to put her off the scent.
“My identity card was a fake. I have certain papers, in case I am stopped. I do undercover work compiling reports.”
“Who for?” she demanded.
“I can’t say,” he replied. “It’s confidential.”
“Who were those people?”
“Government thugs,” he said.
She ran her hands over her face. She did not understand any of this. She wanted to go to the police. First she would go find Sophie at the Continental, and then together they would go to the police. But she had no information to give them, not really. They would want proof, of which she had none. She felt weak and nauseated. She swallowed hot dusty air.
“Those thugs had something to do with my husband, didn’t they,” she said.
“I believe so, yes.”
“But they talked about letter boxes, Nasser’s Trinkets, code names, the X? They must have thought we were somehow involved with a group. I should have told them who I was, that the murdered professor was my husband.”
“No,” Farouk snapped. “You don’t understand. These men are looking for spies and terrorists. I believe they work for the king’s chief advisor. The heroin was nothing more than an excuse. I got it for a friend of mine, who did me a favour. He’s addicted to the stuff, you see, and Nasser knows how to get the highest quality. I can’t explain any more. Those men wanted to frame me, torture us for information. They think I belong to this group, the X, which is ridiculous. I don’t belong to any group. They’ve made a mistake, but that’s not so surprising, really. Nothing in
Cairo is as it appears. Trust me.”
Aimee shook her head miserably, and he went on.
“This Group of the X and Mahmoud are almost certain to have been involved in your husband’s murder, and I have heard that Fatima is connected with el-Mudarris, the terrorist group I told you about.” He paused and glanced at the horizon again. She was leaning back against the palm, her eyes closed.
“Your husband—did he move in royal circles? Perhaps he was an undercover agent passing information to the British government? Was he possibly trying to blow the cover of a small group of German spies living in Cairo?”
She opened her eyes and studied him incredulously, shaking her head. Then she looked away. Farouk took her face gently in his hands, demanding that she pay attention. “Tell me, Madame Ibrahim, do you know more than you’re letting on?” Their eyes met.
“My husband was a professor, Monsieur. He wasn’t involved with any group. He was murdered, and you’re asking me to believe he was passing information to the British? He hated governments, hated the idea of war, hated it. He just wanted to educate young men. He worked hard. He didn’t know any member of the royal family.”
Farouk softened, released her, and reached for her hand, holding it gently before lifting it to his mouth to kiss it. “Forgive me,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said those things. I’ve got to get you back to Cairo.”
He saw the exhaustion on her face change to confusion as she caught sight of his ring, a gold ring worn on the third finger of his left hand, a wedding band. But he said that he had never been married.
He dropped her hand abruptly and turned to scan the horizon once more. Then he saw a vehicle in the distance heading their way.
“There’s someone coming,” he said, climbing up out of the trench to the road to wave it down.
Shielding her eyes from the sun, Aimee squinted to look. “What if it’s them?” she said. “They’re probably looking for us. They must have returned by now, found the boy, sent out their search parties. It won’t take them long.”
“Hide behind this ridge,” Farouk said. “I’ll check.”
He peered ahead. “There’s only a driver, no one else,” he said. “We’ll have to risk it. It’s too hot and too far to Cairo to carry on walking.”
He jumped up and waved the truck down, flinging out his hand to reach for her when he saw it slowing down for them. He opened the truck door and peered in. The driver was a white man. He looked European. He jerked his head, indicating that Farouk should get in.
“Thank you,” he said, helping Aimee to climb in and sliding in beside her.
“You going to Cairo?” the driver asked in French.
“Yes, do you have any water?” The man produced a tin flask, and Aimee drank thirstily.
The driver put the truck in gear and moved off.
Nobody spoke as the truck gathered speed. Every now and again, Farouk squeezed Aimee’s hand and smiled weakly, but she could see tiny lines furrowing his brow.
Suddenly the driver slowed to a stop and steered the truck off the road.
Farouk stiffened. “What are you doing?”
The driver didn’t answer. He was looking in his rearview mirror and smiling. Farouk turned around and saw three army trucks. Though they were still a long way off, they were coming their way.
“What’s going on?” Aimee asked, her voice constricting. The driver reached down beside his seat, picked up a revolver, swung round in his seat, and pointed it squarely at Aimee.
“It seems your friends Hilali and Gamal are a little upset that you left so soon,” he said with a laugh. “Well, not to worry, they’ll be here in a minute.”
In a flash, Farouk grabbed the driver’s hand and forced it back hard against the inside of the door. Overpowering him after a brief struggle, Farouk made the driver release the revolver. Then he reached over, opened the driver’s seat, and kicked him out onto the gravelly sand.
“Hang on!” Farouk yelled as the truck screeched back onto the tarmac. Even with the truck’s accelerator pressed to the floor, the army trucks were gaining on them. He heard gunshots and turned to see the man he recognised as Hilali reaching out of his window with a machine gun. A hail of bullets whizzed through the air. As their truck careened along, Aimee rifled through the glove box and slid her hands under her seat. She didn’t even know what she was looking for—some weapons, perhaps, anything to help immobilise their assailants.
She climbed over the seat into the back, throwing herself flat so she was out of sight. She found a box and wrenched it open.
“There’s something here,” she shouted at Farouk, trying to make herself heard above the sound of the engine. “Grenades!”
“Let me see,” Farouk said. “Pass one over.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” she said. She didn’t want to touch them.
“Just do it,” Farouk shouted. Sensing the urgency in his voice, she gingerly picked one out and passed it to Farouk who’d reached his arm back over the seat and was waiting for her to put it in his hand.
“Perfect,” he said. “How many are there?”
“Six,” she said.
“Haul them over to the front.”
As Aimee climbed back over, Farouk released the pin of the grenade with his teeth.
“Hold the steering wheel for me,” he said. Aimee leaned across him and took the wheel while he threw the grenade out the window into the path of the oncoming army trucks.
They heard an explosion and saw the army trucks swerve off the desert road, collide, and come to a halt.
The journal of Hezba Iqbal Sultan Hanim al-Shezira,
Cairo, August 25, 1919
“Nawal,” I say, “help me with Saiza.” I pull the bell rope and a moment later, two of Saiza’s eunuchs appear, wiping crumbs from their mouths. “Hurry, help your mistress. Her child is coming now.”
They support Saiza under her arms and gently position her on the chair, lifting her red silken robes up and fanning her legs wide, while the poor girl leans forward, clutching at their arms and biting back screams. I squat down and crouch at her feet, massaging her horribly swollen calves. The birthing maids arrive with bowls of water and large pieces of muslin cloth. Saiza reaches for my arm. Her eyes are shut. She pants and moans and pushes hard. From between her legs, a tiny head appears, and then the entire body slips out. Another child in the dynasty of the sultan has been born.
“It is here, your baby is here, bismallah, bismallah,” I cry. And Saiza smiles, tears welling up in her eyes. The eunuchs holding the baby announce, “A boy, mistress, a boy, as God willed. A boy.”
The baby is taken and washed and handed to the wet nurse, and Saiza is carried to her chaise. “Come to me, my sisters,” Saiza says, and reaches for Nawal and me with arms outstretched.
We all hug one another, kissing Saiza on each cheek. Just then, the double doors of her rooms are thrown open and two eunuchs appear, calling my name.
“Al-Shezira Hanim,” one of them says.
“The master is ready for you. You must come immediately.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Aimee decided to return to the el-G that night. She wanted to check out the club again and get more information on the comings and goings of Ibrahim’s Fatima and her cronies. She’d spent a few hours at the Continental Hotel with Sophie after Farouk had dropped her off there. Farouk had said little when they’d said their good-byes on the steps of the hotel. He’d reached out to take her hand as she’d climbed the steps, his expression twisted, yearning, but she didn’t take it. She’d simply turned away and walked up the steps to the safety of Sophie’s suites.
A couple of hours later, Youssef, Sophie’s driver, drove her and Sophie back to her house. It was dark when they arrived. Nervous about going in alone, she asked Youssef and Sophie to accompany her.
“Amina’s been here.” She sighed with relief when she turned on the light. Her housekeeper had put everything more or less back in its place. Apart from the knife
gouges in the upholstery, the place looked almost as it had before.
“Look, Aimee, a letter for you and a wire.” Sophie picked up an envelope from the sideboard in the hallway and handed it to Aimee. She ripped it open and scanned the contents quickly, reading them out loud.
“Amina has gone away to her eldest daughter’s for a while. She’s asked me to telephone her at this number. She wants to know I’m all right.”
Then she opened the telegram and smiled.
“It’s from Saiza, my aunt. She’ll be back in Cairo tomorrow afternoon. She’ll expect me at her place at around three o’clock. That’s wonderful news.”
A warm glow flushed through her; then her eyebrows knotted as she wondered whether to tell Saiza about her ordeal in the desert. Saiza would become hysterical, and march her to the police, or, worse, send her away to England to wait out the war, leaving her with a thousand unanswered questions.
She would tell her one day but not quite yet.
At the Sharia Khulud on the edges of the el-Birka district, near the maze of narrow Wassa harets, the crowds were thinning. It was past midnight. Aimee gripped the seat of the car and peered into the gloom.
“Over there, I see it,” she said.
Sophie had not seen her friend like this before. Aimee looked different. The heart-shaped charm of her face had melted away. Her mouth had become a thin line, her eyes darted anxiously in all directions, and a feverish glow heightened the colour of her cheekbones.
“Where?” Sophie said.
Youssef slowed down and muttered to himself.
“What’s going on?” Sophie leaned forward and pulled herself up between the driver and passenger seats so that she could see the road ahead. Progress was hindered by two men and a donkey. The two men were shouting at each other and throwing punches.
“Oh my God,” Sophie said, “it’s Sebastian.”
Aimee looked at her.
“Who?”