by Jo Chumas
If I can find some slabs of stone to pile on top of one another, I will be able to scale the wall and slide down the other side and enter the palace from a secret passageway near the little fountain on the east side.
I hear an explosion and screaming and see people running. Nobody takes any notice of me, and this is good, very good. I find the wall and some rocks and hoist them on top of one another. I don’t know where I find the strength to move them, but something inside me is making me strong.
I scale the wall easily thanks to my soldier’s uniform. My boots provide a strong grip, and my trousers protect my legs as I drop down on the other side. I have some crazy idea in the back of my mind that I can save my papa and take him with me back to Kerdassa where we can go to France with Alexandre and live as exiles. I find the servants’ door and push it open, hurrying inside. The palace corridors echo. All is eerily quiet. I have never heard my palace this quiet before. I am petrified, scared I will pass out with fear. I don’t know whether to stay where I am or move into the Great Hall or the salamlik where Papa’s quarters are.
Something inside me pulls me to his library. I can’t imagine Papa is sitting there writing a letter or reading a newspaper, but I hope he is there all the same. I try to conjure this image in an effort to blot out all the horror I see around me.
Broken marble tiles and mashrabiyya are scattered across the floor, and doors have been violently kicked down. My body pulsates with nausea and fear that mingle together in such a fearsome cocktail that it is almost impossible to go on. The silence is so awful that I fear the worst.
I walk farther into the palace, tentatively, my boots crunching jagged stones and my eyes wide as I examine the bloodstains on the walls.
And then I stand deathly still and listen. I hear the sound of a loudspeaker coming from the front of the palace and the deep, staccato voice of a man talking in English. I try to understand what is being said, but the words fall on uninitiated ears.
The haunting sound of the loudspeaker confirms that something is terribly, terribly wrong. I tiptoe towards Papa’s library and see the door ajar. I hear no sound. I move on to the salamlik and find the door to the west wing wide open and the corridors deserted. I do not know what has happened to my people, but Papa, my papa?
I stop dead in front of the door to my papa’s quarters. I hear voices that sound low and hard. I hold my breath, straining to see where the voices are coming from. I see his face, my papa’s face that comes into focus. I see him up against the wall with his hands in the air. His face is drained of all life. In his eyes I see fear, revulsion, rage. He does not see me. I stand back against the corridor wall again, hardly daring to breathe. I peer back into the room to try to grasp the horrific scene in front of me. Three hard-looking men are pointing machine guns at Papa’s belly, thrusting the ends into his waistcoat, making him flinch.
“No?” one of the men says. “You won’t tell us?” The men take a step back and raise their machine guns to his chest.
Papa holds his head high and looks away from them. In his eyes I see both anger and resignation that his time has come. His eyes move along the wall and then widen in horror and surprise. Our eyes meet and I choke back a sob. In a flash I see a lifetime of forgiveness on his face, and in that instant I know that one day we will be together again.
Papa, I sob silently, my heart breaking. Writing what happened hurts me like no other pain I have experienced. May my God help me live through this.
Then I hear the bullets pumping through the air into his rounded belly. I see his body spasm and fall back against the wall. My fist in my mouth, I turn and run, biting my knuckles to muffle the searing pain cutting through me. Hot tears burst forth from my eyes. I cannot stop myself from screaming. But the scream that racks my body is a silent scream, the silent agonising scream of too much horror witnessed.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Farouk went home to Zamalek to get his revolver, a 1914 Smith & Wesson Model 3, a sure-shot and a beautiful thing of tapered steel. He had bought it from a friend in 1925, but had never used it, knowing the bullets were reserved for one man only.
He slammed the front door as he entered his house, not caring who heard him now. Gigis stood in the shadows as he passed. Farouk waved him away. He marched into one of the rooms, flung himself on the floor, and yanked out an old packing trunk from under the bed. There it was, gleaming in its leather case. He took it out, jacked open the barrel, counted the bullets, snapped it back shut, and rubbed it with his hands. It felt hard and cold. His heart thumped against his breastbone as he thought of the sound it would make when the bullets entered Issawi’s chest.
He went to the garden. It was hot and he needed air. For the first time in his life he didn’t know what to do. He lit a cigarette to try and calm himself. As he smoked, he looked up and studied the sky, watching the gold streaks turn a dark shade of indigo.
He thought about the futility of his life. This war, another pointless exercise in territorial domination by a crazed maniac, would be the last war he would witness. In his mind he saw Gladiator fighter planes crossing the Mediterranean, wisps of jet fuel trailing in their wake. Boys, men much younger than he, fighting the Germans in Europe, waiting for the imminent and inevitable Italian invasion from the coastline of Libya. He was old, had lived his life, but these young boys were fighting desperately for the future. Aimee was their age. He thought of her and the world she would inherit. Littoni was another crazed maniac who was using revolution as an excuse to seize power for himself. And tonight, because Jewel had failed him, the celebrations at the Abdin Palace would go ahead and the revolution would start. He was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he did not hear Gigis approach him. He heard only his voice, sad, urgent.
“The area around the Abdin Palace is on high alert tonight, Sayyid, because of the king’s celebrations. You were going to attend a dinner not far from there, weren’t you? How will you get there?” Gigis asked.
Farouk swung round, blowing smoke rings into the air.
“I’ll telephone my friend and tell him I might be delayed. I’ll take a car to al-Qalah and walk from there. You take the night off, Gigis.”
“There’s news on the wireless,” Gigis went on. “If you want to know more.”
Farouk went to the drawing room. Gigis adjusted the radio set, and they both stood and listened to the velvety drone relayed in English.
“Security is tight,” Gigis said. “Egyptian Intelligence has uncovered a suspected plot to assassinate the king and his chief advisor.”
Farouk listened to the report in disbelief. The announcer described the mobilisation of troops and auxiliaries into central Cairo, the talk of massive manpower, truncheons and machine guns and army tanks at the ready in the event of an attack on the king. But the announcer did not mention the sectors or the X. The possible attack was reported in only the most general of terms. It could be political propaganda, a warning, a bluff, a message to the X that they were being watched.
Still, Farouk suspected that Littoni had not anticipated this. He had tried to warn him, but no, the fool had not listened. “Live for the X. Die for the X,” had been Littoni’s motto and the motto he had drummed into every new recruit.
“I must go, Gigis,” Farouk said, and he flew out the door to his car, following the Nile as it snaked its way through the city. He was tired of living, tired of the pain, tired of the rage that wracked his body and poisoned his mind. A voice from beyond the grave compelled him. It was a voice he knew, a voice that told him failure was not an option.
The journal of Hezba Iqbal Sultan Hanim al-Shezira,
Cairo, September 17, 1919
I stumble and fall as I run through the deserted corridors of the palace. I hear glass smashing and then smell the acrid odour of gasoline and fire. Smoke and flames start billowing through the salamlik. The men’s voices are loud and violent. I run faster than I have ever run before in my life with my eyes half-closed and my chest heaving with agony. I fly dow
n the huge central staircase two steps at a time.
I see Alexandre in the shadows of one of the alcoves near the red room on the ground floor. He rushes towards me, his eyes expressing both relief and horror. He throws his arms around me, burying his head in my neck.
I fall against him, clutching at him, sobbing violently. I can’t go on. “Hezba,” he says, “We have to get out of here. Quickly.”
“My papa. They shot my papa. Are they Rebel Corps? Are they?”
I am shaking him, shivering with grief. I want to go back and hold Papa in my arms, but I know if I go to him that I will be killed. Alexandre holds my shoulders firm. His face is bitter, mortified.
“No, Hezba, no. My men would not kill the sultan. I don’t know who—I don’t understand. But right now, we must save ourselves. Quickly, come on.”
He yanks me by the arm and pulls me towards the door that leads to the garden. I hear the thud of boots on the paving stones outside and the tat-a-tat-tat of machine guns. I see my dead papa’s face in my mind’s eye and the look in his eyes when he saw me standing there. He knew in his final moments that I had come back to him, to beg for his forgiveness, to save him. I was the last person he saw, but I couldn’t save him. So I have betrayed him twice, by defying him and by being unable to stop them shooting him. Oh God, forgive me, help me. “I can’t go on,” I sob breathlessly. “You go, leave me here with my papa. I can’t go on, do you hear me?” I slump to the floor.
Alexandre scoops me up in his arms and exits the palace into the gardens. I am choking from the smoke. I splutter against his shoulder. Then the crumbling walls of the Sarai begin crashing to the ground. We are in the gardens. It seems like a thousand British soldiers are standing with machine guns raised at us. I hear Alexandre’s heart thundering in his chest. I can taste the perspiration trickling down my face into my mouth.
“Freeze,” a voice shouts through a loudspeaker.
Alexandre stops dead. He holds me against him, gripping me as though he will never let me go.
“This is the sultan’s daughter,” he shouts.
“Silence,” the general says through the loudspeaker. “Men, upstairs.”
A thousand boots clomp past us. Another thousand gather round us, pointing guns in our faces.
“My father,” I say, “Those criminals murdered him, and you are arresting us?” The general comes forward. He is a sturdy-looking fellow with a blond moustache and pale blue eyes.
“You’re coming with us,” he says. We are marched to the front of the palace where I see the full force of the British Army lined up in front, weapons at the ready. Our hands are tied behind our backs, and we are thrown into a police chariot and escorted from the scene.
Alexandre and I sit opposite each other. His eyes are studying the interior of the vehicle, and I know he is planning our escape. My breaking heart cannot take any of this in. I don’t know why I am being arrested. For being at the Sarai? For murdering my husband? I know only that my papa is dead and my Sarai is crumbling under fire. My mouth contorts with sorrow. If only I could have saved him. And now I can’t even save myself.
Alexandre is looking at me now. He whispers a little poem to me under his breath, something the British soldiers seated on both sides of us cannot understand. He is trying to calm me and give me strength.
Hezba Sultan
her name whispered behind closed doors
in the garden
in the misty vapours of the hammam
her name dances with the sounds of harem laughter until it
disappears forever.
Choking back another grief-stricken sob, I raise my head and look into his eyes. The price of freedom, I think to myself, is this nightmare. When we arrive at the police barracks, Alexandre and I are separated. I am taken to a women’s jail. A dour-looking nurse arrives and asks me some questions. I can hardly hear what she is saying, my mind is so consumed with the face of my papa. She raises her voice and tells me to remove my soldier’s uniform. She hands me a bathing gown. Then she accompanies me to another stark, horrible room. On a table is a large iron bowl filled with water, and a towel beside it.
She begins to wash me. As she does so, she stares at my belly and my swollen breasts and asks if I am with child. I tell her I am. I cannot write about a child because my last child died. I refuse to say any more. I will talk to no one. I will never speak again as long as I live. She wraps me in the towel and takes me back to my cell. There she dresses me in a sack of a dress. She sees my linen pouch lying next to the discarded soldier’s uniform and asks me what it is. She starts to take it, telling me she will destroy it as I won’t be needing it anymore. She does not know what it contains. Of course, my vow to never speak again is immediately broken.
I snatch it from her and sob violently. “Please don’t take this from me,” I say. “It is the only thing I have left in the world. If it is taken from me, I will go on a hunger strike.”
The nurse stares at me and then takes the pouch gently from me. She peers inside and sees it contains my little notebook and my fine ivory pen. She smiles and hands it back to me, and says she will see it is not taken from me. I close my eyes and nod a thank-you.
She asks me again, “Are you with child?”
I nod. She asks me to lie down on the prison bed and open my legs. She lifts up my dress and pushes her fingers inside me, feeling around deep within. She presses my belly gently and then nods to herself. “I will make a recommendation to the chief of police that you not be kept here,” she says. “Because of your condition, the chief might make allowances for you while the courts assess your case. But don’t expect any favours. You are being charged with the murder of your husband. Pray to your God, child,” she continues. “Inshallah, you are going to need all the heavenly forgiveness your God will allow.” And with those words she leaves.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Nemmat crouched down, put her arm around her mother, and whispered in her ear, “Pack your things, Maman. I know a place where we’ll be safe.” She stroked her mother’s lined face and squeezed her hand.
“What on earth are you mixed up in, child?” her mother said. Nemmat didn’t answer her. She stood up and listened. It wouldn’t be long before Farouk found her and killed her for being in league with Littoni. “Maman, sssh,” she said, holding her mother tighter to her.
Nemmat heard men’s voices outside the apartment door, and her eyes widened with fear. Her mother clutched at her, and Nemmat put her hand gently over her mouth to signal to her to not say a word. Farouk must have found out where she lived. She flinched. Someone outside was trying to force the door by throwing his body against it. The sound was so loud that she judged there must have been three, four men out there.
Nemmat pulled at her mother’s hand, and together they headed out the back door into a small overgrown garden. They scrambled over the broken wall and headed up a haret that led to a wider street.
Nemmat pulled her mother’s chador over her head and face and attended to her own. They could not run. It would attract too much attention. The only thing to do was to walk calmly, lose themselves in the crowd, and then find a taxi. Though they had left everything they owned behind in their apartment, Nemmat still had her fortune. She had prepared herself for this eventuality and kept her entire savings in a pouch strapped around her waist. As the women walked through the crowds, Nemmat kept looking back. She was glad of the busy streets. “Tell me, child, tell me, what is going on?”
“I’m afraid, Maman,” Nemmat said, bowing her head to the pavement and shooting her mother an apologetic glance. Her mother’s eyes demanded the truth. She could not hold out any longer.
“Tell me, child. You are my daughter. Anything that has happened to you affects me. You must tell me what’s going on.”
“Someone wants to kill me, Maman,” she said. “I’ve been saving money for us to get away. In a few days we can go.”
“Go where, child?”
“To Italy. To Seraphina’s.
She will look after us. You want to see your old friend again, don’t you?”
“Seraphina?” she murmured.
“We will be safe with her,” Nemmat said. “We can return to Cairo one day, but for the time being we must leave or risk our lives.”
“Who wants to kill you, Nemmat?”
“A man called Taha Farouk, Maman.”
The journal of Hezba Iqbal Sultan Hanim al-Shezira,
Cairo, late September 1919
The days pass. I lie here waiting. I have counted three sunrises, three sunsets, and countless calls to prayer from the muezzins in the mosque nearby. I don’t know exactly where I am, but I think by the spires I can see from my cell window that I am near the Mosque al-Hakim, north of Cairo. I eat little and drink even less. I can feel my baby fluttering inside me, begging me to eat. For her, I will take a mouthful here and there. I try as hard as I can, but I am just not hungry. Then on the fourth day, the nurse arrives. She throws some clothes at me and orders me to get dressed. She tells me to veil myself. “You are to appear in court,” she says. “A lawyer has been appointed for you.”
My heart starts to beat nervously for the first time since my arrest. I try to read her face, but it gives nothing away.
Once I am dressed in the thick black chador and veiled, I am marched out of my cell. I hear some of the other women laugh as I walk past their cells. They are street workers, deviants, murderers, and I am one of them. Two armed guards meet the nurse at the jail door and accompany us to a carriage that takes us to the courthouse. As we ride through the streets, I see that calm has returned to Cairo, but I still hear occasional gunfire and smell the charred scent of burning buildings. People are sweeping up outside their shops. The cafés are full, the shops bustling, and the hotel terraces crammed with tourists. Camels and donkeys block the way as usual. Men are arguing in the streets, and women are selling fruit in the markets. The odour of mud and spice and donkey droppings is as wonderful to me as the sight of the blistering sky. Every little detail is precious, because it is life.