THE MASKED MAN OF CAIRO
THE CASE OF THE PURLOINED PYRAMID
By Sean McLachlan
To Almudena, my wife
And Julián, my son
Copyright 2017 Sean McLachlan
Cover design courtesy Andrés Alonso-Herrero
CHAPTER ONE
Cairo, 1919
It was a day to be remembered on Ibn al-Nafis Street. Someone had finally purchased the old house of the Rifaat family, five years after the last elderly member of the family had died. The death of Umm Abdullah had been news all over the neighborhood, and her distant relatives had immediately started squabbling over the inheritance.
Now it appeared that those squabbles had finally been resolved. For the past few days, a small army of cleaners, painters, and carpenters had been up and down the house, making it fit to be lived in. The chatterers at the Sultan El Moyyad Café watched the men come and go and gossiped over their coffees as to what great family might be moving in. Perhaps some wealthy Greeks or Armenians from Alexandria? A merchant from the south, here to bolster his fortunes in Egypt’s greatest city? Or perhaps the newly married son of an aristocratic Cairene, setting up house to start a family?
Each worker had been closely questioned, if not by the regulars at the café then by Bisam the water seller, who did good trade during the renovation work, or by Youssef the barber, who always had time to chat as he sat on his little wooden stool outside his shop waiting for customers. But none of the workers knew the name or heritage of the new owner, only that they had to be finished by the end of the week.
That the new owner had a fortune was beyond question. The Rifaat house was the oldest and biggest on the street, a fine three-story stone structure from the time of the great sultans. No one knew how old it was exactly, but people pointed to the tidy stonework, the complex wooden latticework mashrabiya covering the windows, and the great wooden and bronze double doors leading to the courtyard, cut with a smaller door for daily use, to show that this was one of the finest houses in all of Cairo. That it had fallen into disuse and disrepair had been a neighborhood scandal, and the news that it would soon be reoccupied brought cheer to the hearts of everyone who lived and worked on Ibn al-Nafis Street.
And now the day had come for the new owner to move in. The workers had all left. The mashrabiya had been repaired to ensure the privacy of the new owner’s women, the exterior and the interior had been freshly whitewashed, and the great doors’ bronze fittings gleamed in the morning sun. The stranger who would today become a neighbor was the only topic of conversation at the café, at the produce market, at the barbershop, and even among the dirty street boys who played and shouted and stole and generally made a nuisance of themselves wherever they went.
Everyone’s first inkling that their new neighbor was someone out of the ordinary came when the police showed up.
These were not the usual neighborhood police, recruited from among the poorer class of Cairenes or fellahin from the villages to crack the heads of market thieves and to separate brawling drunks. No, these were colonial police, dark-faced Soudanese with their blue uniforms, red fezzes, tidy rows of bright brass buttons, and freshly polished black shoes. Even for colonial police they were unusual, for in addition to the stout stick that, like the local police, they were well practiced in using, each man had a holstered pistol hanging from his broad yellow belt. The idlers at the café dropped their conversation to a whisper. Youssef the barber sent up a quick prayer to protect himself, his business, and his family. The street boys stood as close as they dared and gaped.
Then came a commotion at the end of the street. Donkeys and pedestrians hurried out of the way as a long, rumbling column of carts piled high with crates approached the house. At its head walked several more police, a Turk everyone recognized as the solicitor who had untangled the legal troubles with the Rifaat residence, an old Egyptian man carrying a wicker basket, and . . . someone else.
He dressed like a European, with a suit and tie and one of those fine canes Europeans used even if they didn’t need any help to walk. Indeed, the man appeared young and healthy and walked with a determined air, swinging his cane like a pendulum as if to launch himself forward.
But two details about the man kept the residents of Ibn al-Nafis Street unsure if their neighborhood was about to get its first European.
Firstly, the right half of his face was covered with a thin mask. It was molded to the contours of his head and even included a false ear. The mask matched the features of the other half of his face perfectly. Too perfectly. It made his face unnaturally symmetrical, and although the mask had been painted to match the hue of a European’s skin, it had no blemish or mark like the normal part of his face did. That half of the face did, indeed, look like a European’s, with blue eyes and northern features, although with tanned skin that made his mask look pale and sickly by comparison.
If that wasn’t enough for everyone to become confused about the newcomer’s origins, the second reason gave them even more reason to wonder.
The man spoke Arabic to those accompanying him, and not just a few shouted, mispronounced commands like some Europeans did, but as fluently as a Muslim.
The Arabic was strange, though, with an odd accent and some words that sounded unfamiliar. Occasionally the Turk or the old Egyptian with the basket had to ask his meaning, prompting the man to say it another way.
“He is a Moroccan!” Ali declared, thumping his coffee cup down on his usual table at the Sultan El Moyyad Café. Ali had been on the Hajj and had met Muslims from the Maghreb to Malaysia, so he knew these things.
“He doesn’t look like a Moroccan,” ventured Mohammed, the café’s star backgammon player.
“Many Moroccans are as light-skinned as the Europeans,” Ali said.
“Do they dress like Europeans?” Mohammed asked.
“Not that I have seen,” Ali admitted. “Perhaps he is a diplomat from Rabat or Tangiers.”
“Then why doesn’t he wear a fez?” asked Anwar, the waiter whose aged father owned the café and was even now nodding off in the back corner.
Ali had no answer for that.
“Ah, I know that Egyptian with him!”
This was from Mohammed al-Hajji, the muezzin from the mosque at the corner of the street. Unlike all the others at the café, he had no glass of coffee or tea in front of him. He drank only water or the syrup sold by some of the street peddlers, saying it helped keep his throat smooth. He never bought anything at the café, although he spent much of his day there. Anwar didn’t object because of the man’s respected position, and while it was unheard of for a man to avoid tea and coffee, Mohammed al-Hajji’s voice certainly did sound like paradise had opened up and the angels were singing.
“Who is it?” Mohammed the backgammon player asked.
“He is Sheikh Moussa el Hawi,” Mohammed al-Hajji replied.
Everyone fell silent and stared at the old man with the basket, who just now arrived at the front door with the man in the mask. Sheikh Moussa el Hawi was a snake charmer whose fame had spread across all of Cairo. Whoever this newcomer was, he was wise to hire the sheikh to clear out the house after it had been vacant for so long.
The strange newcomer and his group stopped in front of the door. His carts took up almost the entire street, although prying eyes couldn’t see any of their contents, their being all stowed away in crates. One man in the crowd studied the carts with more interest than the others—a lean, muscular young tough in a grungy jellaba. His head was shaved, and he had sharp blue eyes and light skin that showed he was the descendant of a Circassian slave. His features could have been handsome except for the permanent scowl on his face and the kn
ife scar down one cheek. His name was Hassan, and the whole neighborhood feared him.
The Turkish solicitor, a small man with a pencil-thin mustache, a European-style suit, and a fez, unlocked the door and handed the keys to the man in the mask. As a pair of policemen pushed open the doors, their hinges groaning, Sheikh Moussa opened up the basket and turned it upside down.
“He wants us to see that he doesn’t have any serpents hidden in there,” Anwar the waiter said unnecessarily.
The snake charmer entered the building, wielding a three-foot-long stick of strong palm wood that was forked at the end. Those crowding on the street could see a wide entrance hall that led to a large central room and beyond that a small courtyard with a fountain. Doors and hallways led off in all directions.
As the curious throng pushed in to watch, the police shoved them back, shouting angrily. When one from the crowd tried to slip between the cordon, a policeman barked an order at him, pulled out his truncheon, and hit him.
The man shouted angrily and raised his hands. Just as the policeman was about to swing his truncheon down again, the newcomer with the mask stepped forward and grabbed the policeman’s wrist.
Everyone fell silent. The masked man’s knuckles grew white, and the policeman gave out a little cry, either in shock or in pain it wasn’t clear. Perhaps both.
The truncheon clattered to the ground. The masked man picked it up and put it back in the loop on the policeman’s belt without saying a word.
Instead he turned and addressed the crowd.
“Please step back and allow the learned sheikh a chance to make my home safe from serpents.”
Dumbfounded, the crowd moved back a little.
“He must be a European,” Mohammad the backgammon champion said with conviction and took a sip of his tea. “No one else can treat a policeman like that and keep his limbs intact.”
The others nodded in agreement, except for Ali, who objected. “A diplomat from the sultan of Morocco could get away with it.”
Ignoring the scene on the street outside, Sheikh Moussa stood at the center of the room and made some clucking noises with his tongue, followed by a loud and lengthy recital from the Koran. The more learned among the watchers, once they recognized the surah, recited along with him.
The sheikh struck his stick gently on the flagstones. A gasp rose from the crowd as a long black serpent slithered out from a dark corner.
As the serpent approached him, the snake charmer’s voice fell, and he started muttering in a low, quick voice words that the onlookers could not hear. The snake drew closer, then stopped when the old man pointed two fingers at it as if he were a Christian giving benediction. The snake raised its head, flicking its tongue in and out. Calmly, Sheikh Moussa took a step forward and grasped it just underneath its head. The snake slowly coiled around the sheikh’s arm. He then carried it to the basket and placed it inside. The sheikh put the lid on the basket and went back into the house. He turned a corner and passed out of view.
The strange man with the mask and the Turkish solicitor stood waiting, ignoring the stares that were now directed at them.
A few minutes later, Sheikh Moussa emerged carrying another snake, which he placed in the basket with the first.
“I knew there would be snakes in there,” Anwar said as he wiped an empty table clean with a cloth. “You can’t leave a house abandoned for years like that. I bet they hid because of all of the bustle and noise the workmen made, but they would have come out for him the first time he tried to sleep in his new house.”
“May God grant the sheikh success and protect our neighbor,” Mohammed al-Hajji declared.
“God is great,” several of the café goers added.
“What if it turns out he really is a European?” Anwar asked.
“Then God preserve him from what is coming,” Ali said in a low voice.
“No politics right now, Ali, there are police in the street,” Anwar whispered.
“I would never raise a hand against a neighbor, no matter what his faith,” Ali said, “but as for others . . .”
Ali finished with a shrug.
Sheikh Moussa came out a third time with another snake and placed it in the basket with the previous two. He fastened the top of the basket by shoving sticks through loops on the lid and the sides and then lashing them all together with a thick rope. Despite his age, he worked the rope with strong, gnarled hands that were sure of their work. Once he had finished, the masked man pulled out a wallet like the Europeans used and handed him some notes. The sheikh bowed in thanks, lifted the basket on top of his head, and walked down the street, the street boys following him.
“Oh, Sheikh, may the Almighty’s blessings be upon you!” Mohammed al-Hajji called with his sweet muezzin’s voice. “Come join us. Let me have the honor of inviting you for a cup of tea and to make your acquaintance.”
Anwar’s eyebrows shot up. Was Mohammed al-Hajji actually going to order something, even if only for someone else? This was indeed a day to remember!
After the snake charmer had been made comfortable and the street urchins had been shooed away, everyone introduced themselves and asked after each other’s health and family. Hassan sat down at a table far enough away that he wouldn’t be obliged to take part in the conversation and near enough that he could hear it. He gave Anwar a scowl that brought the waiter hurrying to his table. Hassan ordered a tea and then looked off into the distance, pretending to watch the passersby in the street while actually listening to what the sheikh had to say about the rich newcomer.
The greetings, of course, took some time, so it was a good half hour before the regulars got to ask the question foremost in their minds.
“So who is this man? Where is he from? And why is he wearing a mask?”
“His name is Sir Augustus Wall, and he is an Englishman. I do not know why he wears that thing on his face, and I thought it impolite to ask.”
***
Others had no such reservations. A couple of hours later, the small door to the main portal of the Rifaat house opened, and the Englishman stepped out. Ignoring the stares of everyone on the street, he locked the door behind him. Then he made his way down the street, swinging his cane in time to his steps.
Within moments, he was surrounded by a crowd of laughing boys.
“Do you really speak Arabic?”
“Yes,” the man said, not looking at them.
“He does! Where are you going?”
“To see someone.”
“Who?”
“None of your business.”
“Why do you have that on your face?”
“None of your business. Go away.”
The Englishman sped up, but the boys kept pace. One of the shopkeepers shouted at the urchins to leave him alone, but they didn’t listen. The Englishman cut between a donkey and a fruit stall to avoid them, but they tailed him, some ducking under the donkey. One boy scampered under the table and snatched an apple as the vendor stopped another boy from doing the same.
The boy who took the apple, who seemed to be the leader of this grubby little band, cut in front of Augustus. He looked about twelve, clad in a filthy and patched jellaba that might have been white at some early point in its history. He had wavy, unkempt black hair that stuck out in all directions. Like the other boys, he was barefoot.
“What is that on your face?” he asked, munching on the apple.
“It’s a mask, you little idiot.”
“I am not an idiot! I’ll show you!” he shouted, and then switched to broken English. “Hello, what country?”
“England.”
“I am English!” the boy said in badly mispronounced English.
“No, ‘You are English,’” Augustus corrected.
“Your name is Faisal. What is my good name, sir?”
Augustus switched back to Arabic. “Lesson over. You’ve failed your exam. Now go away, the lot of you.”
The boys all laughed at Faisal, who stuck his tongue out at t
hem.
Augustus cut down a side street that would lead him to his destination. It was quieter here, with no crowd, and the boys were able to surround him. They started getting underfoot, and Augustus had to take care not to stumble.
The boys laughed. Faisal offered Augustus some of the apple by shoving it in front of his face. Another boy used the distraction to reach into the Englishman’s pocket, only to get rapped on the knuckles by his cane.
That only made the boys laugh harder. Dancing around him, they grabbed at his pockets and his watch. It was all the Englishman could do to keep them from taking anything.
Someone tripped him up, and as he stumbled, Faisal snatched the mask away from his face.
And immediately dropped it, backing against the nearest wall in wide-eyed terror.
The face beneath that mask was missing. Where the cheek should have been was a cavernous pit of scar tissue, leaving the eye, surrounded by a thin strip of flesh and poorly healed burns, almost hanging suspended. Veins stood out red and livid, and the flesh around where the ear should have been was pockmarked and crisscrossed with the scars of sutures. Part of the cheek was gone, and the man’s teeth, which were too white and perfect to be anything but false, were exposed to view like those of a skull.
The boys screamed and ran off as Augustus Wall got to his knees and grabbed his mask. Faisal stood frozen with his back to the wall, his little fist against his mouth.
CHAPTER TWO
“The little bastard cracked it.”
Sir Augustus Wall examined a tiny fissure in the bottom edge of his mask and hoped the whole thing hadn’t been weakened. He’d have to go all the way to France to get another. A team of artists had made the masks as gifts for seriously disfigured veterans at the end of the war, using old photographs to guide them. His own, he had to admit, was a good job, but it made him look like some circus freak. But at least he could go out in public. If he went out without it, the entire street would run off as quickly as those boys.
The Case of the Purloined Pyramid Page 1