The Case of the Purloined Pyramid

by Sean McLachlan

  “The high commissioner’s office,” the man said with an air of pride. “We’re handing him a list of our grievances.”

  Moustafa nodded. He had suspected as much. The office was just down the street from where he needed to go.

  That would be a problem. The English would have the road cordoned off for sure.

  After another couple of blocks, the crowd slowed. Making a series of little hops so he could see beyond the ocean of heads, Moustafa saw what he had feared—a line of mounted police forming a solid wall across the avenue. In front of them, he saw Egyptians raising their fists in the air. A chant started at the front of the crowd, rippling back to those behind.

  “Egypt for Egyptians! Egypt for Egyptians!”

  Moustafa made his way through the crowd to a side street that angled away from the confrontation and would lead him in the general direction he needed to go. If this one was sealed, he’d go find another. The English didn’t have enough men to block all the roads.

  Some others had the same idea, and Moustafa found himself near the front of a group of about a hundred men hurrying down the street. No one else ventured out of their homes. All the shops, even the cafés, were shut tight.

  The road angled right, and from around the corner, he heard a shout and the sound of breaking glass. Picking up speed, Moustafa and the others rounded the corner.

  A British army truck was parked in the center of the road, its front window smashed. Moustafa arrived just in time to see the culprit, a young man in the trousers and collared shirt of a student, get thrown to the ground by a pair of sunburned English soldiers. Once he was down, they started pummeling him with their fists. More soldiers poured out of the back of the truck, gripping rifles.

  “They’re beating our comrade!” a man next to him shouted.

  “Let him go!” another shouted.

  The two soldiers beating the student looked up, startled by the sudden appearance of the crowd. They stepped back and unslung their rifles.

  Too late. The crowd hadn’t slowed at the sight of the troops. It had sped up, enraged at seeing one of its own being mistreated.

  The soldiers glanced behind them and saw their comrades wouldn’t be able to form a line in time. One bolted. The other, a young man barely more than a boy with red hair and freckles on his sunburned cheeks, stood his ground, pointing his rifle uncertainly at the mass of angry faces.

  The crowd washed around him, enveloping him like a wave crashing over a mound of sand and leaving it isolated. The boy turned this way and that, gripping his rifle and shouting something Moustafa couldn’t hear.

  Moustafa got jostled as more men moved in, sensing weakness. The lone soldier still held them off, but just barely. The crowd edged closer and closer in on him, tightening the noose, while only a few yards away, the other soldiers, now having formed a line, tried to push their way forward and save him.

  The troops didn’t dare fire for fear of hitting their comrade, and they hadn’t time to fix bayonets before the shoving match started, so now they tried to push back the crowd by jabbing at the protestors with their rifle butts. One Egyptian took a hit to the head and fell to the ground with a groan. That got the crowd angrier, and they pushed back harder, punching the soldiers and trying to wrest their weapons from them. The crowd heaved forward, then got pushed back. Moustafa, big as he was, couldn’t help but get carried along.

  The swirl pushed him until he ended up right next to the isolated soldier. In the few seconds Moustafa had lost sight of him, he’d lost his cap and his shirt had been torn. He swung his rifle in a big arc, trying to keep the Egyptians at bay, his eyes wide with terror.

  The crowd pulled back a little, not wanting to get hit, and the soldier took the chance to pull out his bayonet and fix it on the end of his rifle.

  That gave him confidence, and he jabbed at the men encircling him, not really trying to hit anyone, only to keep them back.

  Then the English boy made a break for it. Holding his rifle level in front of him, he charged in the direction of the English line. The crowd parted for him.

  All except for one man, a lanky fellow with the darkened skin and stained jellaba of a farmer. Whether he had decided to stand his ground or simply didn’t react quickly enough Moustafa couldn’t tell, but he stood right in the path of the Englishman.

  The farmer raised his hands to protect himself, and the Englishman rammed his bayonet right through one of his hands, the blade jamming down to the hilt and emerging from the other side.

  The Englishman yanked the blade free and dodged to the side to run past the farmer, who stood there in shock. The Englishman ducked past him and, face twisted with rage, slashed at the farmer again, the bayonet cutting deep into his side.

  This time the farmer did fall.

  Before he knew what he was doing, Moustafa leaped forward with a roar and grabbed the Englishman by the belt and the scruff of his neck. He heaved him off his feet and slammed him down on the ground.

  A cheer went up around him. With another roar, Moustafa brought his fist down on the English boy’s face, breaking his nose and bringing forth a spurt of blood from both nostrils.

  Moustafa punched him again and then got pushed aside as several other men eagerly descended on the soldier to get their turn. Soon it was all Moustafa could do to stay on his feet as men scrambled to get at the soldier. His rifle was held aloft as a trophy and carried away. Moustafa caught glimpses of the boy through the tangle of limbs. He wasn’t screaming, wasn’t fighting back. He had curled himself into a tight ball to protect his face and groin and cowered under a shower of blows. Men kicked him or pulled off their sandals and smacked him with them. Another stomped on his head. Even through all the shouting, Moustafa could hear the sickly thud as it struck the cobblestones.

  That sound was like the snap of fingers in front of a man hypnotized. Moustafa’s rage vanished, and all he saw was a frightened boy who had about two minutes of misery to live.

  “That’s enough! He’s had enough!” Moustafa shouted, plowing through the crowd.

  Moustafa struggled to reach him, shoving men out of the way. Someone clutched his arm, but he tore himself free. Another got in his path, his back turned to Moustafa as he held a cobblestone aloft, ready to smash the soldier’s skull. Moustafa tossed him aside.

  He got to the soldier and picked him up. All around people cursed him for ruining their fun, while others egged him on, thinking he was going to treat the soldier to some fresh indignity.

  Throwing him over his shoulder like a sack of grain, Moustafa shoved his way through the mass of struggling bodies toward the British line. People smacked the soldier as he passed. Moustafa tried to shield him, but the blows came from all sides. He concentrated on pushing forward as fast as possible.

  Then he broke free. The line of British and Egyptians had parted, with a few feet between them. As he staggered into this open space, the soldiers looked at him with surprise. He pulled the Englishman off his shoulder and, tearing him out of the grip of a couple of men behind him, tossed him at the soldiers’ feet.

  The boy lay there, not moving, his face covered in blood and one arm bent in an unnatural angle.

  And then very clearly, as if in slow motion, Moustafa saw the officer standing behind the line raise his sword and shout in English, “Ready!”

  Moustafa ducked back into the crowd.

  “Aim!”

  Moustafa never heard the order to fire. Suddenly the air was rent with the sound of a score of rifles firing at point-blank range.

  People fell all around him. The crowd panicked and ran. Moustafa ran with them. The shouts and screams almost drowned out the sound of the second volley.

  A heavy weight hit him in the back, making him stumble. At first Moustafa thought he had been shot, but when he turned around he saw a man lying just behind him, a patch of red staining his jellaba. The poor fellow had been shot in the back and the force of the bullet had slammed him into Moustafa.

  Moustafa scooped
him up before he could get trampled by the others, threw him over his shoulder like he had with the young Englishman, and ran for all he was worth. The street turned not far ahead. Everyone made for the safety of the corner, people shouting to friends they couldn’t find, others tripping and getting run over by the crowd. One young man who wore the robes of a religious student stopped, turned to face the line of troops, and raised his hands in prayer.

  The third volley killed the student and several others. Moustafa flinched as a bullet chewed up the ground next to his feet. He sped around the corner and didn’t stop running, none of them stopped running, passing through side streets and alleys, getting as far away from the neighborhood as possible. The crowd slowly dispersed, taking various routes to rejoin the main protest or go home or simply get away.

  Moustafa slowed and stopped, soaked with sweat and the other man’s blood. He eased his burden down on the ground. It was only then that he realized he had been carrying a corpse.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Augustus couldn’t wait for Moustafa any longer. He’d spent a good quarter of an hour cooling his heels at the tram stop while several Egyptians gave him baleful looks from across the street. If it had not been for the pair of police officers posted at the stop, Augustus felt sure those fellows would have started trouble.

  What was keeping that man, anyway? It must be the crowds. Blast him for insisting on walking instead of taking the tram! Didn’t Moustafa know he was needed?

  Augustus checked his watch for the tenth time. Five minutes to noon. If the Germans had lived up to their famous punctuality, they were already there, protests or no protests. Hopefully that Ibrahim Shalaby fellow was delaying them.

  Well, there was no helping it. Augustus would have to go it alone. The Rue Josephine wasn’t far. Checking the small automatic in his pocket and keeping a tight grip on his cane, he made his way there.

  The antiquities shop was on the ground floor of a French colonial building between a bank and an Italian tailor’s, both closed as were most foreign businesses in the city. The antiquities shop looked closed too, its windows shuttered, the lights off, but the slightly ajar front door told him otherwise.

  Gut instinct made Augustus pause. Something was amiss.

  He glanced around. The street was mostly deserted and there was no one nearby. Putting his hand in his pocket to grip his pistol without showing it, he moved to the storefront and edged along it until he got to the door. The light in the front room was off, but he could see some dim illumination, perhaps from a back room.

  He paused and listened. A slight sound came to his ears, like a sigh or a choked off cough, quiet and not close to the front door. In the distance, the artillery rattled like a thousand distant snare drums.

  No, not now. Get a hold of yourself.

  He forced himself to focus. The artillery faded.

  Augustus pushed open the door and ducked low into the room, drawing his automatic at the same time. Instinctively, he found shelter behind the nearest large object, an engraved New Kingdom pyramidion set next to the door.

  Silence.

  He scanned the half-lit room. It was filled with statuary, slabs of inscriptions, and glass cases displaying smaller artifacts. His skin prickled. There were a thousand places to hide in this room.

  But no, the Germans were veterans. They would have covered the door and tried for him as soon as he entered.

  A soft groan emanated from the back room, which Augustus could just see through an open doorway at the end of a short corridor. An oil lamp burned in there, the only illumination in the shop.

  Creeping low, Augustus wove his way through the labyrinth of artifacts to the corridor. He kept his gun trained on the far door as he approached.

  He saw a small office, with an antique mahogany desk and a few shelves of books. A middle-aged Egyptian lay on the carpet, which was soaked with blood from a knife wound to his gut. The Egyptian looked pale. His eyes bugged out and he had trouble breathing.

  Augustus bent down, took his handkerchief from his jacket pocket, and pressed it against the wound even though he could already tell it was too late. He’d seen enough death to recognize it instantly.

  Ibrahim Shalaby’s eyes widened when he saw the mask.

  “I’m here to help,” Augustus said in a soothing voice, trying to staunch the blood.

  “A-are you Mrs. Hanzade’s friend?” the man choked out.

  “I am. What happened?”

  “The Germans came. Two older men and a young man, a tough man with a big scar on his face.”

  Damn, I knew I missed him. I spotted him for a survivor the moment I laid eyes on him.

  Shalaby continued.

  “I tried to delay them as Mrs. Hanzade asked, but they were in a hurry. They seemed worried and kept looking at the door.”

  Shalaby cut off and groaned. He was fading quickly.

  “Why did they stab you?” Augustus asked.

  “My notebook. I forgot to hide it. I copied the inscription so I could show it to you. They tore the page out.”

  Shalaby gestured at a notebook lying open on the floor nearby. One of the pages had been ripped out.

  “Do you read hieroglyphs? Do you remember what it said?”

  At first Shalaby didn’t seem to have heard, but then he spoke, his voice barely a whisper.

  “Something about ‘the Temple of the Eternal Dawn.’ I can’t remember the rest. I . . .”

  The antiquities dealer coughed up blood. He struggled to say more and finally whispered.

  “They were very excited, talking to themselves in German. Then they saw the notebook, and the man with the scar stabbed me. As I lay here, one of the older ones used my telephone. This time he spoke in English and said, ‘We have what we want. Meet me at the church in the mosque tonight at ten.’ Then he hung up.”

  “The church in the mosque? What does that mean?”

  “I think it must be . . .”

  Shalaby’s voice faded away and his eyes became glassy. He let out a final, slow breath and did not take another. Augustus laid him back down on the carpet and shut his eyes.

  ***

  Faisal was going to miss the old man. Sure, Osman ibn Akbar had beaten him sometimes and his feet smelled like a pair of decomposing cats, but he had always shared his bread. Sure, to get that bread Faisal had to lead him to the mosque and endure boring lectures about not stealing, but Osman ibn Akbar was the only person in the world who gave him something for almost free. Now what was he going to do?

  He should leave the neighborhood. Hassan was still looking for him. The other boys had warned him. It had been a miracle that Hassan hadn’t caught him when he was stuck taking care of the old man on his final day. Faisal knew that someone like him didn’t get many miracles.

  So Faisal went to the shack in the alley that he shared with the other boys, wrapped up his begging bowl in his blanket, tucked them under his arm, and headed down Ibn al-Nafis Street for the last time. His feet were already tired from following the funeral procession all the way to the foot of the Mokattam Hills and standing with the other beggars as Osman ibn Akbar was laid in the grave and the ulema recited some verses of the Koran over his body. Then Faisal had to walk all the way back in the heat. But there was no time for rest. He had a lot more walking to do this day.

  Where would he go? He supposed he’d sleep in the doorway of the mosque of Sultan Hassan from now on. Sometimes tourists went there. Perhaps he could get his picture taken again.

  Or why not leave Cairo altogether? Besides that trip to Giza, he had never been outside the city in his whole life. There were lots of ancient places up the Nile. Maybe he could go there and beg and have his picture taken. He’d have to find a place that didn’t have a village next to it. He didn’t want rocks thrown at him again.

  He still had the twenty piastres the Englishman had given him for breaking into the foreigners’ house. He hadn’t had a chance to buy Osman ibn Akbar any food, for when the Englishman screeched the ca
r to a stop on Ibn al-Nafis Street, and Faisal had fled in terror at the look on the Englishman’s face, he had gone straight back to see how Osman ibn Akbar was doing. He had found him in his niche, the blankets flung aside, his mouth and eyes wide open with a look of shock, stone dead.

  Faisal shuddered at the memory and wiped away a tear.

  As he trudged down the street, he approached the Englishman’s house. It had been fun to meet him, although that gunfight had been scary. Faisal had been beaten, slapped, kicked, chased by dogs, and threatened with knives, but he had never been shot at before. No wonder the Englishman was a bit crazy if he had spent years getting shot at like that.

  Faisal noticed the motorcar sitting outside. It was all banged up from that wild ride the night before, when the Englishman reeled in his seat and kept seeing things that weren’t there and not seeing things that were.

  Faisal walked over to it. He wouldn’t mind another ride. Perhaps he should knock on the Englishman’s door and say goodbye? He had frightened Faisal the night before, but he was probably fine now. The way he slept, any demons that had gotten inside his head would have gotten bored and left.

  “You! Get away from there!”

  It was Karim, the neighborhood watchman. Shopkeepers and property owners paid him to keep an eye on their things, although he was pretty easy to fool.

  The man sauntered over, a short club in his hand.

  “Get away! The Englishman wants me to watch his motorcar.”

  “It’s not his. It’s his friend’s motorcar.”

  “Oh, you pretend to know him?” Karim said, poking Faisal in the belly with the end of the club and making the boy flinch.

  “He’s my friend.”

  Karim let out a deep laugh. “Friends with you? He’d never even speak with a little nobody like you. Get out of my sight.”

  Faisal hung his head and walked away, Karim’s mocking laughter following him. A little nobody. That’s what everyone thought of him. But he wasn’t a little nobody. He had helped the Englishman and Moustafa with their adventures. They would have never made it into that house without him. And he led them right to the inscriptions! Everyone always looked up to people like the Englishman and Moustafa and ignored the people who did the real work.