City of the Sun

by Juliana Maio

  Mickey glanced at Dorothy inquisitively but she ignored him, a cryptic smile on her lips as she pushed a chair for herself close to the sofas. Now that they were all seated, there was an awkward moment of silence. It felt staged to Mickey, and he didn’t know what to expect. He quickly perused the office, which was decorated in mismatched eighteenth-century French furniture and garish modern pieces including a yellow chaise lounge with ivory feet, and shifted in his seat. He brought one leg over the other and felt even more uncomfortable when he caught Donovan studying him intensely from behind his bushy eyebrows.

  “Drinks?” Kirk offered, shooting up from his seat. “I’m having a martini.” When the others demurred, he continued, “I’ll need a drink to face today’s extravaganza—the monthly Crescent Cross luncheon affair.”

  “The arduous life of a civil servant!” Donovan joked, but then leaned forward, his eyes fixing on Mickey. “Mr. Connolly, Ambassador Kirk has told me about the jam you’re in. That’s too bad. But we might be able to calm our British friends down if you can help us with a problem.”

  “I’m listening,” Mickey said, uncrossing his legs.

  “We need your assurance that this discussion will be kept strictly confidential. Can we trust you?” Kirk asked solemnly as he walked back with his drink.

  “That’s your call,” Mickey answered. “Your British friends think I’m reckless and untrustworthy.”

  “But your old professor, Gunther Hoff, has vouched for you,” Donovan interjected. “He says you’re a man of integrity and a true patriot, and I trust his judgment.”

  Mickey was jolted by the name of his old mentor. “You spoke to Gunther?”

  “The editor of the Detroit Free Press suggested that Mr. Hoff would be in the best position to give us a reference,” Kirk explained.

  “By a fortunate coincidence,” Donovan added, “I know Gunther very well. We fought together in the last war and I have the utmost respect for him. He told me you wrote an excellent paper for him on the rise of fascism in Spain.” He formed a steeple with his hands and placed them under his chin. His voice was quiet but deliberate. “This is about our country, Mr. Connolly, and we need your word as a patriot that you will not reveal any part of this conversation. Can we have it?”

  “Of course.” This was getting stranger by the second.

  “Bill is a close friend and longtime advisor to President Roosevelt,” Kirk stated. “At Bill’s urging, the president has created a new organization to gather intelligence on the war, and Bill is its director. It’s called the Office of the Coordinator of Information, or COI. He’s made it independent of the other branches of government and Bill reports directly to him,” Kirk explained. “Roosevelt regards Hitler as a serious threat to the world, including America, and is committed to helping the Allies. But publicly this is as far as he can go at this time.”

  Donovan took charge again. “Our mandate is to collect and analyze information about foreign activity that is potentially threatening to the security of the United States. So we are, in fact, an espionage organization, like the English SOE, but without its bureaucracy. I emphasize again—this is not public information.”

  “I understand,” Mickey said, waiting to hear what this had to do with him.

  “The president has initiated several important research programs on arms development,” Kirk began. “Some of the brightest minds in these programs are German scientists, many of whom are Jewish. They wound up in the States after Hitler closed the doors of the universities to Jews in ‘33. We’ve got Albert Einstein working for us.”

  “Thank God for Roosevelt,” Mickey said.

  “There is someone else we need on our team,” Donovan declared, “a Jewish scientist who landed in Alexandria recently but is probably here in Cairo now. Roosevelt wants him found and brought to the States. We want you to help us find him without anyone knowing. We think your investigative skills will serve us well, and writing for a newspaper would provide an effective cover for your activities.”

  Mickey was stunned. Was it a joke? “I don’t know anything about espionage work,” he protested.

  “The truth is that none of our agents have had any experience in the spy business,” Donovan responded. “Our recruits are ordinary men with guts, who are willing to give it a try. We had a man working on this case, a Jewish businessman here in Cairo, but he never made it to Alexandria. He died of a heart attack the night before the scientist arrived. We found out too late to have him replaced.”

  “Frankly, Connolly, you’re at the top of a very short list of candidates,” Kirk said.

  “Then you must be pretty desperate,” Mickey said with a nervous laugh.

  “We know your French is pretty good, which will help you cozy up to the Jews here,” Kirk added.

  “I don’t know anything about Jews. I didn’t meet a lot of them in Detroit,” Mickey remarked.

  “We think you are a resourceful guy, Mr. Connolly,” Dorothy cut in pointedly, crossing her arms. “This is your chance to make history, instead of writing about it. You should grab it.”

  The room fell silent. Mickey passed a hand through his hair. She had hit a nerve. “Miss Calley certainly gets right to the point,” Kirk piped in. “And she’s right. You could really make a difference here.”

  “We’ll pay you two hundred dollars a week,” Donovan added.

  “What about my press credentials?” Mickey asked.

  “Lay low for a little while and stay away from the press bureau,” Kirk answered. “Leave the rest to us.”

  Mickey and Donovan stood in silence as they enjoyed the spectacular view of the city from the embassy’s roof, where they continued their discussion while Kirk went to his luncheon. A bird’s-eye view of winding, tree-lined streets spread out below them, where apartments and office buildings were interspersed with magnificent villas. To the northwest, the Nile forked around a small island on which was nestled the luxurious, wooded residential area of Zamalek, a British favorite. On the island’s south end stood the extravagant and exclusive Gezira Sporting Club. Fellucas floated lazily down the river, completing a postcard-perfect vista.

  “If I told the folks back home that Cairo might be the most alluring city in the world, they’d think I’d gone soft,” Donovan said as he drank in the scene below. “And just listen—I bet you don’t hear this many languages spoken in Detroit.”

  “I don’t know, we’ve got Greeks, Italians, Germans, Chinese, Poles, Irish, Mexicans, Belgians, and who knows who else there. Seems like home to me.” Mickey tried to sound light, but his mind was reeling. He’d just signed a pile of documents which, as Kirk had explained, said that any information he obtained in the course of his assignment was acquired in absolute confidentiality and that if any part of it were to be leaked and traced back to him, he was a dead man.

  “Tell me about the man I’m looking for,” Mickey said eagerly.

  “His name is Erik Blumenthal,” Donovan answered, wiping beads of sweat from his temples. “He got his PhD in physics from the Polytechnic University in Berlin in ’33 at age twenty-two. After that he worked in Denmark with Niels Bohr.”

  “The Nobel Prize winner?” Mickey asked.

  “Yes. His field is called quantum physics.” Donovan shrugged at the esoteric nature of it. “He had been working in Paris when the war reached France and he was forced to flee.”

  “Why did he come to Egypt?” Mickey asked.

  “That’s a mystery. He could have relocated to England with the rest of his group, but wound up in Turkey instead. Luckily he was able to get Turkish papers. Did you know that the Turks are the only ones who refuse to let their Jewish citizens in France be rounded up and interned? They’ve been sending convoys of trains to retrieve them.”

  “Good for them. It’s hard to believe that Pétain is actually handing over the non-French Jews to Hitler.”

  “Not only that. Last week he enacted a law confiscating the bicycles, radios, and telephones of all Jews in the country, fore
ign born or not. But back to the scientist, we know he boarded a ship bound for Alexandria, but there’s no guarantee he’ll be using his Turkish papers here. He may not even be using his real name.”

  Mickey’s brow furrowed. “Turkey is neutral. Why didn’t he just stay there and wait out the war? Crossing the Mediterranean with its mines and U-boats was very risky. Two weeks ago a Russian sub mistakenly sank a neutral ship off the Turkish coast. Eight hundred passengers, mostly Romanian Jews, were killed.”

  “He must have had a very good reason to leave.”

  “Or a strong reason to come to Egypt. Maybe he has family here. Maybe he is planning to continue his research at one of the local universities.”

  “Doubtful. Al-Azhar teaches only in Arabic, and the American University’s science department is abysmal.”

  “Then he’s probably going next door to Palestine. A lot of Jews have immigrated there.”

  Donovan shook his head. “Not anymore. The British have placed a complete halt on Jewish immigration there despite their own White Paper quotas. Pressure from the Arabs. You can’t get in without a visa, and visas are next to impossible to get. If he had one, he would have gone there directly from Istanbul. Yes, you should look into Palestine, but it’s a long shot.”

  Mickey crossed his arms. “The Jews are known for helping each other. They must have some kind of mechanism in place for resettling immigrants.”

  Donovan nodded in agreement and led Mickey to a bench in the shade. “We’ve sniffed around the immigration registries, but if we push too hard the English will want to know why.”

  Mickey cocked his head. “You’re not working with the English on this? Finding him would be in their interest, too.”

  “We have reasons for not wanting them involved,” Donovan said firmly. “We don’t share everything about weapons research. I’m sure that in due time we’ll tell them. For now, no one knows about this, not even our own naval attaché. You’ll be working on this alone. However,” he emphasized, “Dorothy Calley will help you as much as possible. She’s already put together a dossier on the Jewish community here and she has a picture of Blumenthal my office scrambled to find. I’m sorry, but it’s seven years old.”

  “How old is he in this picture?”

  “Twenty-three. We don’t have a more recent photo, but we’re digging. I’ll keep you posted,” Donovan said. “And you’ll find that Dorothy is very good. Kirk swears by her. She was with him in Berlin before they came here. He won’t do a thing without her.” He stood up. “Come, she’s waiting for us.”

  “He’s all yours,” Donovan announced as they entered Dorothy’s small office.

  She looked up as she ground her cigarette into an ashtray already filled with crimson-stained butts and winked at Mickey. “Ready to play ball?”

  “Fire away,” Mickey replied.

  “Please pass on everything you learn to Dorothy,” Donovan said. “She’ll communicate with me by radio. Our communiqués are encrypted and transmitted to Washington twice a day, using code names. Any preference for your own?”

  Mickey scanned the room and spotted a copy of Life magazine on Dorothy’s desk with baseball’s strikeout king, Bob Feller, on the cover. “What about Fastball?” he suggested.

  Donovan laughed. “Perfect.” He nodded his thanks to Dorothy and shook Mickey’s hand for a long moment. Many thoughts seemed to be crossing his mind, but as he retreated all he said was, “Be careful.”

  After Donovan left, Dorothy gave her own warning, “This city is riddled with spies, and not just the Germans. The Vichy French are watching the Free French, and the Italians don’t trust the Germans. The Japanese are spying on us and everyone else in the Pacific Zone, and the Egyptians are spying on all of us. You can’t trust anyone. Be on your guard all the time. We don’t want anyone to catch a whiff of your activities. You and I can still meet here at the embassy. But don’t come more often than you normally do.”

  “Why did you recommend me for this job?” Mickey asked, meeting her eyes.

  “That’s why,” she said, picking up an envelope from her desk and tossing it to him. “I found it stuck between the newspapers you left on the chair in your haste to leave my office the other day.” She indicated the chair in front of her desk.

  Mickey did a double take. Inside was the SOS article he’d written in Siwa. In his distress he had not noticed it was missing.

  “A detailed account of slaughter on the battlefield. It’s not bad,” she said with a tight grin, “but I don’t know what you planned to do with it. Unless you want to be thrown out of the country, I suggest you leave it here.”

  “The Brits need our help. I want the American people to understand that,” Mickey said, frustrated.

  “All in due time, my young friend,” she said. “Telling the folks back home about the Brits’ shortcomings will only make things worse. Americans will lose confidence in them, and the English will resent you. Take a lesson from Edward R. Murrow. His broadcasts to the States lionizing Churchill have turned a grumpy grandpa into a heroic statesman. Those broadcasts got Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act, which is saving their asses. To me, that’s effective journalism.”

  Her expression turned serious. “I know you want to help the cause. This assignment is important, and someday you’ll be grateful for it. I think you have the goods for it. I have a track record to protect, Connolly. Don’t prove me wrong.”

  Mickey looked away, uncomfortable with the weightiness of it all as she went to fetch something from a cabinet in the corner.

  “Have a seat,” she continued as she returned to her desk with a large yellow folder. “This report is just for starters. I’m sure you’ll have questions. I’ll have more tomorrow. If you need more information, let me know.”

  “I could probably use some recent issues of the local Jewish newspapers. Is that possible?” he asked. “Maybe I can get some clues about what the local Jews are doing about refugees.” He planted his elbows on the desk and brought the tips of his fingers to his lips. “And what if Egypt is just a stopover for Blumenthal? Can you find out about the immigration policies of other countries he might be headed for, like South Africa? In fact, we should look at Jewish newspapers from all the surrounding Mediterranean countries.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “My, aren’t you the thorough one,” she remarked as she leaned back to examine him, swinging one slender ankle back and forth.

  Mickey caught sight of the edge of a lacy black slip. She was a good fifteen years his senior, but he couldn’t deny her charms. Sexuality wafted from her like a lingering scent. “You’d be surprised how thorough I can be when my country calls,” he said with a flirtatious grin.

  “Put your flaps down, honey. It takes more than shooting a line like that at a girl if you’re gonna score,” she chuckled. “Besides, you’re too young for me.”

  He laughed. Though she’d nailed him, he couldn’t help liking her, tough cookie that she was.

  “Back to business,” she said, straightening up. She took a set of keys from her navy blue purse and unlocked one of the desk drawers. She extracted a thick envelope. “Here’s a little perk that comes with the job. Cash. You’ll need it. Lots of it. Now, about your cover—”

  “I thought I’d tell people I’m writing an article about the Jewish refugees here,” he said.

  “That’s good, but say that you’re doing it for the Foreign Service Journal. We’ll back you up. It will open doors and give you more legitimacy.”

  “I like that.”

  She stood up. The meeting was over. “Ready to start playing for real, Agent Fastball?”

  Mickey picked up the envelope and slipped it into his jacket pocket. “You bet.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “Guests don’t lift a finger in our house,” Allegra Levi would invariably say in her courteous, albeit aloof way whenever Maya offered to help with household chores. But this time, when Maya tried to give her hostess a hand with the stuffed artichokes she was preparin
g, Allegra just shook her head and didn’t even bother to look at her. Maya didn’t know what to attribute this to. She and her family had tried to be model guests. Her brother, Erik, had offered to tutor the older children in science and math, and her father was making himself inconspicuous and controlling his foul moods as best he could.

  “She did it again,” Maya whispered to Erik in frustration when she tiptoed out of the kitchen and found him in the hallway. “Mrs. Levi won’t let me help. She just makes me feel so … useless—like I’m always a burden.”

  “Just stay out of her way,” Erik advised. “For whatever reason, she likes it better this way.” He limped off to the living room.

  Standing still, Maya crossed her arms. Perhaps it was as simple as what her brother suggested. Maybe Allegra just didn’t like having someone in the kitchen other than the maid, or maybe this was the practice of Egyptian hospitality, which, as Allegra had said, the Jews here had learned from the Arabs. “They never use half measures,” she had declared. So far the only contribution Maya had been allowed to make was to help Lili, the Levis’ eldest child and only daughter, with her baker’s errand on the day she had arrived.

  Maya decided to forget about it. They had been in Cairo for five days and expected their new papers to arrive momentarily. Besides, she abhorred housework and had been exhausted since arriving here in spite of having caught up on a lot of sleep and eating regular meals. She had looked at herself in the mirror this morning and recoiled at the sight. Though she recognized the old Maya, the one that used to have men lining up at her desk at work in Paris to ask her to lunch or a dance, her skin had lost its luster, and her eyes their sparkle. It would take weeks if not months of rest to recover her buttery pink complexion. I’m old at twenty-two, she thought fearfully.

  She followed her brother into the living room with nothing to do until Allegra called for lunch when the children returned from school and Joe, Allegra’s husband, arrived home from work. She settled down on the rose brocade settee across from Erik, who picked up the magazine he’d been devouring, a special report on the Battle of Britain. His appetite for reading about bombing attacks seemed insatiable.