by Juliana Maio
He picked up his black crocodile attaché case and followed Abdoul behind the curtain and down the dark narrow corridor to the mafraj.
“S’aalam alekoum,” Abdoul rasped upon seeing Kesner walk in, his words echoing off the high ceiling of the room. “Ezayak ya akhooya? (How are you, my brother?) Are you well?” The fat man embraced and kissed Kesner several times.
Not one for physical contact, Kesner nevertheless hugged the man back, albeit stiffly. “How is your family?” he inquired in flawless Arabic.
“Very good, very good, thanks be to God,” Abdoul answered, collapsing onto one of the colorful floor cushions that lined the mafraj.
“Thanks be to God,” Kesner replied, settling down across from him, a large copper tray supported by bamboo sticks separating them. “You have done good work.” He pulled out yesterday’s El Misr and Daily Telegraph, Egypt’s most widely circulated newspapers, from his attaché case and waved them at Abdoul.
“Very good work,” he reiterated. “Was it twenty thousand shoes the king distributed?” he inquired, amused at how Abdoul had followed almost to the letter his suggestion that Farouk make this kind of grand gesture to the poor.
“Twenty thousand pairs of new shoes,” Abdoul corrected, as he pulled an ebony cigarette holder from his jacket and extracted a thin, tan cigarette. “God knows prices have doubled in the last year alone. Such a dreadful situation. Ah, but there is only so much one can do.”
“Thanks be to God, the king is a kind man, but he is only as good as his most trusted advisor,” Kesner flattered him. “The king is still a boy.”
“Why, Herr Kesner, that is most kind of you,” Abdoul bowed his head in a show of modesty. “Do you notice anything different about the king?” He pointed to the photographs of the king in the backseat of his open-topped Mercedes, a birthday gift from Hitler that graced the front pages of the two newspapers.
“He looks dashing in his white military uniform, most royal,” Kesner replied, scrutinizing the photo, but not knowing where this was leading.
“Look more closely,” Abdoul gushed, his face glistening with pride like a child showing a good report card to his parents. “The king is growing a beard. I thought there was no harm in having him looking more pious. The Muslim Brotherhood is growing more popular. The country is growing more religious. A ruler who wants to stay in power …”
“… is a ruler who knows how to manipulate the masses,” Kesner finished the sentence. “I must say, that is quite an inspired move, something reminiscent of Goebbels himself.” He had dropped the magic name.
Abdoul blushed. “Thank you, but you are too generous. Did you notice the faces of the fellahin?” He pointed at the newspaper photos again, eager for more praise. “Don’t they gaze adoringly at their king?”
“Yes, they do. Perhaps the king should increase the number of his radio addresses and press conferences.” Kesner paused and drew a breath before continuing. “I wish you could have known how it felt to hear our führer’s voice coming from the radio, strong but calming, lifting our spirits, reminding us of our heritage and our right to reclaim it. Your people need that same hope. They need their king to take back their country and restore their pride. And you, my friend, are the man to make it happen. Because of you the king will take his rightful place in history.”
Abdoul leaned against the wall, a coy smile on his lips.
“Riri Charbit,” Kesner started, turning to his real agenda, now that he had Abdoul where he wanted him. “She is a very pro-English girl. I see that the king is accompanying her to a lot of tea parties for British officers. This is not good.” He frowned.
Abdoul sighed deeply and shook his head as if this were a great sorrow to him. “The woman has put a spell on him. What an embarrassment to his poor wife. The king is making a fool of himself. They frolic naked in the palace pool in front of his staff!”
Kesner clicked his tongue in disapproval. “Yes, we have to get him away from this girl. Maybe a nice curvy redhead will do the trick. Our friend Madame Samina can help find one.” He winked at Abdoul, who smiled an oily grin. The Lebanese-born dancer had introduced the two men to each other.
“I saw her last night … after hours,” Abdoul whispered, his eyes sparkling with mischief. He chuckled like a randy schoolboy.
“Are you insinuating …” Kesner began, playing along, although he was sure the man was lying. Samina swore she never slept with her clients, but one never knew with women, especially one who liked money so much.
“Come now, I am a man of discretion,” Abdoul winked. “I will do what I can to undercut the influence of this Riri.”
“I am confident you will.” Kesner smiled benevolently and quietly dropped the bombshell. “We must get Sheik Hassan al-Banna out of jail. Without him the Brotherhood is useless.”
As expected, Abdoul’s instinctive fear of sticking his neck out drained the color from his face as he shot up straight on his cushion. “That is not possible. The compound in Qena is meticulously guarded by the British army.”
“We must be bold. I haven’t fully thought it through yet, but we will need the cooperation of the Egyptian military police,” Kesner asserted. “Any news on your side?”
Abdoul shifted in his seat, pouting, while he lit another cigarette. He took a deep drag and bravely regained his composure. “The British have taken over our radio stations in Siwa and Gazala, calling them strategic assets. Sadly, Parliament is too cowardly to do anything about it. But,” he continued, “you’ll be interested to know that the British ambassador is talking about evacuation plans for the wives and children of senior officers. The English finally seem to realize they are in trouble.” He drew in another puff and daintily exhaled.
“The English will be thrashed, no doubt,” Kesner asserted. “We have Egypt surrounded and victory is inevitable. If they are smart, the British will get out of our way, or we will chop them up like we did the Belgians.” He rubbed his hands together. “Please tell the king that Rommel looks forward to meeting him when he arrives in Cairo.”
“And Rommel will receive a hero’s welcome when he gets here,” Abdoul promised. “It will be the king’s pleasure to give him a personal tour of the city.”
“Excellent! Your efforts on behalf of the Reich will not go unrewarded.” Kesner rose to his feet and grabbed Abdoul tightly by the elbow, effortlessly helping the fat man to his feet. He knew he was strong in a way that men respected in one another. “One last thing, though—a Jew by the name of Erik Blumenthal arrived in Alexandria on a Turkish ship about ten days ago. He has polio and walks with a limp. The Reich would be most grateful if you could uncover his whereabouts.”
“Blumenthal,” Abdoul repeated, memorizing the name. “Blumenthal.”
Kesner rushed back to his houseboat and stepped on his foredeck. There was still time for him to catch the American morning communiqué, which he’d already missed twice this week. He entered the living room and quickly descended the spiral staircase to his bedroom, locking the door behind him. He needed to get to his radio transmitter as soon as possible; his watch read 9:12.
Ten minutes later, Kesner emerged with a transcript of the US communiqué that he’d intercepted just in time. He lit up a Corona, the most expensive Egyptian cigarette, and grabbed Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca, the codebook used by the Americans. He propped himself up on his bed, ready to decipher the message.
At first, nothing dramatic was revealed—only some details about the tonnage of ships passing through the Suez Canal and descriptions of recent damage inflicted by the Luftwaffe’s bombing raids on Alexandria. But then he sat up, his eyes growing wider as he made out the message.
Crossing our fingers regarding our new recruit on the Blumenthal matter.
Kesner let his hand drop to his side as he digested this news. The Americans were looking for the Jew, too! A few seconds later he bolted from his bed and hurried back to his transmitter. The SS needed to be notified immediately of this. Black Dog was going to be
back in their good graces.
CHAPTER 10
“Sambousseks, boyos, and pasteles,” Joe Levi exclaimed as he proudly pointed out some of the appetizers, or mezzes, as Allegra called the huge assortment she’d placed on the living room coffee table. “This one has cheese, this one spinach, and this one ground beef.”
Maya wasn’t very hungry, and she knew that the lunch that awaited them was a bigger meal than dinner in this household, and it would be at least three courses. Why was Allegra always overdoing it? She knew that Maya was a light eater, and it was apparent that Erik, despite his attempts to hide it, despised Middle Eastern cuisine. Only Vati indulged himself at mealtimes, particularly since Joe had reassured him that the meat in their home was kosher.
Feeling obligated, Maya tendered her blue porcelain plate to Joe, who had just arrived and was still wearing his seersucker suit jacket and his tarbush. “Just one of each,” she requested.
A short man with a friendly face and twinkling, warm brown eyes, Joe had greeted them at the train station in Cairo when Maya and her family first arrived with a big “S’aalam alekoum,” his arms wide open. He had indicated that he was only peripherally involved with the people who were helping them obtain their papers, but he was honored to open his home to the family. She had liked and trusted him immediately. He’d been nothing but generous and had even taken a day off from work to drive them past the pyramids.
“The children are washing their hands before sitting down,” Allegra announced as she joined them. She was a good six inches taller than her husband, which made for an endearing sight when he rose on the tips of his toes to greet his wife with a kiss on the cheek.
“I saw the news in the paper,” she said to no one in particular as she prepared a plate for herself and sat down next to her husband, who habitually brought the newspapers home at lunch for her to see. “Kiev has fallen. How terrible.”
“Kiev?” Vati repeated, swallowing hard.
“The Russians admitted taking a heavy blow, but there are no official details,” Joe said, removing his jacket and hat. “There are reports that the SS murdered twelve hundred Jewish women and children there.”
Vati’s face turned ashen.
“My father still has family in Kiev,” Erik explained.
“But I thought you were German,” Joe said.
“Vater was born in Russia. As a child he fled the pogroms with his family and took refuge in Germany,” Maya offered.
“Maya,” Vati said as he reached for her on the chair next to him, his hand shaking slightly. “We must go to the synagogue to light candles for the dead.”
Joe stood up and kneeled in front of her father, taking his hands in his own. “We Jews are safe here in Egypt, monsieur,” he said firmly, his eyes slowly sliding to Maya and Erik. He was addressing them, too.
Joe had made that point several times, and from the way he filled the house with Maurice Chevalier’s happy tunes, such as Y’a d’la Joie, (All Is Wonderful), he must truly believe it, Maya thought.
Vati nodded slowly like an obedient child, a meek smile on his lips.
“That’s better,” Joe exclaimed with enthusiasm. “Now, what about trying some of these mezzes?”
Allegra sprang to her feet and took Vati’s plate, filling it with a choice selection, while Joe returned to his seat.
Whether he’d suddenly forgotten about his cousins in Kiev or was just humoring his hosts, Vati took his plate and proclaimed, “This is the best food I’ve had in months.”
“Monsieur Blumenthal, I know you told me you didn’t like to talk about your days in Germany, and I don’t mean to press you,” Joe said, “but we can be better friends if we can understand a little more about you.”
Maya threw a disconcerted look at her father. She knew that sooner or later they would have to divulge some information about the family’s ordeal—that was the price to pay for receiving help—but she wished it wouldn’t be just yet. The memories were still too raw.
“It is painful,” she admitted. “But we can talk about it with you.”
“When did you leave Germany?” Allegra promptly inquired as she sat down.
“Our parents left too late,” Erik answered, almost by reflex, using his fork to poke at the slices of pickled lemons adorning the plate on his lap. “They waited until the fall of 1937.”
“They were well connected in the community and were confident they would be protected,” Maya added softly, trying to remain detached.
“I was sure it would all pass,” Vati said. “And I was able to get work at the Kubu in Frankfurt as a conductor after I was fired from the Düsseldorf Opera.”
“The Kubu?” Allegra asked, leaning forward to hear better.
“The Kulturbund,” Vati explained. “It was an organization of Jewish artists that was allowed by the Nazis to perform in public, but only in front of Jewish audiences.”
“This was to show the world that they were not completely intolerant of Jews,” Erik added.
“As if the world really cared,” Maya heard herself muttering.
“They began to put all kinds of silly restrictions on the Kubu as time went on,” Vati shrugged. “They policed our recitals and then ruled that only Jewish works could be performed. By the end we were not even allowed to utter the word ‘blond,’ because that was deemed an insult to the Aryan trait. Can you believe such nonsense?” He waved his hand dismissively, indicating that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “When they shut the Kubu down, I knew it was time to leave.”
Maya didn’t contradict her father, but she knew that this had not been the final straw. That had been the garbage truck humiliation.
“You went from there to Paris?” Allegra asked.
“Yes. Erik was already there,” Maya replied on behalf of her father, “and Paris was full of opportunities for musicians.”
“It was good for Maya, too,” Erik offered. “She had gone to a French boarding school in Geneva and speaks with a true French accent.”
“And then you had to flee again,” Allegra said sympathetically. “And your poor mother? That was her violin, wasn’t it?”
Maya looked down at her white socks. She was not going to describe how her mother had coughed up blood for the last time on the day the Germans had entered Paris, succumbing finally to her tuberculosis. They had fled the capital that very day, but missed the ship bound for England that the British Embassy had chartered to give scientists like Erik refuge there.
“It all fell apart when Paris was invaded,” Maya said. “You must have read about the chaos and hysteria that followed when people tried to leave the city.” That’s all she was willing to say.
“I think the radio said there were seven million people on the roads that day,” Joe recalled.
Maya couldn’t go down this path. Perhaps it was the hot bath that she’d taken earlier, but she felt too exhausted to withstand further questioning. She was about to excuse herself to go to the bathroom when the Levis’ four young boys ran into the room, showing their clean hands to their mother. Fresh faced and energetic, they were still dressed in their school uniforms—ties and jackets.
Maya saw Vati staring at the crests on their uniforms. He’d been shocked when he’d learned that these Jewish children were attending a French Jesuit school. He had not accepted Allegra’s claim that the school provided the most disciplined and best education in Cairo, nor Joe’s rationalization that religion was learned in the home, and that he, too, had attended a Catholic school as a child.
“We’ve set Loulou’s Bar Mitzvah for next May,” Joe said proudly of his oldest son. “He’s been studying for it all summer. Say something in Hebrew,” he urged the boy.
Loulou blushed and shyly recited the first few words of the Shabbat prayer, struggling with his pronunciation.
Vati corrected him until he repeated it to his satisfaction. “You must let me help him with his Hebrew,” he said to Joe. “And most importantly do not let him abandon his Jewish studies afte
r his Bar Mitzvah as I did with my son.”
To Maya’s relief, Erik, who’d become an ardent atheist, did not rise to take the bait.
Lunch was served with the same panache as the appetizers, but now the endless array of dishes was brought, one at a time, by the family’s longtime Egyptian house servant, Sayeda, an older woman with a large mole under her nose that distracted only slightly from her sweet smile. The meal started with a hearty soup that Maya had never tasted before and that was impossible to pronounce. Melokhia was full of unfamiliar spices and made with dark green leaves, like gelatinous spinach, and chunks of beef. Erik wouldn’t go near it, nor did he touch the chicken and peas with turmeric that followed, or the meat and vegetable dish that came after that. As always, every dish was served with rice. Even dessert included a rice pudding. Maya dutifully tried to taste everything, but was beginning to suffer from all the obligations that came with being a guest, including having to make small talk.
After discussing the price of meat in Cairo, which had skyrocketed because it could no longer be imported, and the recipe used by Vati’s mother to make Erik’s favorite potato latkes, Joe started to quiz the children about their schoolwork.
An accountant at Cairo’s finest hotel, Joe placed a high value on education, and he insisted that his children would do even better than he had. Loulou would be a doctor, Mimi an architect, Zazi a businessman, and their six-year-old, Soussou, a lawyer. The little one, however, protested, saying that when he grew up he wanted to be a singer and play the violin like Father Thibault in their church choir. This brought a raised eyebrow from Vati. Careers for girls, on the other hand, were frowned upon, and Allegra quickly dismissed the boys’ suggestion that their sister, Lili, would make a great seamstress.
“Princess Lili has arrived,” Joe grumbled as the sound of keys fumbling rattled the door.
Looking voluptuous in her tennis whites, Lili sauntered into the dining room. Her hair was pulled back, accentuating her smoky eyes. She raised her racquet in triumph. “I won. Three to one. School let out early, so I stole a game at the club.”