The Hidden (32 page)

“Sayyid?” Saiza said.

The man ran up the steps two at a time and stopped in front of her. Then he bent over, clutching his chest.

“The lady of the house?” he gasped.

“You must be looking for my niece. It appears she’s not at home.”

Saiza studied him for a moment. Even with his hat covering half his face, she could tell that he looked ill, distressed.

“Are you all right, Sayyid?” she asked.

He took off his hat and clenched it in his hand.

“I must speak to Madame Ibrahim,” he panted. “Do you know where she is?”

There was something about him, Saiza thought. A jolt of recognition that she couldn’t quite place gripped her and then faded. “Who are you, Sayyid?”

Their eyes met. Without his hat, Saiza saw that he was about the same age as she was. What could Aimee be doing, associating with a man like him?

“I’m sorry—forgive me. I’m in a hurry. Do you have any idea where Madame Ibrahim is?”

“I—I don’t know,” she stammered. “I’m looking for her myself.”

“Then forgive me for being rude, but I must go.”

He nodded and bowed, then turned and flew down the stairs. That face? Where had she seen that face before? A strange premonition came over her, and she knew in her heart that something was terribly wrong. Aimee was in serious trouble.

She steadied herself for a moment on the railing. As she looked down at the shadowy courtyard below, it all came into focus, the face, the voice, the dismissive wave of the hand, the scent of the cigarette he had been smoking.

She started down the steps, reeling dizzily. She tried to grip the railing, but it was too late. The ground gave way under her, and she fell with a mighty thud, her body hitting the slab below.

The journal of Hezba Iqbal Sultan Hanim al-Shezira,

September 13, 1919

I hardly dare speak when Alexandre returns. He bends down and enters the hut carrying a tray with ta’miyyah, a plate with some sweet kunafah, and a samovar with two gold-coloured glasses. I am sitting up, but I can’t bring myself to speak. I can’t believe what I have heard.
Papa? Saiza? Nawal? Are they all right? Desperate for news of my family, all I can think about is them.

Alexandre puts the tray down beside me and pours out some tea.

“Here, eat, Hezba. You must be hungry after our long trip.”

I say nothing. I pick up a small ta’miyyah ball and put it in my mouth. It tastes delicious, of herbs and chickpeas, very nutty and filling. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was.

Then I take some kunafah and find my strength returning with its delectable orange taste.

“What is the news of Cairo, Alexandre? Has the trouble there settled down?”

“It has gotten worse,” he says. “We have no time to lose. I have heard that the massacre at the Minya palace has been discovered, and the army has been called in. The Cairo contingent has sent down its best men by train to search the surrounding countryside for the culprits. We have decided to set off again immediately. Drink your tea and finish eating. The men are preparing the camels. We must reach Kerdassa as soon as possible.”

I want to ask him for more information so desperately, but I know he will not tell me the truth. He will try to protect me from myself. I realise that I need more information before I can make any plans, and I can only hope that someone in Kerdassa might know something of the sultan’s palace and what has become of it.

When we finish eating and drinking, Alexandre lifts me to my feet. I feel weak. I thought myself stronger than this. Alexandre undresses me and covers me in a clean indigo-blue robe. He winds a fresh piece of cloth around my head and my face, leaving only my eyes visible. I feel cool in the flowing linen.

I pat the little pouch that is always strapped to my waist and thank the power above that my diary and my bone ivory pen are still with me. I take such comfort in being able to write down all my feelings and
everything that happens to me. My diary and I must never be parted, ever.

The camels are still drinking at the oasis, but one of the men starts to rally them together as we walk towards them. I step forward in the sunlight and go to pat our camel. As it is nuzzling my hand, I see beneath its belly, supported by a sheath of fabric tied up with ropes, the protruding end of a machine gun. I suddenly feel very afraid. I turn towards Alexandre, but he is calling over one of his men.

Alexandre helps me to climb up on our camel, and our caravan is off, each camel raising first its back legs and then jolting forward to raise its front legs. The men whip their camels’ behinds to get them moving.

The camel’s gait sends me into a trance once again. As I pray secretly that Papa is not in trouble and that my dear sister, Saiza, has not suffered, tears of longing well up inside me for the Sarai of my birth. But I know it is too late now, that I am a wanted woman, and there is no going back, even if I wanted to.

Forgive me, I am tired from all these emotions running so hot through me. I am tired of being so close to Alexandre, and yet so cut off from him. I long for the day when we can live together as husband and wife and have a family of our own and start our school. I long for the freedom for which I paid the highest possible price.

The sun slips slowly beneath the horizon in the west. As we make our way north, I make my mind up to find out all I can when we get to Kerdassa, even if it means enduring Alexandre’s anger that I have gone behind his back. For Papa is still my papa and my harem sisters are still my family. If anything has happened to them, I want to know. Though I am Alexandre’s devoted lover and his future wife, I still love my family and ache for news of them.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Mahmoud’s telephone call to the Oxford relaying the news of the capture of one of the X terrorists—the girl who’d escaped in the desert—forced Issawi to return to Operations HQ in the middle of his dinner. Usually this would have put him in the foulest of moods, but tonight, he felt victorious, ready to threaten her with a menu of torture reserved for die-hard criminals. The escort girl didn’t matter. There would be other girls for his pleasure.

He pulled at his shirt collar and mopped his brow with his handkerchief. He had decided to question her in person. Of course it was well beneath him, but he and his men had been playing cat and mouse with this group for years, and Issawi was determined to see the emerging face of the X for himself.

Hilali had confirmed the location of three ringleaders and some ten subsectors. If Operations went in and raided the suspected homes and businesses of the subsectors, word would spread like wildfire and the ringleaders would vanish, regroup at another time, and try again. It would be pointless raiding their homes or acting impulsively. The girl, he reckoned, could be used as a lure, bait to get the rats to scurry out of their holes.

“Hilali, where is the girl?” he asked when he arrived at HQ.

“Follow me, sir.”

Issawi braced himself. There would be no concessions for this woman. Hilali opened the door to the dining room and Issawi stepped in. She was seated in the middle of the room, handcuffed to a chair.

His men stood on either side of her. She was younger than he had expected and demurely dressed. She was a beauty, with the palest skin he had seen in a long time—not an Egyptian, that was for sure—but striking all the same with her black hair. She looked tired and ill, her mouth a thin line. She looked up when he came into the room, and he stared at her pale eyes, momentarily unable to believe that his men had the right girl.

But he snapped himself out of it as he walked across the room and stood importantly in front of her.

“Madame, you have been told why you are here?”

“Let me go. You have no right to keep me here. I’ll report you.”

Issawi laughed. “To whom, Madame? You are talking to the chief advisor to the king. Standing on either side of you are the heads of Security Operations themselves. There is no higher law in this land than the three men in this room. You should consider yourself privileged to be in such company.”

Aimee jutted her chin out stubbornly and looked at each man in turn but said nothing.

“You are one of the ringleaders of the X, are you not?”

“I am no such thing.”

“What do you know about the X?”

“Nothing. I had not even heard of them until a few days ago.”

Issawi’s eyes narrowed distrustfully. “But you know about them now.”

“They murdered my husband,” she said coldly.

Issawi shuffled impatiently. “Your name, Madame?”

“You know my name. Your men know it. I won’t sit here and be questioned like this.”

Issawi clicked his heels and drew his arms across his chest. “I won’t ask you again. Your name?”

“Aimee Ibrahim.”

“Where do you live?”

“Thirty Sharia Suleyman Pasha, al-Qahire.”

“What do you know of a man code-named the Carpet Seller?”

“Nothing. I don’t know anybody who uses a name like that.”

“What houses have you visited in the last forty-eight hours?”

“I can’t remember. I don’t know. I’m tired. I visited my aunt in Medinet Nasr.”

“Address?”

“Five Sharia Sheik Mohammod.”

“You were picked up on the desert road near Ismailia a few days ago. You were left locked up. We wanted a confession, but you and your companion escaped and then you tried to murder my heads of Security by blowing up their vehicles with grenades. Luckily you did not succeed. Nor will you succeed in anything you try to do. Your companion’s name, tell me his name?”

She flinched and raised her head to meet his, her features rigid. “The man I was with is called Alim. Sayyid Mustafa Alim.”

“Liar,” Issawi shouted at the top of his voice.

She flinched again, closed her eyes briefly, then caught her breath, but she didn’t say anything.

“What is his real name?”

Aimee started shivering. She licked her lips. “I don’t know. I’m tired. I feel ill. I don’t know. Stop asking me these questions. I don’t know what you want.”

“Yes, you do, Madame. You know that this man uses many aliases. He paid a visit to Nasser’s Trinkets on the way to Ismailia.
He stopped the car and went and talked to a man there. You stayed in the car. You know his real name, Madame. You know his friends, his group, the circles he moves in. You simply have to tell us who they are.”

Aimee looked up at him again. “I told you I know him only as Mustafa Alim.”

“Why were you going to Ismailia?”

“My husband was killed there.”

“What was your husband’s name?”

“Abdullah Ibrahim,” she said. “Do you know him?”

Issawi stepped forward, his eyes travelling the length of her body, the contours of her face. “Should I?” he asked her.

“He was an academic, a professor at the university in al-Azhar.”

Issawi shook his head angrily. “Cairo has hundreds of academics. Your husband means nothing to me… All I care about is nailing the X ringleaders, locking them up, and throwing away the key.”

He walked around the girl. She was a slight little thing; yet for all the lies she told, she had an angelic face and managed to look innocent enough. It was obvious she was a first-class actress, properly trained in deceiving the enemy.

“How long have you known this Mustafa Alim?”

“A few days.”

“Has he conscripted you as an agent for the X?”

“No.”

He saw her close her eyes. Perspiration glistened on her forehead.

“What do you know about a Fatima Said and the club the el-G?”

Issawi saw her eyes brighten. He pressed her further.

“Well?”

“Sayyid Alim took me there once. I heard a Fatima Said ran this club.”

“Why did you go there? It’s a man’s club, is it not? Barred to ladies.”

“I wanted to see what this woman looked like,” she said.

“Why?”

“I had been given reason to believe that my husband was having an affair with her, and I wanted to confront her.”

Issawi lit a cigarette.

“How did you meet Mustafa Alim?”

“At a party. A gathering of a group of my husband’s friends and their wives.”

“Address?”

“I can’t remember the exact address. The house was in Ezbekieh. It was a literary event for some Cairene poets and the launch of their new magazine.”

“Liar,” he screamed, advancing on Aimee and raising his hand to swing at her jaw. “I’ll see you’re tortured for all the lies you have told me. You and your type will be destroyed for what you are trying to do to me.”

Aimee closed her eyes and flinched, waiting for the blow, but it didn’t come. When she opened her eyes, she saw that Issawi, his arm still raised, was studying every inch of her face. Issawi had had enough of her. He walked over and pulled Hilali to one side and whispered throatily in his ear.

“I’ve finished questioning her for the time being. Take her to the anteroom at the end of the hall. Lock her in there. I have an idea. I’m going to sleep on it. We’ll meet again tomorrow at eight in the morning.”

The journal of Hezba Iqbal Sultan Hanim al-Shezira,

Kerdassa, September 16, 1919

We arrive at Kerdassa after nightfall. I smell the wood smoke from the burning fires and watch the innocent faces of the people in the streets. I long to be one of them, I long for a simple life, in a place where I can be myself, accepted, useful. On the far side of the village, we are led to some mud-brick houses clustered in a circle with an arena in the middle. As the men tend to their camels, a woman approaches me. Alexandre nods at her, and she takes me by the hand and leads me to a large house.

The interior is exquisite. Kilims cover the floor. Lanterns light the way. Cushions line the walls. Another woman is pouring coffee from a large iron pot. She comes towards me, and hands me a small glass. I sit tiredly down on the cushions and unwind my turban.

The woman who escorted me into the house kneels down and strokes my cheek. She says, “I have been instructed to cut your hair, Sayyida. You are leaving tomorrow for France.”