The Illusion of Murder (4 page)

I smile sweetly. “Well, I was thinking that not far from here God spoke to Moses from a burning bush and commanded him to lead his people from Egypt.”

Von Reich doesn’t say a word but it is easy to see that his jaws are clamped tight to keep a laugh from exploding.

4

Our carriage is pulling up to the arched stone entrance to the bazaar when a man on a bike passes us.

“Isn’t that the same man who took the spill?” I ask.

Von Reich shakes his head. “I really can’t say.”

“Has the same boots,” I mutter, more to myself.

“Shall we enter the Den of Thieves, ladies?” Von Reich asks as we step down from the carriage.

He had described the marketplace as a caravansary, a place where camel caravans stop to drop off and take on loads. I expected a sprawling dirt field with camels, tents, and a bit of dung underfoot.

Instead, passing through the gate we go back in time, not to the ancient Land of the Pharaohs, but to medieval Baghdad of the
Arabian Nights
, to Ali Baba who spoke the magical “Open sesame” to steal the treasure of the Forty Thieves, and to the mystifying Arab quarters called
casbahs.

The bazaar is dark and twisted, mysterious, and puzzling, all at the same time; an exotic blend of people, merchandise, and animals that plays out as if it is planned by an artist for his canvas. Rather than a world of organized shops, it is a menagerie of tiny cubbyholes crammed with merchandise pouring out like horns of plenty, some selling spaces so small they are no more than cupboards.

The passageways, scarcely wide enough for two people walking abreast, are covered with canopies of Nile reeds, turning the walkways dark and shadowy even in daylight. The muted light, and hooded robes and turbans add to the mystique and the fathomless mysteries of this culture that has lived along the Nile for thousands of years.

People press up against walls to keep from being trampled as donkeys and camels laden with goods force their way through the walkways, yet no one seems to be bothered. The chaos is organized.

The atmosphere is spellbinding as a contortionist prances along with us, twisting his limbs in impossible positions, while a tumbler makes great leaps in the air, jumping, bouncing, and rolling like a rubber ball. As with the camels, people simply move out of their path.

I catch the pungent scent of spiced Turkish tobacco from an open-air café where men wearing the ubiquitous hooded robes drink muddy Turkish coffee and mint tea from tiny glass cups and share water pipes called hookahs.

Copper pots and carpets are for sale, as are clothes ready to buy, cloth ready to be sewn, and cloth still being woven on looms—cotton, lamb’s wool, and goat hair. A man takes a live chicken from its cage and with one quick blow, chops its head off—blood splats on his robe, mixing with the blood of chickens now roasting over hot coals. “Genuine” papyrus paintings of pharaohs in chariots and dancing girls with their bosoms bare can be purchased for the cost of a pack of gum back home. There are flutes, drums, bells, cymbals, jewelry, and spices.…

Goods are everywhere; there are no bare spaces, not even the passageways themselves, some so narrow we are almost shoulder to shoulder with merchandise.

The exotic Eastern marketplace is everything I imagined and nothing I expected. I’m sure if I looked close enough, I would find frankincense and myrrh, and perhaps behind the public facades of shacks lining alleys, I could buy treasures looted from the tombs of pharaohs.

“I find the stench of a marketplace insufferable but his lordship enjoys contact with the natives,” says Lady Warton, fanning herself with a very pretty pink silk fan that has the design of small flowers on it. “He served in Morocco for a year with the Foreign Office, advising the local officials about growing grains.”

“He’s a farmer?”

“Of course not! He has farmlands on his estate. Naturally the farming is overseen by his manager, not by his lordship.”

“Of course,” I murmur, keeping myself from wondering aloud why the Foreign Office didn’t send the farm manager to Morocco instead.

Ragged beggars with bodies so dirty that their skin is hardly discernible from their fouled rags come up to us with outstretched hands and heartrending pleas.
“Baksheesh, baksheesh…”

Lady Warton glares at them and swings her umbrella to shoo them away. “Go away, go away.”

I give them coins, remembering my mother’s admonition whenever she saw a person with a deformity: “But for the grace of God go any of us.”

“Feeding lice only causes them to multiply,” she says.

“Sorry.”

Finding myself ill at ease with her insufferable attitude of superiority, I button my lips as any well-mannered guest should. The boys in the newsroom have an expression for her ladyship’s type, one that I willingly embrace:
rich bitch
.

Lady Warton had obviously been born with a silver spoon—one filled with vinegar. She and her pompous husband no doubt believe that their position in the world is due to nothing less than the divine rights of kings, rather than an accident of birth.

Surrounded by strange sights and smells brings to mind a book I’d read, the adventures of Allan Quatermain, the hero of H. Rider Haggard’s tale
King Solomon’s Mines
.

“Isn’t this place exotic?” I offer.

“Exotic? My dear, you are surrounded by half-naked, unwashed natives who eat and drink things that poison the stomachs of civilized people. The Côte d’Azur is exotic. This is a wasteland.”

“I find it captivating. Egypt is a place to come in search of adventure. If I had been born in a different time and place, perhaps I could have been an adventurer searching for lost treasures.”

Lady Warton stares at me as if I have something dribbling down my chin.

“Are you feeling ill, your ladyship?” I ask.

“Frankly, my dear, I am deeply disturbed and puzzled by the concept of a young woman tromping around wild animals and savage natives in search of treasure. That is certainly not a proper ambition for any
woman
.” She surveys me with a look of contempt that sweeps from head to toe. “One has to wonder how a young woman who possesses ideas that are the proper attributes only of men was raised.”

I turn away and bite my lip. I’ve learned to rein my temper because being a reporter carries with it the necessary evil of having to deal with all kinds of people, but I draw the line at remarks about my upbringing. If she says another word about my mother, I will knock her on her noble fanny.

My reaction to her is aggravated by my resentment of people who have licked the cream off the top all of their lives. Not having to earn their bread, they don’t understand that there is more to life for women than just being the helpmates and sex slaves of men.

I soon wonder if we aren’t going in circles, for the alleys seem to be a confusing intricate network of passages that all seem to repeat themselves.

“Does your husband know where he’s going?” I ask Lady Warton. “I’m lost in this maze.”

“His precious sister in England specifically requested that he get her a trinket from a particular dealer she heard about here, so we must humor him.”

We enter the jewelry section, where tiny merchant shacks offer jewelry boxes and trinkets of every kind, from copper bracelets to gold chains, anklets, and nose-rings of leaden-looking silver and brassy gold.

Lord Warton says, “We’re getting close, I’m sure of it.”

His wife leaves me to join him and Von Reich drops back to walk with me. He takes my arm as we stroll along, watching beggars and the purveyors of “ancient” artifacts competing to relieve people of their money.

“How do they talk?” I ask him.

“Who?”

“Trees. Do they speak to people passing by, that sort of thing?”

“Only with the written word. You see all around you the elaborate artful swirls and waves of the Arabic language, none of it decipherable to us of the West. Those flowing lines are sometimes repeated in nature, on tree leaves, carved in the sand by the wind—”

“So the pattern on a leaf is interpreted as words, and fanatics start shouting it’s a message from God.”

“Exactly.”

I confess, “I’m afraid I’m not doing too well with Lady Warton. I don’t want to be a bad guest, but anything I say seems to offend her.”

“You’re at a disadvantage, trying to hold a conversation with a woman who has never used her brain. As you pointed out with the Bible story, that trees talk here should not come as a surprise. Egypt is part of the Holy Land, a place of mystery and magic, where an angry God sent plagues of pestilence to punish a stubborn pharaoh, where staffs turn to snakes, and the sea itself parted for God’s favorite.” He squeezes my arm. “But you must appreciate that it is also a place of dark magic, of pharaohs with eternal lives, mummies that rise from their graves—”

“And a sphinx that gallops across the desert—and eats foreigners.”

“
Ja!
In this ancient land there are few precise boundaries between what is … and what might be.”

“I’m not a person who embraces the supernatural. Perhaps because so much of my life has been spent on keeping a roof over my head and putting food on the table, I leave the uncanny to those who have the time and energy. But ever since I walked out on deck this morning and saw Egypt through mist and darkness, I’ve felt
something
.” I shake my head. “I can’t explain it, and certainly won’t share it with my editor in a cable for fear he’ll believe I have brain fever, but I’ve had a sense of not being alone.”

We come into a clearing where a crowd is gathering around a man standing on a small mound and holding a staff.

“You have to see this,” Von Reich says, and steers me toward the man who wears a long black robe and white turban that rises to a peak and has a dark green band.

“Good Lord!” I exclaim. “That’s a snake, not a hat band.”

A cobra fanning its neck and showing its fangs is wrapped around the turban.

“That evil creature is looking at me,” I tell Von Reich. There is no doubt about it, the thing is staring right at me.

“Nasty devil, isn’t he?” he says with a laugh. “It’s easy to see why the pharaohs used the cobra as a symbol of their power over life and death. The Egyptian cobra they call the asp is one of the most venomous snakes in the world.”

“What happens if it gets off the hat?” I ask.

“Someone dies. But it’s sewn on so it stays wrapped around the turban and can’t move its head enough to bite.”

It doesn’t look sewn on to me. “The man’s a snake charmer?”

“More than that; he’s a
Psylli
, a magician who handles snakes,” Von Reich says. “They’re not just marketplace entertainers.
Psyllis
are descendants of an ancient tribe of desert people who work wonders with snakes, especially the
Naja haje
, the deadly Egyptian cobras. They’re exposed to snake bites while still young and claim they have an immunity. They’re said to be servants of Wadjet, the Green One, the Egyptian goddess with a snake’s head.

“Stories about them go back thousands of years. A
Psylli
was sought out by Julius Caesar to draw out the poison from Cleopatra when she had an asp bite her, but she was already dead when the magician got there.

“An even older tale is from the Bible. The pharaoh’s magician-priests who dueled with Moses and his brother Aaron were
Psyllis
.”

“The ones who turned staffs into snakes?”

“Yes, their favorite trick, and it is a clever bit of conjuring. Today they earn more money drawing out snakes from people’s houses than from entertaining people. It’s not uncommon for snakes to get into houses and once inside they can be impossible to find—until a cobra reaches out from under your bed and bites you.”

I shudder at that thought.

“
Psyllis
go into homes and sing a tune that the snakes find seductive enough to leave their hiding places.”

The magician speaks to the crowd and Von Reich interprets the gist of what is being said.

“He’s going to show us his power over snakes and then he will forever immunize people from snake bites—for a price, but not a bad investment considering how many people die of bites in the country.”

I’m wondering how many people die from the “cure” when Von Reich grabs my arm.

“Watch this!”

The man raises his staff into the air and points it in our direction—then tosses it right at us. The wood rod hits the ground and instantly turns into a wiggling snake that coils and rises up, fanning its head.

Gasps erupt, including mine, and we move back. Von Reich keeps his own cane in front of the serpent to attract its attention as we backpedal.

The four of us regroup and walk away, the snake having been captured and placed in a sack by one of the magician’s attendants.