The Khamsin Curse (6 page)

“I imagine so,” agreed the
Countess dryly, noting the proliferation of coffee houses where men
gathered to smoke shisha, and wooden overhangs with iron grilles at
the windows most likely continued to hide girls who were quietly
raped to death.

Flurries of grit and sand blew
down the open-air corridors, though somehow the glittering wares
remained miraculously shiny, glinting in the sun, beckoning the
buyer to part with pieces of silver.

“It’s easy to see why most of
the women favour the burqa,” said Dr Watson, transferring dust from
his sweaty brow to his white handkerchief. His taupe suit was
morphing from pale grey to that shade known as filthy dirty. “I
say, isn’t that Miss Lee and Miss Clooney coming out of that coffee
house?”

Sure enough two young ladies,
one blonde and one brunette, emerged from a maqha about twenty
yards ahead of them and began walking briskly, arm in arm, toward
the Bab al-Ghuri gate. Dr Watson was about to suggest they catch up
but the Americans hoisted their parasols and were soon swallowed up
by the crowd, so he suggested they stop for coffee instead. Arabic
coffee was not exactly a thirst-quencher but the shady maqha
provided a brief respite from flurries of dust that tickled his
nose hairs and threatened to make him sneeze.

They sat among the shisha
smokers, sipped thick black brew, and through the wide-open shutter
watched the passing parade of jellabiyas, burqas and
foreigners.

“There’s that German chap,”
said the Countess, indicating a portly man in a Panama hat pausing
to buy a sticky pastry from a street vendor who had set up a cart
at the base of the steps of the soaring ruin called the Bab
al-Ghuri gate. “His female companion doesn’t appear to be with
him.”

Dr Watson harrumphed and looked
in the opposite direction. “I say, here comes Professor Mallisham.
He’s stopping to buy a pastry too.”

“It looks like the two men know
each other. I wonder if the German is also an archaeologist.
They’re having a heated discussion about something.”

“Probably arguing over the
pastries.”

“Bartering, you mean?”

“No, arguing. Academics are all
conceited hotheads, especially archaeologists – my pyramid is
bigger than your pyramid! One pastry is probably a fraction larger
than the other and they both want to lay claim to the bigger
one.”

“The German just handed the
professor something in a paper wrapper; probably a peace offering
by way of that big pastry.”

“Hmph! I don’t think he’s the
type to make peace offerings!”

Nevertheless, the professor
accepted, and off he went in the same direction he came.

“Aaatchoo!” sneezed the doctor
as they emerged from the coffee house into bright sunshine. “Damned
dust! Aaatchoo! It gets into every…aaatchoo!”

The German - looking pleased
with himself – hurried away, chewing on a pastry.

They passed under the old gate
and spotted Mrs Baxter in a souvenir shop selling silk scarves,
pretty trinkets and tacky wooden statuettes by the score. Head
scarves were
de rigeur
for women who intended to visit a
mosque. The Countess popped into the shop to say hello and have a
browse, leaving Dr Watson to nurse his Germanic grievance in
private and puff on a cigarette because he had run out of tobacco
for his pipe. He loitered grumpily in the open-air corridor between
gateways.

“Gorgeous colours!” said the
Countess. “Good-morning, Mrs Baxter. I saw you in here. Are you
planning a visit to a mosque later today?”

Startled, Mrs Baxter whirled
round and the fuchsia scarf she was admiring slipped through her
fingers. It created a vivid puddle on the dirty stone floor.
“Good-morning, Countess Volodymyrovna. Yes, yes, Miss Lee and Miss
Clooney went yesterday to the Citadel and told me I simply must pay
a visit before we leave Cairo.”

The vendor darted around the
counter, scooped up the silk scarf and gave it a shake. If Ali
Pasha was Sobek, then the scarf vendor was Horus. He had the curved
beak of a bird of prey, sharp beady eyes, and a thick plume of
blue-black hair that swept back from a round forehead. Whenever he
moved his head, the plumage moved with him. There didn’t appear to
be any neck.

Mrs Baxter took the fuchsia
scarf he proffered and contrasted it against a daffodil yellow one
which had been laid out on the counter. It was decorated with
turquoise cartouches and a smattering of hieroglyphs. The fuchsia
scarf was decorated with beautiful Arabic calligraphy – a verse by
an ancient Sufi poet, said the vendor.

Mrs Baxter looked from one
scarf to another. “It’s difficult to choose when one has hair the
colour of a ripe tomato. I should probably go for something in
green or blue. What do you recommend?”

“Oh, I would definitely go for
the fuchsia. Pink and red bring out the best in each other. There’s
a mirror over here on this wall. You will see what I mean. Better
still take them both.”

The Countess chose three
headscarves – eau de nil, royal purple and acid yellow. They were
decorated respectively with hand-painted scenes of the Sphinx, the
Pyramids, and the Citadel. She paid for her purchases, including
enough to cover Mrs Baxter’s scarves, then re-joined her companion
who was now looking slightly ill. She hoped it wasn’t that huge
couscous omelette he’d consumed at breakfast two days running.

“Over there,” he croaked
cryptically with a curt nod of his head.

Over there
was Colonel
Moran, sucking on a cigarette while leaning bonelessly against the
wall of the soaring vaulted arch of the Bab al-Ghuri gate. It
seemed an odd place to stop because people were forced to step
around him just before going up or down a short flight of steps. A
man carrying a cage full of birds cursed savagely. A woman wearing
a burqa paused momentarily and appeared to lose her footing. The
colonel reached out as if to catch her but she brushed him off. A
small object fell from her hand as she stumbled, flashing a slender
ankle strapped into a lovely leather sandal. He scooped up the item
while she regained her balance. She grabbed it and ran off without
looking back.

“Damned fool! What an idiotic
place to stop! Did you see that?”

“Yes,” said the Countess
severely. “That could have ended in a nasty fall. Lucky it’s only
five steps.”

“I think he pushed that woman
deliberately.”

The Countess conceded the
colonel was an idiot. “I thought he tried to stop her falling,
though I admit it was a half-hearted effort. Plus it’s
disrespectful for a foreign male to lay an arm on a Muslim lady. I
think she was greatly offended.”

“Let’s go before he notices us.
Just the sight of him is enough to ruin my day. Where’s the cave of
Ali Baba?”

“Ali Pasha,” she corrected,
glancing back over her shoulder. “It looks like the colonel is
coming this way, gaining on us. You cannot pretend not to notice
him. Brace yourself.”

Bracing was not what the doctor
had in mind. Impulsively, he grabbed her elbow and hauled her into
a lantern shop. “Quick! Let’s duck in here!”

He grabbed the first object
that came to hand and pretended to be interested. “How much for
this lamp?” he blurted; standing with his back to the door.

The vendor named a price and
without even bartering Dr Watson reached into his pocket.

“No, no, it’s too much,”
interceded the Countess. “It’s not even genuine silver. It’s what’s
called German silver – an alloy of nickel, copper and zinc.”

The vendor glared daggers at
her then whisked another lamp from the shelf behind him. “This one
genuine silver, esteemed great lady.”

Dr Watson came to his senses.
“How about this brass one? How much for this?”

“Very popular design. Last one
in shop.”

“How much?”

“Very special lamp.”

“How much?”

“Magic lamp of genie. You make
three wishes.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Dr
Watson. “How much?”

“Oh, for goodness sake!” said
the Countess, slapping enough money on the counter to make the
daggers gleam. “We’ll take it! No need to wrap it.” She put it in
the cotton bag with the three scarves and off they went.

Colonel Sebastian Moran was
nowhere to be seen and yet for the remainder of the morning the
Countess could not shake the feeling of being watched. It was as if
the doctor’s fear and loathing had rubbed off on her. Was it
because she was Sherlock’s daughter that she felt inexplicable
dread? Mortal dread, as if her life was in danger, as if the gods
had marked her out, as if every shadow in the souk was sinister and
jackal-shaped.

Once an idea enters the head
it’s no good telling oneself it is causeless, especially in Egypt.
Here, every action was an act of sacred terror; every thought a
superstition. Life was a dream. Death was real.

She looked back over her
shoulder but there was no one there. Not Anubis, not Horus, not
Sobek, and not the second most dangerous man in England. Only white
ghosts in jellabiyas and black ghosts in burqas and foreign ghosts
like corpses trailing dusty shrouds.

It was a relief to arrive at
the shop of the antiquities trader.

“Ahlan Wa Sahlan,” greeted Ali
Pasha, flashing a row of pointy teeth. “I will be with you in a
moment.”

He was wrapping a small parcel
in brown paper and tying it securely with string. The parcel was
oddly shaped; perhaps a statuette of an old god, possibly Sobek
himself.

Oil lamps gave off an
opalescent glow that washed the bijou cave with blue-green light.
It was like diving into an underwater grotto where objects swam
before one’s eyes – ivory inlaid cigarette boxes, gold and silver
scarabs ornamented with gemstones, and delicate papyri covered with
hieroglyphs that defied translation.

The shop was deeper than it
looked. One room led to another, then down a few steps and into yet
another cave. In the third cavern, where a single oil lamp
glimmered dimly, there were mummies by the score. Most looked quite
small, as if constricted by their bandages, though people might
have been smaller several thousand years ago, or perhaps corpses
shrank after being eviscerated and embalmed.

They didn’t see the German
until they ventured into the bowels of the third cavern. He was
perusing a papyrus pertaining to a mummified crocodile. Dr Watson
turned abruptly on his heel to avoid the prospect of making polite
conversation. The Countess had no such qualm.

“How I envy you,” she said.

Surprised to hear the voice of
a woman, the German peered over the top of his pince-nez, then
looked around the watery bluish confines crammed full of dead
things to see if the attractive young woman was addressing him. “It
is to me you speak?”

“Yes, how I envy you?”

“Envy me?”

“You are able to read
hieroglyphs, I think?”

He gave a modest nod of his
head and smiled. “That is correct.”

She gazed at the cartouches on
the papyrus and wondered how difficult it might be to learn to read
glyphs. “I believe we travelled together on the Queen of Cairo but
we were not introduced. I believe we are also staying at the same
hotel. I am Countess Volodymyrovna.”

“A pleasure to meet you,
Countess. I saw you on the steamer ship, of course, and at the
hotel, yes, yes, of course, but I am not sociable. I am
not
on vacation. I am looking to make some purchases for private
clients. It is popular to have an Egyptian room with a few
treasures to show off to one’s friends. I apologise for any
rudeness. Your travelling companion, he is displeased with me, I
think. A dispute over deck chairs. I did not wish to have company.
I placed some personal items on the chairs either side of me. He
was annoyed. It happens all the time. There are never enough deck
chairs for all the passengers.”

“Quite right, I have witnessed
fearful rows, not only between men, but women too.”

He gave a quick chuckle. “I too
have witnessed this. I am Herr Graf.”

The name rang a bell. “Herr
Rhinehart Graf, the Leipzig archaeologist who translated the
Heliopolis papyrus on Egyptian law, which contradicted Diodorus on
the subject of punishment in the afterlife?”

He was stunned she was familiar
with the treatise and even more stunned she could remember what it
was about. He considered it obscure and rambling. “That was the
work of my younger brother. I am Herr Jurgen Graf. I perceive you
are interested in archaeology? You are joining a dig perhaps? The
excavation in the Valley of the Kings?”

“I am highly interested,
although I will not be joining any dig, however, I do intend to
explore the island of Philae. There is the possibility it may
become submerged when the dam is built. Are you acquainted with the
work of Professor Mallisham?” She knew very well the two men were
known to each other and was suddenly interested in what the German
might say about the professor.

“Oh, yes, Max Mallisham and I
go back many years. We do not always agree but I have the highest
respect for his current project. The dam will be a catastrophe. I
hope to visit Philae with my niece before it sinks into oblivion.
My niece is the reason I stole your calash. She was waiting for me
to meet her at the Cairo railway station and we docked later than
expected. I did not want her to worry too much. This is her first
trip to Egypt. She has been studying Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and
Hieroglyphics with private tutors for the last five years with the
intention of following in the footsteps of her father. Rhinehart
died tragically many years ago. Ursula was only twelve at the time
and came to live with me and my wife. She is very keen to see
Philae. We may even see you there. We travel by train to Karnak
first thing tomorrow.”

“We also leave early tomorrow.
My travelling companion and I will be sailing with the party of Mr
Jefferson Lee. He has a Swiss paddle-steamer. The name is rather
fittingly being changed from Lady Constance to Sekhmet.”