He Shall Thunder in the Sky (39 page)

     “We have seen so little of the Vandergelts,” I said. “Katherine writes to remind us of our promise to visit them at Abusir.”

     Emerson started as if he had been stung. “Damnation!”

     “What is it, Emerson?” I cried in alarm. “Something in that letter?”

     “No. Er — yes.” Emerson crumpled the missive and shoved it in his pocket. “In part. It is from Maxwell, asking me to be present at a meeting tomorrow — another example of the cursed distractions that have plagued this season! I meant to go to Abusir several days ago.”

     “A war is something of a distraction,” Nefret said dryly. “You are probably the only man on that committee who knows what he is talking about, Professor; you are doing Egypt a great service.”

     Emerson said, “Hmph,” and Nefret added, “This can’t last forever. Someday . . .”

     “Quite right,” I said. “You will do your duty, Emerson, and so will we all; and someday. . . .”

     Nefret and I spent several hours in the darkroom. When we emerged, both Emerson and Ramses were gone.

From Manuscript H

     Ramses could remember a time when carriages and camels and donkeys transported tourists to the pyramids along a dusty road bordered by green fields. Now taxis and private motorcars made pedestrian traffic hazardous and the once isolated village of Giza had been almost swallowed up by new houses and villas. Baedeker, the Bible of the tourist, dismissed it as uninteresting, but every visitor to the pyramids passed through it along the road or on the train, and the inhabitants preyed on them as they had always done, selling fake antiquities and hiring out donkeys. The town relapsed into somnolence after nightfall. Its amenities were somewhat limited: a few shops, a few coffee shops, a few brothels.

     The coffee shop Ramses favored was a few hundred yards west of the station. It was not as pretentious as the Cairene equivalents: a beaten earth floor instead of tile or brick, a simple support of wooden beams framing the open front. As he approached Ramses heard a single voice rising and falling in trained cadences, which were broken at intervals by appreciative laughter or exclamations. A reciter, or storyteller, was providing entertainment. He must have been there for some time, for he was deep in the intricacies of an interminable romance entitled “The Life of Abu-Zayd.”

     A few lamps, hanging from the wooden beams, showed the Sha’er perched on a stool placed on the mastaba bench in front of the coffee shop. He was a man of middle age with a neatly trimmed black beard; his hands held the single-stringed viol and bow with which he accompanied his narrative. His audience sat round him, on the mastaba or on stools, smoking their pipes as they listened with rapt attention.

     The narrative, part in prose, part in verse, described the adventures of Abu-Zayd, more commonly known as Barakat, the son of an emir who cast him off because his dark skin cast certain doubts on the honor of his mother. The emir did his wife an injustice; Barakat’s coloring had been bestowed on him by a literal-minded god, in response to the lady’s prayer:

“Soon, from the vault of heaven descending
A black-plumaged bird of enormous weight
Pounced on the other birds and killed them all.
To God I cried — O Compassionate!
Give me a son like this noble bird.”

     Waiting in the shadows, Ramses listened appreciatively to the flexible, melodic voice. It was quite a story, as picaresque and bloodthirsty as any Western epic, and it was conveniently divided into sections or chapters, each of which ended in a prayer. When the narrator reached the end of the current section Ramses stepped forward and joined the audience in reciting the concluding prayer.

     He and his father were among the few Europeans whom Egyptians addressed as they would a fellow Moslem — probably because Emerson’s religious views, or lack thereof, made it difficult to classify him. “At least,” one philosophical speaker had remarked, “he is not a dog of a Christian.”

     Emerson had found that highly amusing.

     Ramses exchanged greetings with the patrons and politely saluted the reciter, whom he had encountered before. Refreshing himself with the coffee an admirer had presented to him, the Sha’er nodded in acknowledgment.

     Ramses edged gradually away from the attentive audience and into the single, dirt-floored room. Only two creatures had resisted the lure of the narrator; one was a dog, sound asleep and twitching, under a bench. The other was stretched out on another bench and he too appeared to be asleep. Ramses shoved his feet rudely off the bench and sat down.

     “Have you no poetry in your soul?” he inquired.

     “Not at the moment.” David pulled himself to a sitting position. “I heard.”

     “I feared you would.” He told David what had happened, or failed to happen, the night before. “How they got wind of his intentions I don’t know, unless he tried to blackmail them.”

     David nodded. “So that’s the end of that. What do we do now?”

     “Back to the original plan. What else can we do?”

     There was no answer from David, who was leaning forward, his head bowed.

     “I’m sorry,” Ramses said. He decided they could risk speaking English; the narrator’s voice was sonorous and no one was paying attention to them.

     “Don’t be an ass.”

     “Never mind the compliments. There’s one thing we haven’t tried.”

     “Trailing the Turk?”

     “Yes. The first time I encountered him I was — er — prevented from doing so. The second time,
you
were prevented by your concern for me. There will be at least one more opportunity, and this time we’ll have to do more than follow him. As you cogently pointed out, we need to learn not where he’s going but where he came from. He’s only a hired driver and he is probably amenable to bribery or persuasion. But that means we’ll have to take him alive, which won’t be easy.”

     “The Professor would be delighted to lend a hand,” David murmured. “Are you going to let him in on it?”

     “Not if I can help it. You and I can manage him.”

     “One more delivery.”

     “So I was told. It has to be soon, you know. At least Farouk is out of the picture. If they try to replace him we’ll know who the spy is.”

     “Are you trying to cheer me up?”

     “Apparently I’m not succeeding.”

     “One can’t help wondering,” David said evenly, “what he told them. The kurbash is a potent inducement to confession.”

     “What could he tell them, except that the great and powerful Father of Curses had tried to bribe him? He didn’t know about you or — or the rest of it.”

     “He knew about the house in Maadi.”

     Ramses swore under his breath. It had been a forlorn hope, that David’s quick mind would overlook that interesting fact — a fact whose significance had apparently eluded his father. Not that one could ever be sure, with Emerson . . .

     “Listen to me,” he said urgently. “Father’s private arrangement with Farouk was a diversion that had nothing to do with our purpose. We didn’t sign on to smash a spy apparatus, we’re only trying to prevent an ugly little revolution. If we can do that and come out of it with whole skins, we’ll be damned lucky. I refuse to get involved in anything else. They can’t expect it of us.”

     “You had better lower your voice.”

     Ramses took a long, steadying breath. “And you had better go. I meant what I said, David.”

     “Of course.” David rose and moved noiselessly toward the doorway. Then he pulled back with a muffled exclamation.

     Ramses joined him and looked out. There was no mistaking the massive form that occupied a seat of honor in the center of the audience. Emerson was smoking his pipe and listening attentively.

     “What’s he doing here?” David whispered.

     “Playing nursemaid,” Ramses muttered. “I wish he wouldn’t treat me like —”

     “You did the same for him last night.”

     “Oh.”

     David let out a soundless breath of laughter. “He’s saved me the trouble of following you home. Till tomorrow.”

     Bowing his head to conceal his height, he began working his way slowly through the men who stood nearby. Ramses moved forward a step and leaned against the wooden frame, as if he had been standing there all along.

     He knew his father had seen him. Emerson had probably spotted David too, but he made no move to intercept him. He waited politely until the wail of the viol indicated the end of another chapter, and then rose and went to meet Ramses. They took their leave of the other patrons and started on the homeward path.

     “Anything new?” Emerson inquired.

     “No. There was no need for you to come after me.”

     Emerson ignored this churlish remark, but he did change the subject. “I’m worried about your mother.”

     “Mother? Why? Has something happened?”

     “No, no. It’s just that I know her well, and I detected an all-too-familiar glint in her eyes this afternoon. She has not my gift of patience,” said Emerson regretfully. “What was that? Did you say something?”

     “No, sir.” Ramses stifled his laughter. “About Mother —”

     “Oh, yes. I think she is about to take the bit in her teeth and go on the warpath.”

     “I had the same impression. Did she tell you what she’s got in mind? I hope to God she isn’t going to confront General Maxwell and tell him he must call the whole thing off.”

     “No, I’m going to do that.”

     “What? You can’t!”

     “I could, as a matter of fact.” Emerson stopped to refill his pipe. “Calm yourself, my boy, you are becoming as hot-tempered as your sister. Sometimes I think I am the only cool-headed individual in this entire family.” He struck a match, and Ramses managed, with some difficulty, to refrain from pointing out that this might not be such a wise move. If anyone had been following them. . . .

     Apparently no one had. Emerson puffed happily, and then said, “But I shan’t. There is no meeting of the committee tomorrow; that was just my little excuse for calling on him. What the devil, there is too bloody much indirection in this affair. I want to know what Maxwell knows and tell him what I think he ought to hear. Don’t worry; I shall be very discreet.”

     “Yes, sir.” Argument would have been a waste of time; one might as well stand in the path of an avalanche and tell the rocks to stop falling.

     Emerson chuckled. “You don’t believe I can be discreet, do you? Trust me. As for your mother, I think I know what she has in mind. She thinks she has spotted Sethos. I intend to allow her to pursue her innocent investigations, because she is on the wrong track.”

     “How do you know?”

     “Because,” said Emerson, “I know . . . Er. Because I know the fellow she suspects is not he.”

     “Who is it she suspects?”

     “The Count.” Emerson chuckled.

     “Oh. I agree with you. He’s too obvious.”

     “Quite.”

     They were near the house. “I’ve got to run into Cairo for a while,” Ramses said.

     “I will accompany you.”

     He had expected that and braced himself for another argument. “No. It’s not one of my usual trips, Father. There is someone I must see. I won’t be long. I’ll take one of the horses — not Risha, he’s too well known — and be back in an hour or so.”

     Emerson stopped short, looming like a monolith. “At least tell me where you are going.”

     Just in case. He didn’t have to say it. And he was right.

     “El-Gharbi’s.”

     Emerson’s breath went out in an outraged explosion, and Ramses hastened to explain. “I know, he’s a crawling serpentine trafficker in human flesh and all that; but he’s got connections throughout the Cairo underworld. I saw him once before, when I was trying to find out where that poor devil who was killed outside Shepheard’s got his grenades. He told me . . . several interesting things. I think he wants to see me again. He didn’t stop by the hospital because he was concerned about that girl.”

     “Not him.” Emerson rubbed his chin. “Hmph. You could be right. It’s worth the time, I suppose. Are you sure you don’t want —”

     “I’m sure. It’ll be all right.”

     “You always say that.”

     “Not always. Anyhow, what would Mother do if she found out you had gone to el Was’a?”

Ramses left the horse, a placid gelding Emerson had hired for the season, at Shepheard’s and went on foot from there, squelching through the noisome and nameless muck of the alley to the back entrance he’d been shown. His knock was promptly answered, but el-Gharbi kept him waiting for a good quarter of an hour before admitting him to his presence.

     Swathed in his favorite snowy robes, squatting on a pile of brocaded cushions, el-Gharbi was shoving sugared dates into his mouth with one hand and holding out the other to be kissed by the stream of supplicants and admirers who crowded the audience chamber. He gave a theatrical start of surprise when he saw Ramses, who had not bothered to alter his appearance beyond adding a mustache and a pair of glasses. As he had learned, the most effective disguise was a change in one’s posture and mannerisms.

     Clapping his hands, el-Gharbi dismissed his sycophants and offered Ramses a seat beside him.

     “She is a pearl,” he announced. “A gem of rare beauty, a gazelle with dove’s eyes . . . Now, my dear, don’t glower at me. You don’t like me to praise your lady’s loveliness?”

     “No.”

     “I was curious. So much devotion, from so many admirers! Having seen her, I understand. She has strength and courage as well, that one. Such qualities in a woman —”

     “What did you want to see me about?”

     “I?” The kohl lining his eyes cracked as he opened them wide. “It is you who have come to me.”

     When Ramses left the place a quarter of an hour later, he wasn’t sure what el-Gharbi had wanted him to know. Fishing for facts in the murky waters of the pimp’s innuendoes was a messy job. Once again, Percy had been the main subject — his affairs with various “respectable” women, the secret (except to the all-knowing el-Gharbi) hideaways where he took them, his brutal handling of the girls of the Red Blind District. Ramses thought he would probably never know for certain what Percy had done, or was doing, to annoy el-Gharbi — damaging the merchandise might be a sufficient cause — but one fact was clear. El-Gharbi wanted Percy dead or disgraced, and he wanted Ramses to do the job for him.