The Hidden (11 page)

The old woman tells us she is a peasant from the country, but she was once blessed by the khedive himself and is admired for her wisdom and her ability to recite suras from the Qur’an.

She must have been beautiful once, this peddler woman. Perhaps she is, as she says, much admired. But she looks tired now, and I feel sorry for her. I ask Rachid to bring her some refreshment.

“In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,” she says. “I simply ask for your help to feed my family. My wares are quality
and inexpensive. Nowhere else in all of al-Qahire will you find such beautiful things. No souk sells these goods, no other peddler. I beg you, Sayyidas, please buy whatever you want.”

I cup the little bottles in my hands and close my fingers around them, feeling the warmth of the glass. I pick up some of the paper and stroke its silky surface. I handle the bone attached to the pen nibs. Then I open a flat parcel filled with pages of different hues, a hundred pages at least, held together in a little folder of their own.

“Here,” I say, handing her more money than she needs with a little extra for baksheesh. “I will buy all of this,” I add with a sweep of my hand.

I wish I could tell her I am like her, that although I live in a palace and wear beautiful clothes and have everything I want, I am unhappy. I wish I could tell her I would gladly change places with her. I don’t suppose her husband beats her and tortures her. I don’t suppose she has given birth to a dead baby. I don’t suppose she hates and fears her husband. But I can say none of these things, for these things are not talked about. This peddler woman thinks I am a rich princess.

“With thanks, kind Sayidda,” she says with a smile. I bow to her, leave the others to their purchases, and return to my rooms.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Aimee and Farouk walked together to the Wagh-el-Birka district. She had returned his jacket to him and thrown a thin scarf of dull-coloured silk around her shoulders. Loose pieces of mud fell away under her shoes as she walked. This was how she had walked with Azi through the Khan el-Khalili bazaar. Together they had tiptoed among seated fruit and tobacco sellers, basket weavers and purveyors of elaborate kilims, buoyed up by their like-mindedness, by their love, breathing in the odour of spices and hookahs, secretly holding hands, always secretly holding hands.

Now she walked with Farouk, down similar streets, inhaling the same scents of the night. It should have been Azi with her, but Azi was dead. She had to tell herself this, had to keep herself from breaking down without him.

Farouk walked protectively beside her; he knew these harets and sharias of old, having walked along them many times. He knew the faces of the locals and the traders, the women and their children. The piece of paper with its encoded messages burned in his top pocket, and he longed to study it. He felt smug about the advantage he now held over Littoni, but for the time being, the girl who walked by his side demanded all his attention. She did not walk quickly but carried herself with determination, her head held high, her eyes alert, as though she expected to see someone—the
ghost of her husband perhaps. Farouk did not hurry her. Up ahead, a group of soldiers lurched and fell forward towards them, swearing loudly. He steered Aimee gently past them, his hand firmly on her shoulder. Farouk’s touch made Aimee’s heart jolt strangely. A shallow breath caught in her throat and little tingles danced up and down her spine. Her reaction to his touch shocked her. He was a stranger, yet she felt drawn to him. As someone who could help her get justice for Azi, she told herself. To distract herself, she turned her gaze to the noisy cafés, still open and packed with men, playing chess, drinking coffee, smoking hookahs, and talking. She studied the occasional chador-wearing woman with a baby in her arms being ushered home by her stern-looking husband.

“You won’t like what you see at this club,” Farouk said after they had been walking for a while.

Aimee did not know how to answer him. She simply stared ahead, trying to quell the anxiety flooding through her. Her head throbbed with the thought that Azi had been having an affair. She felt so young, so inexperienced. Azi had wanted more than she had been able to give him.

“I need to see her in person,” she said quietly. “Surely you understand that?”

She felt Farouk’s hand reach for hers in the darkness, and she let him take it.

Aimee dared to look at him for a moment. His aged face softened when he met her gaze, becoming fuller, younger, as though he knew how she felt. Perhaps there had been a girl, long ago. Perhaps he understood how distraught she was, how much she had loved Azi.

“Do you have a cigarette?” she asked him. Farouk fumbled in his pocket, produced one, and lit it for her. He watched her mouth tremble as she took the cigarette between her lips.

“You don’t mind my smoking here in the street?” she asked him. “Azi used to hate it.”

He shook his head and grinned, pointing up the street to the maze of narrow alleys and forbidden passageways.

“The el-G is not far,” he said. “You’d better finish that before we get there.”

Aimee inhaled slowly and looked around her. Everything seemed unfamiliar now. She didn’t know this neighbourhood. Azi would never have taken her to a place like this. It was rough and dirty. She puffed on her cigarette nervously.

“Is it unusual for a woman like me to go to a club like this, Monsieur Farouk?” she asked him.

“That depends. What type of woman are you, Madame?”

She threw her head back and searched the sky for inspiration. She was hardly out of her girlhood, a young woman, a wife, a widow, the daughter of a royal bloodline but without any claim to it. She was unremarkable in the crowded streets of Wassa. She tried to see herself as others might see her: an Egyptian girl, not veiled, perhaps not yet married, for here she was out on the street with a strange man, who could be her brother, or perhaps an uncle.

“I’m not sure, Monsieur, but I know I am certainly not familiar with places like these.”

Farouk smiled and watched her closely. She was losing the prickly anxiety that had cloaked her when they had left her house. She had aged ten, maybe even fifteen years in the space of a few minutes, and she looked better for it, not so vulnerable. The nervous puffing of the cigarette indicated that she was still on edge, but the walk from her house to the club had obviously done her good.

“You don’t have to worry too much. Although I’ve never seen a woman in the audience at the el-G before,” he said, “I know that women have been and do go there. Mostly European women,
tourists who are after a little adventure or who are invited there as guests.”

She looked up at him, amused. He was trying to protect her dignity. She knew what type of place the el-G was. As elite as its reputation was, it was still, essentially, a brothel.

She threw her cigarette on the ground, stamped it out, and looked up at him. “How did you get that scar on your face?” she asked.

Farouk’s hand flew to the silvery stripe that ran from his hairline to his jaw on the left side of his face.

“It happened a long time ago, in the Libyan desert. I was a young man then and very foolish. I was in love, you see, and full of insane passion. The girl had a violent brother who did not want me to touch his sister. She had been promised to another, and I was getting in the way. He took his anger out on me, and I have the souvenir to prove it.”

The speech was a convenient lie easily recited. As with so many things, Farouk knew he was a skilled actor, and he could tell from the look on her face that she believed him.

“You must have loved her very much,” Aimee said vaguely. He didn’t say anything. There was no possible response. He gently steered her towards an archway, feeling her stiffen under his touch this time. He glanced at her face but could read nothing in its expression.

“Are you all right, Madame?”

“It’s no good,” she said bitterly, chewing her bottom lip, feeling suddenly vulnerable and very afraid. “I don’t think I can do this.”

“Just stay close to me and don’t say anything. Just watch. Trust me.”

They turned into Sharia Wagh-el-Birka, then down a few narrower streets, lit with duller lights. Farouk and Aimee shouldered
past raucous Americans, laughing street girls on their way to work, and overfed businessmen carrying wads of notes in their greasy hands. Dirty glass shop-fronts displayed scantily clad Russian girls, who sat on stools and smoked while young men gaped.

“The el-G’s a little farther up,” Farouk said, “towards Derb-el-Wasa’a.”

Up ahead, Aimee saw the flashing neon blue light of the el-G. She held back, hiding like a coward behind Farouk.

A fat Turk in a greasy fez, a black waistcoat, and stained white shirt stood guard. His huge face broke into a smile when he saw Farouk approaching. He shouted out to him in French.

“Welcome. Monsieur. The club is busy tonight.”

Farouk’s features were set hard, as he pushed past the doorman.

“Yes, enter please.” The doorman bowed again, sweeping his arm to the left to usher him in. Farouk pulled Aimee from behind him, his arm outstretched around her.

“Ah Monsieur,” the doorman said abruptly, putting a fat hand up to stop them.

“I’m sorry, this is a gentleman’s club. No ladies are permitted inside.”

Farouk stared slyly at the doorman.

“This lady,” Farouk said slowly between gritted teeth, “is my wife. She’s coming in with me.”

The doorman looked confused for a moment, and then a slow grin fanned out across his mouth. His filthy eyes consumed her. Aimee felt the slick seediness of his gaze crawling all over her. She shivered and looked away.

“I can assure you, Monsieur, it is not customary, but if Monsieur wants to spice up his love life—perhaps his little lady would like to observe the pleasures of Madame Fatima—then who am I to come between the master and his wife.”

The doorman grinned at them, showing off his decaying teeth. Aimee flushed a deep red, hating Farouk for possessing her, for calling her his wife, hating the grimy, sordid street they stood on, hating herself for pressuring him to bring her here.

“Well then, enter, Monsieur and Madame, and enjoy yourselves.” He laughed hoarsely. Aimee swallowed hard. She stumbled behind Farouk down the slimy stairs to the basement below. She could hear laughter and music, and then the smell hit her. It was the smell of damp, the smell of tombs, of strange burning oils, of death spiked with wilting flowers starting to rot. Farouk led her through a door to a large, dimly lit room filled with hordes of men sitting at small dining tables. On each white-cloth-covered table was a tiny ruby-red lamp with a low burning bulb, surrounded by clusters of glasses and ashtrays. Aimee scanned the crowd, which—according to Farouk—comprised a mix of soldiers on leave, Turkish and Maltese businessmen, Egyptian men, and university types—all of whom had been lured here by the prospect of seeing Fatima. All of them appeared to be transfixed by the empty stage in front of them, their eyes trained on the multicoloured sequinned curtain shimmering before them. They were waiting for the next act, their hearts beating in a wild, alcohol-driven stupor. Farouk led her to an empty table at the back of the room.

“What do you think?” he whispered in her ear. “Rather grimy, isn’t it?”

Aimee studied what she saw, wishing she were invisible, wishing she were a man, dressed in a suit and tie and sturdy brogues, smoking a cigarette, laughing at it all. She sank lower in her chair.

Dancing girls appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and started to circle the tables, stroking the faces of the men, coaxing them as they reached out and grabbed at pieces of their flesh, shoving money into the intimate crevices of their jewelled costumes. She
could hear many languages being spoken, words she did not understand.

A waiter took their order. He did not look at Aimee.

“Two whiskies,” Farouk said. The waiter left, and Farouk reached for her hand to comfort her.

“Are you all right?”

“I shouldn’t be here. What possessed me to ask you to bring me here? I shouldn’t have come. I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

“You came because of your husband,” Farouk said reassuringly.

Suddenly he noticed a group of men in the far corner near the stage. His mouth thinned as he studied them. He was thinking, thinking how he could throw the girl off guard, try and find out what she knew about Azi’s involvement with Issawi. He needed to play the game as skillfully as he could, not for Littoni, but for himself.

“Do you see that table over there on the left, near the stage?” he asked her. Aimee peered over at it discreetly and nodded.

“Can you see that man, the one with the greying moustache, the big head, high forehead, hooded eyes, balding? He has a red bow tie on and a waistcoat. He’s laughing right now. With the dancer in front of him who is licking her fingers, rubbing her hands all over her breasts. There, now she’s running her hands all over his face. Do you see him?”

Aimee nodded, her belly knotting uncomfortably. She shot Farouk a look and then looked back at the man.

“His name is Gad Mahmoud. He’s a disgruntled ex-politician, a friend of someone I think your husband had a great deal of respect for, a man called Haran Issawi.”

He stared at her to gauge her reaction.

“Issawi?” Aimee said, looking at Farouk.

“Do you know him, Madame?”

“I’m not sure, I don’t think—”

Aimee turned to stare at Mahmoud again.

“Do many politicians come here?” she asked.

“A few. Mahmoud’s known to be mixed up in all sorts of dubious affairs. He’s a member of a fundamentalist Islamic group called el-Mudarris, a breakaway Wafd movement that now works against it. The Wafd was the first nationalist group that fought to restore Egypt to independence in the twenties, as you no doubt know. El-Mudarris and the Wafd have been fighting for years. Both want supremacy, both are fighting for the same thing, but each group hates the other. This man, Gad Mahmoud, is dangerous, an underground terrorist. He has many aliases, and he’s been linked to Haran Issawi, the king’s advisor. I once saw your husband talking to Mahmoud here at the club.”