The Lost Army of Cambyses (18 page)

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16

CAIRO

Tara woke with a start. She sat up groggily and

looked around, realizing she was in bed in Daniel's

hotel room. For a horrified moment she thought

perhaps . . . Then she saw she was still fully

clothed and at the same time noticed the sheets

lying on the sofa opposite, where presumably he

had slept. She looked at her watch. It was almost

midday.

'Bollocks,' she muttered, staggering to her feet,

head throbbing.

There was a bottle of mineral water beside the

bed and, unscrewing the cap, she took a long swig.

Noise drifted up from the street outside. There

was no sign of Daniel. No note.

Something inside her felt inexplicably soiled by

the previous night's encounter, as if by coming

here she had somehow let herself down. She

wanted to get out quickly before he came back

and, finishing the water, she scribbled a note

apologizing for having fallen asleep, picked up her

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knapsack and left. She didn't tell him where she

was staying.

Back on the street she headed towards the huge

stone gateway they'd passed through the night

before. Then, fearful suddenly of bumping into

Daniel, she swung round and set off in the oppo-

site direction, following the narrow street deeper

into the old Islamic quarter.

It was hot and dusty, and a swell of people

jostled all around her – women carrying baskets of

newly baked bread on their heads, merchants

hawking their wares, children juddering along on

the backs of donkeys. In other circumstances she

might have enjoyed the scene: the alien sounds and

smells, the colourful stalls with their baskets of

dates and dried hibiscus petals, the cages crammed

with rabbits and ducks and chickens.

As it was, she felt tired and confused. Sudden

harsh noises assaulted her ears – the clanging of

hammers, the blare of a moped horn, a burst of

music from a radio – drilling into her head and dis-

orientating her. The smell of refuse and spices made

her faintly nauseous, while there was something

claustrophobic about the way the crowd pressed in

from all sides, clasping her in a stranglehold of mov-

ing bodies. She passed a group of boys unloading

sheets of brass from the back of a lorry, a girl stand-

ing on top of a pile of jute sacks, two old men

playing dominoes at the roadside, and all of them

seemed to be staring at her. A man on a wooden

scaffold shouted something, but she ignored him

and pushed on through the throng, bumping into

people, struggling for breath, wishing she was back

in her hotel room, cool and quiet and safe.

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After about ten minutes she came upon a

butcher killing chickens at the side of the road.

One by one he pulled the birds from a cage, nudg-

ing back their beaks with his thumb and slitting

their throats before dropping them into a blue

plastic barrel, their wings still flapping feebly. A

semi-circle of onlookers had gathered to watch

and Tara joined them, sickened by the scene but

curiously compelled by it too.

She didn't notice the men at first, so mesmerized

was she by the sight of the butcher's knife slicing

across the soft pink-white flesh of the chickens'

throats. It was only after she'd been watching for

a couple of minutes that she happened to glance

up and see them standing across from her, two of

them, bearded, with black djellabas and
'immas

bound low about their heads. Both were gazing

directly at her.

She held their look for a moment, then returned

her attention to the butcher. Two more birds were

slaughtered and then she glanced up again. They

were still staring at her, their expressions hard,

unflinching. There was something unsettling

about them and, detaching herself from the group,

she moved off down the street. The men waited a

few seconds, then followed.

After fifty metres she stopped in front of a shop

selling backgammon boards. The black-robed

figures stopped as well, making no effort to

disguise the fact they were watching her. She

moved on again and the men moved as well, keep-

ing about thirty metres behind, their eyes never

leaving her. She quickened her step and turned

right into another street. Ten paces, fifteen,

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twenty, and there they were behind her again. Her

heart started to pound. This street was even

narrower than the one before and seemed to get

narrower still the further she went along it, the

buildings to either side inching together like

the jaws of a vice, the crowds becoming ever more

compressed. She could sense her pursuers getting

closer. Another street opened up ahead and to the

right and, pushing her way through the crowd, she

ducked down it.

This one was deserted and for a moment she felt

relieved, glad to have got out of the crowd. Then

she began to wonder if she had made a mistake.

Here she was exposed; there was no-one she could

call to for help. The emptiness seemed suddenly

threatening. She spun round, intending to burrow

her way back into the throng, but the men had

come up more quickly than she had expected and

were now just ten metres away. For a moment she

stood staring at them, frozen, then turned and

started to run. Five seconds and then behind her

the thud of pursuing feet.

'Someone help me!' she cried, her voice sound-

ing muffled and weak, as though she was shouting

through a cloth.

Fifty metres along she swerved left into another

street, then right, then left again, no longer caring

where she was going, just wanting to get away.

Heavy wooden doors flashed past to either side,

and at one point she stopped and hammered on

one, but there was no response and after a few

seconds she ran on again, terrified that if she

waited any longer she would be caught. The sound

of her pursuers' feet seemed to echo all around,

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magnified and distorted by the narrow streets, so

that it seemed as if they were coming from in front

as well as behind. She had lost all sense of

direction. Her head throbbed. She felt sick with

fear. She continued running for what felt like an

age, zigzagging deeper and deeper into the

labyrinth of back streets before eventually emerg-

ing into a small, sun-filled square with other

streets leading off it in different directions. There

was a stunted palm tree at its centre, with an old

man sitting in the shade beneath it. She ran over to

him.

'Please,' she pleaded. 'Please. Can you help me?'

The man looked up. Both eyes were milky

white. He held out his hand.

'Baksheesh,' he said. 'Baksheesh.'

'No,' she hissed, desperate, 'no baksheesh. Help

me!'

'Baksheesh,' he repeated, grabbing her sleeve.

'Give baksheesh.'

She tried to pull away, but he wouldn't let go,

his fingers clutching her shirt like a claw.

'Baksheesh! Baksheesh!'

There was a shout and the sound of running

feet. She looked up wildly. Four streets led into the

square, including the one she had entered by. She

swung her eyes from one to the other, trying to

work out where the sound was coming from, the

whole square throbbing with the pounding of feet,

as though someone was playing a drum. For a

moment she remained motionless, unable to

decide which direction she should take. Then, her

terror giving her an unexpected strength, she

ripped her arm away from the blind man and ran

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full tilt towards the street opposite the one she had

first come down. Even as she approached it she

saw two bearded figures turn a corner up ahead

and charge straight towards her. She swerved and

made for one of the other streets, but then,

prompted by some instinct she couldn't fully

explain, swerved again and ran towards the street

she had entered by.

She stopped at its mouth and turned, gasping

for breath. The two black-robed men were enter-

ing the square. They spotted her and slowed,

glancing to their right, towards the street she'd

almost gone down but had then shied away from.

There was a pause and then a huge figure

emerged, the same figure she had seen at Saqqara

and outside her hotel. His suit was crumpled and

his piebald face beaded with sweat. For a moment

he stood staring at her, breathing heavily, then he

reached into his pocket and pulled out what

looked like a small builder's trowel.

'Where is it?' he snarled, moving towards her.

'Where is the piece?'

'I don't know what you mean,' gasped Tara.

'You've got the wrong person.'

'Where is it?' he repeated. 'The missing piece.

The hieroglyphs. Where are they?'

He was halfway across the square now, almost

at the palm tree.

'Baksheesh!' wailed the blind man, grabbing at

the giant's linen jacket, clasping a handful of

material. 'Baksheesh.'

The giant tried to brush him off but couldn't.

He cursed and, raising the handle of his trowel,

smashed it down into the blind man's nose. There

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was a loud cracking sound, like twigs, and a

deafening scream of pain. Tara didn't wait to see

any more. She turned and fled. From behind came

the thunder of pursuing feet.

She ran and ran, blood pounding in her ears,

swinging left beneath an arch into a sort of tunnel

which led into a courtyard full of women washing

clothes. She rushed past them and out through a

gate into a street. There were more people here.

She wheeled right into another street and suddenly

there were people everywhere, and shops and

stalls. She slowed momentarily, heaving for air,

and then pushed on. Almost immediately, how-

ever, strong hands seized her and spun her round.

'No!' she cried. 'No! Let me go.'

She fought, punching out with her fists.

'Tara!'

'Let me go!'

'Tara!'

It was Daniel. Rearing over him, its twin

minarets piercing the pale afternoon sky, was the

stone gateway near the hotel. She had come full

circle.

'They're trying to kill me,' she gasped. 'They're

trying to kill me and I think they killed Dad too.'

'Who? Who's trying to kill you?'

'Them.'

She turned and pointed. The street, however,

was so jammed with people that even if her pur-

suers had been among them it would have been

impossible to spot them. She searched for a

moment and then, turning back to Daniel, buried

her face in his shoulder and clung to him.

156

LUXOR

As Khalifa walked away from the Temple of

Hatshepsut, mulling over what Suleiman had told

him, he passed a couple of young boys coming up

from Dra Abu el-Naga on camelback. They were

laughing together, flicking at the camels with their

sticks, urging the ungainly beasts forward with the

traditional camel driver's cries of
'Yalla besara!'

and '
Yalla nimsheh!'
('Hurry up! Let's go!'). He

turned to watch them and suddenly the

present seemed to evaporate and he was a child

himself again, back at the camel stables in Giza

with his brother Ali, in the old days before every-

thing fell apart.

Khalifa had never been sure when Ali had first

gone over to Sayf al-Tha'r. It hadn't been a sudden

association. Rather, a gradual assimilation; a slow

ripple effect that had carried his brother in-

exorably away from his friends and family and

into the arms of violence. Khalifa had often

thought that if only he had noticed earlier how Ali

was changing, hardening, perhaps he could have

done something. But he hadn't noticed. Or at least

he'd tried to persuade himself that things weren't

as bad as they seemed. And because of that Ali had

died. Because of him.

Islam had always been a part of their lives and