City of the Sun (21 page)

“I’m sorry about my ignorance the other day. I’ve been studying up. Apparently, a couple months ago fourteen hundred Syrian Jews were escorted to the Palestine border, only to be turned away by the British. Many of them were killed in the conflict.” He shook his head. “Unbelievable … having to flee their homeland like that. I can’t imagine what they’d even take with them.”

“Very little,” she said. “Important papers, a few photos, a small suitcase, some food, and lots of prayers. Embroidered linens and the family china become very insignificant.”

“I don’t doubt that. What about you? Are you planning to settle here in Egypt?”

“I’m not sure what my family is going to do at this point.”

“Of course. It’s all so uncertain, for everybody. Are you staying with your uncle in Heliopolis?”

“No,” she protested. “And how do you know he lives in Heliopolis?”

“Ace reporter!” He thumbed toward himself. “I’m guilty of curiosity.”

“Please, don’t bother my uncle again,” she said. “We’re staying with some cousins. And I really don’t like to discuss my situation here in Egypt. I was hoping that this would be …” She shrugged. “How is your article coming?”

“Promising,” he said, respecting her wish to change the subject. “But I’m still not sure what the best angle is. I’m finding that Egyptian Jews are extremely generous people, and they seem
comfortably assimilated, but below the surface there is a lot of fear, and not just about the Germans invading. They’re very careful not to rock the boat and jeopardize their position here.”

She leaned in closer. “What do you know about the Muslim Brotherhood? Do you think they represent a real threat to the Jews here?”

“Under the present climate? Absolutely. But their problem with the Jews is really a political one, nothing like in Europe.”

“My uncle says that the Brotherhood hates the English.”

“True, and they’re a thorn in the Brits’ side. Their guerrilla tactics are very hard to defend against, but the organization is extremely dependent on its leader and the British are pulling out all the stops to make sure that he is recaptured.”

She sat back and frowned, ruminating for a moment before asking, “Who actually runs this place, the Egyptians or the British?”

“Officially, the English have nothing to do with the government, but in reality they run the country,” he said, noting the intensity of her gaze as she listened carefully. “There is a parliament and a king, but they fight all the time, and the Egyptian Constitution doesn’t have checks and balances, so the English are the arbitrators.”

“I guess better the British than these Nazi puppets, the Vichy French, who run Syria,” she said, accepting Mickey’s offer of a cigarette. “My brother hates to see me smoke.” She grimaced. “What kind of name is Connolly, anyway?”

“Irish. My family is from the south of Ireland.”

“Catholic, then?”

“Is that a problem?” He looked into her eyes.

“Why should it be?” Her gaze veered away.

“I don’t know … In America the Jews don’t mix much with—”

“Gentiles?” It was she who sought his eyes this time. “I didn’t know gentiles wanted to mix with Jews.”

“That all depends.” He made light of it. “When I was a kid I
carefully avoided some of the tough Jewish neighborhoods! Ever heard of the Purple Gang?”

She shook her head and puffed on her cigarette, and he realized she wasn’t inhaling. “I only heard about the Chicago gangs from my roommate who was from there. I went to boarding school in Switzerland,” she told him. “Chic
aaa
go, as she would say.” She laughed.

The sight of her face lighting up made him smile.

“Do you really think Americans in Detroit will care about the Jews in your article?” she asked. “I’ve read about Father Coughlin and his anti-Semitic radio broadcasts.”

“The world is full of bigots, but I believe a good story will sell, even one about Jews. But back to you for a moment. How come you went to boarding school? In America only the very rich can afford that. Do many girls in Syria do that?”

“I love my parents, but they are real snobs.” She looked away and seemed to be reflecting on what she’d said.

He took the opportunity to stare at her shamelessly, drinking in every feature, from the small scar on her temple to the fine blond fuzz gracing her cheeks. He watched her nostrils delicately flare as she breathed. Yes, a flower, that’s what she was. He wished he could kiss her.

“Maya,” he said, wanting to reach for her hand, but afraid that would scare her away. “It’s a very pretty name. Did you know it means ‘illusion’ in Hindi?”

“And it also means ‘water’ in Arabic,” she said. “My parents just liked the name. They picked funny names for all of us.”

“You have a large family?”

“Twelve brothers and sisters.”

“Oh, my goodness!” He whistled. “I must come from the only Irish Catholic family in the world with just one kid. I wish I had siblings. I want to have a whole bunch of children one day.”

“Is your mother worried about your being here?”

“She died a long time ago,” he said. “Of course, she would have worried. But she would have loved it here herself. Like you, she was a very curious lady.” He winked. “Though she’d never been there and couldn’t speak the language, she adored everything French. She named her bakery La Parisienne and sang ‘Frère Jacques’ to me every night. She had a bottle of French perfume, Joy, which was absolutely sacred to her. She dabbed it on her neck every Sunday before church.”

“That’s very sweet,” Maya said.

“I just wish I had helped out more around the bakery. I had no idea that my time with her was running out. She died my junior year in high school. She had me promise to go to college. She always believed I would make something of myself.”

“And you did, Mister Ace Reporter! And a nicely groomed one at that!”

He smiled sheepishly, enjoying the compliment. He’d tried hard this morning.

She placed her elbow on the table, her chin in her palm. “I have to tell you,” she said. “I also had a boyfriend who cheated on me. He was the first one I really cared about. I was seventeen. He was much older. I think loyalty is the most important quality, for a lover or a friend, don’t you?” Suddenly she looked behind him and motioned to someone to go away.

Mickey turned and saw a girl anxiously tapping her watch at Maya.

“I have to go,” she said, uneasy, and leaned to pick up her purse from the floor.

“Please,” he insisted. “We haven’t even celebrated yet.” He looked around for the waiter. “I doubt this joint has any champagne, but let’s not let that stop us. Mademoiselle, your glass,
please.” He mimicked holding a bottle with one hand and pouring into an imaginary glass in the other. He then offered to pour her some.

“Come on! Your glass! I can’t do this by myself.”

She obliged, humoring him, and pretended to hold a glass. “I must go, really, and what are we celebrating, anyway?”

“Shh, shh.” He tilted his hand as if pouring and then clicked his imaginary glass against hers. “To our first date.”

CHAPTER 20

The Jew has vanished,

Kesner wrote, dipping his pen into the bottle of disappearing ink that sat on the wrought iron table under the white parasol on the foredeck of his boat. He’d woken up in a foul mood and more than ever he felt the need to write in his diary.

Despite his contacts, Abdoul was unable to trace him after he got off the boat in Alex. The Jewish community center here in Cairo is inundated with refugees and even with that silly little Jewish cap on my head I couldn’t extract any useful information. It’s clear the Jew must be getting help from somewhere. Given his importance, I bet it’s coming from powerful Jews. I must send Samina to that big Jewish soirée on the king’s yacht. No doubt the American spy will be there. With her smarts and instincts she’ll help pick out this Fastball.

I snooped around the American Embassy the other day, but without any contacts, I had no success. Who would have thought I would have to worry about the Yanks? The American community here is small and dispersed, and they don’t have a restaurant or club where they gather, but Abdoul, bless his fat heart, is getting me a list of all registered Americans. Maybe he can even find out which Americans will be invited to the party on the royal yacht.

I did discover that representatives of an American consortium are here to investigate oil prospects in the Middle East. The Americans are catching up.

Kesner put his pen down and took a tentative sip of the black Egyptian Arousa tea that he drank for breakfast with honey and walnut rolls. It was still piping hot. He checked his watch: 6:50. He’d better get going. He had an important meeting this morning with Anwar Sadat, the cofounder of the Revolutionary Committee, as the rebels within the Egyptian army called themselves. Kesner was hoping to introduce the young lieutenant to Hassan al-Banna and convince him to arm the Brotherhood. With the two subversive groups joining forces, Rommel, whose Afrika Korps had already entered Egypt in several places, would sail through the country easily. Rumor had it that they had taken Mersa Matruh, leaving only El Alamein as the last Allied stronghold before Cairo, a mere sixty miles beyond. Feeling chipper that Rommel would be here in no time, he grabbed the Biro ballpoint from his shirt pocket and jotted down in big letters:

Kairo

Wednesday, October 10, 1941

Max. 29° C Min. 19° C

Sometimes he provided more details, like wind and other trivial facts, masking his journal as a weather log, but today these would be the only notations he’d make. He shut the diary and read the quote from Sun Tzu’s
The Art of War
he’d inscribed in large printed letters on the cover of the journal:
Invincibility is in oneself. Vulnerability is in the opponent
. He read it every day for strength and inspiration.

“
Haz saeed
(Good luck),” the taxi driver said as Kesner stepped out of the cab. The driver wouldn’t take him deeper into the City of the Dead, or Araafa, as the cemetery was referred to. Even for thick-skinned Egyptians, the poverty here among the tombstones and catacombs was too wretched to face. Kesner knew that it was against Islamic teachings to dwell among the dead, yet fellahin from poor villages and impoverished city dwellers had formed shantytown communities here. Tea stands and fruit markets had sprung up between the graves all through the enormous cemetery where Egyptians of all social standings had been burying their dead for centuries.

“A city within a city,” Kesner thought as he negotiated his way inside the cemetery’s walls. Row after row of tombstones formed a labyrinth of alleys that stretched as far as the eye could see. He searched for the obelisk he’d been assured he’d find near the south gate entrance, where he was to meet Sadat and Sheik al-Banna. Kesner could easily understand why the sheik, like many other wanted men, had adopted this area as his hideout. He could sleep and strategize with his cohorts in different sepulchers for months on end, and, in an emergency, he could disappear through one of the innumerable exits, either into the city or into the desert. But this kind of emergency was unlikely, since both the Egyptian and British police shied away from this place as if it housed the plague.

Kesner breathed easier when he spotted a rose-colored marble obelisk next to a tomb covered with dry flowers and desiccated food offerings. It must be a saint’s vault, he surmised. He could see a soldier’s cap partially visible behind the obelisk.

“Good morning, Herr Sadat,” Kesner called.

Sadat came around. His Egyptian army uniform was immaculate, hardly what he expected from a revolutionary leader. Kesner hadn’t seen the young officer since he’d been sent off to Mersa
Matruh three months ago. With his new, well-trimmed mustache, he looked older than his twenty-two years, but his beady, youthful eyes were as fiery as ever.

“Good morning, Herr Kesner,” Sadat answered, standing erect. “I almost did not recognize you in your galabeya.”