City of the Sun (35 page)

“But at least we’ll know it and prevent further damage,” Mickey said. “Now, on another front, did you ask your COI agent in Tel Aviv to poke around the Sieff Institute to see who’s responsible for bringing Blumenthal there?”

Kirk slowly shook his head. “Let it be, Connolly. I’m sure Donovan has his own ideas about how to go about pursuing this. He’ll be in Cairo by the end of next week.”

“It’s just that I got a request from General Catroux to interview a powerful lawyer who handles anti-Semitic cases this afternoon. I’m sure the general is more concerned about filing a grievance against the Vichy Embassy here than about fighting anti-Semitism, but I agreed to do it. Maybe I’ll learn something. You never know.”

Kirk slumped back into his chair, looking drained. “I’m glad to see you still have it in you to fight, Connolly. I’ve been unable to function since we lost Dorothy. Every time I pass by her office, I …” He shook his head.

“I know. I was dreading coming here myself,” Mickey said. In fact, he found the atmosphere of the entire embassy heavy with the weight of her death.

“Here, I almost forgot to give you this.” He handed Mickey a large, shiny photograph along with its brown envelope.

Mickey felt a sharp pang in his stomach. It was a photo of himself and Maya with their arms linked. It had been taken by the photographer on the king’s yacht.

“Who is the belle on your arm?” Kirk asked. “Dorothy suspected you might be falling for someone.”

“I wonder what made her say that,” Mickey said, slipping the photo back inside the envelope.

“She just knew,” Kirk said.

“Let me know what you decide to do about transmitting false intelligence,” Mickey said, avoiding the subject of Maya. He got up to leave.

“Be careful Mickey,” Kirk said.

Mickey opened his jacket and revealed the gun tucked in his belt.

Sitting comfortably in one of the luxurious quilted chairs in the Moorish Hall at the Shepheard’s, Mickey looked longingly at the photo of him with Maya. He’d been drinking himself to sleep every night to forget about her, but it wasn’t working very well, because the girl was always on his mind when he woke up, despite the hangover. He suddenly turned over the picture and slammed it on the table. He was angry with her for not giving things a chance. He knew how she felt about him. He’d felt it on the boat, and he’d seen it again in her eyes, even at the very moment she’d denied it. Whatever was going on in her life, together they could work things out.

He thought it was funny to be getting her picture now; he had decided just this morning to try to reach her. There was always a backlog for exit visas, and there was a chance she might still be here. He was not going to give up so easily. He slipped the photo back in its envelope and pulled out the card he’d just bought. He began to write.

Dear Maya,

I’m sorry I had to withhold some things from you, but I promise that at some point I will explain it all. I know this is a very stressful time for you and your family, and embarking on an affair of the heart right now might be frightening for you, but please don’t deny the truth of what happened between us. Do you want to be haunted for the rest of your life wondering about what we lost? I don’t, and I’m not going to give up on us. Please call me or write to me. We can, and we must, figure this out.

Mickey

He planned to give the note together with the perfume he’d bought to her uncle in the accounting department on the second floor of the hotel. He glanced around the lobby, wondering if he might have been followed here. He found the prospect of being tailed nerve-wracking. He ordered a beer and nonchalantly got up, leaving his newspaper on the table. “I’m just going to the john,” he said to the customer next to him, “if you don’t mind keeping my seat.”

He headed to the back of the room and into the hallway where the bathrooms were located, then made a sharp right to a staircase that led to the mezzanine. He waited in a corridor for a moment to make sure that no one was following and from there took the elevator to the second floor.

Upon entering the double doors of the accounting department, Mickey found himself face-to-face with Joseph Levi, who was just leaving, which made for an awkward moment, especially since the accountant did not seem happy to see him. They stood in the hallway.

Mickey pulled out the letter and the gift-wrapped perfume. “Would you be kind enough to give—”

“My niece is no longer in Cairo. She has left the country,” Mr. Levi said, jiggling the coins in his pocket.

“I … see,” Mickey fumbled, feeling somewhat intimidated by the man although he towered over him by at least a foot. “If I could have her new address, I’d like to send this to her.”

“I will forward it to her myself,” the man said. He took the letter and the package and inserted them in his attaché case. “If you don’t mind, I’m expected for lunch.” He tipped his hat and walked away, leaving Mickey feeling like a fool.

Sitting on a leather banquette in the waiting room outside Léon Guibli’s office, Mickey waited for his interview with the lawyer. General Catroux wanted to file an action against the local Banque de France branch for shooting at Free French protesters, and he wanted Mickey to write about it. The protesters had come to demonstrate in support of the Jewish community against the unwarranted dismissal of one of the bank’s long-standing Jewish employees. Three of Catroux’s men had been seriously wounded, but the pro-Vichy Embassy here had taken no action against the bank. To Mickey it was just another spat between the French.

He leaned forward, his hat in his hand. He was bitterly disappointed at having learned that Maya had left Cairo and doubted that Joseph Levi would ever forward his letter and package to her. He checked his watch. He’d been there for forty-five minutes. Maybe Guibli was a bigwig, but that was no excuse for keeping people waiting like this. He stood up and knocked on the office door of the secretary, who curtly explained that her boss was still on the same important call.

Annoyed, Mickey paced the room and stopped in front of the lawyer’s expansive bookshelf. In addition to law books and reviews, it housed a sizeable collection of American authors, including Hemingway’s recent book about the Spanish Civil War,
For Whom the Bell Tolls
. A book with a bright yellow cover caught his eye. It was the same book he’d seen at Hans Nissel’s house, documenting the famous bridges of the world. He picked it up and opened the cover. Inside he found an inscription,
To Léon, with much gratitude. Hans Nissel, Cairo, August 1941
. Small world!

“Maître Guibli is free to see you now,” the secretary, a slight woman with rosy cheeks, informed him.

Mickey placed the book back on the shelf and followed her into Guibli’s office.

“I’ve learned to avoid the press since I’ve never been quoted accurately, but General Catroux is a friend and he insisted I meet with you.” Guibli extended his hand. He was a lanky man in his late forties with an intense blue-eyed gaze. Though he wore neither tie nor jacket and worked with his shirtsleeves rolled up, his presence was commanding.

Mickey shook his hand firmly. “I’ll do my best to be the first to quote you faithfully,” he said. The office, like the reception room, was lined with mahogany paneling and had rich wooden floors. A huge banner bearing a quote from Goethe dominated the wall behind his desk: “Anti-Semitism is a shame. It is condemned by all civilized nations.”

After a brief discussion about the impending transportation strike, which the lawyer was negotiating on behalf of the government, the focus returned to the purpose of the interview. Guibli explained his understanding of the circumstances surrounding the French bank’s firing of the Jewish employee and described his own efforts to call for a boycott of the bank, which, ironically, was located on the ground floor of that very building. He had received death threats because of his involvement in the matter.

“But that never deters me,” the lawyer asserted. “I will speak up whenever I find anti-Semitism. And as you can see, there are no bodyguards in my office.”

With such a commitment against anti-Semitism, Mickey wondered why Guibli had not belonged to LICA and put the question to him.

“I very much sympathize with LICA’s mission, just like I sympathized with the concerns of our Zionist groups when they were operating here, but despite the best intentions, most organizations
end up compromising their ideals and becoming corrupt,” Guibli declared. “The only organization I belong to is the Wafd. This is a legitimate political party one can vote for, and it stands for an independent Egypt.”

Mickey was surprised that the lawyer had mentioned the taboo subject of Zionism, and he jumped at the opportunity to question him about it.

“As a Jew living in the Middle East, you must have an opinion about Zionism,” he probed. “Do you believe that Zionist activities present a danger to Jews in the Arab world?”

Guibli didn’t seem to mind the question, but he didn’t answer it directly. He commented instead on the sorry state of the movement, using it to support his point about ideals becoming compromised. “There are so many factions,” he lamented. “The Revisionists, the Bundists, the Socialists, the radical Zionists … Oh mon Dieu, so many! They have been so divided, my friend, arguing endlessly about what form the Jewish state should take, that they failed to mobilize European Jews quickly enough, and now …” he shook his head and continued, his face pained. “A colleague of mine in France is hearing about mass deportations of Jews out of Germany into concentration camps. They are said to have dumped fifty thousand of them into internment camps in the south of France. Who knows where the rest were sent? And where are the Zionists, I ask you?”

Mickey listened carefully. Although Guibli criticized the Zionists for being ineffective and disorganized, he didn’t condemn their dream of a Jewish state. “Do you believe that Eretz Israel is no fairy tale?” Mickey asked, eliciting a smile from Guibli, who recognized the quote from Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement.

“It is not reasonable to expect that a Jewish state could be founded under the current restrictions imposed by the British,” he said, “but this is a long conversation for which I’m afraid I don’t have time right now.”

“One last question,” Mickey asked, knowing he was stretching his welcome. “Putting aside the temporary freeze, who normally decides who gets a visa to Palestine and on what basis?”

“Under the latest White Papers, the British authorities will leave that decision to the Jewish Agency and the General Federation of Jewish Labor. After the freeze is lifted, who gets in will depend on which Zionist faction yells the loudest. Sometimes preference is given to those who can bring capital, and sometimes it goes to those who can milk cows, shovel dung, and do strenuous labor. It’s all about building a country.”

Erik Blumenthal had something all the Zionist factions would want, Mickey thought—unique expertise in a new frontier of science.

“If you’re interested in the matter, I’d be happy to refer you to some colleagues of mine who are much more knowledgeable about this than I am,” the lawyer offered.

“That would be very helpful,” Mickey said.

“Now, if you will …” Guibli had pushed his chair back, indicating the meeting was over, when a knock on the door interrupted them and the secretary tiptoed in, handing the lawyer a note.

“Outrageous!” Guibli exclaimed upon reading it, his face flushed with anger. “Sir Miles Lampson is trying to suspend unilaterally the Egyptian Parliament! This is what you should be writing about, my friend,” he ranted. “British imperialism!”