The Hidden (23 page)

Littoni nodded and continued. “Tell us what has been arranged so far, Sayidda.”

“I have got the cyanide. I received it from my cousin Dahshan in Bulaq. Farouk wants me to go to the Oxford as an escort girl. I am the Oxford’s gift of thanks to Issawi for his patronage of the club. I am to dine with him and be his playgirl for the evening. Farouk has gotten the heroin for me to put in Issawi’s drink. Then Farouk wants me to bring Issawi to the apartment in Abbassiya.”

Littoni smirked and nodded. Hamid, al-Dyn, and Hossein continued to take turns sucking on the shisha.

“Do you know what our friend Farouk intends to do with Issawi?” he asked, leaning towards Nemmat.

“He’s going to assassinate him there, cut up the body, and have him removed in separate boxes to different locations outside Cairo. I know he’s employed two young men to help him.”

“What are their names, Sayyida?”

Nemmat shook her head. “I don’t know. Everything has been kept top secret so far.”

“Still—,” Littoni started to say, but he stopped and a smile curled his lips.

Nemmat watched him carefully. He was screwing up his eyes, thinking.

“The night of the coup,” he went on, “we want no distractions or problems of any kind—and certainly no traitors.”

Nemmat flinched as he said those words. Traitor. The word pounded inside her, making her flesh crawl. It was all she could do to keep her face composed and her body still.

She looked at the other men. Al-Dyn was grinning at her. Hossein had the shisha pipe hose in his hand. Hamid was cradling his knees in his arms. Tashi was stroking his wife’s cheek affectionately. The shisha pipe woman had retired, and the lamps had been turned down to a dull glow. The air hung heavy. Littoni stood up shakily, reaching for the table to steady himself.

“The heroin Farouk is expecting you to put in Issawi’s drink will dull his senses, is that right, Sayyida?”

Nemmat nodded, her mouth trembling, for fear of what was coming next. Littoni scared her.

“Issawi won’t know what’s happening to him,” she said. “But he wants Issawi conscious enough to know he’s about to meet his own end.”

“Yes, yes.” Littoni grinned. “And you have the cyanide, you say. You’re sure it will blend easily enough with his whisky?”

“According to my cousin, it’s all in order,” Nemmat said. “I only need one capsule. If you don’t trust me, I’ll give it to you and you can have your laboratory test it.”

Littoni’s eyes narrowed. “That won’t be necessary. Your cousin Dahshan is in one of the Muski sectors, isn’t he?”

Nemmat nodded, never for a moment taking her eyes from Littoni.

“I know the man,” he continued. “I’ve had him checked out. He supports us. He’s sworn his allegiance to the X.”

“Then you are happy, Sayyid, that everything is going according to plan?”

Littoni rubbed his hands together.

“So far, so good. Is everyone clear on their position? We start at the al-Qal’ah end, near the Abdin, on the night of the twentieth. By then, Farouk will no longer be able to bother us. But first things first. We must pray to Allah for deliverance from Farouk. We must pray for our sister Nemmat, pray that she succeeds in her vital mission. If Allah wills it, we will then be free to start the revolution without any interference and to do it properly. Then Omar bin Mohammod alias Fabio Littoni will be president of Egypt. At last.”

The journal of Hezba Iqbal Sultan Hanim al-Shezira,

Cairo, August 26, 1919

A letter comes from Alexandre. It is the day after I have been tainted with the stench of al-Shezira’s body and endured his violence, but the taint lingers. I cannot wash it away. To calm myself I read Alexandre’s letter.

He writes:

Darling Hezba, I will come for you. Wait for me. Rachid has been made aware of this. I have some news for you. My spies have found out that on the night of September 15, your husband is going to hold a conference at the Minya palace, in the Great Hall, for a group of his politician friends. Five pashas will attend the conference. They will arrive at the palace the night before and will be accommodated in the guest apartments. These five pashas are of high interest to the Rebel Corps. This is a fine opportunity, one not to be missed, Hezba. I know you understand my motive in writing to you. These politicians are scheduled to discuss certain topics, including the rights of the Council of Fellahin, the signing of a preliminary Anglo-Egyptian Treaty and what it will mean to our country, and the waiving of certain taxes for the wealthy.
Judgement on these issues will then be presented to government. We have received notification from a branch of our group in Cairo that the execution of our plans on this date will be crucial to the success of our mission. That is all I have to say for now. I eagerly await the moment when I can see you again, hold you to me, and feel your body against mine.

I remain your devoted Alexandre.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Aimee stood shivering on the street corner for a few moments. She was scared. She regretted telling Sophie and Sebastian to go on into the club. But she had to see this woman, Fatima. Azi had been her first love. If this woman had somehow been involved in a plot to murder him, she had to do something.

Two old men in long robes walked past. One of them brushed her thigh with his hand. Peeking around the corner, she saw the el-G doorman, a different one from the night she had come with Farouk. This one was taller, with a hard face, his mouth twisted in a snarl. He wore a billowing black calico robe over filthy trousers. His grey beard was unkempt, and his leering eyes squinted in the low light.

Aimee walked up to him and, steadying her voice, said, “I would like to speak to Sayyida Fatima.”

“Oh, yes?” he snapped, his eyes travelling the length of her body. “And who should I say is asking for her?”

Aimee wavered for a moment.

“My name is Amina Khalil. I was told the Sayyida was looking for girls, dancers.”

The doorman chewed on his cigarette and then spat it out of his mouth. A faint smile emerged.

“You are just in time then. Fatima is due on stage in just over an hour. Go around the corner to the side door. You’ll see an entrance. Knock and wait. Someone will open the door and take you to her dressing room. Tell her Sekmet the doorman sent you.”

She turned abruptly and found the door. A dwarf stood guard. He was pulling at his trousers and playing with the zipper. He looked embarrassed for a moment; then he barked.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“Sekmet has sent me to see Sayyida Fatima,” she said. “My name is Amina Khalil, and I am looking for work as a dancer.”

He eyed her suspiciously for a moment. It was unusual for girls to appear at this late hour looking for work. They usually came during the day, were auditioned, and told to return later. Still—

“This way,” he said, then vanished down the stone steps into the darkness. Aimee followed. Long candlesticks on wrought-iron candelabra lit the way. Finally the dwarf knocked on a door. Aimee heard a woman’s voice.

“Fatima,” the dwarf said, “I have a dancer for you, a girl called Amina.”

Aimee felt faint, and her nerves felt stretched taut. Her heart beat wildly, and little beads of perspiration had broken out at the base of her spine. When the door opened, the dwarf gave Aimee a shove. She stumbled into a surprisingly beautiful room, lit with a hundred candles. Huge mirrors covered every wall. Fatima sat on a silk-draped chair, in front of one of the mirrors. She was dressed in her stage costume, the same jewel-encrusted bodice over loose trousers as the other night. Her hair was tied up on her head, a few black ringlets falling seductively from beneath her tiara.

Aimee steadied her voice.

“Sayyida,” she said in Arabic, “I am looking for work as a dancer. My name is Amina. I am very experienced. I have danced in
Paris and in Spain. I have fallen on hard times, and I need to earn a living. The wife of a cousin of mine, Abdullah Ibrahim, told me your club was one of the best in Cairo and—”

Fatima closed her eyes and put up her hand to silence her. Was there any recognition of her husband’s name, a flutter of the eyelashes, darting eyes, a jolting of the body, a clue, anything? Fatima stood up and walked over to Aimee. She began circling her like a vulture, examining her from behind and then from the front. Aimee stood still, not daring to move.

At last Aimee said, “Do you know Sayyid Abdullah Ibrahim, Madame?”

Fatima said, “Is he a regular here? Should I know this man?”

“I believe he is rather fond of this club. He told me all about the exotic and graceful Fatima.”

Fatima dismissed her with a contemptuous shrug. “Then you will have been told we have high standards. We don’t accept riffraff, common girls from destitute homes with no charm or grace to offer. Where are you from? You are not Egyptian.”

Aimee grabbed at something to say, tripping over her thoughts. She felt foolish and afraid, out of her league. “I am Turkish. My family came to Egypt a long time ago. I travelled with my mother and danced to earn money. But my mother is dead and I have to earn a living.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-five,” Aimee lied, studying Fatima’s full scarlet-painted mouth. She appeared older up close. Tiny wrinkles fanned out from around her eyes. There was a hardness to her face, with lines etched into her forehead.

“Well, you look alluring enough, and much can be done with powder and paint. Did your friend tell you what our customers expect at the el-G?” she said.

Aimee shook her head. Fatima went on.

“The men who come here pay a lot of money to see top-quality girls. They want a show, do you understand, and they don’t want to leave the club disappointed. My girls must perform for my men. They dance for them, and then they take them upstairs for any extra services they have paid for.”

Aimee swallowed and nodded. What was she doing? She couldn’t dance for men. That was ludicrous. But, maybe there was a chance she’d find out more that way. She needed to—somehow—get Fatima to trust her, and this appeared to be the only way to do that. She had seen the way Fatima had whipped the men into a sexual frenzy.

“Do you think you can do that?”

Aimee was tongue-tied. “Do you mean, I must—”

Fatima nodded. “Yes, you must. As you complete the final stages of your erotic dance, you must remove the last of your clothes. Choose a man from the audience, someone who looks as though he has a fat wallet, someone from the front who has paid for sex. Then seduce him while you dance for him on the stage. The other men in the audience must see you do this. It will entice them to buy a girl. After that, you must do whatever the man wants, enticing him with extras, for which he will pay a great deal, do you understand?”

She nodded, her head constricting, a low dull scream hovering somewhere deep inside her.

“Take off your street clothes and choose a dress. Get yourself ready. I will see how you perform tonight.”

Aimee wasn’t sure she could go through with it, but she had no choice if she wanted to keep a close eye on Fatima. There was simply no other way. Besides, Fatima was already shoving an outfit into her arms—a red semi-transparent stocking dress.

“Here, wear this. And do something with your face and your hair. Change over there and be quick about it. You’ll go on in fifteen minutes and remember—I expect a good show or you can forget working here.” She thrust Aimee into a room next to hers that was furnished with a long mirror, a dressing table with bottles of cold cream, trays of long ostrich feathers, and rows of spiky-heeled shoes.

She pulled her knotted hair free and combed it, deciding against feathers and tiaras. Azi had to have been crazy to get involved with someone like Fatima. There was nothing alluring about her. She was simply a low-life brothel-keeper. Azi had been worldly and sophisticated. Nothing made sense anymore.

She looked in the mirror, applied some red to her lips, in the manner of Fatima, puckering her lips into a bow. She powdered her skin, which looked deathly in the spotlight of her tiny dressing room. Then she painted her eyes as carefully as time would allow and looked at herself in the mirror. She didn’t recognise herself.

The journal of Hezba Iqbal Sultan Hanim al-Shezira,

Cairo, August 29, 1919

My fate is written in the desert sands. From Cairo to Ethiopia, from Wadi Halfa to Rabat, across the length and breadth of North Africa, the vast expanse of land occupied by my ancestors, the signs are there, marking out God’s will for me, my destiny. This is the only thought that comforts me now that the inevitable is happening and we are leaving.

The day has been set. Tomorrow at dawn after prayers, a carriage will come to take us to the train station. I will ride with the Minya harem women, seated with the stern but beautiful Iqbal, al-Shezira’s favourite, and leave the palace of my birth forever.

Instructions have been given. Al-Shezira’s men have given orders to Habrid. Rachid, Anisah, and Tindoui are packing up my things. I have asked to see Virginie. Rachid knocks on my door. He has a message from her.

“Sayyid Alexandre Anton will come tonight,” Rachid whispers, and I fold myself in his arms and cry against his shoulder. I cry with sadness because I am leaving my home and with relief because Rachid has been allowed to escort me to Minya. Rachid and I are friends again. He told me he was angry with me for risking my life when I rode out into the desert to meet Alexandre, and he feared that if I continued to act in such a foolish manner, I would die because of it. But now that he has been allowed to escort me, he is happy again. He tells me I am his only friend and my heart aches for him because of this. “I love you, Rachid. You are so good to me,” I say. Rachid holds me close.

He releases me and says, “Tindoui and I are to prepare you for your husband. He is expecting you again tonight.”

My heart sinks and I shiver. I cannot bear my husband’s brutality. The only thing I can do to save myself is to be a wife to him and not talk back to him. But I still want one last night of solitude in the palace of my birth before I leave.