The Case of the Shifting Sarcophagus

by Sean McLachlan

  Faisal shuddered at the memory. His stomach growled.

  “Oh no,” he told it. “You can’t start complaining now.”

  Faisal stared at the broad avenue and the aqueduct and the bazaar beyond. He turned away. Why had he given half his breakfast to Abdul? Now he had to steal some food.

  At least it delayed him having to cross that street.

  He found a bread seller a block away, an old woman hawking little round loaves. Faisal loitered in the area, pretending to watch a group of men loading bags of millet onto the back of a donkey, while really keeping half an eye on the bread seller.

  The old woman was sharp, though, and glared at Faisal once or twice to tell him she was onto his game.

  Faisal bit his lip. Perhaps he should try some other place. Another growl from his stomach convinced him to be patient. Something would distract the old woman. Cairo was a city full of distractions.

  It came in a few minutes. A young man strutted down the street with a scowl, looking like he wanted to smash the whole world. Those angry eyes fixed on something just beyond Faisal.

  Faisal turned and saw another local tough, a bit older, standing on the street just past the bread seller, chatting with a couple of the stall owners. The man looked up, scanned the crowd, and his eyes fixed on the tough young man walking toward him.

  “Hey! I thought I told you never to come down this street!”

  “I’ll walk where I like, you son of a whore!”

  “I’ll rip your arms off, you piece of trash!”

  Both men rushed at each other, fast enough to look impressive and slow enough for people to intervene. As the pair’s insults got drowned out by the general hubbub and all eyes turned to the drama in the street, Faisal strolled past the bread seller, whisked a loaf off the stack and with nimble fingers folded it in half with one hand and stuffed it in the pocket of his jellaba. He stuffed his other hand in the other pocket, making a fist so both pockets bulged equally.

  Then he walked away, not bothering to watch the fight because there wouldn’t be any fight. You could tell a real fight from a fake one by how much noise the two people made beforehand. A lot of shouting and insults and there would be no fight. A silent rush at each other and watch out.

  The moment he turned the corner he gobbled down the bread.

  Faisal got back to the broad avenue with the old aqueduct on the other side, its pointed arches sheltering the ragged marketplace where he had once nearly been killed. He made it halfway across the dusty avenue, picking his way around ox carts and dog droppings, before he hesitated once more.

  He looked back the direction he had come. Why was he risking his neck like this? Sure, the Englishman would give him some money, but there were safer ways to get what he needed. And the Englishman probably wouldn’t pay him enough to buy the spell to end the Englishman’s marriage. He’d end up on the street just the same.

  Faisal helped out the Englishman all the time and didn’t get enough credit, or enough pay. Half the time the Englishman didn’t even know he was doing it. And did Moustafa appreciate him? Ha! So why did he keep running around helping those two, just so he could have a secret little shed on a rooftop?

  No, Faisal realized. He didn’t do it for the free food or the occasional tip or even that little shed. He did it for something else. When he was helping the Englishman and Moustafa solve their murders he got to be something more than just a dirty little street boy. He got to be somebody special, like Chief Mohammed. It didn’t even matter so much that they didn’t know, because he knew.

  So he would go through that market and into the City of the Dead, and he would track down that man with the vicious baboons, because if he didn’t then he was just what everyone thought of him—a nobody. He didn’t want to be a nobody. Even if he lost his house and ended up back on the street he’d keep helping the Englishman, because every now and then the Englishman looked at him through that scary mask and saw Faisal as somebody more than a street urchin, and that was the best feeling ever.

  Puffing out his chest and squaring his narrow shoulders, Faisal continued across the avenue and plunged into the marketplace.

  After the brilliant light of the street, the marketplace was dark. Ragged, filthy awnings stretched over the narrow lanes and stalls. Faisal glanced this way and that, checking for danger. Would they remember him? That had been a couple of years ago so hopefully not. But there were bullies here, like that sharp-eyed teenager leaning against one of the pillars of the aqueduct, sizing everyone up. The stall owners looked tough too as they brayed out exaggerated praises for their used clothing and half-rotted fruit.

  Half a dozen street urchins shot out of a space between two stalls, laughing and swearing. They spotted him and descended on him.

  “You don’t live here,” the leader said. He was a bit smaller than Faisal, they all were. But six against one was always bad odds.

  “I’m delivering a message,” Faisal replied, not slowing down. Sometimes urchins got hired to deliver messages for a bit of food or a few millemes. It was a reasonable explanation for why he would come here.

  “To who?”

  “None of your business.”

  “We can show you the way.”

  “I already know the way.”

  “Well if you’re so smart you should know that you can’t pass through here without paying a tax. We run these streets.”

  “Yeah, right. Go away.” Faisal tried to keep his voice sounding tough and confident.

  The leader and one other cut him off. Faisal stopped.

  “Pay the tax or get out of our neighborhood.”

  The others surrounded him.

  Faisal did the only smart thing to do in that situation—he turned on the smallest in the group, slugged him, and ran past as the boy fell down.

  He just managed to break out of the circle, but the boys came right at his heels like a pack of dogs, braying and screeching.

  Faisal vaulted over a stand selling slippers, sending a heap of the cheap wares falling all over the place. His pursuers followed, ducking under the stand or running around it. The slipper seller yelled out in fury and grabbed one of the boys by the hair.

  Faisal didn’t see what the man did to him, because five on one was still bad odds and he kept on running. He zigzagged through the crowd, dodging as hands tried to stop him, then ducked past a soup stand and upended the big brass pot. The soup splashed out in a big steamy wave, catching the gang leader in its spray and causing him to yelp and jump back. His friends behind him stopped. A plume of steam obscured them from view, and Faisal hurried around one of the big pillars holding up the aqueduct and kept on running.

  After a few minutes he had caught his breath and assured himself he had lost he gang. He hated going out of his territory. Something like this always happened. Back in his own neighborhood he was known. Rejected, but known. He had a low place but he still had a place. Here he was a stranger, and fair game for anyone who wanted something from him. He had to take care.

  By now he had moved past the sprawling market and into the City of the Dead. It was an old cemetery for rich families dating from the days of the Sultans. Each family had a plot of land about ten paces wide and twenty paces long surrounded by a high wall. The tombstones—simple stone slabs—stood inside. A single gate allowed entry. In the old days the family tombs would have been locked and guarded, but these family names had all died out or moved on and nobody cared about the dead who lay here any more. Thus the poorest of the poor moved in, breaking open the gates and installing new doors, creating roofs with canvas awnings or reed mats, and clearing away the tombstones.

  They had turned the family tombs into homes. Faisal shuddered. Think of the ghosts and jinn that must lurk around here at night!

  But the people he saw here didn’t look like they feared anything. They had the dull, resigned look of the abject poor, or the cunning, animal look of those who preyed on them. They were either too hopeless or too brutal to fear any spirit from the u
nseen world.

  The tombs stood in tidy rows, each the same as the other, so that the lanes in between made a grid like the mesh in a strainer. Faisal found it baffling to have all the streets look the same. It was much easier to find your way when streets twisted and turned like normal. At least he could use the aqueduct as a landmark to find his way back, and he’d make sure to find his way back before sundown. If he ended up stuck here after dark, the ghosts and jinn would get him if the human predators didn’t get him first.

  Plucking up his courage, he asked an old woman weaving in front of one of the tombs where he could find the neighborhood of the animal trainers. She fixed him with suspicious eyes, grunted out a terse response, and told him to be gone.

  Faisal hurried off. He could feel eyes on him. Luckily no more gangs, child or adult, tried to stop him.

  He had to ask for directions twice more before he found the right area, deep within the City of the Dead in an old section where the tomb walls had crumbled and had been shored up with rubble from a vast stretch of wasteland on the other side of the cemetery. Faisal could see it in the distance, a field of sandy hillocks through which poked portions of old wall. Half-wild dogs picked through trash as vultures wheeled overhead. He had heard that an old city had been there once that had since disappeared, its decay helped along by people stealing its stones to make newer places to live.

  His ears told him he had made it to the neighborhood of the animal trainers before his eyes confirmed it. A cacophony of barks, growls, roars, squeaks, and hisses brought him right to the spot.

  Faisal turned a corner and his breath caught. Before him stretched a lane crowded with cages and pens. Jackals, hyenas, monkeys, and countless other animals paced behind the bars, calling out in a deafening cacophony.

  Beyond the street stretched an open area where men and even some women put the animals through their paces. A woman in a scandalously tight costume stood on the back of a horse as it trotted in tight circles. A man nearby urged a small army of monkeys to jump through hoops and then form a line. He made a gesture and uttered a short cry, and several of the monkeys climbed onto the shoulders of the others, then more monkeys climbed on them, up and up until there was a pyramid of monkeys all screeching and chattering. The man tossed them bits of banana which they caught with their nimble, humanlike hands. One banana fell short, and the whole pyramid collapsed as the monkeys dove for it.

  “Damn you, get back into position!” The man shouted, cracking a whip. The monkeys screeched and scattered. This made the man angrier and he laid about with his whip as the other trainers laughed at his expense. Faisal made a wide circle around him and continued to look for a baboon trainer.

  After an hour he found him. The distinctive cry of a baboon led him to the open door of one of the tombs. It was bright inside, because the owner had cut a window in each of the three walls not pierced by the door. The shutters were all open, as was the door, so that light streamed in.

  Faisal tensed as he recognized the thin Egyptian with angular features who had broken into the Englishman’s house. He sat on a dirty old carpet in the center of the room. Nearby stood a table made from a tombstone with broken bits of other tombstones as legs. There was little other furniture except for an old wooden chest, a lamp, and a few bundles of raw cotton piled in one corner. In front of the Egyptian thief squatted the two baboons, their beady eyes fixed on him.

  The man gestured with his hand and muttered a strange sound. One of the baboons sprang out of the window and in an instant got on the roof. Faisal could hear the scrape of its claws on the palm trunks that made up the roof as the baboon hurried across to the other side of the tomb and then swung down through the opposite window. It returned to its place before its master.

  He made the same gesture and sound, followed by a second gesture, and this time the baboon went to a corner, grabbed a key lying on the floor, jumped out the same window as before, ran across the roof, came in through the opposite window, and returned to its place. It no longer had the key.

  The trainer turned to the other baboon, flicked his fingers out like he was spraying water from his hand, and made a low hiss through clenched teeth. The second baboon leaped out of the window and scrambled onto the roof. Faisal stepped back so he could see it. The baboon turned around a couple of times, then its eyes widened and it bolted for a spot out of sight. In another moment it came through the back window with the key in hand and dropped it in its master’s lap before taking its place once again.

  Faisal realized he should leave. He had found out where the baboon trainer lived. All he had to do was tell the Englishman and collect his reward. But he was fascinated by these animals and the power the trainer had over him. He’d stay just a little longer and then get out. There were still a few hours before dark.

  The trainer reached into his pocket and pulled out two bits of mango. He balanced a piece on each baboon’s nose. The animals sat still, eyes focused on the treat. For a moment they sat there, silent, and Faisal waited for the trainer to give the signal to eat. He’d seen this trick before. It wasn’t as complicated as the key trick, but getting baboons to hold off on their appetites was still impressive.

  But the man did not give the signal. Instead he got up and went to one of the bundles, which he opened, pulling out a pipe and a little pouch of tobacco. Without any haste he filled the pipe, the two baboons obediently awaiting the signal, squatting like a pair of statues on the dirt floor.

  “Instead of gawping there by the door, why don’t you come in?” the trainer said without looking up from his pipe.

  “I-I didn’t want to disturb you,” Faisal said.

  The man smiled. “You’re not disturbing me. I always like an audience. Are you impressed by my baboons?”

  “They sure are well trained,” Faisal said. He felt himself growing cold. He suddenly had the urge to pee.

  “That they are,” the trainer said, waving his hand without taking his eyes off Faisal. The two baboons jerked their heads back and brought their powerful mouths down on the pieces of mango with a snap. Faisal flinched.

  “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Hakim, like the great Sultan of old. And what might your name be?”

  “F-Faisal.”

  “You’re a quiet one, Faisal. I think you have been standing at the doorway for some time before I noticed you. You live on the street, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes,” Faisal lied.

  Hakim shook his head sadly. “I thought so. You have the look of a street boy. Such a shame. You don’t deserve to live on the street. You deserve to have a place to sleep and money in your pocket. Would you like that, Faisal?”

  “Sure.” Faisal didn’t like the way this conversation was headed.

  “Come inside.”

  “I, um, need to be going.”

  “No need to be suspicious, Faisal. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just curious about you.”

  Faisal thought about running, but he knew those baboons would be on him before he made it past the next tomb.

  Hakim held up a half piastre coin. “Come in and I’ll give you this.”

  Faisal shook his head. The rest of him shook too.

  Hakim glared at him. “Come in.”

  The baboon trainer’s expression was like an iron grip around his neck. Faisal found himself moving forward. Once he got a few steps inside, he stopped just out of reach of Hakim, who gave him a satisfied smile.

  “Much better. Now we can talk as friends. But first we need a bit of privacy.”

  He darted a glance at his baboons and hissed out a command. The animals sprang up. One bolted past Faisal, who ducked out of the way with a cry, and the baboon slammed the door shut. The other went and closed all three windows, plunging the room into darkness.

  After the bright light of the noonday sun, Faisal was blind inside the suddenly darkened chamber. He stood stock still, ears perked for any sound of the baboons.

  “Are you frightened, Faisal?”

  �
��Y-yes.”

  “There is no shame in that. The mark of bravery is not the lack of fear, but the mastery of one’s fear. Someone who has been through the great war in Europe told me that.”

  A match flared, making Faisal blink. Hakim’s thin face appeared like a bloody crescent moon.

  “Now Faisal, we’re going to play a little game. I’m going to tell my baboons to chase you, and you are going to run away. When this match burns out, the baboons will stop, and you will be safe. Ready?”

  “Wait, I—”

  Hakim shouted a command, and the baboons let out a screech that tore at Faisal’s eardrums. He ducked to the right, and the baboon behind him flew past, missing him by an inch. The other one bounded across the room and threw itself at him. Faisal tucked into a roll that ended up right next to Hakim. Glancing over his shoulder, Faisal saw the baboons making for him again.

  “Run, Faisal!” Hakim shouted through his laughter.

  Faisal did not run, instead he blew out the match.

  For a second there was silence. The baboons had stopped.

  “Well,” Hakim said, the surprise evident in his voice. “That was quite the solution. Your mind is as quick as your reflexes. But the test isn’t over.”

  Another match flared to life. Hakim cupped a hand around it to protect it as the baboons lunged for Faisal.

  He ducked behind Hakim, who still sat placidly in the center of the room. The baboons circled around their master, reaching for Faisal.

  The boy leapfrogged over Hakim, who laughed, and sprinted for the door. Instinct made him veer off a second later and a baboon flew past, its fur brushing his face, and banged against the door. Faisal kept running, then jumped in the air as the second baboon swiped at his legs.

  Faisal grabbed a big bundle of cotton from the corner and threw it at the pursuing animals. The weight of it knocked them back and they screeched in rage. Faisal picked up another and brought it up as a shield just in time to stop one of the animals from tearing his face off. Instead its thick claws raked at the cloth wrapping, almost yanking the bundle out of his hands and sending bits of cotton everywhere.