Birds of the Nile

by N E. David

  Reda began stirring in his chair. Blake tip-toed across to speak to him and as he approached, the young Egyptian hauled himself up to sit straighter. Under the circumstances, he looked remarkably cheerful.

  “Now then,” said Blake. “And how are you feeling this afternoon?”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed opposite. It was barely a day since Lee Yong had sat in the same position and he had been in the chair.

  “Much better, thank you, Mr Blake,” said Reda. “As you can see, I am in good hands.” He nodded in the direction of his carer.

  “Yes, you’re a lucky man to have such attention.” There was a touch of jealousy in Blake’s comment. “Mrs Biltmore tells me you took a bit of a pasting the other evening.”

  Although there was clearly no jealousy in that.

  “As I said to you last night, Mr Blake, it was a light beating, nothing more. In fact I consider myself fortunate. Many of my colleagues have suffered far worse than I. Some have died already. And I don’t doubt that many more will do so before this work is finished.”

  “You take all this quite seriously, don’t you?”

  Blake didn’t mean to sound flippant, but at his university, protest had often been a matter of style rather than conviction.

  “Of course we take it seriously!” Reda was indignant. “You don’t imagine we enter into this lightly, do you? It’s not a game, Mr Blake.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to belittle…” He paused and attempted to recover himself. “But what about the police? Doesn’t their attitude bother you?”

  “Pah!” Reda scoffed. “The police? They’re nothing more than Mubarak’s Gestapo. We don’t let them intimidate us with their presence. They’ve always been there and they always will. But now it’s time to move on. They think that they can hurt us with their bullets and their batons, but they can never take away our dignity.”

  “Is that what this is all about – dignity?”

  “That, and justice and freedom. Those are the watchwords of our revolution, Mr Blake. It’s our response to how humiliated and how hopeless we’ve been made to feel over the last four decades. You see, we’ve been bullied into thinking that nothing can change – but we know that’s not true, and now we’ll show the world that it can.”

  As a historian, Blake had studied revolution in many forms. The subject fascinated him – and here he was, right at the heart of one.

  “Oh, and how do you intend to do that?”

  “There is only one way, Mr Blake. We have to get rid of Mubarak. Only when he’s gone will things be different. Mohamed Bovaziz in Tunisia gave us the strength to get started when he set himself alight. Now it’s time for us to put a torch to Mubarak. He’s the one who really deserves to burn!”

  Reda spoke with fervour and his eyes shone bright with belief. What faith these young people had in themselves, thought Blake – they believed they could move mountains. Later, when the mountain proved intractable, they would learn it was easier to move round it…

  “I’m sure your father would be proud of you.”

  The remark caused Reda to start – it had come out of the blue. Blake felt an explanation was required.

  “It came to my attention,” he said vaguely. “Let’s just say I made some enquiries.”

  “I see…” Reda seemed slightly embarrassed. “My father (may he rest in peace) was a great man, Mr Blake. But this has nothing to do with him. He was an Islamist and I am not – the old choice between Mubarak and the Brotherhood is dead. This is a new Egypt. This is about the people, not their religion. They want their rights as human beings and that’s something Mubarak has always denied them.”

  “And you think that’s worth dying for?”

  “I know it’s not worth living without it. And if you’re asking me whether I’d go back and do it again, well, yes, I would. I’d do it a hundred times if it meant that Egypt could be free. And there are thousands of my brothers and sisters who would do the same. The people are on our side Mr Blake – we have the numbers and they cannot stop us however hard they try. We will win – I promise you that – and in a few years’ time you will see a different Egypt than you do today.”

  Blake shuffled uncomfortably on the edge of the bed. The concepts that lay behind revolution were interesting – but the effects were equally worrying. He’d grown to love Egypt the way it was – poor, oppressed, and yet proud – why should he want it to be different? For him, the country acquired its dignity from the way it coped with its adversities – not from how it would be once it had overcome them. That was partly what made it such a special place – that and its quirky, unpredictable nature. In prewar Italy Mussolini had made the trains run on time – post-war Egypt had yet to manage it. Was all that lovable chaos to go in this new scheme of things? He sincerely hoped not. But then, he always did have a problem with change…

  Reda’s views were unsettling – and it was not just the content of them that disturbed Blake but the manner in which they were expressed. They did not admit of doubt and were held with a deep-seated passion of a kind he could never hope to emulate and it was a source of embarrassment and regret. There would be those who found such conviction appealing – Lee Yong amongst them, and she was drawn to the young Egyptian as a moth was attracted to a flame. The fire that fed it smouldered deep within him – she needed to be careful she did not get burnt.

  Blake had no such beliefs with which to tempt her. His fire, if ever lit, had been doused some while ago. Reda was prepared to stand at the barricades to move old Egypt on – but Blake knew that he could not do the same to keep it. Deep in his heart an inner voice told him that, as usual, he would watch from the sidelines and decline to interfere. He stood up off the bed and allowed the young Egyptian to return to his television. For the moment he’d had enough of revolution.

  In the hope of some solace he turned to Lee Yong. She broke off from her reading but he had nothing to offer her other than the balance of her money. The original envelope had been left with the fat policeman, and from amongst his papers Blake had found a replacement which he now placed quietly on the dressing table next to the recharging laptop.

  He left soon after, but not before he’d persuaded her to come down to dinner that evening. He told her it would look odd if she did not, and by missing three meals in a row (she’d already skipped lunch in addition to breakfast) she would only attract unwanted comment. And besides, it would be cruel of her to deprive the others of her company purely on account of Reda. He wasn’t the only fish in the sea.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Lee Yong must have heeded his words as she did come down for her evening meal. Neither was she late, if anything too early, for when Blake and the others entered the dining room at seven, she was already in her place and looked as though she’d been there for some time. Nor had she ‘dressed’ for the occasion, although that was of no real consequence as neither had anyone else – it was not yet their last night together and therefore carried no special meaning.

  Even so, it registered with Blake, because except for the three-quarter length jacket, she was wearing the same set of clothes as she had when he’d first seen her on that bitterly cold morning at Queen Hatshepsut’s Temple – the Cuban heels, the jeans, the rock-band T-shirt. And yet in spite of this, her appearance had subtly altered. The long dangly earrings were gone and her hair was merely brushed instead of carefully styled. The faintest of lines had grown up around the corners of her eyes and with the moderation in her use of make-up, it had deprived her of that steely look which had so reduced him in the beginning. Then she’d looked stunning – now she seemed altogether softer and gentler, as though her aura of impregnable self-confidence had given way to a bout of melancholy. It was as if the events of the week had made her vulnerable – and in Blake’s eyes she was all the more attractive for it. If he’d ever been in love with her (and it was still something he dared not think about), then it was never more so than now.

  He understood her mood only
too well – he’d suffered from the self-same kind of introspection himself. But what puzzled him was why it should still afflict her. Most of the cares that had been heaped on her were now in the past. Reda had been rescued and although hurt, was well on the road to recovery. They’d escaped the tyranny of Aswan and were on their way to the comparative safety of Luxor, where according to the latest reports, the airport was open and flights were running as normal. Once there, the door to the world was open and as she’d made clear to them on the night she’d introduced herself, she could go anywhere she chose. Money was no object – she still had the balance of her savings from the purser’s safe, and when that was gone there was always the backing of her father’s war chest. She’d used it to buy Reda’s freedom and even if he’d repeated the same offence a hundred times over, as he’d told Blake he was prepared to do, she could still have set him free on each occasion. And yet she was learning it was not enough. She could buy all she wanted in the material world – but she could not, it seemed, buy happiness.

  After the others had sat down and started chatting, the reason for her early arrival became apparent. She wanted to talk to Blake, and she waited patiently until the rest were all otherwise engaged before pulling at the sleeve of his linen jacket.

  “Michael,” she whispered. “I need to speak to you.”

  It was the use of his forename as much as the secretive nature of her approach that alerted him to the fact that something might be wrong. His initial thought was that Reda had suffered some kind of relapse.

  “What, now?”

  “No, after dinner will be fine.”

  “Is everything alright?”

  “Yes…” Although something told him it was not. “I’ll meet you in the foyer.”

  “Ok.”

  And so for the time being he was left to wonder.

  He’d come to the table with the constant worry that Mrs Biltmore might begin another of her stories and inadvertently reveal their secret. The need to guard against the possibility remained at the forefront of his mind and with Lee Yong’s request hovering at the back of it, it made for a tense and nervous meal-time.

  He was fortunate that the bulk of the conversation touched neither on Reda nor the revolution. Ever since they’d left Aswan, the others had lost interest in political affairs and had become focused on how they were going to rescue the rest of their holiday and how they were going to get home. The idea that they were involved in an event that might change the world had not occurred to them. So when David announced he had news, it turned out to be of an entirely provincial nature.

  “You’ll be pleased to know that Keith and I have managed to get a trip to Karnak organised for tomorrow. We’ve persuaded the captain to lay on a couple of buses for eight-thirty in the morning so we’ll get to spend a few hours there. There’ll be a notice going up on the board fairly soon, if it’s not there already.”

  “That’s great.” Blake seized on the issue. He was keen to keep the subject under discussion as it helped to keep attention away from Reda and Lee Yong. “I’m impressed – how did you manage that?”

  “Pretty simple really. Keith told him that if he didn’t, he’d report it to the tour company and ask for a refund. He jumped pretty smartish after that.”

  “That was a bit brutal.”

  “Not really. Karnak was on the original itinerary and we’ve missed enough already. We’ve paid for it, so I don’t really see there’s a problem.”

  “Evidently not. And what about tomorrow night? Wasn’t there talk of a farewell function?”

  “You mean the reception at Luxor Temple.”

  “Yes – is that still on the agenda?”

  “Absolutely! I don’t think they had any choice after I’d mentioned the Karnak business.”

  “Well good for you, that’s a result. You must be feeling pretty pleased with yourself.”

  “Oh, trust me, he is,” Joan cut in, a little sarcastically. She’d braved the drawback of her reddened appearance to join them. The areas of her face that had been exposed glowed like a lantern, but with the help of David’s pair of dark glasses she’d succeeded in covering the white patches round her eyes. “In fact, he’s been insufferable this afternoon. Although to be honest, I’m just glad of having something to do tomorrow. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve been bored silly just sitting around all day.”

  At this point Blake half expected Mrs Biltmore to chime in with some unwanted remark. He could imagine it would begin with the medical treatment of sunburn and would involve her experiences in Vietnam. This would lead on to a discussion about nursing and the fact that Joan would not have found the day half so boring had she known what was going on in Lee Yong’s cabin. But to his great relief she did not and the moment passed without incident. Nor at any time during the conversation did she attempt to catch his eye (or Lee Yong’s either as far as he could tell) to try and pass on a conspiratorial glance to confirm their collective involvement. Instead, she sat quietly restrained and restricted herself to a few whispered asides to Ira between courses.

  After dinner, and for the second night running, he went to meet Lee Yong in the foyer. This time, rather than stand beneath the flashing images of the TV screen, they chose to sit in comfort on the sofa.

  Blake had thought to bring his coffee up from the dining room and settled back, waiting for Lee Yong to begin. But she was unable to relax and the same anxieties that had driven her down to dinner early remained and brought her to the edge of her seat. Eventually, she took a deep breath and made a start.

  “It’s about Reda…” He’d imagined it would be. At the moment, it was all about Reda. “I’ve asked if he wants to come with me.”

  “What, on your tour of Europe?”

  “No, to America.”

  “America? I thought…”

  “Things have changed, Mr Blake.” Obviously they had. “That business about travelling the world and visiting those faraway places – it seems a bit pointless now. It’s all very well but you can’t go on roaming around for ever – at some stage you have to make a decision about your future. You see, I’ve been talking to Mrs Biltmore.”

  “Yes, you told me – about her being a nurse in Vietnam.”

  “Yes, that was yesterday. This is something different.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, when she was in my cabin this morning, she was telling me about Johns Hopkins.” Blake recalled how she’d spoken about it at the start of the trip. “You see, Ira was Head of Department.” So that was it – Blake had been wondering. “He retired a couple of years ago but he’s still on the board and has quite a lot of influence. It’s a tremendous university, Mr Blake, and they could get me a place, I’m sure of it – Mrs Biltmore said so. And they could get one for Reda, she said that too.”

  A few days ago he’d have been inclined to take Mrs Biltmore’s pronouncements with a pinch of salt but in the new scheme of things, he was obliged to look on them with a degree of seriousness.

  “And is that what you want?”

  “Yes, I think it is now. It’s what I was always going to do and to be honest, Mr Blake, the last few days have frightened me and I just want to get away somewhere safe. And I want Reda to get away, too. I heard what you said the other day – that it doesn’t end here and that they’ll always be looking for him. I’ve been thinking about it and you’re right. There’ll be no peace for him in Cairo – there’ll be no peace for him in Egypt – and he’ll always be looking over his shoulder. This is a chance for him to escape all that and find somewhere quiet to settle down. Oh, Mr Blake, after you’ve lived in a country where you’re afraid to speak your mind or stand up for your rights, think what it must be like to wake up every day where you’re free to say and do what you want. Isn’t that a wonderful prospect?”

  A light had returned to her eyes and it was as if the spark of childlike enthusiasm that had carried her to the head of the Valley of the Kings was re-ignited. Over the last few days she’d aged
far more quickly than she’d have liked or expected but now it seemed there was a ray of hope, a light at the end of the tunnel, and it shone out in her like a beacon.

  Blake sensed the change and felt an inner surge of shared emotion. If she’d come to a solution that meant she could be rescued from her dejected state, then there was hope for them all. There was even a chance that one day, he too might be saved.

  These were grounds for optimism, but he still gave a guarded response. Even if Mrs Biltmore and Ira could do what they’d said, there were other practicalities to think of – not least of which was the position of the young Egyptian.

  “Have you spoken to Reda about this?”

  “I’ve tried.”

  “And how does he feel?”

  “That’s the point. It’s difficult getting him to talk about it. He’s so wrapped up in what’s going on in Cairo that I can’t get him to think about anything else. I know he’s been hurt and needs to rest – but all he’s done all day is sit in front of that television and watch the news. I don’t think he realises the danger he’s in. That’s why I’ve come to you, Mr Blake. Can’t you speak to him? I’m convinced he’d listen if you were to talk to him. Someone needs to make him see sense. Can’t you tell him what it would mean?”

  “Me? What makes you think I’ve got any more influence over him than you have?”

  “He respects you.”