The Girl in the Nile

by Michael Pearce

  Owen knew this and didn’t mind it. There were even advantages in that he might be able to “manage” the affair better from the inside. All the same, just now it was a distraction.

  However, he went. The two girls, it transpired, did not work in a cabaret but assisted at a gambling salon. Owen thought he knew what kind of assistance that was but Mahmoud said it was not like that, or not like that entirely.

  “It’s a very high-class salon,” he said, “and the people who go there are more interested in gambling. They tend to be European, though, or Europeanized Egyptians and expect the social style of a club on the Riviera. There’s a reception area where they can sit and talk and the girls sit in there too and help the conversation along.”

  At the request of the salon’s owner they met the girls not at the salon but in a hotel nearby. The salon was in the Ismailia quarter where all the best hotels were. They met in the Hotel Continental.

  When they arrived they were taken at once to a private alcove. Owen was amused to see that hospitality had been provided. That wouldn’t get far with Mahmoud, who, strict Muslim that he was, drank only coffee.

  The women must already have been there, for the maître d’hôtel brought them immediately. They were dressed in discreet though well-cut black and, in deference to the customs of the country, long veils, which they put aside as soon as they sat down. One was Belgian, the other Hungarian. Their names were Nanette and Masha.

  “We’ve got other names, too,” they pointed out. Mahmoud addressed them as Mademoiselle.

  Yes, they had been on the dahabeeyah. They had been approached beforehand and had agreed to go to Luxor and back as members of the Prince’s party.

  “A Prince, after all,” said Nanette, with a roll of her eyes.

  Masha was less impressed. Apparently, princes were two a penny in Hungary.

  “What did that entail?” asked Owen.

  “What do you mean?”

  “How friendly did you have to be?”

  Nanette shrugged her shoulders.

  “So-so,” she said.

  They had met Narouz previously.

  “He came to the salon. Not regularly. He would come several times in a week and then you wouldn’t see him for ages.”

  He liked talking to them, they said. Just talking. They wouldn’t have minded other things too but talking was what he wanted.

  “He could get as much of the other as he liked,” said Masha. “The one thing he couldn’t get in Egypt, he said, was intelligent female conversation. It’s the lives they lead,” she explained. “Shut up in those harems!”

  “You’re not saying he came to the salon just for conversation?”

  “No, no. He liked gambling. But when he wasn’t playing he liked to talk.”

  “Especially with women,” said Nanette.

  “And it was as a result of these conversations that he invited you to join him on the dahabeeyah?”

  “Yes. He said it was the only thing that would get him through it.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Mahmoud. “Are you saying he didn’t want to go up to Luxor?”

  “He hated going on the river at all. He said it was slow and boring.”

  “Then why—”

  Nanette shrugged. “He said he was doing it only because it was his duty.”

  “Duty? I don’t understand that.”

  Nanette shrugged again.

  The two girls had been fetched by car, the Prince’s car, from the salon and been taken to the river at Beni Suef, where the dahabeeyah had called in for them.

  What about the other girl?

  A little silence.

  “We didn’t know her,” said Nanette.

  “She wasn’t one of us,” said Masha.

  “Meaning?”

  “She was Egyptian for a start,” said Masha.

  “What kind of Egyptian? Levantine Egyptian, Greek Egyptian, Italian Egyptian—?”

  “Egyptian Egyptian.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. She told us about her family once. Her father’s a big merchant or something. They have a big house. Only she doesn’t live there anymore.”

  “Didn’t,” said Masha.

  Nanette shrugged again: a sudden, nervous jerk.

  “Where has she been living up to now?” asked Mahmoud.

  “With an aunt, I think.”

  “Do you know where?”

  “No.”

  “We’d never seen her before,” said Masha, “not till we got into the car.”

  “She was already in the car? He’d picked her up first?”

  “I suppose so.”

  The girl hadn’t said much, then or at any other time. She had kept herself to herself. Owen had the impression that this was the first time for her, as it certainly wasn’t for the other two. From what they said, she had shrunk into a shell from the moment she had got on board, going off by herself whenever she could.

  “And that was why she was on the upper deck that night?” asked Owen.

  “Yes. She was always up there.”

  Mahmoud got them to go through the events of the night. The women had got into the way of going up on the deck every evening. They liked it even if Narouz didn’t. They had sensed the disapproval of the Rais.

  “But what’s the point of going up to Luxor if you never get a chance to see anything?” asked Nanette.

  What indeed?

  “Besides, after being cooped up below decks all day—”

  She made a pretty moue, which, Owen decided, was probably intended for his benefit.

  “You were up there together,” said Mahmoud, unsoftened, “all three?”

  “Yes.”

  “What were you talking about?”

  “What were we talking about? I can’t remember.” The girls looked at each other. “This and that.”

  “Did she join in?”

  “A little. Not much.”

  They had grown so used to her not joining in that they had not really noticed that she had stayed up there when they came down.

  “We were hoping we might have a drink before dinner,” said Masha.

  “Some hope!” said Nanette.

  It was when they were assembling for dinner that they had noticed her absence. They had called up to her. Narouz had even gone up.

  “Why he bothered I can’t think,” said Nanette tartly.

  They had started the first course without her. Then, as she still failed to appear, Narouz became annoyed and sent the eunuch up to fetch her.

  “We thought at first that she had hidden herself deliberately,” said Nanette, “and didn’t bother too much. But then as time went by—”

  It all corroborated what they had already heard. Mahmoud probed but came up with nothing more.

  “You know where to find us,” said Nanette, getting up.

  “Any evening,” said Masha, “except Friday.”

  Owen put out his hand to stop them.

  “Just one other thing,” he said, “before you go. What was her name?”

  “Leila,” said Nanette. “That was it, wasn’t it? Leila.”

  ***

  “Well,” said the Prince, “how are you getting on?”

  “Fine. But there are just one or two things I would like to ask you,” said Mahmoud.

  “Naturally,” said the Prince, settling back upon the divan. Owen had wondered whether his rooms would be furnished Eastern style or Western style. There was, however, no equivalent of the green motorcar. The room was like any other in the wealthier Cairo houses: carpets on the wall, tiles on the floor, low divans, cushions and very little furniture of any other sort.

  “Could you tell me first,” said Mahmoud, “why you were making an expedition to Luxor?”

  “I was not ma
king an expedition to Luxor. That makes me sound like your English tomb-robbers. I was merely making a boring journey by river and Luxor happened to be at the end of it.”

  “What, then, was the purpose of your boring journey?”

  The Prince, unexpectedly, was silent for a moment.

  “I was accompanying my nephew,” he said then.

  “The Prince Fahid?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And what was the purpose of Prince Fahid’s journey?”

  “To add to his knowledge. He is reaching the age, you see, when he will be expected to play a larger part in public affairs. So we are trying to introduce him to the larger world. He has not even seen yet all the Khedivial estates. There is one not far from Luxor. That is what we went to see.”

  “You did not stay there very long.”

  “Quite long enough. Once seen, better quickly forgotten. I believe my father hoped we would stay longer. But Fahid is, like myself, someone on whom the attractions of the desert quickly pall.”

  “Would it be possible for us to talk to the Prince?”

  “I thought you might like to see him.” Narouz clapped his hands. A servant came in. “Ask the Prince Fahid to come this way, will you? This, too,” he said confidingly to Mahmoud and Owen, “will add to his experience.”

  A young boy came into the room. He looked inquiringly at Narouz and then came across to the two men, bowed and shook hands.

  “More familiar,” said Narouz, slightly crossly. “And Captain Owen is British. Just shake hands.”

  The boy was not in the least off-put. He just stood there smiling easily.

  He was, Owen judged, about fourteen, a little below medium height and slim, although already showing signs of broadening out like his uncle. His face was delicate, almost girlish, with long eyelashes and large brown eyes.

  He answered Mahmoud’s questions readily enough. They had been to the estate, yes. No, they hadn’t stayed long—a little amused glance at Narouz here. The journey had been interesting, yes. Quite, that was. He would have preferred a motorboat. His uncle was going to take him on one when they next went to Cannes.

  Luxor? Like most Egyptians, he took the past for granted and was not particularly interested in it. The river? Was merely the river. The landscape, familiar since childhood, was not worthy of remark. There was something practical, matter-of-fact about the boy. If the dahabeeyah had had an engine room Owen could have imagined him poking around happily in it. He was not one for admiring the sunset.

  The night the girl had disappeared; he remembered it well. A serious look came over his face. They had been about to have dinner. It was an important occasion because his uncle was to have initiated him into the mysteries of handling langoustines. When the girl hadn’t come down, his uncle had been angry and sent the eunuch up. They had started without her. And then, of course, the eunuch had returned.

  “You see,” said Narouz, after Fahid had shaken hands all round and departed, “he’s very inexperienced. They spend too long in the harem these days.”

  “He’s surely not still—”

  “Of course not. He’s been out for some time. He has private tutors. English, French and Italian. But I sometimes think they are just as bad.”

  The harem. Would it be possible to speak with the ladies of the harem, Mahmoud asked diffidently. They had after all been on board.

  The Prince’s face clouded over.

  “I don’t know about that,” he said doubtfully. Then his face cleared. “Why not?” he said enthusiastically. “It will be something different for them.”

  He summoned the ladies of the harem. They appeared, wrapped like their less exalted sisters from head to foot in black, and ostensibly reluctantly. Over their veils, though, their eyes sparkled.

  They answered Mahmoud’s questions demurely and vacuously.

  “Oh, come on!” said the Prince crossly, getting bored. “Speak up!”

  They had been having dinner separately in the harem quarters, as they always did, the night that it happened. No, they hadn’t been aware of anything untoward, not until, much later, the eunuch had come down and searched below deck inch by inch from bows to stern. That had been rather exciting and they were prepared to recount it at considerable length until Narouz intervened and told them to shut up.

  Mahmoud asked them about the girl. The sparkle went out of their eyes, the veils, which had been slipping, came up. They had, alas, hardly spoken to her.

  “Which is not surprising,” said Narouz, returning after chivvying them out. “It would hardly be proper for them to speak to such women. Though it might give them ideas,” he added wistfully.

  “Would that also be true of Leila?” asked Mahmoud.

  The Prince looked at him quickly.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You said ‘such women,’ I wondered if Leila was the same sort of women as the other two.”

  “They were foreign, of course.”

  “Yes, and that puzzles me. I can see how they came to be with you. But Leila was not foreign and it is unusual for one of our women to do things like that. I wondered how it came about?”

  “It is unusual, yes, but not so out of the common. Especially if the Khedive wishes.”

  “Did the Khedive wish?”

  “I was thinking of myself.”

  “But for you to wish, you must have already known her. How did you come across her in the first place?”

  “In the first place? I hardly remember.”

  “In the second place, then,” said Mahmoud quietly, recognizing that he was being fenced with. “For you certainly knew her.”

  Again the sharp glance from the Prince.

  “She had been about the Court.”

  “Come!” said Mahmoud, a trifle wearily. “About the Court?”

  “Not in the strict sense, of course. My father doesn’t have that sort of thing. Not in public.”

  “You met her at the Palace?”

  “Not exactly at the Palace.”

  “Where, then?”

  “About.”

  “These things are important, Prince.”

  “Why are they important?”

  “We need to know her identity.”

  The Prince rubbed his chin. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. I thought you would.”

  “Well, then?”

  “This is the embarrassing part. I don’t know.”

  “Come!”

  “I know you don’t believe me but it’s true. I don’t even know her name. Well, no, that’s not true. Her name was Leila. But that is all I know. I do not know her family.”

  “Are you sure, Prince?”

  “She did not wish me to know her family. I used to tease her about it. ‘Little Miss No-Name from Nowhere.’ She would not say. She was, I think,” said the Prince, “ashamed.”

  “Where did you meet her?”

  “At a play. I do not ordinarily go to Egyptian plays. I find them unredeemingly turgid. This one, I was assured, was different. It was by a modern playwright. I went in the belief that I was encouraging a modern renaissance of the Egyptian theater. I was,” said the Prince, “horribly mistaken. The play was as turgid as ever. And, what was worse, ridiculously radical.”

  “The girl?”

  “I met her afterwards, backstage. There was a party. Naturally I had been invited. Foolishly I went, to encourage, as I say, the theater. It was awful. The one interesting thing was the girl. I met her again afterwards. Several times. And then I thought of inviting her to accompany me on this foolish expedition.”

  “Could you tell me the name of the play?”

  “New Roses in the Garden.” The Prince shuddered. “Never again. The avantgarde is not for me. Not in the theater anyway.”

  He looked at his watch.

  “Perhaps we can con
tinue some other time,” said Mahmoud, rising dutifully.

  “Of course. Of course.”

  He accompanied them to the door. At the door he hesitated.

  “You have not,” he said diffidently, “not yet found the body?”

  “I am afraid not.”

  “No? Well, I expect you will.”

  He hesitated again and then suddenly brightened.

  “Of course,” he said, “if you don’t…Well, there ceases to be a problem, doesn’t there? No body, no crime.”

  Chapter Four

  “No problem?” said Zeinab, outraged. “The girl is dead, isn’t she?”

  “We can’t be sure of that,” said Owen cautiously.

  “No? You think she jumped off the top of that boat and swam to the shore?”

  “Well, in principle she could have done—”

  “Egyptian girls,” said Zeinab haughtily, “do not swim.”

  Owen was beginning to wish he hadn’t told her.

  “In any case,” he said, “Narouz is wrong. Just because there isn’t a body, that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be a case. A potential crime has been reported. The report itself is sufficient to trigger things. An investigation has been started and it will continue until, well, the file is closed. It has become a bureaucratic matter now.”

  “There are times,” said Zeinab, “when you sound boringly coldblooded.”

  “The investigation will continue,” Owen contented himself with saying.

  “Oh, good.” Zeinab brooded awhile. Then she said, “It will continue, yes, but will it get anywhere?”

  “We’ve only just started,” said Owen defensively.

  “You haven’t got very far yet,” Zeinab pointed out.

  “It’s a difficult case.”

  “That is because you started in the wrong place. With the body, not with Leila.”

  “We don’t know anything about Leila yet.”

  “That’s just what I’m saying. You ought to find out about her. What sort of girl she was, how she came to do something like this—”

  “Something like what?” asked Owen, exasperated. “It’s not what she’s done, it’s what’s been done to her.”

  “How did she come to be on the dahabeeyah?” demanded Zeinab. “That’s not a thing a normal Egyptian girl would have done. Even I wouldn’t have done a thing like that!”