Mummy Dearest

by Joan Hess

  Samuel slumped back in the chair. “Regulations. He’ll have to tell his superiors where’s he going, and then the whole thing will escalate like a sandstorm. Buffy made it clear that the men’ll kill her if they panic. I thought we could go get her, and then deal with the authorities.”

  “How are we going to do that? I’m not a commando, Samuel. I don’t watch war movies, and I’ve never read a book about paramilitary raids. You need Tom Clancy, not Agatha Christie.”

  He began to pace within the confines of the balcony, which limited him to about four steps in any direction. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. We’ll drive over and start nosing around like ordinary tourists. This hotel is near the town center. Nobody will suspect us. That’ll give us a chance to have a closer look and see if we can figure out which room Buffy’s in.”

  “And waltz out with her. Don’t you think that might attract a little attention?” I shook my head as I refilled my coffee cup. “If these men are as desperate and trigger-happy as she claims, what’s going to stop them from… stopping us? I can’t imagine them politely requesting that we mind our own business.”

  “All I’m asking you to do is drive over to the oasis with me, Mrs. Malloy. If I go alone, I’ll stand out. Someone may remember seeing Buffy and me there a couple of weeks ago. They won’t notice the two of us, if we’re merely having lunch and buying postcards.”

  I considered ordering another pot of coffee. “Having lunch and buying postcards does not equate with breaking into a locked room in a hotel.”

  “So we drive over and assess the situation. If it looks impossible, we’ll go to the police. It’s only a hundred miles. We’ll be back here in time for tea.” He squeezed my shoulder. “I know a place where I can rent a car. I’ll meet you outside in an hour.” He left without waiting for my answer.

  I wondered how many pots of coffee I could drink in an hour. Two, even three, I concluded. And then I would go downstairs and tell Samuel as nicely as possible that he was out of his mind and that I had no intention of driving out to a desert oasis in order to have my head blown off by maniacal kidnappers.

  Not on my honeymoon, anyway.

  The road twisted through the mountains and into the desert. I’d expected gold-flecked dunes shifting in the winds, but this desert lacked grandeur. Stretches of sand were marred by jutting rock formations. The car was cramped and ancient; the glove compartment was apt to contain the remains of Napoléon’s lunch (pâté de fois gras sandwiches). Wind whistled through holes in the floorboard. The cracked upholstery was held together with duct tape. Each pothole we hit sent both of us bouncing high enough to brush the interior roof. Rust had resulted in a jagged sunroof of sorts.

  “I thought you said a hundred miles!” I yelled over the roar of the strained engine.

  “I did!” He yanked the steering wheel but was too late to avoid a particularly treacherous pothole. The car landed with a whomp, as did I. “I’m afraid to drive any faster. The tires are already shot. A blowout will send us off the road.”

  “Then slow down!” I closed my eyes and asked myself for the hundredth time what I was doing. I’d tried to call Peter, but since I didn’t know where he was staying, the best I could do was the American Embassy. It did not seem discreet to leave a message on the answering machine there. I could easily believe the CIA tapped every foreign embassy’s telephone system in D.C. It was likely that other governments reciprocated in their own countries.

  “Another hour and we should be there,” Samuel said encouragingly.

  “I can hardly wait to get myself shot.” I resettled my sunglasses on my nose and tried to distract myself with the hostile landscape. Although I knew that deserts were home to rodents, snakes, and insects, we seemed to be the sole indications of life as far as I could see. Why all the invading armies over the millennia were bent on capturing the land was hard to understand. I would have handed it over without a quibble.

  Kharga was not a picturesque village with waving palm trees and lush gardens. The rough streets were crowded with donkey carts, decrepit trucks, and dark storefronts. Many of the buildings were constructed of concrete blocks, the walls covered with Arabic graffiti. Tour vans were parked in the weeds of vacant lots.

  “What’s the name of the hotel?” I asked as I peered out the window.

  “The Desert Inn. Not terribly original, I’m afraid. When Buffy and I were here, I was warned not to stay there. Small, airless rooms, communal bathrooms, brackish tap water. It wouldn’t have bothered me, but—well, we found someplace a little bit better.”

  Traffic stopped as a herd of camels ambled into the street. A dozen Arab men in long robes and sandals gathered to shake their fists and berate one another. The camels ignored the minor uproar, but bystanders were entertained and egged on their factions.

  “This could take forever,” Samuel said as he turned onto a side street and parked. He put the car key under his seat, then twisted around and took a bottle of water from the backseat floor. After offering it to me, he took a deep drink. “If I remember, the hotel’s three blocks away.”

  “How far is the police station?”

  “If we tell the police, we’ll be risking Buffy’s life. You don’t know these people as well as I do. They’re excitable and passionate. Any small-town cop is going to go berserk at the opportunity to be a hero by rescuing the blond American girl. He and his fellow cops will snatch up weapons and storm the hotel, shooting everything that moves. The kidnappers will kill Buffy in retaliation. Tourists will get killed, as well as the hotel staff and kids in nearby houses.” He clutched my knee. “Please, Mrs. Malloy. We’ve come all this way. Let’s at least check out the situation before we do something rash.”

  I removed his hand. “All right, but I still don’t understand what you think we can do. Presumably, Buffy is being held by heavily armed guards. They may be tired of her, but they’re not going to unlock her door and stand back while we hustle her out of the hotel. They’re more likely to shoot us, as well as her.”

  “Don’t you care about her?” he said, his voice breaking.

  “No,” I said, “not especially. It would be a tragedy if she were killed—as it would be if any innocent party were. I’d feel bad about it. Then again, I’d feel worse if I were killed trying to rescue her.” I looked at him. “I didn’t realize the two of you had any emotional entanglement. I still don’t understand why you brought her along with you to Egypt. Did you honestly believe there was a hardy, adventurous traveler buried under all that makeup? Weren’t you just a bit worried when you saw her matching Louis Vuitton luggage that she might not be a backpack girl at heart?”

  “She insisted,” he said lamely. “I warned her that we wouldn’t find four-star accommodations at these places. How do you know about her luggage?”

  “I must have seen it somewhere.” I got out of the car and breathed in the exhaust fumes from the traffic jam at the corner. “Let’s go find the Desert Inn.”

  Instead of going back to the main street, we went down an alley that seemed to run parallel with it. As we stepped around garbage bags and construction debris, I thought about Caron and Inez’s harrowing story in Gurna. They thought they’d seen Samuel in the hotel nightclub, along with their stalker.

  “Do you ever go to Gurna in the evenings?” I asked him as we ducked under a clothesline.

  He pulled me away before I stepped in a pile of a redolent reminder of the presence of dogs. “A couple of times. The bar at the Winter Palace is too refined for my taste. You know, I thought I saw your daughter and her friend about a week ago. The place was packed, and I wasn’t sure since I’d only just met them. Buffy had a headache, she claimed, but she was upset because she’d gotten a pedicure that wasn’t up to her standards. Instead of listening to her complain, I went out on my own.”

  His response had been quick and overly detailed, as though he’d rehearsed it. Or he was nervous, I thought, and blathering to hide it. We both had every right to be nervous, si
nce we were walking into a potential disaster. We turned back toward the main street. Traffic was now backed up in both directions, and horns were blaring. Unhappy camels brayed loudly. It might have been the most exciting thing to happen in this remote town in a long time. I hoped we weren’t about to instigate a much more memorable event.

  The hotel was on the next corner. It was a two-story structure made of uninspired concrete blocks, and the sign was weathered almost to the point of illegibility. An old man squatted beside the doorway, glowering defiantly at anyone who approached.

  “We may have a problem,” Samuel murmured as we walked across the street and sat down at a table outside a café.

  “You’re just now realizing that? Have you forgotten you’re the one who mentioned guns and people getting killed? That old man isn’t the problem, for pity’s sake. The worst thing he might do is pinch you when you walk by him, or spit on your shoe.” I studied the building, feeling like a bank robber determining when the armored truck made its daily pickups. “We’ll be conspicuous, though.”

  A waiter came out and put down a menu. After a moment, he shrugged and went back into the café. The cacophony from the traffic jam was getting louder. The old man across the street stood up and shaded his eyes. I willed him to go join in the fun, but he took only a few steps and stopped.

  Samuel pushed back his chair. “We can’t stay here all afternoon. I’m going to see if there’s a back entrance into the hotel. Order coffee or something so the waiter doesn’t shoo you away.”

  “The waiter will not shoo me away,” I said, “unless I choose to be shooed. Go on and have a look.” I opened my purse and took out a tissue to blot my damp face. It was much hotter than in Luxor. Deserts are like that.

  Samuel made his way through the donkey carts and cars blocking the street. I settled back to watch and wait, although I doubted any armored trucks would drive up in the next decade or so. The closest thing to a bank guard was the old man. I checked my watch. Women with their heads wrapped in scarves peered out of the window in a house next to the hotel, curiosity overcoming modesty. The waiter and another man came out of the café and stood behind me, guffawing as a cart tipped and spilled hundreds of cabbages onto the street. The driver began to scream at the donkey, who took it stoically.

  Samuel had not returned after thirty minutes. I was less concerned about him than I was about a certain sensation that required a ladies’ room. The café did not appeal. If it had a rest room, it would be primitive and less than sanitary. After another five minutes, I realized that I had a perfect excuse to go inside the hotel.

  The old man did not glance at me as I went across the street and entered the Desert Inn. The front room was dim and shabby. From behind a desk, a young woman gaped at me, bewildered. It struck me as peculiar, since an inn might expect to have an occasional tourist come in to inquire about a room. My head was bare, but I was dressed decorously. My face was grimy, but not so badly as to warrant her trepidation.

  “Do you speak English?” I asked politely.

  “A little.” The woman backed away, as though I were holding a weapon of some sort. Behind her, a limp curtain covering a doorway twitched. I heard agitated whispers and stifled giggles. Children, I surmised, instead of fierce, gun-wielding thugs.

  “Oh, good,” I said, hoping for the best. “I wonder if you might allow me to use your facilities—your bathroom? I had quite a lot of coffee this morning, followed by a very bumpy ride.” I illustrated this with a few hops. “Bumpy.”

  “You want the bathroom?” She was increasingly alarmed and seemed on the verge of dashing out of the room. She was liable to trip over the spies behind the curtain, who were giggling more loudly. “You are alone? This is not …”

  I opted for an apologetic smile. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  The woman opened a drawer and pulled out a loop of cord with a dozen keys. “Up there,” she whispered, pointing at the stained ceiling. “At the end.”

  “Thank you.” I took the keys from her trembling hand, nodded, and went up a short flight of stairs to a narrow corridor lined with closed doors. I realized that Buffy was likely to be in one of the rooms—and I had the keys. However, I had a more pressing problem, so I hurried toward the door the desk clerk had indicated. Halfway down the corridor, a door opened and two men stepped out, cutting me off. They were swarthy, with unshaven faces, deep-set dark eyes, and brown teeth. The cloths tied around their heads were stained with sweat, as were their pants and frayed shirts. One had a pistol tucked under his belt.

  I gulped, then moistened my lips and said, “Good afternoon, gentlemen. I’m looking for the bathroom.”

  They spoke to each other in rapid Arabic, darting slitted looks at me and at the empty corridor behind me. From inside their room I heard the cheers of a thousand soccer fans. One of the men glanced over his shoulder at what I cleverly surmised was a TV set. He said something to his companion, who rolled his eyes and replied with what may have been a crude expression of displeasure.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” I said, putting on a pinched smile and fidgeting, “I really need to be on my way. One of those imperatives of nature, you know. It’s much more difficult for us ladies. We require some privacy, so we simply can’t find an alley and… relieve ourselves. That’s the only thing I envied about boys when I was growing up, you know. It didn’t seem fair.” I sensed they were weakening, and began to move toward them. “Who’s playing today? Egypt? I do hope your team is doing well this year. The sport is catching on back home, but it’s not nearly as popular as it is in other countries.”

  An announcer began to jabber excitedly from inside their room. There was a burst of thunderous applause as someone somewhere did something of note. I eased by the men, who were both halfway into the room watching the TV screen. When neither of them barked at me, I halted in front of the door and fumbled through the keys. They all had bits of masking tape with Arabic squiggles on them. Rather than trying to match the squiggle on the door, I began to try each key.

  On my fourth attempt, the key slid into the lock and I opened the door. Having anticipated a primitive bathroom (sanitation was no longer an issue), I was startled to see nothing more than a narrow iron bed—and Buffy.

  “Mrs. Malloy!” she gasped. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “You might pretend to be a little more pleased to see me.”

  “I… uh, I am glad to see you. It’s just that… that I thought Samuel—where is he? Did he come with you?”

  “He came with me, but he wandered off.” I tried without success to decipher her horrified expression. “Would you prefer to wait for him so that you can swoon into his arms? It’s up to you, Buffy. However, I do think it might be wiser for us to leave while we can.”

  She remained on the edge of the bed, her forehead puckered with irritation. “He wandered off? What does that mean? Where did he go?”

  “I have no idea. I assume the two men in the room several doors away are responsible for your incarceration. At the moment, they’re engrossed with a soccer match on TV. I suggest we tiptoe past their room and downstairs. The only person I saw was a young woman who looked incapable of letting out the tiniest yelp.” I wrapped my hand around Buffy’s wrist and yanked her to her feet. “Shall we?”

  I had to drag her down the corridor. The floors creaked, but I heard no sounds other than the soccer announcer’s voice and another round of cheers. The lobby was unoccupied. Buffy seemed reluctant to move quickly, although she did not appear weak with hunger or suffering from a physical assault. I resisted an impulse to shake her into more active cooperation. She was young and had been through an ordeal for the last forty-eight hours.

  As soon as we reached the sidewalk, I propelled her down the side street. We turned again at the alley I was fairly confident would bring us to the car in only a few blocks. “Could you please cooperate?” I said to her, my annoyance growing as I clung to her wrist.

  “What about Samuel?” she said mul
ishly.

  “Samuel’s a big boy. If we don’t spot him before we get to the car, we’ll leave him. He can take a bus back to Luxor, or hitch a ride with a caravan. The goal today is to get you—and me—out of here without being killed. It is not to reunite young lovers. You can deal with that at your convenience.” I gave her wrist a more forceful yank, eliciting a squeal of protest. “If your captor is a captivatingly handsome sheik, you can drop him a postcard. You can write him a love letter in the sand, for that matter.” I yanked again, hoping I didn’t dislocate her shoulder. It would be embarrassing if her only injury was caused by me. “There’s the car. Get in and duck.”

  She froze. I opened the door, shoved her in, and hurried around to the driver’s side. She was sprawled across both seats, so I pushed her out of my way, slammed my door closed, and felt for the key under the seat.

  “Ow,” she said from the floor of the car. “You didn’t have to do that, Mrs. Malloy.”

  “Stay there and be quiet!” I snapped. I found the key and started the car. It had been several years since I’d driven a stick shift, but I eventually ground the gears into reverse and backed away from the curb. After some more exploration, I managed to convince the car to lurch forward. “We’ll have to stay away from the main street because of the camel jam. We should be able to get back on it in two or three blocks. It’ll be easy to find the highway from there. You stay where you are. I don’t want anykne to notice your blond hair.”

  “We have to find Samuel,” she said, glaring at me.

  “No, we don’t. If you recall, you were the hostage. He’s merely another tourist—in his case, stranded. There are plenty of tour vans in town. Somebody will give him a lift to Luxor.”

  When she tried to get up, I firmly pushed her head down. It became a bit of a game, since she stealthily assessed her chances each time I was obliged to shift gears. Eventually, I turned onto the main road as it headed out to the desert. “You can get up now,” I said, feeling most unfriendly.