Firebird

by Michael Asher

  Sanusi considered it for a moment, then his dark eyes focused on me and he slumped down on the cushions. ‘I told you,’ he insisted, ‘it was taken by a man who called himself Sayf ad-Din. That’s all I know.’

  ‘So there’s no chance that the Sanusiya Brotherhood has been revived?’ Daisy asked.

  The old man looked as if she’d just given him a left hook in the ear. His eyes popped and his skeletal features ran the gamut of surprise, indignation, derision and finally full-blooded mockery. ‘Revived?’ he repeated incredulously. Then his face twisted up as he let out a barrage of punch-like guffaws, growing faster and more intense until it sounded as if he was having a heart seizure.

  ‘Jesus!’ Daisy said. ‘You all right, Doctor Sanusi?’

  ‘Yes,’ he wheezed, bringing out a silk handkerchief and holding it over his mouth. The guffaws dissolved into braying coughs as he tried to control himself. Then they burst out anew. ‘I see it all now,’ he gasped between bursts, ‘oh, no, I see it all! I see what it is you’re getting at!’ He broke down again, and held the handkerchief to his lips. ‘You think Ibram’s murder is connected with the Sanusiya! That rot about no terrorism being involved was all hogwash, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Not necessarily. Let’s say we’re examining all possibilities.’

  He stopped laughing suddenly, and pinned me with a stare of absolute contempt. ‘You belong in the madhouse, the pair of you,’ he said, ‘to even suggest such a thing. Before coming here, barging in without a by-your-leave, wasting my time, you ought to have done a little bit of homework. I mean, do you actually get paid for such incompetence? I ought to get on the phone to Colonel Hammoudi this minute. Are you sure you’re police officers? No wonder the world’s in such a mess if it has folk like you looking after it.’

  Daisy and I watched him and said nothing.

  The old man banged the table. ‘I’ll have you know I resent this,’ he bawled, ‘and I resent it hotly! Why, suggesting the Sanusiya could be involved in a political murder is as ridiculous as accusing the Red Crescent Society or the Rotary Club!’

  ‘We’re not accusing anyone,’ I said, ‘but let’s face it, when the Sanusiya was going it was a militant fundamentalist brotherhood, not a benevolent society.’

  The old man sat back aghast. ‘The Sanusiya was a perfectly respectable organization,’ he said, a shaky edge to his voice. ‘It never was militant in the way you mean it, anyway, and if there is a sect at all it’s all within these walls. I am the Sanusiya and all that remains of it and I can assure you I had nothing to do with Ibram’s murder. I wasn’t even aware of his existence until yesterday.’

  ‘Yet you keep the memory of the old order alive.’

  ‘If I don’t, who will? But a memory is all the Sanusiya is now. If you’d done a soupcon of background reading, you’d know that the Brotherhood was crushed by British forces at Salloum in 1916. That’s more than eighty years ago, if you hadn’t noticed. Actually, the British massacred hundreds of tribesmen and took others prisoner. My great-great-uncle, As-Said Ahmad, who was then chief of the order, was picked up by his allies, the Turks, in a submarine and shunted off into exile in Istanbul. That, Lieutenant Rashid of the SID , was the end of the Sanusiya — until the dirty British set up my father as King of Libya, when they kicked the Italians out in 1942.’

  ‘Your father was King of Libya!’ Daisy said. ‘Does that mean you should be running the place today instead of Gaddaffi?’

  Sanusi chortled. ‘Can you see me ruling Libya, Miss Brooke? Hardly. I never had the inclination to be a British puppet. I was brought up in a palace by private tutors, and never mixed with my peers. I knew I was odd — different from other children, but I didn’t care. Over the years I grew so accustomed to my own company that I started to like it. I lived in my own world. I had the best teachers and I studied everything — history, theology, ancient civilizations, ancient religions, the Kabbala, alchemy — every esoteric field came under my scrutiny. I became an expert in Egyptology before I ever set foot in Egypt. Our exile from Libya in 1969 put a stop to my private studies, of course, but I found I was well enough qualified to earn a living as an Egyptologist.’

  ‘But you’re still a Muslim?’

  ‘Despite what you Americans may believe, madam, the word Muslim is not a synonym for terrorist. Yes, I have remained a Muslim out of deference to my forebears, but if you’re looking for an extremist you’ve picked the wrong fellow. Islam means “submission”, Miss Brooke, and it is a peaceful, compassionate religion, perverted by extremists into a militant political ideology. Perverted, I say! The Great Sanusi himself was never a fanatic. He believed in individual responsibility rather than blind obedience. That’s why he fell foul of the Islamic authorities of his day.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, ‘but the fact remains that the amulet was found at the scene of Ibram’s murder, and an eye-witness claims that one of Ibram’s murderers was actually wearing it. How are we to explain that?’

  Sanusi shook his head and eyed us distastefully. ‘I’d have thought, Mister Detective, that there would be one obvious explanation,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, what’s that?’

  ‘That the man — the creature — who called himself Sayf ad-Din was involved in the...er...incident. If you could find him, you would learn a great deal, perhaps.’

  He stared at us both defiantly, and at that moment the door opened, and a thin woman shuffled in carrying three glasses of mint tea on a brass tray. The woman walked haltingly as if she had some sort of wasting disease and the tray shook so much in her hands that the tea spilled. She put down the glasses roughly on the low tables on silver saucers, and more tea slopped over. Instead of going out she turned to Sanusi. ‘Where’s my money?’ she demanded in a whining voice. ‘Where is it? Now you’ve got your important friends here you don’t care about my money. You’ve cheated me out of my inheritance, and now you keep me like a prisoner. I want my money back!’

  Sanusi flinched and stared at her. ‘Not now, Salma,’ he said, his voice pleading, ‘I’ve got company. I promise you I’ll deal with it as soon as they’ve gone.’

  The woman whimpered like a lost child, but she didn’t move. Then, without warning there came an abrupt transformation. She stopped crying, stood up straight and fixed Sanusi with a glare of murderous hatred. ‘Bastard!’ she said, in a voice so deep that I jumped. It was as if someone else was speaking out of her mouth — as if the frail woman had been replaced by an altogether more vicious entity. She turned and stared at me and I was shocked to see that her face had become a mask of loathing, her eyes burning, her nose hooked down over bared, toothless gums. ‘He sits here telling you his lies,’ the masculine voice spat, ‘and you drink them all in. All the shit. He had me when I was a girl. I was pretty then and he took me as his fancy bit. It was all sweet words then, but now he treats me like a slave!’ She turned back to Sanusi and he sank deeper into the cushions, trying to turn his face away. ‘You are a damned liar and you’ll come to a bad end,’ she said. ‘Oh mark my words! Death is too good for those who traffic with Satan!’

  Sanusi caught his breath and went pale. He sat stock-still, and for an instant I thought I saw a flicker of real fear pass over his features. ‘Salma!’ he said. ‘Remember where you are!’

  At the sound of his voice Salma seemed to collapse. Her hands started trembling again and she dropped her gaze to the floor. ‘Go!’ Sanusi said. Tfaddali! If you please!’

  Salma sidled out and Sanusi beamed at us nervously, and pointed a finger at his head. ‘Poor Salma,’ he said, ‘classic schizophrenia. Should be in an asylum. I took her in off the streets thirty years ago. She’s got it into her head that she’s the child of rich landowners and I’ve fiddled her out of everything. The truth is she was an orphan street child with nothing at all.’ He sighed and gestured towards the tea. ‘Taste it,’ he said. I took the glass and sipped the tea while he watched my face with apparent concern. ‘Is it up to desert standards?’ he asked.

  I frown
ed at him. For a moment I wondered idly what he would do if I dashed the stuff in his face. I crushed the impulse, and drank more tea. It was a trifle sweet but otherwise perfect. ‘Excellent!’ I said.

  The old man smiled with satisfaction. ‘As I suspected, an expert,’ he said. He picked up his own tea from the table, and Daisy did the same.

  We drank in silence. When Daisy was finished she put her glass down reluctantly as if something was troubling her. ‘Doctor Sanusi,’ she said, ‘what does the word “Firebird” mean to you?’

  The old man looked astonished, as though she’d caught him off-guard. I felt like shouting at her that she was sticking her neck out and giving the whole show away, but I remembered her intuition with Fawzi, and kept my mouth shut. Sanusi’s pupils dilated and his tic began to pulse rapidly. His hands trembled slightly and there was a sudden and unmistakable pallor to his face.

  ‘I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about,’ he stammered, ‘or what you’re suggesting! Get out! Get out this minute, or I’ll have you thrown out!’

  ‘Steady on, Doctor Sanusi,’ I said. ‘The Firebird was the Bennu Bird of ancient Egyptian mythology. It was supposed to be the soul of Ra, the sun god, and it was there at the First Time — Zep-Tepi — when the cycle of Time itself was set in motion. Miss Brooke wants to know what else you can tell us. She’s just asking you to put on your Egyptology hat.’

  The old man took a couple of wheezing breaths and watched us carefully from behind his camouflaging whiskers. ‘I never wear hats,’ he said acidly, ‘only skull-caps and turbans. Hats are considered the work of the Devil by good Muslims. You know, you really do have the effrontery of Iblis! You come here, insult me and my forebears, and now you have the gall to quiz me on ancient Egyptian mythology! Well, for private tutorials I charge fifty pounds an hour.’

  ‘We don’t want a seminar,’ Daisy said, ‘just tell us what you know.’

  Sanusi knitted his bushy eyebrows and tugged on his beard. He sighed and eyed us derisively. ‘What has this to do with my amulet?’ he demanded again.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said, soothingly, cursing Daisy’s impetuosity. I knew we’d have to tell him the full works now, or he’d clam up. ‘It’s just that “Firebird” might have been Ibram’s last word. It may mean anything or nothing, and it might not even be what he said at all.’

  Sanusi’s screwed-up features had disbelief written all over them. He seemed calmer now, though, and I guessed he was torn between total denial and the desire to play the great authority. At last he sighed and eased himself to his feet. He put on his glasses and pulled a leather-bound volume from the nearest shelf, flipping through the pages and muttering. ‘Here,’ he said eventually, ‘take a look at this.’

  He laid the open book on a table and we crouched around to peer at it. Sanusi pointed a spiky finger at a full page engraving of a heron with a human eye, perching awkwardly on the very apex of a cone. ‘This is the Firebird,’ he said, ‘also called the Bennu Bird, or Phoenix. The ancient Egyptians often envisaged it as a grey heron, probably because herons were common in the Nile marshes in the summer and migrated somewhere else in winter, but always returned.’ He paused suddenly and cocked an ear, listening. A faint scratching noise seemed to be coming from the walls. ‘What’s that?’ he said, almost to himself. I listened. The scratching sound came again.

  ‘Rats,’ I said, ‘you’re bound to get them in old houses.’

  He cocked his ear once more. ‘No, not rats,’ he whispered. He turned on us accusingly, with round eyes. ‘Are you sure the Jinns never followed you?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. But even if they had, how could they get into your walls?’

  He ignored me and turned to listen again. The scratching was getting louder, and I had to admit that if it was rats they must have been monsters. Sanusi’s eyes were almost popping out of his head. ‘Jinns,’ he hissed. ‘Every time I have company they come to haunt me. I’m sick, sick, sick of this accursed torment!’ He turned and began banging on the wall with the side of his fist, so hard that the oil lamp wobbled in its cavity. ‘You hear me,’ he bawled suddenly, ‘get out! Get out I say! I’m sick of your lousy persecution! Get out this minute! I seek refuge in God from the stoned Devil!’ He paused, his fist held ready to hammer again, but the scrabbling had ceased. He stood listening for a moment, then, seemingly satisfied, he turned his attention back to us. ‘The swine!’ he said. ‘They always try to make a fool of me. I’ve exorcized them more times than I can count, but they follow my visitors and when the door opens they take advantage and sneak in. It’s not the scratching and scrabbling I mind so much as when they start throwing things about. They even trip me up, can you imagine that? I’ve been black and blue before now thanks to those accursed creatures.’ His eyes suddenly filled with fury again and he glared at the wall shaking his fist. ‘Get out and don’t come back!’ he yelled. ‘You hear me!’ I suppressed a grin. Since arriving we’d had ghouls, Jinns, and ghosts — what Hammoudi would have called ‘the full head-banger’s repertoire’.

  ‘Now, what were we saying?’ Sanusi said, looking round at us.

  Daisy shifted nervously and rearranged her hands on her lap. ‘Why was the Firebird central to ancient Egyptian cosmology?’ she asked.

  Sanusi chewed the end of his glasses, put them back on, and cocked his head to one side, as if pondering the question carefully. ‘When the Firebird cranked things up on the first morning,’ he said, ‘the era known as Zep-Tepi — the First Time — started with a bang. That was when gods like Osiris, Isis, Thoth, Horus and Set walked the earth as real beings. Afterwards the bird returned to its home in the Isle of Fire — a place among the stars, where gods were born and regenerated.’ He pointed at the engraving again. ‘Now, you see this cone thing the Firebird seems to be perched on?’ he enquired. ‘That’s the Benben Stone, which was closely linked with the Bennu Bird — Benben-Bennu — the words come from the same root, meaning “to procreate”. The Stone was the most sacred relic in ancient Egyptian mythology — it was thought to have cosmic origins. They said it had fallen out of the sky and thought of it as the Firebird’s “Egg”. The Benben Stone was the central artefact of the whole ancient Egyptian religion and the cult symbol of the Ra Brotherhood.’

  ‘The what?’ Daisy asked.

  ‘The Ra Brotherhood — an order of high priests initiated into all the secrets of their culture. The Brotherhood goes way back, probably under different names, to the First Time, Zep-Tepi — a kind of secret college working behind the pomp and circumstance, giving form and continuity to a culture that remained basically unchanged for thousands of years. The Egyptians believed that their civilization had been created by a small group of gods — the Neteru —who arrived on earth in the distant past, and whose age culminated in the rule of Horus. This era was succeeded by that of the Sages, the so-called Shemsu-Hor, or Horus-Followers, half-divine beings who transmitted the secrets of the gods across time to the fully human pharaohs. The Shemsu-Hor were probably the original Ra Brotherhood, who initiated the first historical pharaoh, known to us as Menes, Narmer or “King Scorpion”. Thereafter it was the Brotherhood who kept the whole thing on the rails. They were the most powerful men in Egypt, and they were the guardians of the Benben Stone, which was originally kept on top of an obelisk in the Temple of the Firebird at Heliopolis — a temple that no longer exists.’

  ‘I’d love to take a look at the Stone,’ Daisy said. ‘Where is it now?’

  Sanusi beamed at her coldly. ‘I wish I knew, Miss Brooke,’ he said. ‘It went missing about 2000 BC. No one has seen it for at least four thousand years.’

  12

  When Sanusi escorted us to the yard door it was already night. Someone — probably the maid — had hung another oil lamp in the musty corridor, and our shadows were pallid ghosts lurching along its walls. We shook hands at the street door. ‘What about the amulet?’ Sanusi said. ‘It is a valued part of my psychic defences and I should like it back.’

  ‘Right
now it’s police evidence,’ I said.

  ‘But what will you do with it?’

  ‘We still haven’t explained how one of Ibram’s killers came to be wearing it,’ I said. ‘With all due respect Doctor Sanusi, I’ve got to check your story out. It’s a sensitive case, and I have to make sure you’re really what you seem.’

  It was provocative, I knew, and I didn’t have to wait long for a reaction. His eyes turned to ice and tiny pink circles appeared in the centre of both pallid cheeks. He snatched off his glasses and I saw that his tic had gone berserk. His hands shook slightly. ‘Nothing is ever quite what it seems,’ he said. He drew in a deep breath, trying to hold himself in check. ‘The world is full of shapeshifters. Ghouls disguised as men, men disguised as women, people who appear to be something but are really something else. Take you, Lieutenant Rashid, what are you really? A police officer? And who is she?’ He pointed his talon finger suddenly at Daisy. ‘A faceless woman! A lurker in the shadows!’

  A shiver ran down my spine suddenly and I broke out into a sweat. I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. The old man turned his hawk-like gaze back to me.

  ‘I’ve met plenty of policemen in my time,’ he said, ‘but I’ve never heard of a Hawazim detective. The Hawazim have too long a history of persecution by governments for that.’

  ‘I never said I was Hawazim.’

  He snorted and put his glasses back on. ‘No, you didn’t,’ he said, ‘but the upper right fold of your ear tells a different story. It’s pierced, and the Hawazim are the only tribe I know of who have their ears pierced in that place. Now, didn’t the Hawazim have a lot of trouble with the police a few years back? I heard police troopers were killed. Curious that they should accept a member of a subversive group in the SID .’

  So that was what the veiled comments were about, I thought. All that talk of appearances and underlying form, the rubbish about removing my shoes, which was a Bedouin custom, and his comment about the tea being up to ‘desert standards’. I should have been on my guard. I fixed the old man with my most intimidating stare, suddenly aware that Daisy’s eyes were glued to my face. ‘I don’t know anything about the Hawazim,’ I said, ‘I grew up as a street kid in Aswan. The gang I ran with all had their ears pierced there.’