The Last Watchman of Old Cairo

by Michael David Lukas

  A few moments later, the hazy speck on the northern edge of the horizon revealed itself as a horse and rider, followed by two others. At the top of the nearest rise, a few hundred yards away, the leader of the party pulled up his reins and the other two riders did the same. Rummaging around at the bottom of her saddlebag, Margaret found a pair of opera glasses. By the time she had the riders in focus, they were turning back toward Cairo. Still, she was certain she recognized the leader of the group.

  “Mr. Bechor.”

  “Mr. Bechor,” Agnes repeated, drawing the name out as she allowed herself a moment of smug moralism.

  It was possible that Mr. Bechor had come to Bassatine in order to pay his respects to a deceased family member. Or perhaps he had heard word of the twins’ visit and was riding out to confront them. But why, in either case, would he come so far only to turn around? Considering his retreat, and the cemetery’s distance from any other conceivable destination, the only possible explanation was the one they had been avoiding for some time. Mr. Bechor was responsible for the geniza leak. He had plundered the attic of the Ibn Ezra Synagogue and sold the documents off piecemeal for his own profit. Now that the geniza documents were under lock and key, he planned to do the same with the papers buried in the Bassatine cemetery.

  In retrospect, it made perfect sense. Mr. Bechor had unfettered access to the Ibn Ezra Synagogue. He probably needed the money to fund his son’s schooling. Or perhaps he intended to pay off debts related to the trouble at his sugar factory. Regardless, they had their thief.

  “Mr. Bechor,” Margaret said, waving her opera glasses at the old Bedouin guard. “He’s been here before. Hasn’t he?”

  “Yes,” the guard confirmed as he extinguished his cigarette on the sole of his sandal, “every day for a week.”

  Agnes considered this information for some time before turning to her sister.

  “What should we do?”

  “The only thing we can do now is keep digging.”

  It was true. And so, they continued on with their work until the end of the day, until the sun fell behind the rim of salt-colored hills and the men began complaining of their backs. They did not find the Ezra Scroll that afternoon, but they had rescued a crate full of documents from an otherwise precarious future. And what was more, they had uncovered the identity of their thief.

  Riding back to Cairo, Agnes and Margaret were both silent, watching the first stars as they considered the many possible implications sprouting from this newfound knowledge. They had their thief—yet, the situation was exceedingly delicate. If accused, Mr. Bechor would most likely lash out, call in favors with the other members of the governing council, and perhaps attempt to derail their entire expedition. If so, one had to hope that he had not recognized them from the top of the dune. For although they felt confident in the virtuousness of their own intentions, one had to admit that, from an outsider’s perspective, their actions were not all that different from his. And, unlike Mr. Bechor, they wouldn’t be able to fall back on the goodwill of the community. It was, indeed, an extremely delicate situation.

  “We cannot tell Dr. Schechter,” Agnes said as they entered the city.

  “Not yet,” Margaret agreed.

  Telling Dr. Schechter would require revealing the details of their own trip to Bassatine and, moreover, they could not be certain that he would trust their word against Mr. Bechor’s. It would be better, they decided, to sit with the information for a day or two and wait until more concrete evidence arose.

  Unfortunately, this was not an option. When the twins arrived at their hotel, they found Dr. Schechter and Miss de Witt waiting for them in the lobby. In all the years of their acquaintance, Agnes and Margaret had never seen Dr. Schechter in such a state. His shoes were muddied and his hair a great tangle of curls.

  “You defiled a graveyard?” he shouted and, jumping to his feet, pointed at the crate being carried in behind them. “For what? For paper?”

  Apparently, Mr. Bechor had decided to strike first, informing Dr. Schechter of their visit to Bassatine and, thus, setting his word against theirs.

  “Solomon,” Miss de Witt said somewhat sharply, bringing him back to himself.

  She laid a hand on his elbow and he sat down again.

  “Now,” she continued, soothing him as she might a child, “let us hear what Mrs. Gibson and Mrs. Lewis have to tell us. Surely, they had approval from Rabbi Ben Shimon.”

  “Did you?” he asked, the question dying to a plea.

  The twins shared a glance.

  “No,” Margaret said. “There was not time for approval. What we did have was good information that the cemetery was being plundered by black-market dealers. In fact, our fixer believes we may have scared some off this afternoon.”

  Agnes smiled inwardly at her sister’s ability to blend the truth with a perfect proportion of easily forgettable lies. Margaret went on for some time, her voice steady as a lion tamer, describing the mendacity of the old Bedouin guard and the unmistakable signs of previous visitors. She did not mention Mr. Bechor. To do so would only play into his plan, setting up a confrontation over Dr. Schechter’s trust. Still, she succeeded, by the end of her speech, in bringing the good man back to himself.

  “If anyone finds out about this,” he said, “it could put our entire project in jeopardy.”

  “That is a risk,” Agnes agreed. “But we decided it was a risk worth taking.”

  “You should have consulted me,” Dr. Schechter chided, needing somewhere to channel his anger. “We should always keep each other informed of such decisions.”

  Agnes and Margaret agreed that they would, in the future, consult him on all important decisions.

  “Speaking of which,” Miss de Witt said, “I should think that Mrs. Gibson and Mrs. Lewis would like to join us for lunch next Tuesday with the Chief Rabbi.”

  “Yes, of course,” Dr. Schechter agreed. He clearly had not intended to invite them to lunch, but after his speech on keeping each other informed, he could not very well put them off. “That is an excellent idea.”

  * * *

  —

  Rabbi Ben Shimon had suggested Shepheard’s for lunch and, although neither Agnes nor Margaret would admit as much, they were both rather excited by the prospect of spending the afternoon there, in part because it presented the opportunity to air out some of their better outfits.

  “There is nothing like Shepheard’s,” Agnes said as they ascended the front steps of the hotel, and the sisters both smiled the same private smile, allowing the shadow of the latticework portico to wrap them in a feeling of opulence.

  Their companions were seated at the other end of the lobby and as they crossed it, they were able to observe the group from a distance. Miss de Witt looked radiant in her yellow day gown. Dr. Schechter was his usual disheveled self. And Mr. Bechor seemed somewhat subdued, his typical self-assurance retracted into scaly calculation. As for the Chief Rabbi, the twins were quite taken with him from the start. Though his long robes and thick gray beard lent him a venerable appearance, one could discern a certain mischievous brilliance in the bright green dart of his eyes. In another context, one might imagine him as a successful businessman or a member of the cabinet.

  “Our table should be ready,” Mr. Bechor said, interrupting Dr. Schechter’s halting introductions. “I told them to expect us at one.”

  “Excellent,” Margaret said, smiling through her teeth while Mr. Bechor took her by the arm and led the group into the dining room.

  As they took their seats, Agnes and Margaret noticed more than a few nearby diners repositioning themselves to better observe the motley group. A couple seated at the next table exchanged a worried glance, concerned perhaps that the Chief Rabbi—with his great beard, dark robes, and turban—would be followed into the dining room by a push of coolies, peasants, and burka-clad widows ululating about the
martyrdom of Hussein. Accustomed as they were to such attention, the twins knew the best response was to straighten one’s back and carry on without acknowledgment.

  “We have arranged for a traditional Jewish meal,” Mr. Bechor explained as a team of waiters began placing bowls of molokhia soup in front of them, “prepared according to our dietary laws by Rabbi Ben Shimon’s wife.”

  “That will be lovely,” Agnes said, although the truth was that she had been hoping for something more refined.

  “Very good,” Margaret added in Hebrew. “Delicious.”

  Once they established a medium of exchange—English and Hebrew, with a bit of Arabic mixed in—the conversation progressed quite smoothly. Rabbi Ben Shimon seemed genuinely interested in the details of Agnes and Margaret’s education, as well as the various fruits of their previous excursions to St. Catherine’s. They spoke for some time about the Coptic patriarch, who was a mutual friend, and engaged in a heated though entirely friendly exchange about the true location of Mount Sinai. Neither Rabbi Ben Shimon nor Dr. Schechter had actually visited the site, but they both strenuously defended the conviction that Moses received the Ten Commandments at the top of Mount Horeb. Margaret, advancing the view held by most contemporary scholars, argued that the biblical Mount Sinai was in fact the mountain now known as Mount Serbal. After nearly an hour of general discussion, coffee was served—without the option of cream, as per Jewish dietary laws—and Mr. Bechor brought them around to the true purpose of the meeting.

  “I trust everything is well with the geniza documents?”

  Mr. Bechor addressed himself primarily to Dr. Schechter, though he allowed for the possibility that one of the ladies might be interested in the conversation as well. Margaret coughed into her fist and did her best to compose herself. What gall he had, asking after the well-being of documents he had, only a few days earlier, attempted to steal.

  “Yes,” Dr. Schechter said, “very well, indeed. Though I cannot imagine we would have accomplished much without the assistance of Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Gibson.”

  Agnes nodded and Margaret allowed a small smile as Dr. Schechter described a few of the documents he imagined would be of most interest to Rabbi Ben Shimon. Then Mr. Bechor introduced the topic they knew must eventually be discussed, the Egyptian Customs Authority.

  For much of the past week, Mr. Bechor explained, he and Dr. Schechter had been working to release the documents from administrative purgatory.

  “But as you know,” Mr. Bechor said, “the customs authorities can be rather difficult when it comes to the matter of removing antiquities from the country. And, given that some of the documents in question are nearly a thousand years old, the entire lot is considered an antiquity.”

  Although the Chief Rabbi had granted Dr. Schechter the rights to anything found in the attic of the synagogue, the authorities were contending that such rights could not legally be granted without first proving the Chief Rabbi’s ownership. There were no records, of course, to prove ownership of documents that had, until a few weeks previous, been regarded as trash. As for the fact that they had been resident for more than a thousand years in a synagogue owned by the Jewish community, this apparently meant nothing.

  “Would it be of any help,” Rabbi Ben Shimon asked, once Mr. Bechor was finished, “if I were to intercede directly with the authorities?”

  “I would hate for you to have to concern yourself with such a quotidian matter,” Mr. Bechor said, waving away a waiter who had come to refill his coffee, “and I suspect this might be a question that even your influence might not be sufficient to fully resolve.”

  Glancing at the Chief Rabbi—who seemed to accept Mr. Bechor’s assessment at face value—Margaret set her cup down and crossed her hands in her lap. She could see where this line of conversation was going.

  “What is it, then?” she asked. “Baksheesh?”

  They had already given Dr. Schechter a hundred pounds for assorted bribes. That, to Margaret, seemed more than sufficient.

  “You could say that,” Mr. Bechor responded, smiling, “though the customs authorities will want more baksheesh than a bellhop.”

  He repeated the word—baksheesh—like a teacher subtly correcting his student’s pronunciation.

  “We have been working with someone inside the Customs Authority to help expedite the approval,” Mr. Bechor continued, with a subtle turn toward Dr. Schechter. “I spoke with him yesterday and he said he is very close, has almost secured the release of the documents, in fact. It is just that—”

  “He needs more money,” Margaret interrupted. “He wants more baksheesh.”

  Not accustomed to having his sentences finished for him, especially not by a woman, Mr. Bechor repressed a flash of anger.

  “Yes, that is what he said.”

  “That is what he said,” Margaret muttered under her breath. And everyone expected that the baksheesh would be supplied, without question, through the generosity of Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Gibson. “Of course that is what he said.”

  As much as she wanted to lay Mr. Bechor bare, as much as she wanted to unmask him in front of Rabbi Ben Shimon and Dr. Schechter, Margaret knew there was nothing to be gained from such a confrontation. Mr. Bechor had played his move—informing Dr. Schechter of their visit to Bassatine—and now he was waiting for theirs. They had the upper hand and there was no telling how he would respond if they backed him into a corner. All the same, she could not allow him to fleece them any longer.

  “How much does he need?” she asked, her voice steady and dripping with sarcasm. “One hundred? Two hundred? Five hundred?”

  “I think,” Agnes interrupted, “what my sister means to say—”

  “No, I mean exactly what I say.”

  She turned to address Dr. Schechter.

  “The truth of the matter is that we do not have much confidence in this approach. Before providing any more money, we would like to pursue a secondary line of attack.”

  “What is that?” Dr. Schechter asked, with a mixture of skepticism and curiosity.

  “We have arranged for a meeting later this week with the Consul-General.”

  “Lord Cromer?” Dr. Schechter asked, and Margaret nodded.

  She placed a hand on her sister’s knee, to quiet her objections—for they had not, in fact, arranged such a meeting—then responded to Dr. Schechter’s question, raising her voice perhaps more than she intended.

  “Lord Cromer,” she said and their table, indeed the entire dining room, fell silent at the sound of the Consul-General’s name.

  10

  BEFORE CONSIDERING THE question of Ali’s culpability—the question of evidence, motive, and premeditation—the judicial council of Ibn Ezra first needed to establish the nature of the complaint against him. And before considering the nature of the complaint against him, they needed to determine his standing among them. Was Ali ibn al-Marwani a member of their community? Was he a guest, a worker, or some combination of the three? If he was a worker, as Doctor Mevorakh and Shemarya the Pious argued, the dispute could be handled informally. Those who espoused this approach thought it best for al-Zikri to take the boy aside and ask whether he knew anything about the missing papers. If, on the other hand, Ali was determined to be a member of the community, as Amram ibn Shemarya and Ibn Kammuna contended, he would need to be brought before the council and given a proper trial. They all knew, of course, that, as a Muslim, Ali was not bound by the council’s judgment. If he disagreed with their verdict, he could disregard it and request another trial in a Muslim court.

  “Our only real power is over his salary,” Doctor Mevorakh said, “which would lead one to believe that we are acting as the boy’s employer, not a judicial body.”

  “Why rule on anything?” Amram ibn Shemarya interrupted, “if we know that our judgment might eventually be overruled by the caliph?”

  The disc
ussion went on like this for some time, bouncing back and forth between the two camps. It was a delicate decision, the fragility of which was only increased by a certain rhetorical incongruity on both sides. The more suspicious members of the council found themselves extolling Ali’s importance to the community, while those who advocated for a more lenient approach were forced to argue that Ali was nothing more than a watchman.

  The discussion went on late into the night, twirling round and round until finally it was determined that al-Zikri should be the one to decide. He knew the child best. It was he who had discovered the missing papers, he who had connected their theft to Ali’s peculiar question a few nights earlier. And it was he who had brought the matter to the attention of the council. If al-Zikri thought the situation called for nothing more than a frank talk, that was how they would proceed. If he thought the full judicial council should be convened, so it would be. Everyone knew al-Zikri was fond of Ali, but they knew also that he would not allow affection to color his judgment.

  “If Ali is innocent,” he said after thinking on the matter for some time, “his innocence should be proclaimed before us all. If he is guilty, so too should his guilt.”

  * * *

  —

  The first Ali heard of the charges against him was the following afternoon, when al-Zikri and Doctor Mevorakh knocked at his front door.

  “Your presence is requested at Ibn Kammuna’s residence,” Doctor Mevorakh said, standing at the top of Ali’s steps with his hands clasped behind his back.

  Ali sensed something serious was afoot, but he did not ask for any further explanation. After retrieving his sandals, he followed Doctor Mevorakh and al-Zikri through the produce market to the other end of Fustat. Eventually, they stopped and al-Zikri knocked on a huge blue wooden door decorated in tessellated seals of Solomon. This, apparently, was the residence of Ibn Kammuna. As they entered the house, Ali’s fears were momentarily subsumed by a wave of opulence. From the top of the narrow marble entranceway, he could see a succession of blue-green and purple tapestries leading to a broad pool of light, which he guessed was the courtyard. Ali waited in the entranceway for what seemed like a long while. Then a servant appeared and led him toward the pool of light.