Drummer In the Dark

by T. Davis Bunn

  The chief aide filled the limo with mindless chatter, telling them that the Egyptian embassy was the biggest in the world, with thirty-nine federal government agencies. Egypt was America’s largest recipient of foreign aid after Israel, which guaranteed their current problem would be looked after well. They would spend the night in the new ambassador’s residence, which stood within the embassy compound. Kay interrupted his attempt to seal out the tragedy by repeating what she had already told several more junior staffers, that Nabil Saad was one of her own aides, on secondment from the World Bank. Instantly the man used his cellphone, speaking in tones too hushed for Wynn to catch. Wynn regretted the absence of the man’s droning lecture. Anything was better than being forced to hear the howling storm.

  The next morning the wind still bit fiercely as Wynn crossed the embassy compound and took the elevator to the ambassador’s suite on the main building’s twelfth floor. He stood by the outer office window, staring at a city without edges. This stormy Cairo lacked the softness of glistening fog or rain-drenched clouds. Instead, the world was harshly indistinct. Even the river flowed feverish and yellow.

  The ambassador’s secretary was busy on the phone, arguing relentlessly in the quiet way of one experienced with Arabic etiquette. She hung up finally and said, “The National Security and Investigation Office is handling this matter. It appears they will let you go this afternoon. You will need to make a formal statement, and for that you’ll have to go to the Gamal, that’s the tall building on Tahrir Square. The square is—”

  “I know the square and I know the Gamal.”

  “Ease up, Wynn.”

  He turned to see Kay seated in the corner, giving him a look of quiet reproach. He had not even known she was in the room.

  “I’m sorry, Congressman. But it appears unlikely the Egyptian authorities will release your sister’s body until after the inquest. On that point they remain adamant.”

  He gritted his teeth and nodded. Once. He was not yet ready to speak about that. “I want to go to the hospital and see Nabil.”

  “Sir, the storm is raging. Not to mention the fact that the police still haven’t apprehended your attackers.”

  “That was not a request.”

  Kay walked over to offer support. “Surely you have security detail who could accompany us.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I want to go alone, Kay.”

  She inspected his face, then accepted his decision with a single nod. “Tell Nabil I’ll be by later. I’m working to have him flown back to the U.S. for treatment. I spoke with the ambassador last night. It’s not simply a matter of hospital care. There is too great a risk the state security will try and pin the matter on him, as an Egyptian and a Copt. I don’t want to risk his being interrogated after I’m gone. Tell him I’ll be by as soon as the matter is taken care of. The ambassador has tasked it out to his best men.”

  Wynn left the embassy compound in the ambassador’s bulletproof limo, accompanied by three sharp-eyed men bearing automatic weapons. They drove to the new Kasr Elani Teaching Hospital on the banks of the Nile. Wynn emerged from the limo, turned his back to the river, cupped his hands about his eyes, and stared across the street. He was surrounded by a dead wind, a breath of hatred and hopelessness.

  “Sir?”

  Wynn remained where he was. He recognized that building opposite the new hospital. The battered entrance was branded into his bones. “That’s the old hospital, isn’t it?”

  “Sir, please come inside.”

  Wynn swiveled about. “I asked you a question.”

  “Yes, sir, that is the old hospital. But your driver is here. We know, sir. We checked.”

  “He is not my driver. He is my friend and colleague.”

  Angrily the officer by the door waved him forward. “Please come away from the exposed street now, sir.”

  They flanked him and refused to permit anyone to share the elevator. Upstairs there was a moment’s angry confrontation before Wynn pulled rank and insisted on seeing Nabil alone. Two men inspected the room before permitting him to enter.

  Nabil was awake and watching him. Wynn passed on Kay’s message while standing by the door. Wanting it over and done with. Nabil clearly understood, for he said nothing until Wynn was seated beside the bed. Then he asked, “Your sister, she is gone?”

  Wynn glanced down at his hands and their invisible stain.

  “What you did, sir, that was the bravest deed I have ever seen.”

  “Call me Wynn.” He leaned back, flooded by all that was past. Perhaps it was the smell and the noise and the metal bed and the same gray despair seeping from the walls. Or perhaps it was because of his own helpless fatigue. He knew Nabil was watching him. Wynn had no strength to hold back the deluge. “I remember watching my parents die.”

  Nabil shifted slightly, his body held by strappings and tubes. But it was enough of a motion to show he was totally awake.

  “When we came into the hospital room, my father was rolled over on his side. His eyes were open. But he didn’t see me at all.”

  Outside the room a metal trolley rattled noisily down the hall, the wheels banging and squeaking like the chuckles of cold death. “Then they took us downstairs, but the nurses spotted us kids and tried to keep us from going down the corridor. But I heard Mom screaming. I pushed through them and ran. I came through the door. Mom was lying there with her hair plastered down and her face purple and her mouth was open so wide.”

  Strange that he could sit there and speak calmly. As though his physical body felt nothing, his nerves already numb, his emotions suffocated. “I ran away. Somebody tried to stop me, but I got away. Only things got worse. I ran downstairs looking for a way out, but instead I wound up in a children’s ward. Two kids to a bed, sometimes three, their heads at either end and their feet touching in the middle. Relatives camped on reed mats between the beds, fanning away the flies, holding hands, whimpering with the kids. The place was full of stink and noise. All the kids had these big dark eyes, and I knew they knew. They’d never get better, never get out.”

  “Cairo was not a good place to be hospitalized,” Nabil agreed. “It still isn’t.”

  “I freaked. Totally, utterly wigged out. Then suddenly Sybel was there. She hugged me fierce enough to break the spell, then pulled me outside. She brought me back to America and cared for me ever since.”

  Nabil watched and waited, offering no false comfort, no empty words. Just a man listening to another come to grips with the impossible.

  “The family learned never to talk to me about Egypt, or Mom and Dad, not ever. I would scream at them, shout anything that came into my head. Sybel was my only constant.” Wynn forced himself to meet Nabil’s gaze. “Do you remember anything about that time?”

  “I am about the same age as your sister. I remember everything. My father spent his every waking day down the hall, your parents’ unofficial mourner.”

  “Did they ever figure out what made my parents sick?”

  “They think poison. Egypt was going through an agricultural upheaval, trying to move from medieval farming methods to modern, all in one giant leap. Some farmers never could understand pesticides. They were given jugs that should have been poured into barrels of water. But water was precious, so they sprinkled it full strength onto the closest rows. Then they complained that those plants grew sickly, and never used the pesticides again. But still the farmers took those poisoned plants to market.” Nabil might have shrugged, or maybe just winced. “You see?”

  The futility of compounded loss threatened to swallow Wynn whole. His only lifeline dangled madly out of reach. Wynn raised his eyes. “I need to know what else the monk of Wadi Natrum told Sybel.”

  “She did not say.”

  “You were talking with her when you left the building. I saw you.”

  “I stayed with her, yes. I asked several times. But she would not speak of it.”

  “She didn’t say anything?”

  “I am sor
ry, Wynn. I would tell you if I knew.”

  It was the first time Nabil had ever used his name. Even in the depths of his remorse, Wynn recognized the moment and took note. It gave him the courage to ask, “And what the hermit said to me, did you understand that?”

  Though the features were smudged deep as bruises, still his eyes remained alert, dark, penetrating. “Your father and mother were missionaries as well as teachers. This you know.”

  “Yes.”

  “For the government and most people, they were here only to teach at the university. Their mission work remained secret. Speaking of Christ to Copts, that was one thing. We were persecuted from time to time, but not too much here in Cairo. Not then. But preaching to a Muslim, that was a crime. It still is. At that time, a foreigner who converted a Muslim could be put to death. A Muslim who prayed to Jesus, the same. Your parents ran secret home churches for believers among the Muslims. Very secret. My father, he was one of their messengers. The churches, they grew and grew. This was why your parents did not leave when Nasser declared that all Americans were enemies and must leave the country. They stayed for their secret flocks. Nowadays, every time I come home, I meet some of these people. The churches are tended by others now, but still they grow. A forest rising from seeds your parents planted.”

  Wynn sat and waited for more. Staring at the floor by his feet, wishing he had listened better, spoken with his sister differently, learned enough to be whole now. When he looked up, Nabil was asleep.

  Defeated and empty, he rose and left the room.

  BY MIDAFTERNOON, when Kay and Wynn had both given their statements to the security officer at the Gamal and returned to the ambassador’s suite, the wind had stopped. The office windows were encrusted with a patina of grit, filtering the light a sickly beige. The suite was empty save for Wynn and Kay. The chargé was off somewhere and the ambassador’s secretary was arranging Wynn’s travel documents, everybody busy and scurrying for the congressman and senator. Kay had spoken twice with the ambassador, assuring him that he should remain at the ministerial meeting, and that she would pass on his condolences to Congressman Bryant. Wynn’s two suitcases stood by the desk, waiting for the limo to take him to the airport. Kay was taking a flight the next day, hoping to personally shepherd Nabil out of danger.

  A young aide appeared, possibly one of those at the hospital the previous evening, Wynn could not be sure. He had not taken any more of the tablets, but now and then he drifted away, as though his body was producing its own chemical veil. The young man explained that they had to put out a press release, and it would be taking the official police line, which was that the attack had been the work of local fundamentalists. Wynn observed how the filtered light cast the man’s features a sickly tan, as if he had emerged from some dismal netherworld to expel more bad news.

  When they were alone once more, Kay offered, “You don’t look too good. Are you sure you’re up for the flight?”

  The flight was not the problem. He would take his pills and sack away the hours. He forced himself to form the tumbling thoughts. “I’ve got to do something, Kay. I can’t just let this pass, like it doesn’t matter, like Sybel never stood for anything.”

  “You saved our lives back there. That should do for a start.”

  He looked down at the floor between his feet. There was no need to say what they both knew.

  Kay eased herself farther into the sofa. She extended her legs, massaged one knee, and said, “I was born and raised in Oakland. The city’s basically a poor stepsister to San Francisco. Always undergoing one revitalization project or another, but nothing ever works. It’s got the naval yards and Berkeley and everything the rich San Francisco folks just refer to as East Bay. All the poor, tired working jerks who have to live on the other side of the bridge and spend their mornings and evenings stuck in the worst traffic you ever saw. My dad was a surgeon, which meant I was raised in Oakland Hills, nice house with a pretty view out over the bay. But when I go back, I like to spend time down in the low-rent areas. There’s a church down there I’ve been visiting for years. Keeps me in touch with the little people. You know what I mean?”

  “I know.” Giving her what she wanted, which was a signal he heard her at all.

  “I was elected to the state legislature right in the middle of the savings and loan debacle. Entered the Senate just as we were sweeping up the last of that mess. I watched as banks began gradually growing ever larger, claiming that size was necessary in order to compete. Only large financial institutions, they argued, could withstand the difficulties that had closed down most of our S and Ls, or allow them to compete on an international scale. Let’s be perfectly honest here. I had every reason to want to believe them. They were financing my campaigns in a big way, especially when I got myself appointed to a couple of key committees. But these little people down in that Oakland church, I tell you, it was hard to shut out what I was hearing and seeing on a Sunday morning. Like I was getting hammered by a message at my most vulnerable moment. Otherwise I’d have just turned away. Something every politician learns to do. Every successful politician, that is, who aims on getting reelected. The key to success in Washington is, choose your battles wisely.”

  A veiled beam from the window cast Kay’s features into translucent depths. The bandage across her forehead gleamed with a color beyond white. Wynn clutched at her words and the moment with desperation.

  “What those people down there in the valley showed me was the slow and steady demise of the local branch bank. So gradual it would be very easy to ignore the trend. But over time a lot of those branches were closing down. Traditionally, our local banks were there to serve the community. They maintained branches in lower income areas because their bank served as an anchor to the local businesses and tradespeople. Only now these branches were disappearing. Why? Because these huge mega-banks don’t care overmuch about the local community. They exist to serve their shareholders. And these small branches did not turn sufficient profit. The result was, the low-rent branches were shutting down, and their places taken by what I call the financial tapeworms. Credit unions, check-cashing offices, pawn shops, car equity loan offices, storefronts offering second mortgages. All of these have one thing in common; they live by usury. These newcomers, these sharks, charge higher interest rates than the credit card companies. They care nothing for who they consume. They destroy families. They destroy communities. And they exist because the banks are retreating, leaving a vacuum for these demons to fill.”

  The outer door opened, and noise filtered in from outside. Wynn leaned in tight, not wanting anybody or anything to interfere.

  Kay did the same, coming in close enough for him to see amber flecks in what he had previously thought were utterly dark eyes. “That’s when I met Graham. I started attending a Bible study on Capitol Hill. He was there. You learn pretty fast not to talk shop at one of these things. People get very prickly at the idea of being hit while their guard is down. I had to hunt him out.”

  The figure hovering just beyond Wynn’s peripheral vision said, “Excuse me, Congressman.”

  “Be right with you.”

  “But sir, your—”

  Wynn raised a single threatening finger. “Back off.” To Kay, “Go on.”

  “Maybe it was just how I caught Graham, walking away from the group, telling him I’d heard he was involved in financial reform. But he refused to talk with me about it that day. It was like he could look inside me and see all the convoluted motives, all the internal conflicts of interest. You know what I mean?”

  Wynn gave her a tight nod of understanding. He knew.

  “So he tells me, and remember now, he’s talking to somebody on the appropriations committee, a senior senator with significant clout. Somebody who can really wind his clock, for good or bad. But what he says to me is, Your doubt is written all over your face and there’s nothing I can say that will convince you.”

  “He said that?”

  “He did indeed. He goes on, If t
his is your cross, the Lord will have to be the one to tell you. Not me. Then he just turned and walked away.”

  The aide was almost dancing with nerves. “Congressman, please. Sir, the limo’s waiting and the police escort is downstairs and your flight to Washington leaves in just over an hour.”

  Kay rose to her feet, waited for Wynn to stand, then hugged him fiercely. When she finally released him, she smiled and said, “Hard to argue with that, isn’t it?”

  33

  Friday

  FRIDAY EVENING WASHINGTON time, early Saturday morning Roman time, Jackie limped past the Dulles Airport customs barrier. Instantly she was enveloped by a jubilant Good Friday din. The religious among the waiting throng stood out like shiny new pennies. Young boys tugged futilely at the collars of their first suits and chased pink-frocked girls in patent leather shoes. Parents holding ribbon-bedecked flowers hugged and welcomed family with tears and words in two dozen different tongues. Jackie pushed her trolley with her ears still ringing from the bells that had awakened her that same morning in Rome. Thousands and thousands of bells, tolling continuously from the moment she woke until the taxi took her to the airport. She had slept her way across the Atlantic, dreaming of music that was a welcome for many but only a farewell for her.

  Jackie’s previous morning had been spent in slumber and solitude. She had risen just after noon and felt the pain returning, but decided not to take another pill. Her room had been lost down some Trastevere alley, high enough to transform the street noise into a continuous clatter rising from a stone forest. The chamber was dingy and old, the walls yellow and cracked. The shutter would not open. Downstairs the church ran a soup kitchen, and the smells finally enticed her to endure the agony of dressing. Every motion had brought new throbs from her shoulder. She had descended the four flights by gripping the stair rail and timing each step to her breaths.