Clay stood in the crowd, looking out across the sand and rubble towards the Sphinx, and beyond, the great pyramid of Cheops, and the smaller Chepren and Menkaure structures. He’d been here before, a couple of times, sat and marvelled at the dedication to the infinite embodied in these piles of rock. And yet everything he’d learned before and since only reinforced the complete impermanence of life. And now all of this was mere background. Less – irrelevance.
He searched the crowd. Would she come? Was this the place? And if it was, how would he find her? It was just gone one o’clock. The ramp to Cheops was crowded with sweating, harried, slow-moving tourists. Clay pulled his cap lower over his eyes and edged his way through the bodies. If she meant for him to meet her here, then he would go to the most obvious place – the biggest monument ever built to time and certainty in life after death.
Clay tracked along the side of the structure towards the south-west corner. He clambered up to the first tier of blocks. From here he could see back to the main entrance and across to the north-eastern side of Chepren. He looked out across the milling, camera-laden throng, and beyond to the encroaching blur of the city. Smoke drifted up from the streets, mingled with the exhaust of twenty million cars. Time passed. Clay sat, dangled his legs from the edge of the block and watched the crowd, looking for any sign of Rania, veiled or not.
At five minutes to two, a young woman with long black hair emerged from the main ticket barrier. She was wearing a summer dress that covered her knees but left her calves bare, a white cardigan thrown over her shoulders. At that distance, he could not make out her face. But there was something about the way she held herself, her build. His pulse jumped, hammered. It was her.
But then she stopped, turned back towards the barrier, held out her hands. Two young girls emerged from the doors, went to her and took her hands. They stood a moment like that, together, near the barrier. Clay watched as the woman engaged one of the white-uniformed tourist police in conversation. Clay exhaled, calmed himself, closed his eyes, let it go. He could have sworn, just for a moment. Jesus Christ.
When he looked again, the woman and her daughters were gone, absorbed into the crowd. By twenty minutes after what he had assumed to be the appointed time, he decided to move. If she was here, she would have seen him by now. He jumped to the ground and rounded the south-west corner of the pyramid to the quieter, western side. A swath of green edged into view – the Oberoi golf course and the gardens of the Marriott hotel, stark against the sand monochrome of desert and city.
A veiled woman was standing up against the base of the structure, about a quarter of the way along from the corner. Her black burqa was patched with dust.
She looked at him, held his gaze.
Clay stood, transfixed. The woman reached into the folds of her robe, withdrew her hand, moved close to the stone so that she stood facing the big limestone blocks. Then she pushed something into a gap between them. Clay watched as she glanced up at him again, held his gaze for a moment, then turned and hurried off, moving north, away from the main entrance.
Clay sprinted across the sand until he came to the place where the woman had been standing. Wedged into a gap between two blocks was a paper coffee cup, crushed and stained. He reached in, pulled it out and opened it up. Inside was a folded piece of card. On it, someone had written, in plain block letters:
GARBAGE CITY. TONIGHT. COPTIC CHURCH IN THE CAVE. EVENING SERVICE. R.
Clay looked up. The woman was gone. He tightened the note in his fist and sprinted towards Cheops’ north-western corner. Jesus, it was her. Again, so close. Right there. Materialising and then vanishing again like a dream, half reverie, half nightmare. His heart hammered. His legs felt like spongewood. He came to the corner, and looked out across the open ground. There she was. About a hundred metres away, hurrying towards the hotel green. But something was wrong. She stumbled, fell to the ground, picked herself up, kept going.
Clay started after her. He’d only managed five paces when two men appeared, moving across the open ground at pace, closing from the right. One was short, overweight, the other taller. The men he’d seen in the alley the day before, after Rania had disappeared. Cops. They called out. She stopped, looked in their direction a moment then kept going. They were closing on her fast, had almost reached her now. Clay pulled out the Glock, chambered a round. Rania stumbled again, tried to regain her balance, crashed to the ground. The cops were on her, pulling her to her feet. Clay raised his weapon, took aim. He was too far away, and he knew it.
Clay replaced the Glock in his waistband, moved back to the corner block of the Pyramid and watched the men lead Rania away. Plans started forming in his mind – counterattacks, improvisations many and varied. Free her, somehow. Get her back. He needed to follow. They were still too close. There was still too much open ground between them. He readied himself. Then the men stopped, as if suddenly they had realised something. Clay could see them look at each other and then at Rania. The tall one reached out and grabbed her headdress, yanking her head. She stumbled then righted herself. Clay took a step forwards, checked himself, anger pulsing inside him. The tall man pulled at Rania’s headdress again. Her black veil fell to the ground. The men stood staring at her.
Clay snatched a breath. At first, he wasn’t sure. It was a long way away. But no, the hair was wrong, thin and threaded through with lighter tones. A disguise? The face was round, not angular, and broader than it should be, the nose far more prominent, the lips slacker, without that distinctive arc and curve. Whoever the men had apprehended, it wasn’t Rania.
12th November 1997. Cairo, Egypt. 18:30 hrs
We sit, the three of us, in the slowly filling amphitheatre of the appointed place. The evening service begins in an hour. The girls, so pretty in the new dresses we bought together this morning, sit quietly beside me, unsure about being in a Christian place of worship. I have told them that we will meet their mother here soon.
Eleana is so much better now than she was. She asked me just now if Christians believe Jesus is God. I explained to her that they believe he was the son of God, sent to spread God’s message of love and peace. She asked me if this was true.
Dear God, what is the truth – about anything? I feel so adrift, so unsure. It is as if my life has lost all reference, and that all the ideas and beliefs that anchored me are eroding away like sand in the tide.
I looked into her eyes. So innocent still, despite everything she has endured. So trusting. In Islam, I said to her, we recognise Jesus as one of the most important of the Prophets of God. But we believe that he was a man like any other, not the son of God.
And then the inevitable question: but we and the Christians, is it the same God we worship?
Yes, I said. Of course it is.
Eleana smiled. She does not do it often, but she has a lovely smile. I like this, she said.
And to this God of ours, as I sit here and watch the Copts slowly trickle into this amazing place – an entire cathedral built into a cave in the Moqattam cliffs – I must entrust myself.
Today, just a few hours ago, I watched my friend, the mother of these two beautiful girls, risk herself for me. And then saw her taken away by the police. There was nothing I could do.
That is what I tell myself, but it is not true. At first she begged me not to go. She seemed convinced that something bad would happen. But once I had explained to her the reason I was here in Cairo, what had happened yesterday – I told her the truth – and that I had to go, she desisted. It was she who suggested that we switch places. In fact, she insisted. It seemed a good plan, and the chances that anyone could possibly have known about the rendezvous seemed so remote, I acquiesced. I flashed that signal to Claymore almost instinctively, once I knew that we were both being watched. It was not premeditated, and I did not tell anyone about it after.
Samira and I agreed that the girls and I would dress as tourists, and she would go ahead and seek out Claymore, dressed in my burqa. If, after making contact, everythin
g seemed safe, I would come to them, and Samira would take the girls and leave. If there was a suggestion that we were being watched, she would get him a message to meet me here, then leave quickly. I should never have agreed to it.
Allah, most merciful, please protect my friend Samira.
I sit here and I realise that I have abandoned myself. If Samira tells the police we are meeting here, I am done. There is nowhere else to run. But what would become of these little girls?
Surely Samira will be able to claim innocence. I should have rehearsed it with her, as a contingency. I have forgotten my training. But I simply did not believe that anyone could possibly have known. I was sure we were not followed. Very soon after I arrived with the girls, I saw you there, Claymore. You were standing near the pyramid. You were alone. I saw no sign of the man who was following you yesterday – the pale, sickly one. I signalled to Samira and she started towards you. Then I saw them, the two policemen. I tried to signal to Samira, but by then she was too far away, lost in the crowd. There is no use pondering it, now. It is my fault, my failure. I pray that she is released unharmed. There is nothing left to do but wait and hope.
The service is about to begin. The place is almost full. I have watched each person enter the cathedral. Claymore, you are not here. Oh, God, will I ever see you again?
Wait. I see someone.
City of the Dead
He’d waited hours outside the cathedral as darkness fell, listening to the murmurs of the sermon and the rapt cheers of forty thousand worshippers. Now he watched them flow past – some purified, some uplifted and affirmed, others, perhaps, more confused than ever. How many, he wondered, simply felt satisfied in their conformity? Could you even call it conformity, here, where Coptic Christians were such a minority? They had done what was expected of them, at least, and now, warm in their piety, were heading back to the contradictions of their lives. Was his own atheism, his empty disbelief, in any way superior to their faith? Surely believing in something was better than having nothing, just the eons of infinite nothingness that filled the so-called heavens.
Clay swallowed, breathed in the foul, cancerous air and crushed these pointless musings. He’d learned long ago, Crowbar his teacher, that it was the only way to stay alive. Think too much and people got killed.
Clay stood inside the darkened shell of a disused workshop on the street leading from the cathedral’s entrance down into Garbage City. After what he’d seen that afternoon, he was not taking any chances. Somehow those two cops he’d seen at Talaat Harb Square had known to be at the pyramids that afternoon. Whoever that woman had been, she’d risked a lot getting Clay that message. He had to assume that she knew what the message contained, and that when pressed by the cops, she’d talked. Everyone talks, eventually. It’s only ever a matter of when.
People streamed by. He scanned each face as it appeared under the streetlights outside the cathedral, then let it go. After a while, the crowd thinned. Only the stragglers remained. The service had been over for more than half an hour and he’d seen no sign of her.
He waited, there among the scraps of plastic and the neatly stacked piles of cardboard, the sortings and huskings of a megacity’s waste, unwilling to believe that after all they had been through, she hadn’t come. Another ten minutes passed. The trickle of penitents slowed, then died. The lights inside the cathedral winked out, one by one. They were closing the place up.
He hung his head, sank back against the wall. Sweat ran cold from his temples. After seeing the woman taken away by the cops, he’d decided to wait outside the cathedral and catch Rania on the way in, rather than risk going inside. He’d arrived well before time, had watched carefully, but had not seen her enter. He’d checked for alternate entrances, but there appeared to be only one. And now, hours later, he convinced himself that maybe he’d just missed her. Maybe Rania was still in there, still waiting for him. He had to check.
He’d just emerged from the workshop when a woman appeared in the now-darkened cathedral entranceway. Two little girls in pretty dresses skipped after her, holding her by the hand. It was the woman he’d seen at the pyramids ticket gate that afternoon. They turned towards him, walking briskly. His heart jumped.
Jesus. It was her.
He waited until she was close, close enough that he could hear her talking to the girls in Arabic, something about seeing their mother soon. She was thinner than he remembered, her face more drawn, as if worry had pulled a decade from her in just two years. He stepped out onto the street.
She stopped, gathered the girls to her, stared back at him.
He started to speak but she raised her index finger to her lips, shook her head. ‘We are being followed by two men,’ she said. ‘One is tall. The other…’ She wiped her hand across her face. ‘Like a moon. Please, Claymore. Stop them.’
‘How will I find you?’
‘Go to the main road outside Moqattam, at the bottom of the hill. I will find you.’ And before he could answer, she was gone, hurrying away into the darkened streets of Garbage City.
Clay moved back into the shadows and waited. He scanned the street behind her, back towards the cathedral entrance, but saw no one. Glancing around again, he caught sight of Rania and the girls as they flashed through the blush of a solitary streetlight. They emerged a few seconds later in a place where the street was lined with bales of bundled plastic waste, stacked head high. The plastic glowed like phosphorescent algae in a dark ocean, absorbing and throwing back the light from the windows above the street, and it was as if he were watching them in negative, three dark figures moving across a backlit city.
Another image flooded his brain, a small bundle disappearing into the depths – Grace and little Joseph, together, wrapped in white, that glowing phosphorescent trail as they sank. Clay closed his eyes, tried to push it away. He stumbled, reached out for the wall. They were almost to the end of the street now, moving through a well-lit intersection, Rania striding along, the girls running beside her. Her face caught the light as she turned and looked back towards him, and then she was gone, swallowed by the darkness.
If he fell any further back, he would risk losing her altogether. The cathedral entrance was quiet. There was no sign of Rania’s pursuers. The last of the cathedral lights dimmed and faded. He stepped out of his hide, moved quickly along the dark side of the street, skirting the stains of light. He reached the phosphorescence, slowed, ducked into another of the dark, now-empty open workshops and looked back the way he’d come. Still no one. Perhaps Rania had been mistaken, or maybe whoever had been following her had decided to abandon the pursuit, for now.
He took a deep breath and was about to step back into the street when two figures emerged from behind one of the bundles of plastic that lined the opposite side of the road. They stopped a moment, looked in Rania’s direction and pressed on. They were coming right towards him. The okes he’d seen at Talaat Harb Square, the ones who’d rushed past him as they chased Rania down the alley, the same cops who’d marched off that woman at the pyramids. They moved with intent, following Rania and the girls.
Clay waited until they were close, then stepped out into the street, blocking their way. ‘Masa al khaeer,’ he said. Good evening. ‘What’s the hurry, gents?’
The cops stopped, looking past Clay to where Rania and the girls had been.
‘Ma’afi mushkilla,’ said the moonfaced one. No problem. He made to keep going, but Clay stepped in front of him, blocking his way.
The tall one stared at Clay, narrowing his eyes. ‘You,’ he said.
‘Get out of the way,’ said Moonface, taking a step towards Clay. ‘Police.’
‘It’s him,’ said Tall.
Moonface stood a moment, a look of realisation spreading acrossi his face. ‘Welad wesha’a,’ he growled. Son of a bitch – so much more stinging in this part of the world.
Tall, who until now had been hanging back, stepped forwards and whispered something into his partner’s ear. Moonface’s eyes widened as
he stared at Clay.
‘We know who you are,’ said Tall. ‘And why you are here.’
‘Mumtaz,’ said Clay. Excellent. ‘Let’s talk about it.’
‘Leave Egypt,’ said Tall. ‘Take the woman with you. If you do it now, no one will get hurt.’
Moonface glared at his colleague.
‘Nothing I want to do more,’ said Clay.
Moonface turned side on, hiding his right side. Clay could see his shoulder rise, rotate back. Gun, most likely, or knife. ‘Give us your weapon,’ he said. He was close to Clay now, hiding whatever was in his hand. His gut spilled out over his belt, strained the buttons on his shirt.
Tall was still hanging back, hands on his hips. ‘We know you are armed,’ he said. ‘Please cooperate, and no one will be hurt.’
‘Why are you following her?’ said Clay, stepping to within a pace of Moonface. Every second he kept them here put Rania further from danger.
‘We’re wasting time,’ said Moonface, lowering his weight, pivoting his right shoulder back. He raised an automatic pistol, held it close to his chest in a two-handed grip. ‘Give us your weapon,’ he said.
Clay opened his palm, raised his stump. ‘Tammam,’ he said. Okay. He reached slowly behind his back, pulled out the Glock. As it appeared, the two men took a half-step back.
Clay let the gun drop to the ground, moved a pace towards Moonface. The pistol’s muzzle was now only inches from his sternum. ‘So,’ he said, ‘how about the truth?’
‘Truth?’ said Moonface.
‘Who are you working for?’ said Clay.
Moonface glanced at his partner and laughed.
Clay knew he was out of time. Not just here, now, but more fundamentally. This was not a conscious thought, or even a distant echo. It came more as a side-effect, carried within the waves of adrenaline detonating in his system as he twisted his torso away from the pistol’s mouth and clapped his open right palm down onto Moonface’s gun hand, forcing the pistol side-on into his own chest, and driving the hard point of his stump into Moonface’s throat. Moonface screamed as Clay wrenched the pistol from his hand, tearing the second knuckle of his trigger finger from its socket. Clay turned the gun back towards his attacker’s face in a sharp jab, smashing the base of the pistol’s grip into his forehead. Moonface slumped to his knees with a groan.
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