The Cairo Diary

by Maxim Chattam

  Marion reassured him with a shake of her head.

  She realized then that she had left the diary in the Salle des Chevaliers. Within reach of the first person who might come upon it.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”

  The brother had no time to reply; she was already retracing her steps at top speed.

  She got back to the immense room with the round pillars.

  She saw her things, lying at the foot of the bench, at the back of the room.

  Her coat spread out.

  She ran faster.

  The black book was indeed there.

  The sandwich was right beside it.

  She sighed, hands on hips.

  This time she couldn’t put it down to paranoia; she had really seen somebody spying on her.

  This had gone too far. She’d have to talk to Sister Anne about it.

  But what if Sister Anne was in on it? It was rather a catch-22 situation.… But what was the nun going to say anyway? “Calm yourself, nobody here is watching you.” Probably something along those lines. So who could she talk to about it? Joe? Béatrice?

  Béatrice was the most likely to be objective. Marion knew she wouldn’t look down on her with a mocking smile.

  There was nothing for it but to catch and unmask this person, and demand an explanation. Nevertheless, the idea of sharing this with someone made her feel better.

  Yes, she was going to go back down to the village and ask her new friend for advice.

  Marion stood by the window and noted that the storm had not abated.

  In an hour or two, if the elements permitted, she would go back home.

  She picked up Jeremy Matheson’s diary.

  35

  Crushed by the shadows’ suffocating caress, Azim seized his lighter in both hands and hurriedly put his thumb to the striker wheel.

  It sparked, but it could not drive back the darkness.

  Azim panicked. He knew he could not retrace his steps—moving backward here would be very difficult and take a long time.

  Then he imagined what might happen if the ghul retraced its steps and loomed up in front of him, right before his eyes.

  That might already be happening.

  It was approaching, crawling silently in his direction, its nightmarish claws tearing up the earth less than three feet from him. It was very, very close.…

  Why had his lighter gone out?

  It had run out of fluid.

  Azim shook the object gently. No, it was almost full.

  A draft.

  No! A movement of the air!

  Something—or someone—was moving in the passage, and this had caused a sudden indraft that had put out his flame just like someone blowing out a candle.

  That meant that he was not alone in the lair.

  Azim tried to light his lighter one more time.

  The flame rose up with reassuring elegance.

  Azim hardly dared turn his head to look in front of him; the terror of what he was going to find there made his whole body shake.

  The disfigured face of the ghul, its pointed teeth emerging from its slobbering maw.

  His eyes pivoted around slowly.

  There was nothing.

  Nothing but this hand-excavated underground tunnel.

  He started moving again.

  Eventually he detected a widening of the tunnel.

  It opened out into a corridor.

  Azim emerged from the hole at top speed, half-suffocated. He straightened out his legs in the dusty corridor. Fallen rocks blocked one of the ways out, leaving only one possible way to go.

  Where was he? The walls were made of stone; holding his flame close, Azim thought he could make out the vestiges of age-old decorations. Paintings several centuries old, obliterated by time’s eraser.

  He walked about ten steps forward and discovered some pieces of broken pottery, which he stepped over. The ceiling was high, around twelve feet. There was no doubt about it, he was walking through a secret underground passageway that was associated with several mysterious structures in ancient Qahira.* The corridor eventually opened out into a larger chamber.

  Reaching the threshold, Azim knew he was vulnerable, revealing his presence with his light, but he could not do otherwise. He could only hope that the ghul had been in a hurry and hadn’t noticed its pursuer, and that it wasn’t lurking in a corner waiting to ambush him.

  The detective’s foot encountered something very small. He looked down.

  What looked like an old papyrus lay rotting on the ground.

  Azim went down on one knee and lowered his lighter.

  The document was written in Arabic. It resembled an administrative note from some ancient time. Since the eighth century, official papyri had no longer been written in Greek but in Arabic, which seemed to prove that the place Azim was walking through came later—or at least the period of its use, before it was forgotten. Azim picked up the papyrus, which he rolled up very gently before slipping it into his jacket pocket.

  Trusting his sense of direction, Azim estimated that he could not be very far from Khan el-Khalili’s bazaar. His knowledge of the history of Cairo led him to make logical deductions, and he nodded to himself in agreement, alone in the darkness. He had an idea of the place in which he found himself. He was in old Qahira, where Gawhar had begun building gigantic palaces at the end of the tenth century, the largest of which extended over more than twenty-two acres. Historians of the Arab world had testified to the place’s many marvels. From the depths of his memory, Azim trawled up the name of Nasir-i Khusraw, an eleventh-century traveler, who had revealed the existence of a sumptuous underground passageway, enabling the sovereign to go from the great palace to the more westerly small one. A gallery so vast that one could ride through it astride one’s horse. This legendary underground thoroughfare had just taken shape beneath his feet, Azim realized.

  The detective breathed out the dusty air that clogged up his lungs. His mind had wandered through history for ten seconds, the time it took to rid himself sufficiently of fear and remain in control of himself.

  Other, more macabre historical facts jostled in his brain.

  If he was indeed near the foundations of Khan el-Khalili, that implied that he was no longer very far from a cursed place. Indeed, the great bazaar had been built on an ancient tomb that had been emptied of its sacred bones. The ghul could not have dreamed of a better setting for its malevolent nature.

  Azim entered the chamber, his feeble light illuminating only a tiny portion of it. Trying to keep tight hold of the lighter, he burned his index finger on the metal. He stifled the pain by biting his upper lip.

  He swiftly noticed another bloodstain on the ground. The ghul had been through here with its cat, preceding him by barely five minutes. Azim could not suppress a shiver, which shook him violently.

  What madness had taken hold of him? There was still time to retrace his steps, to run and alert the imam.… Azim did not listen to his own reason; his legs were already making their way through the terra-cotta debris, almost a thousand years old.

  Whatever there might be farther on, he prayed that he would come upon a staircase, so that he wouldn’t have to go back into the vile tunnel, to crawl through that hell.

  Three-quarters of the room were invisible to him, as his flame was not sufficiently powerful. Azim walked forward, following the nearest wall, in the direction seemingly indicated by the monster with the increasingly rare drops of blood it left in its wake.

  An opening on the left.

  Another chamber.

  The blood trail led into it.

  Azim stepped through the stone door frame, crossed six feet of corridor, and entered what seemed to him—from the muffled sound of his footsteps—to be a more modestly sized place.

  It gave off a terrible stench of acidic urine. Another, more rancid one swiftly mingled with it: a smell of cold meat, the one that always haunted butchers’ cellars.

  Azim first li
t up an iron coat peg that had been fixed to the wall very recently. Part of it disappeared under the large, hooded cape that was suspended from it.

  Gooseflesh prickled the little detective’s arms.

  It was the ghul’s robe.

  He was very close.

  This time he drew his revolver; it mattered little to him that it might not be effective, he needed its powerful feel.

  The orange halo lit an upright barrel, filled with a dark liquid. Azim advanced slowly, searching all around him, on the lookout for any sign of life, any movement, fearing that someone might approach without his noticing.

  He bent low enough to see into the barrel.

  The liquid was in fact water.

  Reassured, Azim straightened up.

  It was at that moment that the horror appeared.

  It was revealed in the quivering brightness from the lighter.

  Just beside the water barrel. The corpse of a man.

  It was hanging on the wall, part of the face skinned alive, the flesh still sweating a variety of organic matter. The end of the nose had been torn off, along with most of the cheeks and lips, opening the whole of the mouth and teeth to the air. The yellow enamel of damaged teeth gleamed in the light.

  It was the body of a black man, probably a Sudanese, guessed Azim, and it was completely hairless.

  He could not have died more than an hour or two earlier. His eyeballs were still moist, and the left one was abnormally swollen.

  Something disturbed Azim, beyond the mutilations that had been inflicted upon the poor man; a detail he could not identify was causing him concern.

  Azim drew back and turned around.

  He lowered his arm to cast light on an old table.

  He stiffened.

  The corpse of the cat had been placed upon it.

  Suddenly he raised his weapon in front of him, like a shield, searching the darkness that extended beneath the thin veil of flame.

  The ghul wasn’t very far away, he was sure of it.

  In fact, it was probably right here, with him.

  It was watching him.

  Azim did not notice the subtle displacement of air behind him.

  The shadows that wove a wall behind him barely revealed the silhouette of the tall Sudanese. And in this compact darkness, the corpse moved.

  Furtively, the head lifted up. Its eyes shone in the remnants of the light, immense and round. They fixed on Azim.

  The jaw with the broken teeth opened a little way, and a translucent, opaque thread flowed out of the mouth onto the chin, then onto the floor.

  And the entire corpse slipped into the gloom, without a sound.

  Azim, who had heard nothing, explored the room a little more.

  The remains of fresh food shared a plate on the table. Bits of chewed-up bread, reduced to a viscous paste, and a strip of meat, one side of which had been sucked for so long that it was falling apart in places.

  Azim’s foot caught in something soft.

  He lowered the lighter, to discover a heap of stinking fur and viscera. The whole thing was seething with plump maggots.

  Dogs, cats, and even a few jackals, all disemboweled.

  Azim walked around the charnel house, and halted in front of a filthy straw mattress, part of which was covered by an equally dirty blanket.

  What he saw next to it turned his stomach.

  Chains had been riveted to the wall. It was modern work, in no way linked to the archaeology of the site. The chains ended in leather bracelets, small in size.

  For the wrists and ankles of a child.

  An empty bowl accompanied a tiny chest. Azim came closer to look inside.

  The contrast between the object and its environment was painful.

  A toy. The chest contained a wooden train, a locomotive, its tender and two wagons, the whole thing mounted on wheels so it could be pushed around with a finger.

  Azim thought he felt something brush past behind him, and he spun around.

  The flame flickered and the shadows grew more opaque; it bent, contracted, and the detective was blinded.

  Then the flame stabilized and regained its slender vigor.

  Azim could not detect anything abnormal.

  Get out. That was what he must do. He had seen enough. He knew where the monster had its lair. To remain was becoming suicidal.

  One detail that doesn’t fit.

  Azim couldn’t forget the corpse’s atrocious features.

  There was an anomaly in that face, beyond the tortures.

  No, not an anomaly. Not that …

  Azim attempted to drive this obsession from his mind but it clung on, like a necessity.

  Like a survival instinct.

  He had seen something, but couldn’t work out what.

  Death was very recent. Not just that.

  It was something to do with … movement.

  The black man hadn’t moved, of course not. So why think of that?

  No, not movement, more … the gaze. The eyes.

  Suddenly, the truth leaped upon Azim as powerfully as an animal charging at its prey. Once again every ounce of substance left his legs, and his strength betrayed him, taking refuge in nothingness.

  The eyes were not perfectly motionless.

  That’s impossible! roared Azim inside his head. Impossible! I would have seen it!

  Not if it was very slight. Not immediately.

  And despite the lack of light, Azim remembered then that the pupils had had a reflex. The image appeared in his head as if in slow motion, broadcasting extracts of his memory like a film in the cinema. Silent and yet so precise.

  He identified the detail that hadn’t quite fitted in at the time.

  That subtle change in the pupil.

  Too closely synchronized with the flame’s approach to be a postmortem reflex.

  The Sudanese was not dead.

  Azim brandished his weapon and his light in the direction of the corpse, and took the three steps necessary to discover the empty wall.

  The tall black man was no longer there.

  Azim realized at last what he had gazed upon.

  The ghul.

  He had stood four inches away from what he thought was a corpse hanging on a hook, when it was in fact a demon standing with its back to the wall.

  The ghul had allowed him to come.

  And now it was lurking somewhere, not far away from him.

  36

  Azim dropped his weapon on the ground.

  Bullets could not harm a demonic creature.

  Why deny the truth? Now he knew. He could no longer deny the evidence. Demons existed.

  And he was going to die here.

  Eaten alive. He saw himself howling as the monster tore out his guts and devoured them on the floor.

  A tear trickled onto Azim’s cheek, bringing him back to reality.

  He was panicking. His feet held back when he wanted to go forward.

  His trousers were sticking to his thighs.

  He had urinated on them.

  Run away. He must run. Back to the tunnel dug out of the earth, back to the surface, the night air.

  Azim wanted to leap forward, but his muscles would not obey his command. He took several strides, as disjointed as if he were a badly operated puppet. His hand found the wall’s support to get a grip on himself again. He used it like a rail, as fast as he could, seeking to get back to the small corridor.

  Then the large chamber.

  The air there was more breathable, the smell bearable.

  Azim could barely see anything now. Tears were blinding him and the flame of his lighter was dying because of the jolts and his jerky movements. Nevertheless he found the tall corridor leading to the one way out he knew of.

  He was being followed. He was certain of that.

  The presence of evil was palpable in the air.

  The Egyptian detective knew that he must summon up every ounce of strength. With each second that passed, he expected to feel the keen pai
n of teeth sinking into the nape of his neck.

  It was going to happen, that was for sure.

  Faster.

  The entrance to the earth tunnel appeared.

  Azim felt a surge of pleasure, but it was immediately swept away by terror.

  A shard of pottery had cracked behind him.

  The ghul was on his tail.

  Azim rushed forward into the narrow, sticky passageway.

  All at once his lighter went out.

  The detective didn’t bother to relight it. He abandoned it in his panic.

  Frantically, he crawled.

  Another nine or ten feet and he would be in the cellar.

  Another nine feet, no more.

  Another nine feet, barely.

  He was almost there.

  The darkness seemed less dense to him up ahead.

  The cellar approached.

  Life was still possible.

  Another nine feet or less.

  Maybe six.

  And he would survive. And he would sur—

  Azim closed his eyes.

  And he wept, as a cry tore from his throat; a cry more harsh and hoarse than any animal could make.

  His ankle had just been gripped by a hand with long, twisted fingers.

  * * *

  Jeremy Matheson was stretched out on the sofa in the main drawing room. The remnants of a log were disintegrating in the fireplace, the wood opening its sooty belly in a sonorous grating noise, spreading its reddened entrails amid the ashes, which flew up like little flakes of dead snow.

  He was bare-chested beneath a thin blanket.

  His forehead felt heavy, his throat dehydrated by too much alcohol.

  The mansion was quiet; Keoraz had gone off to bed some time ago. They had talked, at length. And drank.

  Keoraz, the perfect suspect.

  Jeremy had observed Jezebel a great deal: her cold beauty, her piercing gaze.

  Suddenly there was a rustling sound behind him.

  That of a light fabric flowing across the stone floor and the carpet that lay on top of it.

  Jeremy sat up and turned around.

  A hand brushed his cheek, long fingernails lightly touching his mouth.

  And someone gently covered his lips, preventing him from uttering a word.