City of Gold

by Len Deighton

  Alice Stanhope was sitting on the sofa with an officer on each side of her; she didn’t seem to want to be rescued. Peggy looked at the long-case clock; it was still early. Tonight, she decided, would be a good night to wash her hair, go to bed very early, and read a book.

  8

  To the casual observer, the soldiers seemed to belong here. Their khaki matched the streets and the buildings and the desert that stretched far beyond the horizon. It was the Arabs who were incongruous: the women in black from top to toe, and the men in their ankle-length white galabiyas.

  Only the behaviour of the crowds showed clearly who was at home. The natives were purposeful. They so obviously lived here. They ran and jumped and shouted and bargained and argued and laughed and cried. The soldiers were mostly young. Wearing their heavy studded boots, they tramped slowly and aimlessly. With nowhere to go, they wandered up the streets and then listlessly wandered down again. They seldom strayed into the quieter areas; they kept to the busy thoroughfares. They got in the way and, blundering into other soldiers, they scrambled to stare into shop windows to avoid saluting officers. They huddled defensively in little groups and sat down on the kerb to gawk at the intensity of the life around them. Many of them got very drunk; many of them vomited.

  For all of Cairo’s life was in the streets. It was a city turned inside out: empty buildings and crowded streets. Beggars were in astounding variety: men beggars, women beggars, mothers carrying babies, some crippled, some aged and bent, some just learning to walk. Children offered trays of fruit, shoelaces and flyswatters. There were luridly painted barrows, with arrays of brightly coloured foods and drinks. Moving adroitly through the crowds swarmed the pickpockets and smiling guides who whispered of forbidden books, peep shows and available sisters.

  Anyone looking more closely at the khaki-clad figures saw that they were not identical. Some wore tartan kilts and some wore turbans. Gurkhas had wicked-looking knifes, and the military police had red hats and pistols. The New Zealanders wore wide-brimmed felt hats, and the Australians had a version that was clipped up on one side. It was the hat their fathers had worn when walking through these same streets a war and a generation earlier.

  ‘Well, this is it, sir,’ Captain Marker told his new boss as they sat down at a table in the flashy little restaurant on Sharia Emad el Dine. ‘Cleo’s Club. Just about every crook and black-marketeer in Cairo visits this place at some time or other.’

  ‘They all look very prosperous,’ said Jimmy Ross. He’d asked Marker to bring him to where the successful crooks gathered.

  ‘Of course,’ said Marker. They ordered drinks and looked at the menu. ‘That fellow at the end of the bar owns the place. They call him Zooly; he’s one of the richest men in this town. If you want a tank, or a virgin, or your enemy murdered, he’ll fix it for you – at a price.’

  Ross looked at the man. He looked ordinary enough, but he’d know him again. If Ross was going to get a new identity and disappear, he would need some help. A place like this would be where he would find it.

  ‘Roast chicken,’ Ross told the waiter.

  ‘Same for me,’ said Marker. ‘It’s probably British army food anyway.’

  ‘Can’t you arrest him?’ said Ross, after the waiter had gone.

  ‘Arresting Egyptians on major charges is a dangerous resort for people like us. They are civilians, and Egypt is still a neutral country.’

  ‘So don’t our deserters use that loophole?’

  ‘Pose as Arabs, you mean? It’s not easy. Everyone over the age of fourteen has to be registered with the Ministry of the Interior and have a rokhsa, an employment card. It has fingerprints and a photo.’

  ‘Sounds effective,’ said Ross abandoning any idea of using an Egyptian passport to escape.

  ‘That’s how we police the brothels,’ Marker said. ‘Any girl who shelters a deserter has her employment card withdrawn and can’t get a job. We also have a photo and description of every prostitute and cabaret hostess in SIB’s file. But you don’t think he could be one of our own people, do you?’

  ‘Rommel’s spy, you mean?’

  ‘That’s all the brigadier cares about at present. He’ll give you his lecture once he gets back.’

  Their food arrived and they started eating. At a table not far away, Jimmy Ross noticed two officers consuming a lavish meal. One of them looked like a chap he’d seen at the Magnifico. The other one wore the gold wavy rings of the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve on the shoulders of his khaki battle-dress blouse. The black triangular-shaped patch on his shoulder was, like so many other locally made cloth badges, somewhat crudely stitched. It depicted a white snake coiled and ready to strike. Under it the letters IDT stood for Independent Desert Teams, Marker told him. Ross had never heard of it.

  Lieutenant Commander Toby Wallingford was a tall lean patrician figure, with wavy hair that the sun had made golden. He had the bony nose and small perfect mouth that would have led most people to say he was an Englishman even before they heard that drawling voice.

  Captain Robin Darymple was sitting opposite him. His sartorial distinction was in the special dark shade of his khaki. It told those who understood the subtlety of cap-badge snobbery that he was an officer of the household brigade: the Guards.

  ‘So you have a free hand?’ said Darymple, with unbounded envy. They were both at the coffee and brandy stage of a remarkably good lunch.

  ‘By no means,’ said Wallingford who had long ago discovered that officers with a free hand were pestered by friends to do all sorts of things they didn’t want to do. ‘I am responsible to three or four different desk wallahs. That’s the worst part of it.’

  ‘I thought you said you were the commanding officer.’

  ‘But only of my little team,’ said Wallingford. He stubbed out the butt of his cigarette in the ashtray. ‘Independent Desert Teams means exactly what it says. We are all separately briefed and quartered, for maximum security.’

  ‘And when are you off next?’

  ‘They don’t tell us too much, Robbie. With these little shows, you can’t afford to have the Hun waiting for you at the other end.’

  ‘It sounds damned good, Wally. I’d give anything to be in your shoes.’ He’d started calling him Wally the way he had at school. But at school they’d not been close friends: more like adversaries.

  ‘I thought you were sent back here because you were sick,’ said Toby. For a moment or two he said nothing. He was looking at the cigarette packet and the gold lighter that he’d arranged on the table. As if with reluctance he picked up the cigarettes and offered them to Darymple. Darymple declined and Wallingford lit up one for himself. He was a compulsive smoker; it was one of the few signs of nervousness he ever revealed.

  ‘Well, that’s just it,’ said Darymple, glad of an opportunity to explain things. ‘I’ll be making my number with the quack next week. Chances are I’ll be recategorised, pronounced fit and sent into the blue.’

  ‘Good show!’ Wally waved and, without being told, the waiter brought the brandy bottle and poured another big measure for each of them.

  ‘On the face of it, yes. But with Rommel on the rampage, all officers – without exception – are being dumped into transit camps. I’ve tried pulling strings but it’s not easy.’

  Wallingford nodded without showing any real concern. ‘Not so good.’

  ‘Instead of going back to my own battalion, I’ll just be sent to any mob which needs an officer. My God, Wally, I could wind up serving with some bloody clod-hopping line regiment, or yeomanry. I could find myself amid elderly beer-swilling Territorials or a mess full of oiks.’ He stifled a belch and then smirked to show his embarrassment. They’d both had a lot to eat and a great deal to drink.

  ‘You always exaggerate, Robbie.’ Wally chuckled at his friend’s predicament. He looked at him and nodded. He’d make him sweat. Those school beatings were forgiven but not forgotten, and Robin Darymple had a lot of other sins to answer for. He’d make the little blight
er crawl. He sipped his brandy and said nothing. He just looked at the glaring sunlit street outside, and at the unfortunate wretches who thronged there, nowhere else to go.

  ‘Could you do something?’ said Darymple finally.

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘Make a place for me in your outfit.’ Now that Darymple had voiced his difficulty, he was affected by it. He was unable to keep the edge of desperation from his voice. ‘I mentioned it the other day. You said you’d think about it.’

  ‘In my outfit? How would you see that working?’

  ‘I’d do anything, Wally.’

  Wallingford looked at him, pursing his lips as though thinking hard.

  ‘I’d drop a rank,’ said Darymple in one last frantic plea.

  ‘I’m still thinking about it,’ said Wallingford. ‘If there’s any way of fitting you in, I’ll do it. You can count on me, Robin. You know that.’ He looked across the bar to catch the waiter’s eye.

  ‘I know I can, Wally.’

  ‘Looks like the waiters have all disappeared. No matter, they can put it on my account.’

  ‘That was a smashing lunch, Wally. Let me chip in.’

  ‘No need; I know you’re stony broke,’ said Wallingford. ‘Yes, it’s good. I eat here a lot between our little shows. They know me.’

  ‘Is this a club?’ said Darymple. He had been studying the women; most of them were young and attractive. ‘I’ve never been here before. Some bloody marvellous bints – some of them unattached by the look of it.’

  ‘Not for you, Robbie. The sort of unattached bints you see in here would expect to find a solid gold bracelet under the pillow.’

  ‘How did you discover this place?’

  ‘I got browned off fighting my way through all those chairborne old bastards sitting on the verandah at Shepheard’s,’ explained Wallingford. ‘This place is for chaps from the sharp end.’

  ‘Really? There seem to be a lot of wogs.’

  ‘It’s a mixed membership, but they are mostly good types. They are people who can get things done, and that’s important in this town.’

  ‘Who are they?’ Darymple looked around. It was certainly a mixed collection. Despite what Wallingford said about the club being used by fighting troops, there were plenty of rear-echelon people in evidence. There were locals too: prosperous-looking Arabs in expensive suits, with gorgeous women in tow. There were three very pretty girls sitting with some noisy Australians at the long bar. They were drinking heavily, from bottles that were left on the counter for them, and arguing about a card game they’d had the previous night.

  ‘With the cash that passes over that bar each month, Robbie, I could buy up Shepheard’s, and Groppi too.’

  ‘Where does it come from? Black market, you mean?’

  ‘I don’t ask too many questions, old boy. But I’ll tell you this: I know a brigadier who spent months trying to get the bloody quartermaster to send him radio-telephone sets. He came in here and found a man who let him have a dozen of them that same afternoon … brand new and still in their packing cases.’

  ‘A civvy?’

  ‘Yes, a Gyppo.’

  ‘Where did an Egyptian get them?’

  ‘Don’t ask.’

  ‘Good grief, Wally. The brigadier bought them on the black market?’

  ‘If you need something to fight the Hun, get it. That’s the way people work these days.’

  ‘And you do the same thing?’

  ‘Things are changing, Robbie. And we’ve got to change too. We can’t wait while all those dozy buggers in GHQ refight the Boer War.’

  ‘But how did your friend pay for the RT sets?’

  ‘Use your noodle, Robbie. You can always shuffle the paperwork around to make the accounts balance. In fact, if you join us, that is exactly the sort of job I’d need you to do for us.’

  ‘An adjutant, you mean?’

  ‘You’ve had long enough with the Cairo desk wallahs. You must be an expert at shuffling the paperwork by now.’ He got to his feet, and so did Darymple.

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose I have,’ said Darymple, not wishing to deny the expertise that might procure for him the job he so wanted.

  He followed Wallingford to the cloakroom. The man on duty there had a naval cap ready for him without even glancing at the ticket. ‘That’s why the food’s so bloody good,’ said Wallingford. ‘It’s all black market grub. We’ve probably eaten steaks intended for the commander in chief and all his top brass.’ He said it as though such provenance would add to his enjoyment. He dropped some coins into the tray, and the servant made appropriate noises of appreciation.

  Outside in the Sharia Emad el Dine, the doorman had already seen Wallingford coming and was signalling for his driver to bring his car. ‘Won’t you let me chip in for that lunch?’ said Darymple.

  ‘I thought you were the fellow who was broke and needed a loan,’ said Wallingford.

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Darymple, flattered that his friend had remembered the long story he’d told him at their previous meeting.

  ‘Or has your fellow come back and paid up the money you won?’

  ‘No such luck,’ said Darymple.

  ‘Well, I’ve fixed up a loan for you, old boy. Five hundred quid on signature. Okay?’

  ‘Wonderful!’

  ‘I’ll take you over to my bank. The old boy who runs it owes me a few favours.’

  ‘Thank you, Wally.’

  As they stood outside the restaurant, a long column of men came marching down the street. They were German prisoners of war. Guarding them were weary-looking British infantrymen with rifles at the slope, and a few red-capped military policemen in their beautifully clean khaki. Mounted Egyptian police, riding at front and back, imperiously held up the traffic to ensure that the column was not delayed. They were going from the railway station to the POW reception centre at the Citadel. The British liked to move enemy prisoners through the streets like this; it impressed the natives with British power. And yet the prisoners maintained a posture out of keeping with their status as prisoners. Even the torn and stained German uniforms were buttoned carefully, and they marched in step with their heads held high and eyed Cairo with the assurance of conquerors.

  The club doorman opened the door of Wallingford’s car. It was an austere military version of a twelve-horsepower family saloon. It was not a grand vehicle, not the sort of thing that generals roared around town in, but any kind of official car was a coveted status symbol. To cap it all, Wallingford had his own driver: a cropheaded fellow with orange-coloured South African flashes on his shoulder.

  ‘We’re going to see Uncle Mahmoud,’ said Wallingford, as he settled back in his seat.

  ‘Ja. The Muski,’ said the driver, naming Cairo’s big bazaar.

  ‘And we’ll only be a few minutes. I don’t want you dashing off to see one of your bints.’ The driver nodded solemnly to acknowledge the joke. To Darymple, Wallingford said, ‘Percy has got bints in every street in Cairo. Every shape and size. Is that right, Percy?’

  ‘I am a married man, sir.’ He spoke without turning his eyes away from the road. His voice was harsh and guttural.

  ‘You’re a mad fellow,’ said Wallingford. ‘I don’t know how you do it, Percy. Every shape and size,’ he said to Darymple. ‘Every shape and size. And some of them are smashers!’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Darymple was looking out at the streets. He had expected to be taken to an orthodox bank. He’d expected to go somewhere on one of the big boulevards, a place with marble and glass and mahogany counters, and he thought Uncle Mahmoud would be a man in a well-cut dark suit.

  In fact Toby Wallingford took him to Cairo’s noisy, smelly, crowded bazaar which occupies a large part of the medieval quarter named Gamaliyya. They stopped near Feshawi’s, a nine-hundred-year-old coffeehouse where middle-class Egyptians went and discussed the problems of the world. Having left the car they pushed through the crowds, past the sweet-smelling bags of spices, and through the gold a
nd silver merchants hammering out their bangles and brooches. When the narrow dusty alley was at its most noisy and crowded and smelly, Wallingford turned into a narrow entrance almost hidden behind a tall display of antique carpets. The carpets covered the floors and the walls, and a colourful ocean of them was arranged in waves from the ceiling. An agile young Arab leaped forward and started rolling more of them out for display. As each carpet flopped open, he jumped back to throw another in their path.

  ‘We are seeing Mahmoud. In the back,’ said Wallingford not pausing in his stride. They went through the display room to a low door. He opened it to reveal a curtained-off little back room that seemed full of smoke. ‘Mahmoud, you old bastard,’ Wallingford called. ‘I’ve brought a very old friend of mine to see you.’

  Darymple came to a sudden halt as Wally dragged aside the beaded curtain to reveal the inner room. He considered himself an old Cairo hand, but he’d never been in a place like this before. Blue perfumed smoke billowed to the dark ceiling. Rich carpets coloured the walls and floor of this tiny space, into which half a dozen men were crowded. Four of them were dressed in richly decorated galabiyas. They were sitting talking and puffing and passing the mouthpiece of a water pipe from one to the other. Two servants moved about behind the sweet-smelling smoke. They were discreetly attending to the preparation of coffee and feeding small blocks of honey-flavoured tobacco into the bowl of the water pipe locally known as a shisheh. As if suddenly becoming aware of the tobacco smoke, a servant fanned it up towards the nicotine-coloured ceiling.

  A backgammon table was moved and two gold chairs were speedily placed on each side of Mahmoud. He was a stout and jovial man with dark glasses of modern design and a white moustache that fitted across his dark face like a strip of adhesive tape. ‘Allah ma’ak,’ Allah be with you, he said.