Relative Danger

by Charles Benoit

  “Damn fool. Yup, that’d be me. And yes, it is about the jewel but it’s also about my uncle. I didn’t know him, he was killed before I was born, and I’m trying to find out what I can about him.”

  “I didn’t know he had a family, but then what I didn’t know about him was far more than what I did. His friend here,” he said, tapping the photo on the counter, “there was a strange relationship. But yes, I did know him a bit. Tea?” Nasser waved to a passing waiter from the coffee shop who seemed to be delivering single steaming glass cups of tea to all the shops up and down the alley. Doug studied the photo as Nasser exchanged the required aslamalekums with the waiter. What was Edna’s connection in all of this? Did she know more than she was letting on, or far, far less?

  “I’m certain my niece bored you to tears with her history of the jewel. She has spent so much of her life in one university or another and so little of it doing something useful. Her English is excellent, as is mine, yes, but I learned English, and of course French, and a bit of German to better serve my customers. It is so much easier getting a man to part with his money when you can speak his language. Her and that jewel.”

  “She did seem quite well informed about it,” Doug said.

  “Yes and to what point? That is what her grandfather could never understand. She wants to make a name for herself in the academic world. Publish her book. She hunts the world for anything on that stupid grape and pesters me constantly with the same questions, over and over. She needs to settle down, meet a nice man. But no, that damn book comes first. Her career. I ask you, what man would want a woman like Aisha?”

  Me, for one, Doug thought but nodded sympathetically.

  “Now Hammad’s interest in Al Ainab is far more practical. To this day he checks his sources all over the world, keeps a list of prospective buyers and jewel cutters. That’s how I know for certain our families are related,” Nasser said, holding up his finger to emphasize the point. “In our blood we are shopkeepers.”

  Doug thought back to his meeting with the mumbling Hammad Al-Kady. “I’m sure his stroke slowed him down a lot. I really wish I had met him before.”

  “Stroke?” Nasser said, looking up, his glasses slipping part way off. “Hammad has had a stroke. Wallah, no one has told me, no one called. When was this, while you were there?”

  “I assumed it was years ago,” Doug said, remembering back. “Aisha had said that it happened about four years ago.”

  “Four years ago? No, no, you are mistaken. Hammad was here in Cairo not more than a month ago and I have spoken with his son, Aisha’s father, just last week.”

  “But I saw him, right by the pool. He was, well, he was confused. He didn’t know who I was and just kept falling asleep.”

  Nasser laughed out loud and readjusted his glasses. “‘I drink so much wine, its aroma will rise from the dust when I am under it.’ Omar Khayyam, the great Arab poet, wrote that in the eleventh century. Hammad should have that carved over his doorway. No, I’m happy to say that you just encountered my old friend Hammad when he was in his cups.”

  “Aisha said that it was a stroke, that he’d been like that for years.”

  “Oh he’s been like that for years,” Nasser said, “but it has nothing to do with a stroke. Believe me, if Hammad knew you were looking for Al Ainab, he would not let you out of his sight. He lost that diamond once before and I’m sure he would do whatever he could to keep from losing it again. And as for Aisha,” he said, shaking his head, “if you know her at all you know that she is quite the little devil, capable of anything.”

  “I’m beginning to find that out,” Doug said.

  The tea arrived, scalding hot and over sweet. Doug couldn’t pick up the small glass to blow on the tea. Nasser held it in his palm and in one gulp drained half the glass.

  “Now about this jewel, tell me what you know.”

  Doug told him about the request from Edna, the theft in Casablanca, and what Captain Yehia said about the blood. He told him about the vague clues he received and how a man named Sasha played a role as well. It took less time to explain than he thought it would. His tea was still too hot to sip when he finished.

  “Yes it did come to me here. It sat right in that strong box over there,” Nasser said, pointing to a dark corner of the shop. “It wasn’t as large as I had been led to believe, just about the size of the end of my thumb, but its color and clarity were exceptional. Not perfect, of course, but standards change when you have a red diamond. I did not ask questions about how they acquired it and naturally they did not volunteer any information either. I’m not sure how they got it out of Morocco…or how they got themselves out for that matter.”

  “The notes I’ve been reading say that you were setting up a sale for them, something about a possible sale in Istanbul or Ceylon.”

  “Hmmm, did they?” Nasser said as he shuffled the photos into a stack. He finished his tea and reached behind the counter for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Of course I didn’t have any sales lined up. How could I with such short notice? I had connections in Istanbul when it was still worth having connections there and perhaps I thought someone would be interested. Ceylon makes no sense. Pearls, yes, but not a diamond of this size. I must have been telling a tale to keep them from doing something stupid.”

  “From what I read they seemed to have no trouble doing stupid things.”

  Nasser laughed, which led to a coughing fit that led to more tea and the second side of the Umm Kulsoum tape, which sounded just like the first. A few tourists popped in the shop now and then, but Nasser Ashkanani knew his customers like he knew his jewelry and waited until the window shoppers left before they continued.

  “This was in 1948,” Nasser said, flipping the photo back over. “It was a difficult time. The war, Farouk, the Brotherhood.” He stopped when he realized that none of this registered with the young American. “I don’t know what you think of your uncle but he was a good man. He was honest and loyal. I suppose you could say he was brave, too, but it was a criminal bravery so perhaps it does not count for much. As far as the woman in the picture,” he said, again tapping the photo with his finger, “I don’t remember much about her but I didn’t like her.”

  “Really? That surprises me. She seems so nice.” Doug picked up the picture to take another look.

  “Too bold. You couldn’t tell her anything, she knew it all. God knows I’m not a conservative man, but there are some things that are just not done. Not done here in Cairo, anyway, even back then. The way she carried on with those, those lovers. If her family only knew. Believe it or not,” Nasser said, leaning forward to emphasize his point, “I think it was all her ideas from the start, the theft, the double crossing of the Russian….”

  “Sasha?”

  “That may have been his name, but it is a common familiar name in Russia. I only saw him one or two times. She wanted to leave him in Morocco but he followed them here. She told him that they were smuggling the diamond out of Egypt and going somewhere else, I can’t remember where she said, but of course it never went there. He did, however, the Russian. Then she and your uncle had a falling out—over someone she was romantically involved with.” He made a grunting sound to punctuate his displeasure and sipped the remainder of his tea.

  “Those two. Your uncle wanted me to talk to her, help smooth her ruffled feathers, but I just couldn’t. She was not the kind of woman I like to talk with. Well, they worked it out on their own, after a fashion. I helped your uncle secure a position on a steamer heading to Japan. Naturally she couldn’t sail with him, not on that ship. Arab owners. Not like the Europeans.”

  A man entered the shop and he and Nasser talked in loud, rapid, gesture-filled Arabic. Doug thought it would end in a fight when suddenly both men started laughing and shaking hands. “My friend Salam here wants me to help him convince this British tourist to spend far too much on a piece of dubious quality.”

  Doug took one last look at the photo as he stood up. Nasser noticed a
nd said something to the man that Doug couldn’t understand. They talked some more and again it led to laughter and handshaking.

  “Stop by before you leave Cairo. After tomorrow. I’ll have a copy made of that for you.”

  “That would be great. I don’t have any pictures of my uncle. You’ve been a big help, Mr. Ashkanani. Maybe you could suggest some people I could talk to in Singapore.”

  “Yes, when you come for the picture, we’ll talk. But you’ll want to stop by anyway, picture or no picture,” Nasser said, laughing with his friend. “Salam tells me Aisha is in town. I’m sure you’re anxious to see her again.”

  Chapter 17

  “Well what do you think?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Honestly.”

  “It’s a fucking let-down.”

  “Of course! That’s why we’re here.”

  Here was in the burial chamber at the center of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, and Doug was fucking let down because, other than a couple of bed-sized slabs of unadorned, dull gray stone and a bare light bulb suspended from an extension cord, duct taped to the ceiling, the room was empty. It had taken twenty minutes to get to this point, the last ten of it stuck in a three-foot-wide, four-foot-tall, sharply sloped passage that served as both the up and down route to the heart of the pyramid. Alone he could have scampered up the incline in twenty seconds, but the passage was crammed, nose to ass, with a busload of British tourists from a retirement home, with Doug and Sergei stuck in the middle. It wasn’t the heat, which was mind-numbing, that made it difficult, nor was it the contortionist-like positions everyone assumed, in total darkness, to allow for both up and down traffic. No, it was the smell of urine—an ancient, dust-encrusted reek, pissed down this slope over four hundred centuries. After enduring that, finding Tutankhamen sipping tea in a La-Z-Boy would have been a disappointment.

  Most people came in, said, “This is it?” and turned around, ready to endure the downward version of the trip up. Sergei took a seat on one of the slabs and motioned Doug to sit next to him.

  “This is one of my favorite spots in Cairo,” he said. “Just watching the look of disappointment come over everyone’s face, it’s so ironic.”

  “You’ve got a sick sense of humor, Sergei.” Doug took out the already soaked bandana he was using as a sweat rag and wiped the stream from the back of his neck.

  “You misunderstand me, Douglas. I don’t find it funny, I find it so beautifully ironic. Everyone comes here expecting a treasure and leaves disappointed, the whole time missing the wonder of this space.”

  “Yeah, I wonder about it too.”

  “There are tons and tons of stone above us and here we are, safe inside one of the oldest man-made spaces on the planet. It’s an engineering marvel, a timeless monument to human ingenuity. A sacred site. Yet everyone comes with their mythological expectations for the pyramid and leaves disappointed when the reality does not match up with their version of what the reality should look like. This place offers so much and people still leave empty handed.”

  “I guess,” Doug said. “But I’m still disappointed.”

  Sergei kept watching the tourists who, one by one, popped into the chamber, mumbled something in whatever language they spoke, snapped a photo that would turn out to be an unidentifiable gray mass, and forced themselves back down the deadly slope. “You’re too young to understand, Douglas.”

  “Oh, that old line. Believe it or not, Sergei, I’ve had a few disappointments in my life too.” He hadn’t, but it sounded good.

  “You’re missing my point, my friend. I’m not saying that it’s about disappointment. We all share that. No, it’s about reaching a goal, getting what you think you wanted only to find out that what you wanted never really existed. And then that sudden realization, the realization that they are all missing,” he swept his hand in front of him, taking in the never-ending stream of sweaty, stooped-over tour group adventurers, “that what you get is much more valuable than what you sought. You need to reach your goal many times in life to begin to understand.”

  “The journey being better than the destination, is that it?”

  “Yes, but you make it sound so trite. Life is a journey. The goals are so small and fleeting and inherently disappointing. Arriving here these people have the opportunity to consider all that they did to get here, the planning, the saving of loose change in large glass jars, the well wishes of loved ones. They could have a life-altering epiphany yet they settle for an unoriginal bon mot. The journey is the goal.”

  “Okay, Socrates, can we get out of here now so I can take a breath that actually contains oxygen?”

  On the way down Doug didn’t think about the journey being the goal. He thought about the books he saw on the shelf in the Egyptologist’s office. Sergei had started him out early with a pre-dawn trip to the desert area near the pyramids. The sunrise was, as Sergei promised, awesome, and the camel ride Sergei arranged was definitely cool. The old man could argue in Arabic as well as any of the dozens of camel drivers that descended on every arriving tour bus or cab like ants on a slow-moving worm. Doug was impressed with his ability to get just what he wanted for just the price he told Doug he would pay.

  They had climbed a few blocks up on the main pyramid but the official entrance was closed, Sergei explaining that they would have to come back around noon to get inside. And what about the pyramids, Doug thought. “They are really, really big,” he could see himself saying to the guys in Pottsville. Other than that? They would never understand, and I’ll never be able to explain. Getting wedged in this shaft, that they’d understand, but since it was his nose on someone else’s ass, he’d keep that to himself.

  They had breakfast in the National Museum, in the office of an old friend of Sergei’s. The museum wasn’t open yet but Sergei had no trouble getting them past the legions of underemployed guards and museum workers who congregated by the staff entrance, waiting to start their day so they could get on with their coffee break. Dr. Hawanna and Sergei chatted in Arabic as they drank their tea and ate their cheese, bread, and olives, from time to time consenting to speak in English so Doug wouldn’t feel left out for too long.

  “You have a most wise friend here,” the museum man said. “Dr. Nikolaisen is much respected. I myself refer to his works often.”

  “Hopelessly out of date,” Sergei said.

  “Timeless,” the man countered. “Look. I’ve worn out the bindings.” He motioned to a shelf across the room, too far away to confirm his claims.

  “If you ever have a bout of insomnia, Douglas, I do strongly recommend them to you.” Sergei translated his little joke for the man and the two laughed, rattling on in Arabic for another ten minutes.

  Bored, Doug found himself wandering about the spacious but cluttered office. Stacks of paper-filled folders that looked as old as the artifacts were scattered on top of desks and crammed in the Victorian styled display cases. Everywhere there was the settled dust that said that it had been years since any real research had been done in this office. He worked his way around the room, coming to the bookshelf the man had pointed to. Wedged among the dog-eared books, Doug saw a small section of books with nearly identical spines, all from the same publishing line. They were all in German, but Doug could make out Dr. Sergei Nikolaisen among the foreign words. He pried out a copy and it was as worn as Dr. Hawanna claimed. Doug flipped through the pages, glancing at the impossibly long German words, the typeface making the thirty-year-old book look medieval. There were shiny pages with black and white photographs of small artifacts placed next to a ruler to provide scale. The photos in one book were of what looked like beetles carved out of stone with Egyptian hieroglyphics engraved on their underside. Another book was all on beads, beads in piles, beads strung together, beads up close. Doug was thumbing through a thin volume filled with pictures of small stones and what looked like ancient jewelry. He stopped thumbing when he saw something he recognized.

  Lying on a white background, a ruler alon
gside marking off the millimeters, was Al Ainab. The Grape.

  The words in the white border were undecipherable and nothing looked like it said Al Ainab. But Doug did make out the phrase der Rot Diamant, which had to be what it looked like. And the tints in the black and white photograph meant that it couldn’t be a regular diamond. If it was Al Ainab then Sergei knew about it, enough to put it in a book.

  “Careful, Douglas,” Sergei said from across the room.

  “Huh?” was the best Doug could manage.

  “Just put the book down slowly and back away,” Sergei said, setting his teacup down.

  “Huh?”

  “My books can bore the average man to death in just three minutes,” he said breaking into a smile, “and even short passages can cause irreparable damage.”

  “Oh? This?” Doug said, holding the book up before he crammed it back into place. “I wish I could read German, I’d love to know what it says.”

  “You can thank your wonderfully insular educational system for keeping you from ever being harmed by inane vanity tracts by self-absorbed European academics, the most deadly of the species, you know.”

  Dr. Hawanna objected but Sergei would hear nothing of it. “Come,” Sergei finally said, “let’s show this young man around the museum before the masses arrive. Museums would be so much better if we could just keep the people out.”

  They toured around the museum for two hours, stopping at almost every display until Doug was ready to scream. The King Tut artifacts were the highlight, the endless display cases filled with fragments of papyrus or pottery the most painful. An hour after they left the museum they were back at the Great Pyramid, an hour and a half after that they were discussing goals and journeys, and now, with his head wedged between the ass of a Korean tourist in track pants and the cold and slimy wall of the corridor, Doug thought about the photograph.