He had only seen it for a moment and had looked at Aisha’s photograph for not much longer. Was it the same diamond? Could he even tell one diamond from another? Maybe it was just a stone of some kind or another red diamond. But what were the odds it would be a different diamond? About the same as it being the very diamond I’m looking for, he thought.
Later that afternoon, as he floated in the shallow end of the hotel’s pool, he thought about the pyramids, the ridiculously tiny locks on the King Tut display cases, the row after row of mummies in the museum’s storage area, off limits to tourists.
And he thought about the diamond.
And that led him to think about Aisha and for an hour that’s all he thought about.
***
Towards the end of the second day of sightseeing, it was clear to Doug why Sergei had wanted to show him around.
Sergei led them through the fifteenth-century spice market, with its ten-foot-tall stacks of garlic, up to the intricately carved timber balcony in the V-shaped building in the middle of al-Mu’izz Street, across the roof of a four-hundred-year-old tenement to climb the tightly twisting staircase of an equally old minaret, clinging to the walls as the steps narrowed and the handrails disappeared. Sergei’s stories—of princesses killed off by plagues, slaves who rose to be sultans, the eighty-day rule of the only sultana—were peppered with advice on bargaining, buying aphrodisiacs, and crossing the street. He seemed to draw energy from each site they visited, from every question Doug asked.
Inside the Sultan Hasan Mosque, in the shade created by the four huge iwans surrounding the central fountain, Doug and Sergei sipped the cool bottled water they bought on the street.
“Each of these arches, these iwans, represents the four branches of Islamic law, and the doorways at the rear of each iwan lead to the madressa, or school. Students would sit here then, much as we are now, and study their respective disciplines or relax in what I believe is the most restful place in all of Cairo.”
“You said that about the first mosque we saw. And about that caravan place….”
“Caravansi.”
“Caravansi. And about that house with the wooden windows.”
“Ah, no, this is the best place of them all.”
“Until we get to the next place.”
“Exactly.”
Doug looked around the courtyard. “Okay, professor, let’s see if I remember. There’s the thing that indicates the direction to Mecca….”
“The minrahb,” Sergei added.
“I knew that. And that thing there, with the steps, that’s the minibar.”
“Minbar. Big difference.”
“Right. That’s where the Iman does his little chat thing on Fridays. That platform is where the sultan would do his praying to keep him safe from assassins.”
“And so he could be seen by the people. That was very important.”
Doug noticed a smaller archway next to the minrahb. “Where’s that lead? Another school?”
“There’s an interesting story behind that,” Sergei said, sitting upright, ready to continue his lectures.
“You say that about everything, Sergei.”
“Through that doorway is the mausoleum of Sultan Hasan. And while his mosque is regarded as one of the crowning achievements in Islamic architecture, Sultan Hasan himself was of little importance. He came to power as a small boy and was therefore himself ruled by his ministers. When he did reign on his own he was ineffective and was eventually killed, his body hidden, never to be found again.”
“And the tomb?”
“In the late fourteen hundreds, more than a century after Hasan was murdered, they placed the body of some minor amir in the tomb. Today no one bothers to read the rather informative plaque and everyone assumes Sultan Hasan is in there.”
Doug laughed. “Sergei, you are amazing. You can even make that story sound interesting.”
They sat in silence for a time.
“You miss the academic world, don’t you?”
Sergei sighed and didn’t answer, and for a minute Doug thought that he had upset him. He sighed again and turned to better see Doug.
“When I was a small boy I had a collection of buttons. Military buttons off old uniforms. I used to arrange them in my room, sketch them, list them from oldest to most recent, group them by regiment or by nationality, and line them up for battle. They were my link to the past. They had actually been in the battles I had read about, battles that took place a hundred years before. I’d think of the soldiers who wore them and how they fought and, naively, how they died. I’d always found that exciting. Then a real war came along and swept me along with it. I fought against the Nazis on the Eastern Front. I lost my interest in things military.
“But I was still fascinated by artifacts from the past. After the war I found myself in Munich where I earned my Ph.D., jumped into the museum circuit, and, for almost forty years, was blissfully happy. I was paid to research, to travel, to study and teach. I published my little books and I established what I thought was a rather secure reputation, ready to live out my final years doing pretty much what I had done for almost all of them. It was dull, routine and monotonous. And I loved it.”
Sergei paused and shifted again, this time so he could look above the high walls that enclosed the courtyard and up to the perfect blue sky. “Publish or perish, they said. Well, not in those words, but that’s what they said. But I’ve already written a whole series of books. Yes, that is true, but that was ages ago. But can’t I just advise, serve as a consultant? No you cannot. What is left for me to do? What indeed, Dr. Nikolaisen.”
They sat in silence again till Doug couldn’t take it any longer. “Well that sucks.”
Sergei looked at Doug and let out a loud laugh that echoed in the iwan. “Perfect, Douglas, perfect,” he said. “Yes, it sucks but you know, in a way I see their point. I was getting to be a burden on the museum and I really didn’t do much truly fine academic work after the early Seventies. And I was, I’ll admit, a bit arrogant, looking down my nose at the young people who were publishing well received monographs and organizing exhibitions that drew big crowds. Pandering to the masses, I cried, forgetting it was the masses that kept the museum going.”
“You know what I would like?” Sergei continued. “I’d like one last big find, one last moment to show them that old Dr. Nikolaisen still has something to say. Maybe publish one more book. My opus. My swan song.”
“How many books have you written?” Doug asked, nudging towards the question he wanted to ask and away from the somber mood his first question brought.
“Alone, fifteen. With colleagues, another dozen or two. And I honestly can’t say how many articles I’ve written. Hundreds, I suppose.”
“Mostly on Egypt?”
“Oh no, on many subjects.”
“Hey, ever do anything on diamonds? Maybe I can look in your books and find out where mine is.”
“The Jagersfontien Diamond? No, I’m afraid not. Other than its adventure in Casablanca, there isn’t much to write about.” He placed the empty water bottle in the small bag he carried. “Ready to go?”
They walked through the courtyard and into the winding corridors of the old building. “When I was flipping through the books in Dr. Hawanna’s office, I thought I saw a picture of the diamond I’m looking for.” There, he thought. It’s out.
“My books?” he said, sounding surprised. “Not in my books. What was the title?”
“It was in German, I don’t know.”
“Was it on the Royal Collection at the Soffia Museum? There was some mention of a blue diamond in that work.”
“Like I said, I don’t read German.”
“Was the title Eighteenth Century Acquisitions of the Uthman Katkhuda? There’s several diamonds in that one, but all too small to be yours.”
“Yeah, maybe. I don’t know, Sergei.”
“If it was in that book then it would have to be a later edition since the first two editions had n
o color plates.”
“It wasn’t in color. It was a black and white photograph.”
“Tisk, tisk, Douglas,” he said as the zigzagging corridor gave way to the three-story vestibule and the equally tall wooden doors, the bright sun blinding after their short walk through the building. Sergei fished his sunglasses out from his bag. “Identifying a rare object, a jewel no less, from one black and white photograph? That’s a bold claim for an expert to make. Do you know more about jewels than you’re letting on?”
No, Doug said to himself, but I thought you might.
“Miss Monroe was right, diamonds may indeed be a girl’s best friend. But to museum curators, they are over-priced security risks. We leave them to the jewelers. Up for one more site? It’s that one there, on the top of that hill. The Ottoman mosque of Muhammad Ali—the ruler, not the boxer. Like all things Ottoman, it’s too ornate, too showy. After this beautiful mosque, this masterpiece of simplicity, I do hope you’ll be disappointed.”
“Come on then,” Doug said, putting his arm around Sergei’s shoulder. “I promise not to let you down.”
Chapter 18
Doug had been sitting in the café for two hours already when he decided he would continue sitting there for about another two. Sitting. Just sitting. Not wandering around some historical site, not getting yet another lecture from Sergei, not having every other person trying to sell him something from a carpet to a chess set to a washing machine.
Sitting was good. The waiter, who spoke no English, kept the pots of coffee full and added a plate of pastry as dry and crumbly as papyrus. He left Doug alone to write out his dozen postcards, each saying just about the same thing. Left him alone to half-start and re-start a list under the heading The Mystery of the Grape. Left him alone to observe the tough guy sitting by the door, the one with the overly hairy mustache, overly hairy eyebrows, and overly hairy ears. Left him alone to glance down the alley and through the medieval gateway, watching for the unmistakable shape of Aisha Al-Kady heading towards the jewelry shop of Nasser Ashkanani. The waiter left him so alone that when a man entered from the rear of the café, pulled up a chair behind Doug, and placed a knife against the small of Doug’s back, Doug didn’t even bother to look up for help.
They sat silently long enough for Doug to feel the cold bead of sweat roll down his neck and under the collar of his short-sleeved shirt. He sensed the man lean forward, felt his breath on his ear. “So tell me, punk,” Clint Eastwood said, “do you feel lucky?”
Doug’s sigh was so long that Clint had time to pull his chair around to Doug’s table and set the butter knife down onto the tray of papyrus pastries.
“So, you smuggle any drugs for Moroccan tarts lately?” Abe said as he tried to get the waiter’s attention.
“Couldn’t you say hello like normal people?” Doug said.
“Could. But what fun would that be? I walked by the front window and waved like a fuckin’ tourist, but you didn’t see me. Consider it a lesson on being aware of your surroundings. You’re like an American Express commercial waiting to happen. I’d do a Karl Malden right now, but I’m not sure what he sounds like.”
“So I take it you got out of the jail alright.”
“Told you I would. It was that rarest of all things that got me locked up—an honest mistake. They wanted to grab another Abdoulrahim Al Abdulrazzaq, there being many of us in Cairo saddled with that name. A mere good ol’ American C note got me sprung, with the apologies of the man who put me in. The same man who, in fact, was able to get me out at that bargain price. The coincidence is sublime.”
“I don’t know how much it cost Sergei to get me out. Will you look at this, my hand is still shaking.” Doug held up his hand and watched as it twitched uncontrollably. “You’re an ass.”
“Oh I bet you say that to all the boys you shared a jail cell with. Yes, finally,” Abe said as the waiter approached the table. Abe ordered a coffee and a second plate of pastries. “So, Kimosabe, what are you doing here? Most tourists go to Fishawi’s.”
“I think that woman you called the Moroccan Tart will be coming by here.”
“Ooohh, an ambush. What are you going to do, sneak up behind her and give her a whack from your blackjack? Chloroform maybe? Or are you going to trail her to her mountain hideout to get the drop on her?”
“No, I just want to talk with her.”
“Talk? Okay, slick, let’s see if I have this right. You’re going to walk up to this woman and say ‘Excuse me, I am the gentleman on whom you chose to plant a pound of cocaine and I would like to discuss with you my displeasure at your most uncivil actions.’ Get real.”
“Well, your ideas were no better. How can you eat those things?”
“These are great, man,” Abe said, emphasizing his point by raising the half-eaten cookie. “And those were not my plans. Those are things I figured you might try. I, of course, have a better idea. Here’s what we do. I got a friend who owns a shop not far from here….”
“Everyone seems to say that.”
“Of course. Every real Egyptian knows someone with a shop. Anyway, I’ll show you where it is. He’s got some rooms on the floors above the shop. Then we’ll come back here, you point out the chick, skip on back to the shop and, the suave and debonair man that I am, I’ll convince the young lady that she has to come to the shop with me.”
“That’s your plan? The blackjack was better. Aisha is no tourist, there’s no way she’ll fall for that line.”
Abe shook his head. “Oh ye of little faith.” He said something to the waiter as he stood up. “I’ll show you the back route. Then we’ll sit here and you can tell me all about your years of success with women. That’ll kill ten minutes.”
The shop turned out to be just two blocks over, which of course meant five hundred yards of twisting alleyways and side streets to get there. Abe was quick with introductions and Doug looked around the cloth shop while Abe explained in Arabic his plans to the shop owner. Doug looked at the thousands of bolts of black cloth—and only black cloth—used to create the ninja-like abayahs that the most traditional women wore. Sergei had pointed out that they were worn by Muslim and Christian alike, but in either case Doug thought it was ridiculous. A hundred plus degrees and they cover themselves in black, on top of their regular clothes. The men, of course, Doug noted, wore white.
The spare rooms were three flights up a narrow, back staircase, the only light filtering down from a pigeon-shit encrusted skylight five stories above. The room was littered with fragments of remnants of black cloth, too small to sell, yet, damn it, too valuable to just throw away. There were boxes crammed tight with odd-shaped pieces, and plastic bags overfilled with factory seconds and other shop discards, but mostly the rooms were filled with loose piles of off-black strips, moth-eaten end-runs and miles and miles of frayed-free strings that entangled anything that stayed too long in the room. The desert-dry wood shelves and the football-sized mounds of black lint added to the firetrap feel of the place. It was a good thing that the air conditioning below kept the room at a chilly ninety degrees.
“Perfect,” Abe said as he looked around. “You two can have such a lovely chat. It’s as good as soundproof up here.”
“I’m not going to shoot her, Abe, just talk,” Doug said. Black strings inched their way towards his legs.
“I hope she feels the same way about you, Dougie.”
***
Back at the coffee shop, Abe got the waiter to find Doug a cold can of 7-Up and a small bag of Chips Ahoy cookies, while he ordered another pot of coffee—“Qahawa, Doug, say it right.”—and more dry pastries. They arranged the table so they could lean their chairs back against the wall and still see down the narrow street that sloped toward the coffee shop before branching off towards the Bab al-Badistan and the shop of Nasser Ashkanani. Doug explained that it might be a long wait and that Aisha might not even go by. “What else have I got to do?” Abe asked, “I’m not scheduled to get re-arrested until next Monday.”
“What about that one, the one with the bandana? She your type?” Doug asked.
Abe tilted his head, a connoisseur appraising the specimen carefully. “I’m not a big fan of long hair, but on her, yes, it looks good. So, yes, I’ll take her.”
“But will she take you?”
“It’s funny,” Abe said as he watched the touts strike up conversations with the girls in the hope that they would end in a big sale and a nice commission, “if I met a girl like that back in the States, she’d have nothing to do with me. But here she’d sleep with me simply to be able to say ‘Once, when I was in Egypt, I met this really sexy guy….’”
“Oh Jesus, I think somebody’s got themselves an ego problem,” Doug said.
“No, you don’t get it. She’s not sleeping with me, she’s sleeping with her exotic, foreign, swarthy fantasy. I’m Aladdin, I’m Omar Sharif. I don’t matter. I could be as ugly as you and still get laid. It’s part of their tour package, right up there with a moonrise over the pyramids. I think the Lonely Planet even has a section called Sleeping With a Local.”
“So, Mr. Fantasy, why doesn’t it work in the States?”
“Here I’m a Letter to Cosmo. There I’m another dark-skinned nobody. Except when they find out I’m a dark-skinned Arab Muslim nobody. Then I become a terrorist.” Abe looked across the table at Doug. “It ain’t easy being different in America.”
“Oh get off it,” Doug said. “I hear this crap all the time from the black guys at the brewery. They’re always screaming racism whenever things don’t go their way. Sure, some people got a problem with race, but mostly that’s all gone. It’s not like that anymore.”
Relative Danger Page 14
