by Jina Bacarr
I imagined the local authorities decided to use Great Britain’s declaration of war against Hitler to wage a patriotic revolt against colonial rule and handle this case their way. Yet I found that conjecture suspect, considering neither Ramzi nor his family was well connected and powerful in local government or business. I didn’t discover until later how wrong I was.
What I did know was that if no one came forward to take on the defense of the American flier, he could be sentenced to be executed or spend the rest of his life in a penal institution.
Desperate, I had no choice but to turn to the one person in Cairo who could help me.
Laila.
“Get out of here!” Laila screamed, her demeanor flustered, her face streaked as though she’d been crying, which affected me more than I had expected. Somehow it never occurred to me the Muslim woman possessed the ability to cry, only sand in her veins, irritants that scratched at her soul. “I don’t care what you told my servant, I want nothing to do with you.”
“I know how much Ramzi meant to you—”
“How could you understand what I’m feeling? He was all the family I had…”
I drew back, searching my own soul for the reason I had ventured here, not to the Cleopatra Club, but to the Old City where the elegant, crumbling houses were distinguished by projecting wooden balconies enclosed by delicate latticed screens covered by bougainvillea.
Not this house, as if no flower could bloom here. A Moorish servant had turned me away, saying his mistress didn’t like being disturbed during her prayers. When I presented my card to him and said it was urgent I speak to Mademoiselle Al-Rashid about her brother, he changed his mind and bade me enter. He ushered me past the door covered with intricate ironwork and the raised seating area known as a liwan enclosed by an attractive arch and toward the adjoining harem area, where tradition dictated the mistress of the house received women visitors.
Though the wooden latticed screens constructed in an intricate design allowed for the maximum circulation of air, the atmosphere was stale. The mood somber. Yet I had seen a glimpse of opulence when I glanced at the two-story reception room lit by high windows and fanned by cool breezes through a shaft rising to the roof of the house—ceilings edged in gold, brightly colored mosaics on the walls, gold-and silver-leaf artifacts stylishly displayed, shiny blue-and-white glazed Turkish-tiled floors. The Egyptian woman surrounded herself with luxury but kept it hidden. I realized how much we were alike, how our lives were an illuminating parallel, how we created tension within the prison walls of our objective existence. We were both prisoners of our worlds and because of that, we both lost a man we loved.
“Nothing I say will bring Ramzi back.” I remained standing, watching her stare through the latticed screen into the tranquil inner court. What was she thinking?
“Then why did you come here?” Her voice was accusing yet curious. “And why do you torture me by wearing the perfume, knowing it was Ramzi who anointed you with it?”
“You must listen to me, Laila. Don’t let your deep sorrow take the life of another man,” I said, “a man who was defending me.” I shuddered. My life didn’t matter, though I wore the perfume as a precaution. Or to give me courage? I knew only I had to save the life of an innocent man whose only sin was being caught up in my mad obsession.
A peculiar silence filled the room. As if Laila was waiting for me to say more. I kept my thoughts to myself.
“Ramzi was a spoiled, arrogant man whose magnificence captivated every woman he met.” She paused. “Even me. When we were children living in a hut made of scavenged wood on a rooftop, we would pretend the battered old couch we slept upon belonged to a rich pasha. But nothing we imagined could make it so. Heat. Rain. Insects. No toilet. We survived by selling junk. At night, we could see the sky ablaze with stars. When Ramzi’s hands found my budding young breasts and fondled me as boys do, I knew I must resist him. Not because I feared breaking Islamic law, but because I knew his overwhelming beauty would get us out of the slums.” She looked around her, smiling. “And so it has.”
“Did Ramzi give you everything you want, Laila?”
She looked at me with caution. “What are you offering me?”
“I’ll sign over the Cleopatra Club to you if you help me free the American.” I paused, took a deep breath. “If not, I’ll close down the club. Permanently.”
“What you ask for, Lady Marlowe, is impossible. The Egyptian legal code regarding a criminal case is complex,” she said, as if she already knew the outcome of the American flier’s trial. “The court has the choice to enforce the law as it is written, ignore the law out of compassion or—” she lit a cigarette, inhaled, then blew out the smoke in my direction “—they will follow the lead of the superiors who guide them and enforce a parody of the law.”
“And without saying a word, you would allow the American flier to be convicted on a politician’s whim,” I yelled, raising my voice. “He’s innocent of any crime. You’re the guilty one, Laila. You knew by telling your stepbrother about Mahmoud pleasuring me, he would be forced by some obscure tribal law to murder the Nubian and take his revenge upon me as well.”
“You can’t prove it, Lady Marlowe.”
“No, but you’ll try to cover up your mistake by allowing Chuck Dawn to be executed without a fair trial.” I paused, choosing my next words with care. “I believe what you fear most is the enemy within yourself. You can’t escape guilt for Ramzi’s death since it is inside you.”
Her eyes narrowed into dark slits and I knew I was right about her planning to use her influence with the Egyptian officials to lay that guilt upon the American in a court of law. I didn’t know then I was her next victim.
“I won’t bother you again, Laila,” I said. “Instead, I’ll leave you to the torment of your own conscience.”
I turned my back to her, my nerves bristling, the heat of my words stepping up the spiciness of the perfume hitting my nostrils like small flames exploding up my nasal passages.
“Lady Marlowe, wait—”
I stopped, turned, knowing I had no choice but to listen to what she had to say. The fate of the American hung dangerously balanced over a precipice. “Yes?”
“Maybe I’ve been wrong about you.” She put out her cigarette and, with a charming smile, gestured toward an ornate chair covered with silk pillows. “Won’t you join me for tea?”
What transpired that afternoon, dear reader, was so complex, so outrageous, I shall attempt to explain it to you in such a manner so you can understand the venality of this woman. Sharp, ruthless, cunning, filled with corruption and hate, I had no idea what devious plan was forming in her brain when Laila rang a small bell to call for her servant while commenting on my perfume and how wise I was to wear the scent in these troubled times.
I imagined she was insane and I asked her if she thought Ramzi hadn’t admitted to me Cleopatra’s perfume was a farce, a game to secure money from me. Why go to all that trouble to make up such a tale? I asked her. I didn’t care about the perfume, I assured her, it was Ramzi I wanted. Arousing me with his elegant hands, lifting up my skirt to reveal a sharp crescent of flesh between the finely ribbed top of my silk stocking and my pale beige knickers. Then he’d reach under my stocking before snapping my garter and sliding down the sheer hosiery before inserting his eager finger into me. Rubbing my clit and making it burn until I was no longer in control of my pleasure, but compelled to allow him to do as he wished to me, giving him every part of myself, an act of total surrender.
I admit my judgment wasn’t the best, making her jealous, a dangerous move on my part. She laughed, though she admitted nothing about the scheme to sell me the perfume, her voice strained when she changed the subject and lamented about the quality of servants now that the war had begun.
I should have suspected she was up to something, but I carried on with aplomb, noticing the air felt heavy in my chest, Cleopatra’s perfume filling my lungs with its spicy scent. The signs of danger were there,
dear reader, the blurry vision, the fading sounds in my ears, the dull sensation upon my fingerpads when I ran my fingers over the silk pillow and experienced none of its luxurious softness. But I ignored them.
Instead, I concentrated on how I was going to insist this woman help me free the American flier, short of threatening to disclose her illegal phony-antiquities scheme to the authorities. She had much to lose if I exposed her while the British controlled Cairo. I had no doubt she was a member of that part of Egyptian society who listened to Axis broadcasts in hope of learning about a German invasion.
Laila soon returned with hot tea in small delicate cups rimmed with gold, insisting I drink the soothing liquid while we discussed the fact that while no one in Cairo liked the war, no doubt everyone would make money from it. I assured her I would spare no expense to hire the best barrister to defend the American. My hand shook when I brought the cup of thé à la menthe to my lips, a strange soporific effect hitting my brain when I smelled its minty scent. Overpowering. Was it the tea that caused my nostrils to be overwhelmed by the heavy emanations, or was it the perfume? Then something caught my attention, a cuckoo clock chiming, and I looked up to see the expression in Laila’s heavily lined dark eyes, brooding, fiery, seething with deep hatred. I shivered, though the air was stifling even with the hot sun trapped outside in the garden. Was I in danger? Was the perfume warning me? I raged against the neurotic thoughts wounding me with crazed imaginings, striving to achieve balance again. I wiped the perspiration off my upper lip when I heard her say—
“Drink your tea before it cools, Lady Marlowe, and afterward we shall continue our talk about your American,” she said softly, eager to dissuade any unfavorable opinion I had formed of her. “I will return with sweet almond cakes.”
I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear my vision, then lifted the cup again to my lips, the scent of the perfume shooting up my nose with a shaft of pain—hard, driving pain—as if I had sniffed an enormous amount of cocaine. It burned like ice on my soft nose tissue, penetrating into my brain, then surging through every tendon, every muscle in my body. The flashes of pain accelerated, I couldn’t move. I tensed the muscles of my jaw and throat, the stiffening sensation jolting down to my shoulders, arms, fingers—
My body became immobile, fear, bewilderment taking hold of me. The cup fell from my hand, but I didn’t hear it drop onto the shiny tile.
And with that I disappeared.
16
Berlin
April 22, 1941
I was beginning to despair of ever completing my mission, when Maxi made contact with me. A telephone call in the early hours of the morning, my room darkened not only by night but with blackout curtains, doubling the intense fear taking hold of me when I heard her voice. Was it her? Or a good imitation?
Imagine the setting, if you will, my state of mind, and the Nazi shadow over a distraught populace that wasn’t safe from persecution if they didn’t echo the outpouring of propaganda fed to them by Hitler’s war machine. Our conversation was filled with innuendos and quick phrases then lengthy pauses, as if we were both waiting to hear the breathing of a third person on the line capturing every word we said then checking it later for encrypted messages, such was my imagining of the treachery and intrigue of the Gestapo. Our words were brief, therefore I have no difficulty recalling them:
“Eve…Maxi here.”
“Maxi! I thought you were, I mean—” My voice caught in my throat. I dared not speak my mind.
“I am, how do you Americans say, all right?”
I noted she made a point to clarify my citizenship for anyone listening. She also suspected we were being watched.
“Thank God,” I whispered, allowing my emotions to show what I was feeling, not what a trained operative would do, but by this time my nerves had gotten the best of me. I’d been waiting for a week to hear from her, afraid to do more than leave my hotel room at the Adlon to find a meal in a city of short rations and strained feelings among friends as well as strangers. “I’d hoped to see you before I leave Berlin,” I said, choosing my words with care, “to catch up on old times.”
I heard her draw in her breath, or perhaps it wasn’t her. A ball of tension wound up tighter inside me when I recalled the day in the crypt when Ramzi burned her nude photos of him, followed by her stormy departure from Cairo. I admit I never tried to contact her afterward, so caught up was I in humanizing my existence, trying to find some reason as to why I had been given the opportunity to live while others died (I refer to a most horrifying night in London, dear reader, you shall be privy to, so please stay with me). I believed as did others in Great Britain that the German people followed their Führer in unison without questioning his military tactics and fancy slogans. I know now I was wrong. These ruthless men rule the masses by means of a potent formula to weaken resistance through fear.
I felt a tension that strained my ability to speak. Somehow I must convey to her that I understood the danger of her undertaking without sounding tenuous.
“Maxi, I—”
“I have been busy preparing for my new photo exhibition to open next week here in Berlin,” she interrupted, as if she feared I’d say something that would incriminate both of us, then she explained how she’d been commissioned to elevate the visibility of the Aryan female through photography, to make the usual seem extraordinary, to endorse for the duration of the Third Reich the image of the German woman. “Shall we say lunch at Horcher’s next week?”
I accepted her invitation, surprised she would ask to meet me openly at Goering’s favorite restaurant, believing she was either very clever or I was being set up. She named a time and I agreed to meet her there, then I heard a click. I waited to hear another. Nothing. Either the Gestapo was more clever than I anticipated or my fears were ungrounded. Still, I didn’t want them to think anything was out of the ordinary (I would soon discover the consequences for my naiveté), so I hung up.
My meeting with Maxi secured, I went about the task of checking my depleting funds. It was as I feared. I didn’t have enough reichsmarks to pay for another week at the hotel, but I dared not approach the American embassy and arouse suspicion. I prayed that Maxi would lend me some money. I had no one in Berlin from the old days who could be trusted. Most foreigners had left Berlin and those who remained were focused on their own questionable agendas. We were all engaged in acts of deception. If I got into trouble, all I had was the address of a safe house. I will not reveal its whereabouts lest I put into danger the brave souls who help downed fliers and others in need of passage back to England. I have been warned to be diligent and not to confide in anyone, especially with the recent arrest of a double agent in Brussels, a man who coveted the friendships of men of the cloth, often the first person a pilot in enemy territory will turn to for help. More than one downed flier started their journey to supposed freedom by train from Gare du Midi to Paris, where they were arrested by the Gestapo as soon as they left the train station.
Such thoughts terrorize me, send my mind spinning with ideas of torture, of being tied to a crossbeam in a black bra and silk knickers just inches from barbwire, or stripped naked with a noose around my neck, hands tied behind my back, the noose hitched up so I’m forced to stand on the tips of my toes to keep from strangling while the camp guards jeer at me. I can’t stay in Berlin much longer. It’s too dangerous. I fear the vengeance of those who do not know me, yet would kill me for the accident of my birth.
I never fit into the family into which I was born, the rituals, conventions, underlying assumption you were something you were not because of your name. And so I created a duality of presence: who I was and who I wanted to be and fantasized about being. Accepted for my dance while I nourished my need to express myself through grace and form. A place where no one never questioned why I chose to follow an independent path outside the rigid doctrine of my upbringing. I tried to follow what I learned from my mother, to find reinforcement of my identity in the rituals taught to me, but no flexibili
ty existed, allowing me to move between the two worlds with fluidity. And so I broke the rigid laws of tradition and left home, never to return. The time has come to reveal what I have kept hidden all these years.
My real name is Esther Jakobs.
And I’m Jewish.
I have always been of the mind that conventional heroism is something for other people, and rather contemptuous of it at the same time. How could anyone risk their life for an ideal? And yet Maxi was doing that, as was I. And for something more. The deliverance of my people from the Nazi war machine, the maniacal method of extinction of an entire race, their culture, their rights, their privileges as human beings. I pray that after this war people will say there was light in these dark hours. Yes, I’m Jewish. My family came from a small village in southern Germany and we spoke Yiddish at home, which is why I have an understanding of the German language. I grew up in Brooklyn and spent my summers riding the trolley car down to Coney Island, where I’d pose for tourists in my tight red bathing suit with a white scarf billowing around my neck. When I was fourteen, I told my mother I wanted to be in the talking pictures, but she said that was for shiksas, Gentile girls with pink cheeks and blond hair.
