Mother Nile

by Warren Adler

  “I’m here to help you. To save you and the baby,” Zakki pleaded. The mention of the baby stirred her fear. Perhaps, too, she was moved by his disembodied voice and the absence of his sinister face, his cold, cruel eyes. Confused and uncertain and as if in a trance, she unlatched the chain and unbolted the lock. He came in quickly, disheveled, unshaven, an ominous presence filling the room, and she immediately regretted her action.

  Ignoring her, he relocked the door and ran through the apartment, opening doors and closets. In his hand, she saw the barrel of a revolver.

  “When will he be back?” he asked sharply.

  “I don’t know,” she responded, her voice quivering. The baby’s squeals grew louder. Farrah ran into the bedroom and picked her up. Zakki followed her.

  “I drove all night from Alexandria,” he said. “Ras El Tin is surrounded. The fat bastard is finished.” He displayed a thin ominous smile as he observed her. “Mother and child. How domestic. Your face is plastered everywhere. He didn’t think it was funny. But, I must say, my dear, it helped me get the hell out of there. I promised him I would send you both his regards.” He hefted the gun in his hands. “I had to bribe one of the officers. Baksheesh always works. The right palms are everywhere. Besides, I knew all the secret ways out.”

  “How did you find me?” she murmured, tightening her hold on the baby.

  “We always knew you were here,” he said wearily. It puzzled her and, as always, he felt the compulsion to prove his insight. “You think the lackey Zakki was letting grass grow under his feet. I told you he was doomed.”

  “Why have you really come?” That was the principal question in her mind.

  “For you, Farrah,” he snapped. “I got away because I promised to put a bullet in your head.” He pointed the gun to the baby’s head. “And hers.” She froze. Her heart lurched. Then he waved the barrel of the gun toward the door. “And him, as well.”

  The trembling increased in her body; her breath came in short gasps. The baby’s whimper rose, as if she had sensed her mother’s fear.

  “I’ve come to save you, Farrah,” he said, softly now. “If things get out of hand, they will make you a public display. They’ve made you the symbol of his lechery, the embodiment of his endless line of whores.” He smiled, but it could not disguise his twisted, pent-up rage. She felt the old revulsion sweep over her, almost as debilitating as her fear.

  “You will be grateful to Zakki,” he murmured. She recognized his futile pose of ingratiation. “I’ll hide you until things blow over. It’s hard to tell how long. You will see. Zakki will protect you. I have also bought our protection for the future. Zakki knows how to survive.” His squat body stiffened, showing his puffed pride. “You’re the one that made yourself a target. It was stupid. Foolish. But you’re lucky. Lucky, Farrah. You have Zakki. You’ll see. You will learn respect.”

  It was then that they heard the knock on the door, the fumbling of keys.

  “Farrah, please open the door,” he cried. “Are you all right?”

  Zakki put his finger over his lips and shook his head.

  Farrah turned toward the door. Thompson’s banging grew louder.

  “Farrah,” Thompson cried. “Speak to me. What is happening? Are you all right?”

  He began to kick at the door, which was heavy and secure.

  “I will break it down,” he shouted.

  Her throat constricted with a choking sensation, and she had to swallow hard to keep her windpipe open. Zakki must have assumed she was about to scream, but she was simply incapable of action. To be sure of her, he put the barrel of the gun to the baby’s head, propelling Farrah forward by gripping her upper arm.

  She held back, resisting, her motor reflexes rejecting his prodding. She heard a faint metallic click in the gun and the baby’s squeal, perhaps reacting from the pressure of the gun on her temple.

  Farrah’s trembling made it difficult for her to move, and she let Zakki drag her forward, until she reached that spot in front of the door just beyond the periphery of its inward swing.

  Quickly he pulled the deadbolt, removed the chain and stepped back, standing behind her now, the gun barrel still pointed to the baby’s head.

  The door opened. Thompson entered swiftly, a look of dark concern on his face. When he saw her, he started to smile, then noted Zakki and the pistol against the baby’s head… Zakki’s foot pushed the door closed, and the point of the gun barrel shifted now to Thompson’s midsection.

  Her mind struggled to make sense of what was happening. Thompson stopped any movement, rooted in his tracks.

  “Don’t hurt them,” he whispered, nodding in surrender. “They’re—” But the crack of a single shot shattered the sentence into gurgled incoherence, and his body seemed to fold, the seamed face resigned to his fate. She was shocked into incoherence, holding her whimpering baby, her thoughts barely registering.

  She was pliable and unresisting now, as Zakki led her around Thompson’s body, reopening the door. He listened for a moment, then slipped the revolver back into his pocket. The crack of the bullet seemed to have ordered the silence. Nothing stirred in the corridor. Even the baby suddenly quieted.

  Holding her arm, they walked down the stairway into the bright sunshine of an ordinary, lethargic Cairo day. On the Nile, they could see the feluccas, indifferent to death and revolution, floating with their graceful elegant sureness. She felt inert, beyond feeling, clutching the baby, as if that mass of breathing pink flesh were her only bridge to reality.

  Zakki opened the car door for her. She slid in holding the baby on her lap. She had no sense of reality. Soon he was beside her and the car was gliding along the sparse traffic of the Corniche, a world of surrealistic indifference to her personal anguish. “That,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder as if to punctuate the horror, “was for the fat bastard.”

  She could not fully understand the comparison.

  “Zakki is your guardian angel,” he whispered, nodding his head.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Farrah felt suspended in a vacuum in which there was no time or space. Images swam before her, but she could not distinguish them. Sometimes they lost focus. Glittering spangles of light bounced off the minarets. Lines of wash, looking now like abysmal banners of defeated armies, lined the narrow streets as the car moved cautiously through the motley crowds. Zakki spoke occasionally, a hoarse, low muttering, but he seemed far away. Everything was far away, lost in timelessness.

  The car swung through a wide avenue, then into a vast crumbling cemetery. Vaguely, she recalled her father had once taken her to a funeral here. The landscape was bleak, the mausoleums in disrepair, abandoned by families who had dwindled, forgotten, or lost faith with the dead.

  They passed a procession of mourners, shuffling wearily behind horse-drawn hearses, which moved laconically through narrow rock-strewn streets.

  Mausoleums stretched as far as the eye could see, interspersed with squares filled with cluttered gravestones. Some mausoleums were two-storied, edged with iron gates, proclaiming wealth. Here, relatives were supposed to gather on death anniversaries to pay tribute to the memory of their ancestors.

  Now, ragged children played in the puddled, pitted alleys, and black-garbed women prowled like eerie scavengers among the deserted caverns of the dead. Only they were not all deserted. In some, whole families resided, many of them caretakers, charged with guarding the mausoleums, surrogate families to ease the conscience of their employers.

  Zakki stopped the car in front of one of the mausoleums.

  “Stay here,” he ordered Farrah. It would not have mattered. She was unable to act on her own. Her will was gone. Nothing mattered. She felt as inert as the dead that lay in the sepulchres. Isis had fallen asleep, oblivious to the horror she had to have witnessed.

  Zakki got out of the car and swaggered to the mausoleum’s iron gate. Sh
e noted the name Al-Hakim carved into the stone plaque, and above it, the words “Come to my sanctuary.” How she wished there were a sanctuary for her and Isis.

  A heavy woman with a dark, ageless face emerged from the gloomy interior, knee-deep in half-naked children, all of them females. She held two infants on each hip as she leaned against the doorpost. Zakki lit a cigarette and talked to her for a while, gestating toward the car. Farrah could not hear what they were saying. Nor did she care.

  The woman clutched the children with brown bony fingers. She wore a black malaya that covered her completely, except for her face and hands. Occasionally, she would turn sternly toward the children. One of her eyes seemed glazed and blinded.

  Behind the woman, revealed in the dim light, sat two men, dour and indifferent, who played cards and sucked water pipes. Finally, Zakki thrust his hand in his pocket and pulled out a wad of money. The woman’s hand reached out and her fingers closed over them. She nodded her head. Something in the transaction shocked Farrah out of her trance. She felt fear stirring again and drew the sleeping baby closer to her body.

  “She’ll take the kid until we get set,” Zakki said, returning to the car, reaching to take the child. Farrah quickly moved the child out of reach, as if his hands contained some fatal contagious disease.

  “Never,” she cried.

  He reached into the car and grabbed her hair, pushing her head back. She could feel his hot noxious breath on face.

  “You listen,” he said between clenched teeth. “I’ve risked my ass. You’re the one that marked yourself and her.” He jabbed a finger into the baby’s soft body. The child awoke with a yelp of pain.

  “You think they’re playing games. We’ve got to hide. At least for now. She’ll be safe here.”

  “No,” she gasped. “Not my baby. Do whatever you want with me. But not my baby. Please.”

  His response was an obscene curse. The baby began to howl. He took hold of her clenched hands and began to pry loose her grip on the child. His strength was too much for her. Extracting the baby, he lifted her out of the car and held her, dangling, as if she were a piece of hanging meat.

  “I could just as easily smash her brains out,” he said, lifting Isis over his head. “It’s his kid. Don’t think I won’t enjoy it.” She watched his face, knowing he would do it, remembering Thompson. What could she do? She lowered her eyes in surrender.

  He nodded, pleased with her docility. Then he carried the baby to the woman, who took it in her arms and turned toward the gloomy interior. Seeing them move into the darkness, Farrah sprang out of the car, leaping past the startled Zakki. The woman did not resist, handing the baby to Farrah, watching her. She held up her hand to the pursuing Zakki.

  “Let her,” she said. Zakki grumbled and lit a cigarette, leaning against the wall of the entrance.

  Clutching Isis, Farrah held her, caressing her head, kissing her face and eyes.

  “Mama would never hurt you. Never,” Farrah cried. “My baby.” The tears blurred her vision, ran down her cheeks. Zakki turned away, puffing impassively. Farrah began to rock the baby in her arms.

  Zakki watched her, scowling, until he had smoked his cigarette to a stub. Then he threw it angrily to the ground.

  “That’s enough, Farrah. We’ll be back to get her.”

  He entered the mausoleum and extracted the baby from her grasp. The woman helped him. Farrah’s strength left her, and she submitted to being led back to the car. She felt lost now, dazed.

  “You’ll be thanking me, Farrah,” Zakki said, starting the car. “That’s his kid. If things get sticky, they might take it out on her as well.”

  Nothing penetrated her gloom.

  “Trust Zakki,” he said, patting her knee. Her body recoiled from his touch.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “The revolution is proclaimed. Farouk is finished. Long live Naguib.”

  The words screamed at her from everywhere. Newsboys in tattered djellabas hawked the news. Everyone in Cairo seemed to be parading in the blazing heat-misted street.

  It became impossible to drive, and he had to abandon the car. Dragging her out, he held her arm as they moved into the massive wall of people. Everyone was festive, smiling, obviously certain that the fall of Farouk would signal a new day. Poverty and despair would disappear now. A miracle has been proclaimed. Hunger, disease, corruption were to be banished. It was the end of misery. Hail Naguib! She felt nothing but despair.

  “Idiots,” Zakki muttered. “Nothing will change.”

  Clots of people assembled in the streets around various speakers. All offered their messages of hope. They heard bits and snatches of their orations. “We demand vengeance for the royal theft from the people. Kill them. Kill them. Death to the king and his cohorts.”

  “You see,” Zakki whispered, moving arrogantly through the crowds. “They’re calling for our blood. I told you.”

  They pushed through the crowds at the Khan el-Khalili bazaar. Metal shutters were down, while merchants stood beside them, watching the restless people with fear. All goods had been cleared from the streets. Zakki ducked into a narrow alley, and they moved through lines of ramshackle buildings.

  “No one will find us here,” he said, as they stopped at the heavy wooden door of a nondescript building. He banged his fist against it with a deliberate rhythm, unmistakably a signal.

  A shutter in the door snapped open. Bloodshot eyes peered out, blinked, and the door opened. A tall, muscled Nubian studied them and nodded. “Ahmed,” Zakki said. The man backed away as Zakki proceeded down a dimly lit corridor. He moved ahead, and she followed his silhouette toward a distant brightness. The thick sweet odor of hashish filled the air as they came into a room lit by a single shaded bulb. A plump woman sat on a brocaded pillow smoking a thick odd-shaped cigarette. She looked up and acknowledged Zakki’s presence with heavy, hooded eyes.

  Half-naked children, all of them prepubescent, lay around on carpets and pillows like discarded dolls, their faces heavily painted with exaggerated emphasis on their eyes and lips.

  “Ali,” Zakki ordered. “I want Ali.”

  The plump lady’s eyes, dreamy with euphoria, moved languorously toward a beaded doorway. Zakki turned toward Farrah. A film of sweat coated his skin, glistening in the reflective light.

  “Stay here,” he ordered.

  She leaned back against the wall, slipping exhausted into a squatting position. The girls watched her impassively.

  “You want,” the plump lady asked, the smoke curling from her mouth, as she offered the cigarette. Farrah shook her head. The woman’s eyes had the same look she’d seen so often in her father’s.

  “Nice,” the woman said with a sigh.

  From the beaded entrance, she heard a rasping, angry child’s cry. A naked child came out, rubbing her wrists. She wore bracelets on her legs and arms, and, like the others, her face was hideously painted. A fat oldish man came out of the beaded entrance, fastening the belt of his trousers. He said nothing but threw a wad of cash on the woman’s lap and proceeded toward the exit door.

  The woman beckoned and the girl came toward her, still rubbing her wrists. Tears glistened in her eyes. Nestling against the woman’s ample bosom, she continued to whimper, calming finally as the woman stroked her thin shoulders. Then the girl groped at the woman’s bosom and removed one fat bloated breast and began caressing the nipple with her tongue. The woman lay her head back, her eyes half closed.

  Men’s voices rose from room that Zakki had entered.

  “He’s finished, you scum.” It was Zakki’s voice, cruel, merciless. A cry of anguish pierced the air. The girls cowered toward each other, huddling together like frightened helpless animals.

  “You obey Zakki. Zakki. For you, the king is Zakki.” Again, a scream of pain filled the room.

  Farrah heard the crinkle of beads and saw a frightened short ma
n emerge with Zakki behind him. Blood had trickled down the front of the man’s shirt. One eye was closed and bleeding and the man’s nose was a bloody pulp. Zakki pushed him roughly and the man fell to the floor. He kicked him in the groin and the man screamed again.

  The plump lady opened her eyes, pushing aside the naked child.

  “You understand that, whore,” he snapped, looking at her. The woman nodded, euphoria draining out of her. She buttoned her blouse and scrambled to her feet.

  He turned to the man on the floor, “I am the king here now,” he cried.

  The man lay writhing on the floor. Ignoring him, Zakki lifted Farrah to her feet and led her down another darkened corridor to a small room with green walls. On one side was a large bed, on the other a sunken, much abused upholstered chair. He sat in it heavily, legs apart, eyes watching her as she squatted against a wall.

  “Now you’re safe,” he said quietly, kicking the door closed with a sharp movement of his foot. He watched her. There was no way to evade his stare. She felt helpless, a fly stuck on flypaper.

  “You should be grateful, Farrah.”

  She was unable to respond, looking instead around the dismal room. He took her gesture for a question.

  “The fat bastard melted down whatever gold he had into ingots and stuffed them in whiskey cases. I’ve taken two cases. Mine now. He had his fingers in everything. But this was my idea. Actually, there is a string of places like this. The commodity is flesh, all kinds, all ages.” He smiled, emitting a low, croaking laugh. “Like a traveling road show. Boys as well. For every taste. And the hashish.”

  He punched a thumb into his deep chest. “Of course, only Zakki would dip his finger into the slime. The king wouldn’t let them see this part of the picture. Your friend, Thompson, should have written about all this.” He shrugged. “You would never see his fat ass in this place. He was clever about that, and other things as well. But he never refused the money.” He looked at Farrah. “Now I don’t have to share it, Farrah. It is… ours.”