Ibrahim did not respond to his sister's comments; he did not like all this gossip about the king, either. After all, who knew Farouk better than he? Of course, how could one not talk about the strange, quiet revolution that had taken place while Egypt slept, organized by men previously unknown but who now headed the new Revolutionary Command Council? What amazed Ibrahim and everyone else was that Farouk had not been executed but, at the insistence of Gamal Abdel Nasser, had been allowed to leave the country. But now people were being arrested everywhere; anyone suspected of having the slightest connection with the former monarch was brought in for questioning. Rumors were starting to circulate, whispered stories of torture, secret executions, and sentences of life imprisonment. What therefore, Ibrahim asked himself, was to become of the king's personal physician? Who could have been closer to Farouk than his doctor?
Am I and my family now in danger because of the post I held in the palace, a post which I did not seek, but which my father got for me?
Suddenly a masculine voice called from the outer hallway, "Y'Allah! Is anyone home?" And Ibrahim was pleased to see his friend, Hassan al-Sabir, come in, wearing a black tuxedo, his fez cocked at an angle.
The children ran to him, crying, "Uncle Hassan!" He laughed and lifted Yasmina into the air, calling her "his little apricot."
Then he greeted the women, starting with Amira. "And who is this lady who is so beautiful she shames the moon?" he said, slipping into the Arabic he knew she preferred to have spoken in her home.
"Welcome to our house," she said politely. "God's blessing on you."
As Ibrahim watched Hassan charm his way around the room, the center of attention as he somehow always managed to be, he caught a quickly veiled look on Amira's face as she, too, marked Hassan's progress. Ibrahim had always sensed that his mother didn't like Hassan al-Sabir. But why was this, when he charmed everyone else?
Despite the ceiling fans and the open windows, the room was baking in the August heat. Ibrahim signaled to a servant to bring cigarettes and coffee, and led Hassan out onto the balcony to catch the Nile breeze.
"What is the news?" Ibrahim asked quietly, as the servant lit his cigarette for him, then discreetly left. "I hear talk that the new government is going to sequester land. My friends at the Cotton Exchange are saying that all wealthy landowners are going to have to give up their holdings, and the big farms are going to be broken up and given to the peasants. Do you think there is any truth in this?"
Hassan, who owed his wealth to an inheritance, shrugged. "Rumors, I imagine."
"Perhaps. Still, all this talk about arrests. I heard that they've sentenced Farouk's barber to fifteen years of hard labor."
"His barber was a scoundrel involved in court graft. You were Farouk's doctor. Hardly a political criminal. Listen," Hassan said, flicking cigarette ash over the side of the balcony, "these so called Free Officers, they don't frighten me. I know their type—peasants, all of them. The leader, Nasser—his father is a postman. And his second in command, Sadat, is a fellah, born and bred in a village so poor that even the flies avoid it. And he's as black as midnight, too," Hassan added with disdain. "They won't be able to pull it off. The king will be back. You'll see."
"I hope you're right," Ibrahim said. He'd been worried since the night the king sailed away.
Hassan shrugged again. Whichever the way the wind blew, he intended to go with it. Besides, as a lawyer he was profiting from the revolution. His caseload had never been so full, and no one complained about his escalated fees. For as long as this revolution lasted, Hassan al-Sabir intended to make a profit. "I tell you what, my friend. You need cheering up. What do you say we go to Mohammed Ali Street," he said, referring to the section in old Cairo that was a center of lower-class dancers, musicians, and accommodating women. "I know a certain young lady who is an acrobat in bed. She can be yours tonight, if you like."
Ibrahim shook his head. "I'm perfectly happy here," he said, looking through the open doors into the brightly lit salon and noticing how the overhead lights seemed to form a halo around Alice's hair. He didn't need Mohammed Ali Street; he decided he would invite Alice to his rooms tonight.
"But can Alice be enough for you? We are men of appetites, Ibrahim. Why not take a second wife, like I did? Even the Prophet, may God bless him with eternal peace, understood men's needs."
As Hassan paused to exhale a stream of smoke into the hot August night, the tranquility of the balcony was suddenly disrupted by a high-pitched voice calling, "Daddy!"
Ibrahim picked Yasmina up, swung her in the air, and then propped her on the wrought-iron railing that surrounded the balcony. "Auntie Nefissa just told us a riddle!" she said. "See if you can guess it!"
Hassan watched how Ibrahim instantly gave the child every inch of his attention, smiling like a schoolboy, and remembering how often Ibrahim would talk about his daughter, reporting on what she had said or done, boasting the way most men boasted about sons, he was surprised to find himself envying his friend. He himself didn't enjoy such a close relationship with his daughters, who were away at boarding school in Europe and to whom he sometimes felt connected just by cards and letters. Hassan could see that Yasmina, with her blond hair and blue eyes, was going to grow up to be a beauty someday. Just like her mother. He pictured the girl ten years from now, a stunning sixteen-year-old, ripe for marriage.
Alice's brother, Edward, entered the salon and paused in the doorway, his gaze going straight to Nefissa, with a look of hunger on his face so clear that Hassan nearly laughed out loud. Poor Edward, seduced by Egypt. When he heard the gate bell ring below, Hassan wondered if anyone interesting might be paying a visit to the Rasheeds. Then he saw one of the servants, appearing very upset, come into the salon and hurriedly murmur something to Amira. She turned pale, then nodded, and the servant returned a moment later with four men in uniforms, carrying rifles. They had come to arrest Ibrahim Rasheed, they said, for crimes against the Egyptian people.
"Good God," Hassan said, as he followed his friend inside.
"Surely there is some mistake," Ibrahim said to the officer in charge. "Don't you know who I am? Don't you know who my father was?"
They apologized, but insisted that he must go with them.
"Now see here," Hassan began, but Ibrahim interrupted him. "There's obviously been some mistake, and I suppose there's only one way to clear it up."
He kissed Amira, saying, "You're not to worry, Mother." Then he turned to Alice. "I shall be all right," he said, also kissing her.
"I'll wait up for you," Alice said, her face pale with fear, and as she watched the soldiers take her husband away, she remembered what she had seen in the garden that morning, and how it had frightened her: Yasmina and Camelia playing dress-up in black melayas.
ELEVEN
I
N HIS DREAM, IBRAHIM WAS STARTLED TO SEE SAHRA, THE kitchen girl, enter the men's side of the house. She was leading Zachariah by the hand; she was barefoot, and wearing the simple dress of a villager. He noticed for the first time that she was pretty; he also realized that she was no longer a girl, but a woman.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
She opened her mouth to speak, but the voice of God came out. "You tried to trick Me, Ibrahim Rasheed, and you cursed Me as well. This child is not yours, but another man's. You had no right to take this boy. You have broken My sacred law."
When Ibrahim cried, "I don't understand!" his own voice awoke him, and the first thing he was aware of as he returned to consciousness was a sharp pain at the back of his head. The second was the stench. As he tried to sit up, he was overcome with nausea. Dizzy, he attempted to make sense of the shapes around him, but his vision was blurred. He groaned. He couldn't think. He realized he was sitting on a bare stone floor, engulfed in intense heat; a strange droning filled his ears. When he drew in a deep breath, he gagged. The stench was overwhelming—a miasma of human sweat, urine, and feces.
But where was he?
And then it came
back to him: the soldiers arresting him at his home, the drive to General Military Headquarters downtown, with him protesting his innocence until a man hit him with a rifle butt. He had expected to be taken to one of the Free Officers, but instead he had been pushed into a dingy office where a sweating, irritable sergeant had put two questions to him: "What subversive acts went on in the palace?" and, "Name those who took part in them." Ibrahim recalled trying to reason with the man, to explain that there had been a mistake, until finally he had lost his temper and demanded to see someone in authority. Then he had felt a sudden, sharp blow to his head, and afterward ... nothing.
As he explored the sore place on the back of his head, his vision began to clear. He was in a large prison cell with high stone walls and a filthy stone floor, and he was not alone. The cell obviously contained more men than it was originally intended to hold, mostly dressed in ragged galabeyas, some pacing, muttering to themselves, others sitting in a stupor against the walls. There were no chairs or benches, no bedding except for moldy straw, and no toilet, just some overflowing buckets.
Was he still dreaming? If so, this was a nightmare, more real than any he'd experienced before. He looked down at himself and discovered that he was still in his tuxedo; his crocodile shoes were gone, as were his gold watch, two diamond rings, and pearl cuff links. His pockets were empty. He didn't even have a handkerchief.
When he saw the window in the opposite wall, he staggered to his feet and clumsily made his way toward it. But it was too high for him to reach, and although the blazing August sun streamed through, nothing gave him a clue as to his whereabouts. Had they brought him to the Citadel, at the edge of Cairo? Or was he far from the city, in the desert somewhere? He could be miles from Virgins of Paradise Street.
As soon as his head had finally cleared and he became more stable on his feet, he crossed the cell, avoiding contact with the other prisoners, who seemed to have no interest in him, and finally reached the barred door, through which he could see a dim, stone hallway. "Hello?" he called out in English. "Is anyone there?"
He heard the jangle of keys, and a young man appeared, wearing a sweat-stained khaki uniform, a military revolver stuck in its belt. He looked at Ibrahim blankly.
"Listen," Ibrahim said. "This is a mistake."
The man continued to stare at him.
"Didn't you hear what I said? Are you deaf?"
Someone tapped his shoulder, and Ibrahim recoiled. A heavyset, bearded man in a dirty blue galabeya grinned at him and said in Arabic, "They don't speak English here. Even if they do, they don't. No more English since the revolution. That's the first lesson you have to learn."
Ibrahim switched to Arabic. "This is a mistake, I'm telling you," he explained in Arabic to the soldier. "I am Dr. Ibrahim Rasheed and I demand to speak to the person in charge."
The guard gave him a sullen look.
"Look," Ibrahim said, trying to be patient. "You must inform your supervisor that I wish to speak to him."
The guard walked off.
As Ibrahim looked around the cell, he found to his dismay that he had to urinate. Then he realized the bearded prisoner was still standing beside him. "God's peace upon you, my friend," the man said. "I am Mahzouz."
Ibrahim took in the shabby galabeya, the missing teeth and scarred face, and gave him a dubious look. "Mahzouz" was Arabic for "lucky."
The man smiled. "The name was given to me in better days."
"Why are you in here?" Ibrahim asked.
Mahzouz shrugged. "Like you, I am innocent."
Ibrahim brushed off his jacket and discovered that his bow tie was gone. "Do you have any idea how we get communication past that guard?"
Mahzouz shrugged. "God will choose the moment of your release, my friend. Fate rests only with the Eternal One."
Now that his head was no longer foggy, just throbbing slightly, Ibrahim assessed the situation. He knew that the best place for him was near this door, in case the guard returned with someone in authority. Unfortunately, the door seemed to be everyone else's favorite place, too, and there wasn't an inch of space. As he started to make his way back across the cell, where he would have a perfect view of the door, he heard keys rattling in the corridor. To his horror, before he could take even one step forward, the prisoners suddenly came to life and made a wild rush for the door. The oldest and weakest were pushed out of the way, and one man screamed as he was pinned against the bars of the door. Ibrahim remained motionless as he watched the men grab for the rounds of bread that had been brought in, along with a giant pot filled with beans.
The stampede lasted only a few seconds; the guards left and the prisoners hunched over their food, fighting for whatever fell to the floor. Ibrahim watched Mahzouz come slowly across the cell, eating his own beans and bread with an almost exaggerated insouciance, and as he came close, Ibrahim saw maggots in the beans.
"You know, my friend," Mahzouz said, with his mouth full, "you should have taken some. It is hours until the next meal. And let me give you some advice," he added, eyeing Ibrahim's fine tuxedo. "Keep close watch on your clothes. You're dressed better than the commandant of this prison. And he won't like that."
Ibrahim turned away. The pain in his bladder brought him back to the moment. With great reluctance, and a mingling of shame and indignation, he made his way to the darkest corner, held his breath against the stench, and relieved himself. Then he settled down again on the filthy floor, his back to the wall, noticing bleakly that someone had carved the name of God in one of the stones. Keeping an eye on the barred door and listening for the return of the guards, Ibrahim reassured himself that, before the sunlight departed from the high window, he would be free.
A nudge against his shoulder brought Ibrahim sharply awake. He looked up at the high window, and saw the sunlight was now slanting, and turning an amber yellow. He was amazed that he had dozed off, and then he saw that Mahzouz had come over and was sitting next to him. "You don't seem very worried, my friend."
Ibrahim rolled his shoulders to ease the stiffness. "It's only a matter of time before my family will arrange for my release."
"If it is so written in God's Book," Mahzouz said, and Ibrahim wondered if the man was mocking him.
As he remained with his back firmly against the wall and his eyes on the door, it occurred to Ibrahim that he had not heard the Call to Prayer. So this prison was far from the city. Did the officials expect the men to forget their duty to pray? How was a man to gauge the hour? Ibrahim mentally withdrew from the nightmare he had been plunged into, telling himself that he had nothing to do with this filth, the rats in the straw, the man who had hitched up his galabeya and was picking lice off his naked body, or the one who was retching in the corner.
More bread and beans were delivered, and Ibrahim remained where he was. He discovered that the heat in the cell didn't die with the day, and he became aware of his own body odor. It was his custom to bathe two or three times a day, during the summer, and he also desperately wanted a toothbrush, a razor, hot water, and soap. As the last of the daylight vanished from the high window, Ibrahim went through the prostrations of the fourth Prayer, apologizing to God that he had not been able to perform the required ritual washing beforehand.
Finally the cell was plunged into darkness, and the men settled down for the night. As he shifted around on the hard stone floor, Ibrahim comforted himself with the thought that dawn would bring freedom. He removed his tuxedo jacket and folded it under his head for a pillow. But when he woke up the next morning, the jacket was gone and he noticed with some suspicion that two prisoners were enjoying coffee and cigarettes. He also realized that he was extremely hungry, and remembered that he had last eaten over twenty-four hours ago, at home. He wished now he had helped himself to more lamb and rice, and not passed up the sweet baklava.
He made his way to the door again and, pressing his face to the bars, tried to see up and down the corridor. "You out there!" he called in Arabic. "I know you can hear me. I have a message f
or your superior. Tell him that he is going to be very sorry he has kept me in here."
The insolent guard materialized suddenly, grinning.
"Listen here," Ibrahim said, not bothering to hide his irritation. "You clearly don't know who you're dealing with. I'm not one of these"—he gestured around the cell. "Tell your superior to contact Hassan al-Sabir. He's my attorney. He'll explain what a mistake this all is."
But the guard only grunted and walked away.
Ibrahim called after him, "Don't you know who I am?" He had been about to add: "When the king hears of this ..." But there was no longer a king.
He leaned against the bars, at a loss. He tried to imagine Hassan in the same situation. His friend had a natural arrogance that commanded respect; he would get attention in no time. But Ibrahim didn't know how to be arrogant. He had never had to push his weight around; people were naturally subservient to him.
Well, he was certain to be out of here in a few hours. No doubt it had taken his family a while to find the right authorities, locate the prison where he was being held, and then sort through the bureaucratic paperwork that Alice's brother would call "red tape." As he picked his way back to his spot against the wall, Ibrahim wondered what Alice was doing at that moment. She must be terribly worried. And what of little Yasmina? Was she asking about him? Had the sight of soldiers taking her father away frightened her?
The guards brought in more food, sparking another inhuman stampede. To Ibrahim's annoyance, his stomach was urging him to join in, but he refused to eat the rotten beans and bread the others devoured so ravenously. If he knew his mother, she was preparing a feast for him right now, and tonight he would dine on his favorite meatballs stuffed with eggs. He might even avail himself of a little of Edward's brandy—a restorative.
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