by Amanda Vink
“That’s alright,” Frank stated. “It’s a fine night for a walk.”
“Is that wise?” She raised an eyebrow at him. He shrugged, so she continued. “Do you want a drink before you start home?” Maybe I can convince him to get a cab after all.
He paused, looking at her. “Aye, grand.”
Inside, it was clear he had never been in the hotel. Whereas others might pretend to play it cool, Frank openly gaped and delighted in the building.
Marjorie smirked, watching him, then together they walked up the stairs to the second story.
“Is that your room?” Frank asked. His voice had lost its playful tone.
She turned her gaze down the hall—and her stomach dropped. The door was open.
Marjorie reached inside her rucksack, circling her fingers around the handgun. Whoever had been in there could possibly still be there.
Frank slowly approached the door, making as little sound as he could. Then, all at once he pushed the door in. He moved out of the way, so Marjorie could use the gun if needed. Thankfully, the room was empty.
But it was a mess. Someone had gone through all of Marjorie’s things. Clothes, papers, and books lay strewn over every available surface. Marjorie fingered a silk nightgown thrown over a chair. Her finger went through a large hole in the delicate fabric. “The savages,” she hissed. “This is utterly ruined!”
“Looking for something, they were,” said Frank. “What a hames.” He used his toe to flip over a book—Agatha Christie’s The Mystery of the Blue Train. The pages flapped loose from the cover.
Marjorie appraised the items in one quick glance. “Nothing seems to be missing.” She sighed.
“Do you know what they were after?”
Marjorie hesitated.
“You’re hiding something,” Frank said.
Caught, Marjorie felt hot anger rise in her. “In the past two days, I’ve been shot at, threatened with a knife, and followed. Of course I’m taking every pre—”
“No, you don’t trust me!”
“No, and why would I? I just met you, and you haven’t been honest with me from the beginning. You work for Nadine al-Eissa.”
He stopped, surprised and guilty. After a moment, he ran a hand through his already messy hair. He looked at the ground, considering. Then, his gaze met hers.
“Aye, that’s true,” he said. “And maybe I should’ve told you of it.”
But he didn’t have time to explain. A succession of quick knocks came at the door, cutting him off.
Whoever it was didn’t wait. They forcefully opened the door, and three men entered. They were clearly police officers, dressed in traditional garb with shiny square belt buckles, tall fezzes with fluttering tassels, and shiny black boots.
Marjorie demanded, “What’s going on here?”
Both Marjorie and Frank stood dumbstruck in the middle of overturned chairs, ripped garments, and upended tables. The men moved in. Two of them grabbed Frank under the arms. Marjorie tried to intervene, but she couldn’t get close. Frank fought the men, trying to pull free. In response, they became violent, and the officer that wasn’t holding him served a punch to his gut. Frank grunted, folding over on himself as much as the men holding him would allow. Then they started toward the door, pulling Frank out with them.
Marjorie jumped in between the last man and the door. “I demand you tell me what’s going on this instant.”
“This man is being arrested for breaking and entering,” the officer replied.
“But he didn’t do this!”
The police officer shrugged. “It’s something you need to take up with the authorities.” He barreled through, pushing her out of the way, and followed Frank’s retreating form.
“This is a misunderstanding!” Marjorie called out after them.
She followed, unsure what she could do, as they headed down the stairs and out into the street. There a car waited with its engine running and the exhaust escaping into the air in black clouds. Then, with as much care as a dog with a new toy, the officers wrestled Frank into the back of the car. Marjorie could do nothing but watch and worry as the vehicle drove away.
A hired car waited nearby, under the giant sycamore tree. The driver—a young man seemingly in his twenties about to light a pipe—had noticed the commotion but didn’t seem bothered by it.
“You!” Marjorie said, pointing to him. “Want to make a decent paycheck?”
His eyebrows rose, and he quickly shook out his match. “Oui, madame.”
Marjorie was in the car before the driver. As soon as he got in, she said, “Don’t lose that car.”
He looked over his left shoulder once to make sure no one was there, and then he punched it. The police car drove erratically, and following it wasn’t easy. Going too fast, it curved along the sides of roads. People crossing the street had to dive out of the way, not made any better by a second car coming up from behind.
“Don’t lose it!” Marjorie cried.
Finally, the car stopped in front of a sandstone building. Not particularly ornamental, it would’ve been easy to miss. The officers got out and pulled Frank into the front.
Marjorie opened the door. “Wait!” the driver said. He looked at her with impatience. Quickly, she dropped a large note into his hand but didn’t wait for change, then hurried inside.
She didn’t see Frank, but she did catch sight of a thick and hefty door closing. By the time she reached it, however, it was locked shut. A young man stood at the front desk, a dark wooden structure that separated the waiting area from the back. He coughed. Marjorie noticed he was dressed in the same garb as the men who had come into her room. Young, he had the wisps of a moustache growing on his upper lip—as though he had been trying to grow it for some time. He looked up at her, surprised. “Madame,” he said.
“The man they just brought in—”
“It’s police business,” he responded.
“They just arrested him. He didn’t do anything!”
He looked around, making sure they were alone. Then he whispered, “He was brought in for breaking into some poor woman’s hotel room.”
“My hotel room!”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” he said.
“No, you don’t seem to understand. He didn’t break in. All of a sudden, your officers showed up and grabbed him for no reason.”
“Oh,” the officer said. He seemed flustered, and his eyes kept darting around for help that would not come. Marjorie fumed, glaring daggers at him. “Not according to our records,” he managed after a moment.
Marjorie bit her lip in frustration. “Where is the person in charge?”
The boy jumped. “I-I’m afraid he’s gone home for the evening.”
“I demand to talk to someone,” Marjorie said.
The officer stared at her. “I’m sorry, madame,” he said. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
Marjorie huffed. Facing away from the officer, she tried to reel in her temper. Clearly being angry was not getting her anywhere. When she had sufficiently calmed, she turned around again. This time when she spoke, it was much more gently. “Officer, I’m very worried about my friend. The officers who came into my room were quite violent.”
The boy looked uncomfortable. He leaned forward after making sure they were still alone. “Madame, I didn’t say so, but it’s probably better if you forgot you knew your friend in there. There was a special order, and there’s nothing anyone in this building can do for him.”
He shuffled some papers on his desk, more likely to have something else to focus on than because he was actually using them. He practically disappeared behind the wooden desk.
Marjorie stood quietly, thinking. Maybe she didn’t know Frank that well, but clearly her father trusted him. Besides, she couldn’t let him disappear forever behind the locked door of bureaucracy. There was only one person she could think to turn to.
***
On the corner of the long avenue, a man painted the scene. Blue and yel
low dominated his color scheme. His canvas showed the rich, out to play again in the entertainment district. They were unhurried and unbothered. Within his brushstrokes, one could find the chiming of laughter and the saturation of jazz.
His brush must’ve caught Marjorie in that haze too, for she stood waiting outside the nightclub she had entered the other evening. So much had happened in forty-eight hours, and it was catching up to her. Her limbs felt as heavy as cement. But a purpose drove her, and she would not return to her room until she did everything she could to help Frank.
A large man at the door sorted the people who came in and out of Nadine’s club. He was built—perhaps during the day he was a laborer—and his left eyebrow arched in an expression that made him appear skeptical of everyone coming through. But he waved Marjorie inside without a problem.
More people crowded around the stage now than had the time she was here last. The same small singer prepared to go on stage, and the crowd buzzed with anticipation awaiting her performance.
Marjorie quickly went to the bar. A different barman dished cocktails of every color. There were many people waiting to be served, but he didn’t rush. Instead, he measured everything with care, the movements of a long-time professional.
“I’m looking for Nadine al-Eissa,” she told him.
He glanced at her under his eyebrows, pouring different spirits into a shaker, and then nodded.
Marjorie waited.
She watched the bartender slowly make his way to the other end of the bar. He caught a server, a man dressed in a red suit with gold buttons, and said something to him.
By this time, the young vocalist had started her set. No one else in the place moved, except for that server, who quickly made his way to the back of the establishment.
Finally, after a length, Marjorie was ushered into an office in the back. It was cramped, but neat. A curtain hung across one wall, so Marjorie didn’t know exactly what the inner layout of the room looked like. A large desk was placed in the middle so that anyone who came into the room had to stand before it. A throne of sorts, thought Marjorie.
There, Nadine sat calmly, a small glass of alcohol resting in front of her. Beside the glass sat a pen, papers, and a jar full of ink. She looked tired, but when she saw Marjorie her expression came alive and she lifted her hands into the air. Bracelets jingled on her arms like music.
“Miss Hart,” she said. “I’ve been expecting you.”
What are you up to? Marjorie wondered. She liked the woman—but she was most certainly hiding something. This was part of the game of investigative journalism. She knew she couldn’t really trust anyone, even if she wanted to. “Madame al-Eissa,” Marjorie greeted.
“Please, sit,” Nadine said, gesturing to a hard-backed chair across from her. Marjorie had the sense, sitting down, that she was a young girl again in trouble with the head mistress of the boarding school.
Nadine spread her arms on the table, her fingertips perched in a triangle just below her chin. Her expression was sly, but at least she smiled. “It’s a busy evening in Cairo tonight,” she said. She reached across the desk and picked up a cigarette lodged in a cigarette holder. Then, with a snap of her fingers, a man appeared from behind the curtain. He lit a match and brought it to the cigarette, then disappeared behind the curtain once again. Nadine placed the tip in her mouth and inhaled. When she breathed out, the smoke rolled out of her mouth in one thick cloud.
Marjorie didn’t see the point in beating around the bush. “Do you know anything about the raid on my hotel room this evening?”
Nadine’s expression didn’t change. “They didn’t find what they were looking for? Mais non.”
It wasn’t really an answer. Two could play that game. “The police seem to be confused. They took your associate, Mr. Ryan.”
Nadine tapped the cigarette holder on an ash tray, and black dust fell out. Her eyes glittered as they studied Marjorie. “Handsome men,” she said. “They’ll be the death of us, no?”
“Are you going to help him?” Marjorie asked.
Nadine sighed. Suddenly she seemed very sad. “You and Mr. Ryan have attracted the attention of some powerful people, Miss Hart. I’m not sure how much I can do. This is a very difficult task.”
“But you’ll try?”
“Why, Miss Hart, I do believe you care.”
Marjorie could’ve kicked herself—her heart was right out there on her sleeve. Also, she didn’t fully understand herself. She hadn’t even known Frank for a full day, and here she was, putting her neck on the line for him. He was important to Father, she reminded herself.
“Is there anything you can do?” Marjorie asked.
Nadine’s smile resurfaced, this time wicked and cunning. In a flash, Marjorie knew the price she would pay would be high. But she didn’t have any other options—if she didn’t do something now, Frank Ryan would disappear, rotting inside an Egyptian cell or perhaps much worse. Maybe he was already lost.
“Perhaps,” Nadine said. “But it would be a favor. Are you willing to owe me a favor in return?”
Marjorie, having decided already, didn’t hesitate. “Done.”
Nadine leaned back, obviously delighted. Her smile was as wide as the Chesire Cat’s from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. “I’ll see what I can do. Go back to your hotel, Miss Hart. Someone will contact you in the morning.”
Chapter Fourteen
In the morning after very little sleep, Marjorie received a telephone call to her hotel room. By that time, she had mostly finished repacking her travel chest and cleaning up. She also had read through all of Dr. Hafez’s research on the bronze ox.
On the second ring, Marjorie picked up. “Hello?”
“Mr. Ryan will be dropped at his apartment,” the voice said.
Marjorie scribbled down an address, and then the line went dead. She moved quickly—grabbing her rucksack and camera—and called for a car.
Frank lived in a room above a shop on the main road outside of downtown. The location was out of the way and comfortable, the corner building on a street a block or two from a Coptic church—a large and ornate sandstone structure with beautifully carved red wooden doors that, because of its large size, towered over the remaining buildings. The store below Frank’s apartment sold textiles and carpets, which overflowed out into the street. This was where an automobile, a Dion-Bouton with its roof up, dropped Frank then sped away, leaving the man in a cloud of dust. He was coughing and struggling to get up by the time Marjorie reached him. He looked awful—dried blood on his lip and a bruised cheek.
“Mr. Ryan—” she started. She tried to help him, but he shrugged her off.
“It looks a mess,” he said, “but I’m grand.” He put a hand on his ribs, feeling around. “Nothing’s broke.” He winced. “Just bruised. Ow.”
“What happened last night?”
Frank continued probing at his ribs. Finally satisfied, he moved to his face. He wiped at the crust of blood with the back of his sleeve. That shirt, Marjorie noticed, was ruined. She waited for his answer.
After a moment he looked at her, his expression dazed. “It was just a bit of a rough up. They didn’t even ask me a thing. All they said was that someone had it out for me.”
“But who?” asked Marjorie.
He shook his head while struggling to stand. Marjorie reached out and let him use her weight to right himself. “Let me help you upstairs.”
“The entrance is around the side,” Frank told her. He gestured to the side street, where there was a small green door in need of a good layer of fresh paint.
They took the stairs up, which led to a very small but comfortable space—one room that housed a bed, a large desk stacked with books, and a bookshelf. The kitchen was nonexistent—only a very small stove and a tea kettle—but there was a sprawling balcony where a few rosemary plants languished. These small plants soaked up the sun and the noise from the city.
Frank disappeared into a small bathroom on the
far side of the room, holding his side and limping a little bit. The sound of water rushing through pipes came and went, and he came back out with a glass of water. “It’s not much, but it’s home,” he said, leaning against the doorframe that separated the bathroom from the rest of the room. If he wasn’t bruised and scabbed, he might’ve almost looked at ease.
“It’s lovely,” Marjorie said. She stood with one foot inside the room and one outside on the balcony, imagining Frank out on there, reading and working and drinking coffee.
“I’ve been here two years,” Frank said. “Longest I’ve stayed anywhere since Ireland.”
“Do you miss it?”
He looked down and away. “Sometimes. But home’s not the same since Mother passed on.”
“I know how that feels,” Marjorie said.
Frank reached around his neck and pulled out a necklace. Marjorie recognized it as the one he had been wearing at the restaurant, the one he had not really wanted her to see. He held it out to her, and she crossed the small room to take it in her hand.
The worked metal felt warm from his skin. On the chain sat a Celtic knot, a tree with swooping lines. The ground and the leaves were connected by a large circle. Marjorie turned it over. There was something written on the back, but she couldn’t read it.
Frank spoke, “Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine. It’s means: Under the shelter of each other, people survive.”
“That’s beautiful,” Marjorie said. She ran her fingers over the charm one last time and handed it back to him.
“My mother used to say it a lot. I think that’s when I first became interested in the Tree of Life. She gave me this before I left for Trinity College.”
Silence stretched between them, and Marjorie looked up. He was staring at her, intense, and she felt blood rush to her face. To push down the discomfort, she turned to business. “Yesterday morning I found out an artifact was discovered.”
“Oh?”
“I ran into—” Marjorie looked for the word— “an unfortunate acquaintance. Dr. Percival Baxter.”
From her rucksack, she took out the newspaper. She spread it out on a small table. Frank ran a hand over the pages, smoothing them down.
