Mother Nile Read online

  Stepping outside, he scowled at the old lady and the half-naked children. But he reserved his coldest contempt for the boy who had led him here. He had not paid him. It was comforting to remember, somehow softening his rage. He stood in the blazing sun, confused, unable to act.

  “Go away,” a cracked voice said from behind him.

  Turning, he confronted the old woman’s face, haggard, wrinkled like a prune. One eye had a cast to it. The other, squinting and black in its wrinkled sack, seemed like the evil eye of his mother’s earliest admonitions. “You must avoid the evil eye,” she had warned when he was a boy, invoking an image that had once frightened him into submission.

  He recalled how much he had feared such ideas, the evil eye, the wrath of Allah, the sting of the unseen cobra. When he grew older, he had admonished her. He was sure she believed it.

  “Superstitious camel dung,” he shouted at the old woman, feeling now the cutting edge of his own exhaustion, consumed by the dust and heat and squalor, the jet lag, the stink, the hopeless illogic of it.

  “Listen, you witch,” he hissed. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “You will never find her,” the old woman said. A dribble of spit lingered on the lower lip of her toothless mouth.

  “So you do know something.”

  Two younger men came out of the other room and came toward them.

  “He comes to make trouble,” the old crone cackled in an angry voice.

  “Trouble?” The idea was confusing and he wanted to protest. The sense of menace was pervasive. It was time to retreat, to sort things out. He hadn’t expected this.

  “I’ll be back,” he murmured, moving away, refusing to run, hoping that his slow withdrawal would show them his determination.

  He was soon bobbing again like a piece of flotsam in this river of misery, totally disoriented. Stopping people to ask directions on how to get out of this mad hellhole, he received conflicting information. Nothing was visible in the distance. The brown hills of Muquatt were completely obliterated in the shimmering polluted heat. He was lost in nowhere.

  Yet even that sense of floating rootlessness was less troubling than his confrontation in the Al-Hakim mausoleum. There, he had felt a sense of psychic danger. Physical danger he could understand, and strangely he felt immune to that. What did it matter how he felt? He was a sitting duck for anyone taking it into his head to be belligerent. He did not look behind him as he had done earlier, oblivious to being followed, pushing forward relentlessly, determined to get loose of this place, the living and the dead, and get back to his hotel.

  The recollection of his shabby urine-smelling room, with its peeling green wallpaper and opaque glass wall designs of ibis-headed gods, was almost comforting. He had not slept well, tumbling into the rickety bed after his flight from London. The outside din had been relentless. Obviously, he had learned the hard way, the city never slept. Inside, the ceiling fan screeched on its faulty bearing, while the toilet dripped and faceless guests pursued noisy nightmares.

  Then, suddenly, the boy appeared in front of him. He had found a comparatively shady alleyway where the mausoleum walls were high enough to create an envelope of shadows. The boy was actually leaning against a wall, graceful as a high-legged bird, his long neck stretched in an elastic furtive gesture, as if he were looking about him at all sides at once. He had, it seemed, deliberately chosen this spot.

  “I should break your ass,” Si said, but the benign, smooth face with the enigmatic smile had already disarmed him.

  “I keep my word,” the boy said, straightening and urging by his look for him to fall in step.

  “You owe me one helluva explanation.”

  “Later.”

  The boy held a tapered finger to his lips, then moved swiftly through the crowds, taking unexpected turnings to avoid curious onlookers. Si discovered that they were surprisingly close to the edge of the necropolis, and in a remarkably short time they had passed through a crumbling archway and were moving swiftly down a wide traffic-choked street.

  They walked along the edge of a ruined aqueduct for some time, then turned into a warren of narrow streets lined with decaying buildings. As before, the boy moved swiftly and Si had to jog to keep up.

  In the midst of a crowded, noisy bazaar, the boy stopped.

  “Where are you staying?” the boy asked.

  “Hotel Genaina.” The boy recognized the name and gave him careful instructions.

  “We do business now,” the boy said when he had completed the directions.

  “Not until you tell me what was going on back there.”

  He watched the boy’s eyes grow inert, peering outward through a self-protective glaze, not unlike that of the old man. It reminded him of his previous frustration and made him angry.

  “Dammit. I have to know,” Si said.

  “We must continue the original business,” the boy said quietly. Si watched him, shook his head, and threw some coins onto the ground. The boy looked at them, stooped, and gathered them up.

  “I’ll see you around, kid.” He took a few steps and, for some reason, could not resist a last look at the boy.

  A gust of breeze had flattened his djellaba, and the background of sharp sunlight made the material translucent. He saw the distinct unmistakable outlines of high small breasts. The boy was not a boy at all.

  Chapter Three

  Mocked by the ibis-headed god on the translucent panel that separated the toilet closet from the sleeping portion of his hotel room, Si lay in a pool of sweat on the bumpy bed. They had not changed the sheets or made the bed properly, and when he turned restlessly, he could see the edges of the stained mattress. The ceiling fan squeaked and labored ineffectively. From the streets rose the perpetual din. Auto horns tooted like irrepressible bratty children vying for attention. Noxious fumes seeped into the room, adding a choking pall to the overheated air.

  Too many people, he thought, glimpsing an image of a slithering mass of humanity locked in a snake pit. Why had his mother left Isis in this cesspool? Twenty-seven years was a nodule on a pimple on the ass of time in this weird shithouse of a country. He acknowledged that he had deliberately sought out the lower depths to spare expenses and the visit to the strange necropolis was obviously inhabited by the poverty stricken, random squatters and lost souls.

  Whatever wealth existed was in the hands of those who lived elsewhere. But why would his mother leave her child in such a squalid environment? Perhaps it might not have been as bad then. Had his saintly mother deliberately abandoned her baby? It was completely out of character. Then why hadn’t she gone back to claim her child? It puzzled him. Tears welled in his eyes.

  The sweat pools in his bed gave him the sensation of melting while the fan on the ceiling pressed on valiantly, its rhythmic screeching like the dying gasps of a faulty heart.

  He tried to shut out the sounds and smells, to concentrate only on actualizing the image of his half sister. He tried to fathom the connection. Wasn’t that what his mother had intended? Isis and Osiris. Like Damon and Pythias, Romeo and Juliet, the sun and the moon.

  What did she look like? Was she black-haired, fair-skinned like him? What did she feel? Had she brooded, searched for, yearned to touch her lost mother? How much pain was there? Pain of loneliness? Pain of loss? Pain of abandonment? It was then he felt the corrosive power of guilt. Had he taken away all of Isis’s mother love?

  A sharp stab tingled the flesh of his lower thigh. He slapped and crushed a fat insect. It had bitten him and he felt the welt rise and an itch begin that destroyed his drowsiness. His eyes remained shut, but his ears could not close themselves to the sounds.

  Finally, they became indistinguishable, like a vast symphony orchestra straining for a single effect. A discordant note intruded, a scratching sound. It seemed like some animal, a dog or cat. He sat up, listening. He was on the floor above the street. A door
way led to a small narrow balcony. Apparently, the price of the room was directly related to the distance from the human swarm. He had deliberately taken the least expensive room.

  Padding silently toward the slatted balcony door, he peeked out through one of the many busted and awry slats. A person was out there. No animal.

  The door opened and the streetlights’ reflection sketched the unmistakable outlines of a human being. Si stepped farther into the shadows.

  It was only when the presence was halfway into the room that he lunged, locking on to a surprisingly wiry figure who struggled fiercely against his hammerlock.

  Dragging the silent grunting carcass, he kicked a light switch with his elbow, and a naked bulb brightened the room.

  “Not you!” he said with some disgust when he recognized the face of the girl. Seeing that it was Si, she stopped resisting.

  “What the hell…” he began in exasperation as the girl slipped downward, out of his grasp, squatting against the wall.

  Moving back, he sat on the bed, suddenly aware of his nakedness, gathering a sheet to cover his exposed genitals. When she raised her head, he noted a bruise around one eye, dried blood near her nostrils, and a swollen upper lip.

  “Did I do that?” he asked. She shook her head, obviously too upset to talk. Still holding the sheet in front of him, he drew her a tumbler of water from a green-encrusted wall sink. Her shaking hands reached out and she managed to tip the glass against her swollen lip for a brief sip.

  “You also in the thief business?”

  She took a deep breath, determined to calm herself, obviously embarrassed by her predicament. Backing toward the bed, he sat down again and watched her.

  “I wasn’t sure this was your room,” she whispered. “The concierge wouldn’t let me in.”

  Crumpled against the wall, she looked pitiful. The naked light made her djellaba seem dirtier than it had looked at the cemetery. Raising her eyes to him, she squinted into the bulb and covered her injured face. Now that he knew she was a female, he detected a note of vanity in the gesture. In deference to her discomfort, he got up and flicked off the switch. A glow of streetlight through the still-opened balcony door illumined the room. The softer light apparently made her more comfortable, and she removed her hand from her face.

  “They beat me.” She raised her chin pugnaciously. “But I told them nothing. Nothing.” He detected her pride in that.

  “What was there to tell?”

  “Your hotel. Why you were looking for her.” She paused. “Isis.” She spat out the name like a curse. “I didn’t know it was that Isis. Not until I felt it in that place.”

  He was totally confused.

  “Felt what?”

  She looked up at him with obvious rebuke.

  “That you were looking for Zakki’s Isis.”

  More confusion. He suppressed the questions, waiting for her to gather her thoughts. But the name jogged his memory. Zakki! It was his mother’s death rattle.

  The girl began, “He is a very important man. Very powerful. He comes frequently in his big car, sitting in the backseat, watching. Always watching. Searching. Everyone knows he is searching for Isis. They say that all the hashish is his. He is very powerful. And guarded by dark, cruel men. He has always come. Everyone will tell you that.” She squirmed and probed her bruises with her fingers. “There is no place to hide from him. His men beat me.” She lapsed into silence.

  “Why?” He could no longer keep it contained. She shrugged.

  “No one knows.”

  “Is he her father?”

  She looked at him with sudden alertness, her eyes open now, like big puddles.

  “You said she was your sister?”

  She seemed to shrink back, in confusion.

  “Half sister. We have the same mother.”

  Frown lines formed on her forehead.

  “I’ve come to find her.” He hoped she wouldn’t ask why. There would be no adequate way to explain it. Not now. She spared him the explanation, and if she turned the question over in her mind, she avoided giving voice to it.

  “They offered money,” she said, defiantly.

  “You should have taken it.” So they would have found him. He refused to show her his fear.

  She looked aghast.

  “They are cruel men. They kill. There is no way to resist.” He wondered if, for some reason, she was overdramatizing, although he felt some self-rebuke in his lack of trust. She was, he already knew, not what she appeared.

  “You resisted,” he said. It added fuel to her obvious exasperation.

  “And look what I got for my troubles,” she spat angrily. “I came here to warn you.”

  “About what?”

  She began to sulk.

  “Look, I don’t know any more about where Isis is than they do,” Si explained. “I don’t even know what she looks like. All I know is that she was born in December 1951 in Alexandria. That she was left with people in the Al-Hakim mausoleum. Long before both of us were born.” He looked at her, trying to appear compassionate. “They know more than I do.” He deliberately told her nothing of the last word his mother had uttered.

  She remained silent for a long time.

  “You’re stupid. You don’t know a thing. They are not looking for this Isis… this half sister of yours… out of love. You have only to look at them.”

  “So they’ll bang me around a bit. That won’t solve anything.” A confrontation was inevitable. Perhaps this is what explained his mother’s fear. Her silence.

  “You’re an idiot…” Her voice trailed off. With some difficulty, she edged up the wall and started toward the open balcony door.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Away from here. From you.” Despite her anger, her appearance of defenselessness moved him. “You’ve caused me enough trouble.”

  “You better rest,” he said gently.

  “If they find out that I came here and talked to you, they will break my legs.”

  “They said that?”

  “That’s their business. They are very powerful. I believe their threats.”

  “You’d better rest first.”

  She clutched her stomach, revealing the full extent of her beating. She had not exaggerated their cruelty. Reaching toward her, he grasped her shoulders. She shrugged him loose.

  “You can’t go now. You’re hurt.”

  “They could have done worse.”

  “I know,” he said, gripping her arm. She tried to break free, but his hold was strong and her strength had waned.

  “Get on the bed. We’ll decide in the morning.”

  “Decide what?” Her terror was palpable as she looked toward the bed.

  “I won’t rape you.” He held her now in a tight embrace, feeling the unmistakable outlines of her slim woman’s body. She stiffened, started to protest, then surrendered.

  “It is easier to be a man,” she murmured.

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  “You don’t know this land.” She was obviously too exhausted to explain further. He lifted her and put her on the bed, placing a pillow under her head. Then he lay down beside her and watched her face. In silhouette, the illusion of her maleness faded.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “Seventeen,” she whispered. Her eyes were closed, and she sighed.

  “You won’t tell.”

  “Your secret is safe with me.” He hid his smile behind his hand. She nodded.

  “You’re one gutsy little lady,” he said.

  “Maybe like Isis,” she whispered.

  “Maybe.”

  He watched her slip off. When he was sure she was asleep, he leaned over her and kissed her forehead.

  Now why did I do that, he wondered?

  Chapter Four


  The dressing rooms assigned to the six background belly dancers of Auberge des Pyramides was an accurate measure of their status in the pecking order of entertainers in the big, ornate, Hollywood-fantasy-style nightclub that sat like a brassy whore on the road to the Giza pyramids. The girls were crowded into a hot, semi-partitioned cubicle furnished with six chairs and a sliver of cracked mirror that had to accommodate all of them, despite the fact that their livelihood depended on an elaborate preparation of makeup and costuming.

  The state of emotion was one of nerve-racking chaos as the girls approached the zero hour of their performance, the first of two that they would have to do that night. The room was permeated with the odor of female sweat, cheap perfume, and cigarette smoke.

  Since it was her first night, Farrah had little experience in coping with these new conditions. Now she had to elbow her way through the wall of flesh to get even a cursory peek at her face, hair, and costume.

  Not that it had been much different at every Cairo nightclub that she had played since she was fourteen years old. She was eighteen now, seasoned by a special strategy of survival, which demanded a hard, arrogant crust and an imperious air.

  Her father had brought her to the Auberge when she was a tiny girl. Not inside. In the parking lot, where he rubbed the dust off the beautiful cars for baksheesh, most of which went for hash. She didn’t know that then, enjoying the sights of the glittering people who went into that magical place and the show people who lingered there between the performances. In the glow of the parking lot’s string of colored lights, she resolved to be a dancer. Her father prevailed upon the lounging girls to teach her the complicated routines.

  She was not considered an especially gifted belly dancer. But her wide eyes, with big puddles of green, peering out of her oval face like giant emeralds, her luminous black hair, long shapely legs, and glowing olive skin edged her a hairsbreadth over the line that separated the inept from the mediocre.