Triumphant Sun PDF

In the interests of keeping things up to date, I have created a PDF of Triumphant Sun, edited for clarity(and so that I can remember what's going on!), and I'm going to post it here.

Then maybe I'll, you know. Write a little.

Triumphant Sun, Pt. 22

Evan was sitting in the lobby of the hotel, lighting a cigarette, when Samira returned from the university. He tried his best not to smirk at the look of surprise and confusion on her face when she saw him sitting at a table, tapping her key-card on the metal rim. She hesitated for a moment, poised on her front foot like a dancer who'd forgotten her routine.
“Left this in the cab. I would have called you, but...” He shrugged disarmingly.
“Oh.” The tone of Samira's voice sounded not at all amused. Nevertheless, she sat down at the table and pulled a cigarette from Evan's pack. He wordlessly handed her a lighter and she leaned back, inhaling deeply. “Thanks.”
“Not at all.” Evan stared at her through the curlicues of smoke. “How was your interview?”
“Interview?”
“Weren't you going to...
“Oh, it was fine,” interrupted Samira. “I guess. It could have been better.”
“I'm sorry to hear that.”
Evan heard the note of tension in her voice. “Any particular reason?”
“Just not very helpful, you know?”
Evan nodded. “I do. Welcome to Cairo.”
They sat in an awkward silence for a moment, neither willing to probe or break the other's reverie. The cigarettes smoldered down to crinkled stubs and Evan's coffee was reduced to grounds swirling in fractal patterns along the bottom of the cup.
Finally, Evan spoke. "So what is your story about?"
Samira stared at him for a moment with an unblinking gaze. Then her shoulders slumped and she dropped her eyes. "To be honest, I don't really know. I had one idea when I got here - I had a lot of ideas, honestly, and they all turned out to be wrong."
"Yeah, but what were you thinking of writing?" pressed Evan.
Samira sighed. "I don't know, it was something to do with the old houses in Cairo - you know, the ones all over Zamalek."
"Like the one you grew up in?"
Samira's eyes narrowed. "What does that mean? How do you know that?"
A smile crept up one side of Evan's face. "I didn't, but now I do.
Samira couldn't help but laugh. "I guess I deserved that. Anyways, I don't really know what I'm doing with it any more. There isn't really a story."
Evan thought for a moment. "You know, I have a friend who definitely has an in with the kind of people who are in those houses, if you want to talk to him."
"Really?"
"For sure. But...you have to talk to me about something."
Evan caught a flash of suspicion, quickly veiled, behind her slate-grey eyes. "What's that?"
He leaned forward. "Have you heard of General Abdel-Kareem?"

Triumphant Sun, Pt. 20

Part 20:

Samira leaned heavily on the door of the main campus building. The wooden doors opened with a grudging squeal of hinges into the dim, arched stairway, rows of marble steps illuminated with shafts of lighting cutting through the dust filled air. It was quiet; the sounds of the city faded into a a distant hum. She padded softly up the steps, footfalls echoing under the arched ceiling. She'd always loved the High Orientalist drama of the building's architecture, particularly the high arches that absorbed sound like a vault.

A back door hidden in an out of the way nook led her out on to the roof of the building, overlooking the courtyard with its fountains and spreading trees providing pools of shade. The top of the AUC building was a strange and somewhat random mess of worker's shacks, air conditioners, skylights and a peculiar, winding path that traced its way around the entire complex. She followed it now, ignoring the bemused looks of a few of the university's laborers taking time off for a smoke. Finally, she found the door she'd been looking for and slipped inside.

She found the office without trouble. The door was ajar, still plastered in yellow, curling clips from the Times of London, Al-Akhbar, and a dozen other papers. The nameplate had fallen at an alarming angle, held on by a single rusted screw, and a folder bulging with students papers listed at a similarly perilous slant. With a light knock, she pushed the door open.

“Yaa ustaaza!” she cried. Her voice raised itself louder than she'd meant to, and Professor Khalida Maalouf started, nearly knocking over a cup of coffee. She peered at Samira over gold, half-moon reading glasses. “Remember me, ustaaza?”

Professor Maalouf blinked. “Samira? What are you doing here?” She raised herself out of her chair, brushing away the hand Samira offered in support and grasping her head for a firm kiss on each cheek. Samira felt a wave of nostalgia at the sandalwood scent of her imported perfume and the firm, dry sensation of her palms. “My god, how many years....” The diminutive woman rushed about the room moving papers and books, clearing a space in the encroaching chaos that had only reached new heights since Samira had last seen the office. A line of gilt-edged bone china coffee cups marched across an Alpine range of scholarly journals and essays like Hannibal's elephants, and she had to steady a few as Khalida shuffled paper aside.

“Sit down, sit down,” she insisted. “Here, I'll call Mehmet for some coffee.”

“Sayyida, that's not...”

“Oh, don't call me sayyida, please, it's absurd. I'm not Methsuelah,” the professor cut her off. “Mehmet!” she cried through the open door.

A tall, somewhat absurdly good-looking young man appeared at the door, the almost feminine angles of his face marred only by a patchy beard and the rough zebiba that came from excessive devotion during daily prayers. He wore a pair of ancient trousers, cuffed high in the style of devout Muslims, and, incongruously, a faded Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt. “Two coffees for Samira and myself, please,”she asked in English.”

“Yaa, sayyida.” He padded away silently on a pair of battered leather slippers that seemed to be held together more by faith than thread. “Incorrigible,” growled Khalida. “He's a nice enough boy, although I don't think he approves of my clothes.”

If he was as orthodox a Muslim as he appeared, thought Samira, she'd have to agree. Though the professor was almost seventy, she still dressed with the same cosmopolitan, European flair she'd always displayed – a product of the monarchy and the Nasser years, her elegantly draped shawl and skirt-suit bespoke the kind of expensive, international refinement that had once defined Cairo's elite.

“So, Samira – of all the people I'd expect to see, you are definitely one of the most surprising.”

“I only just arrived this week. I'm taking the Cairo desk here,” she said, pride slipping into her voice despite her best efforts.

Triumphant Sun, Pt, 19

Samira checked her pace before the arched gate of the American University. The guards appeared as lethargic as she rememberd, but she still approached with trepidation. She ran a hand along the fringe of her scarf, tucking stray hairs in place. It might be the most liberal campus in Egypt, but propriety might get her through the gauntlet she was about to run. The men at the gate had maintained, unusually for Cairo, scrupulous rules about who could and could not enter. Understandable for a center of moderate, Westernized education that the Muslim Brotherhood would probably dearly love to immolate.

The strange meeting in the car still revolved through her brain. Evan Rochester’s manner had simultaneously put her off and piqued her interest. The memory stuck with her, and she didn't feel certain that he was entirely appealing. If he'd simply tried to seduce her, she might have humored him, but the predatory cleverness in his eyes gave her a sensation she disliked. Still, she might have been too brusque...but the thing was over. Not much point in dwelling on it.

She walked up to the guard, a warm smile carefully placed on her lips, her passport poised between her fingers; in a moment, he had taken down her information and swept her through carelessly. The smoothness of the whole transaction almost made her double back in surprise. Surely he'd want more than name and passport number? If she'd had to convince him a little, lay a hand on his arm - it threw her off balance. It wasn't the '90s any more, she reflected. True, as a English national she wasn't precisely public enemy number one. With a bag full of needles and tubes of liquid, however, it seemed like security theater at its weakest.

Students swirled through the campus in clusters, forming and reforming around the pools of shade. They watched the games that played out on the basketball and tennis courts, clouds of reddish clay dust hovering over the players. The site was familiar to her, though fashions had moved on slightly from tennis whites. Though she knew that the tide of conservative Islam had risen even here, she was surprised by the number of hijabs she saw - none with the full head-to-toe, eye-slit niqab, but everything up to that point.

Triumphant Sun, Pt. 18

A thousand apologies for this much-delayed post. I actually saw a surge of hits on Thursday night/Friday morning - it was really rewarding to see that people have a real interest in reading, but it also puts the pressure on me. I guess I just got caught up in the hectic turmoil of inauguration week.

I'd also like to ask two small favors of my readers - first, if you have any questions, suggestions or complaints about where the story has gone or where the plot is going, let me know! That's the beauty of this format. Second, if I don't know you or I just don't know that you're reading, leave me a note saying hello and wherever you're from. Maybe it's working at a writing & development firm, but I love to find out demographics.

Anyways, here's Part 18:

Triumphant Sun

Evan recalled a connection between Samira's father and General Abdel-Kareem. There wasn't much chance that it had anything to do with his investigation, but he might find something he could use, some lead he could follow. He'd read an interview with Lena Crane, the English actress who married an Egyptian, General Rahman and made a splash in the London tabloids. To find his daughter here in Cairo so many years later was a lucky break.

He shook his head. She was staring at him curiously, trying to parse what meaning he might have gleaned from her name. That fixed gaze had a disconcerting effect on
him; he found himself biting at the back of his dry lips in distraction

“Did you know my father?” she asked.

“No, no. But I knew of him. Read about him. Are they here now, or in London?”

“Both passed away; my father here, my mother in London a few years ago.” She paused. “Allah yarhamhum.” She added the Arabic blessing for the dead almost as an afterthought, a dimly remembered but instinctive reaction. “What brought you to Cairo, then?”

Evan opened his mouth to speak but stopped for a moment. Too direct, and she might shy away from helping him. On the other hand, if he lost track of her it would be difficult to find her easily among Cairo's millions. “I'm writing a story, actually. It's being going on for a while now. Hopefully I'll be able to file it soon.”

An expression Evan couldn't identify flicked across Samira's face. Did she already know who he was after, what he was chasing? He pressed on. “You know this city well, don't you?”

“It's been more than a few years,” she replied.

“Still, you might be able to help me out. I'm sure of it, actually.” He pulled a card from his pocket and offered it to her. “Could I get a number, something to get a hold of you later on? I might have a few questions for you.”

Samira took the card, examined it for a moment and slipped it into her purse as the taxi rolled to a stop in front of the American University campus. She dropped a five-pound note in the driver's hand and stepped smoothly out of the cab.

“I'll let you know,” she said over her shoulder.

Evan sat for a moment, watching her fade into the hustling crowd through the metal frame of the taxi's open door. He felt a vague sense of guilt mixed with satisfaction as he toyed with the hotel key-card that had fallen, unseen, out of her pocket and onto the seat as she left. Maybe he should have let her know, but after she brushed him off that way, it was really his only chance. He grinned as he paid the driver the rest of his fare.

Triumphant Sun, Pt. 16

I hope to be bringing regular updates throughout the New Year - 52 minimum, inshallah. That's my resolution, and I'm sticking to it if it kills me.

It may yet kill me.

Also, if anyone who was in Egypt can remind me of the name of those delicious fried-dough pastries people had for breakfast, I'd be much obliged. I can't find a reference in my blog, diary, or on the internet.

Edit - fateer! I remembered.

Thanks!

***

Evan munched contentedly on his fateer, watching the flow of pedestrians eddy and flow around the chaos of the sidewalks. An old woman leaned against the cracking plaster of the wall down the street, wrapped in black rags and a white hijab, proffering a lined hand for alms. Her eyes gazed into the middle distance with the vague confusion of the almost blind. Evan counted out the change from Hamid and placed it in her outstretched palm.

“Shukran, shukran ya basha,” she began to thank Evan.

“No, it's nothing.” Evan walked to the corner and finished his breakfast, leaning against the dusty wall. He felt a vague sense of guilt eating next to the blind woman. She couldn't see him and his meal was as common and basic as they came, he couldn't help feeling over-indulgent as he licked the last of the honey from his fingers. The sun was beginning to peek over the rooftops, sending bars of light cascading down the street, and on an impulse, Evan decided to take a cab down to Islamic Cairo. He wouldn't find a lead there – far from it – but at present, the dry heat and buzz of the city made him wish for nothing more than to sit in the shade of an alley and pass the day smoking shisha and reading.

Evan knew he ought to try to hunt down someone at the Mogamma, but the idea of spending the day in the faded, claustrophobic rooms of that hellish building was too daunting. He stepped to the corner and flagged down a taxi that was slowing to a halt in front of the café across the street. Ducking under the sill, he slipped into the bead-covered back seat.

A woman stood frozen in the opposite door of the cab, half crouched in the act of entering the car. She wore a broad, brightly patterned teal headscarf that draped loosely around the lower half of her hair and western jeans tucked into high leather boots. For a moment she made as if to tug her scarf up around the loose waves of hair gleaming blackish red in the sun, then dropped them to her side and seated herself beside him

“Sorry...” began Evan in Arabic.

“It's fine. I'm going to the American University,” she said brusquely in English. “You?”

Evan was taken aback by the sudden switch in language. “How'd you know I speak English?” was all he could blurt out.

She looked him up and down, her grey-green irises raking quickly across him. A smile twitched at her mouth. “It's obvious. So, where are you going?”

The cab driver turned around and stared at the two. “Excuse me, but where to?”

“The American University is fine,” said Evan. “That's close to where I'm going.” He turned back to the woman, still staring at him with suspicion in her eyes and amusement on her lips. “Sorry, but I'm very inconsiderate. My name is Evan Rochester.” He proffered his hand.

She shook it lightly, her hands dry and slightly cool. “Samira Mohammed Crane.”

Triumphant Sun, Pt. 15

Much delayed, I'm afraid. I'm outlining the plot for the next few installments - rest assured great things shall happen. But I want it to really be good, so I'm taking my time crafting that part.

***

Billowing clouds of off-white smoke obscured the street from the entrance of Evan’s building. He peered into the haze and perceived the shape of an old pickup truck, spewing out clouds of some mosquito repellent. Probably DDT, he reflected ruefully. Beams of sunlight filtered through the air, refracted into twisting edges of light. He seemed trapped in a bubble – unable to see beyond the corner of the street, the sounds of the city muffled and distant.

For a moment, he paused, watching the mist swirl, then pushed through, holding his breath, to clearer air down the street. Tendrils of white curled around the trees and fences, snaking under the cars and casting the whole scene in a kind of impressionist fog. A soldier leaned, head bent in the act of lighting a cigarette, against his wooden post. Evan took a deep breath, and coughed slightly. An ache in his side reminded him that he still hadn't eaten yet, and he headed for the corner.

A small crowd had queued in front of the compact pastry stall, crouched at the corner of two dilapidated colonial buildings, run by a Saidi named Hamid. His ashy, charcoal skin and oddly square, professorial spectacles gave him the demeanour of a tenured professor of African Literature. He had an aversion to smoking that relaxed only long enough for him to share his clientele with the ahwa across the street, but he chewed packs of imported gum with a singular ferocity.

"Sabah al-khayr," called Evan as he reached the stall.

"Sabah al-nour, sabah al-fuul, replied Hamid effusively, playing the old Egyptian game of topping another's greeting with one's own, more dramatic reply. Thus, 'morning of goodness' gave way to 'morning of light' - and, oddly, of chickpeas. Uncontrolled, it could swing back and forth until someone dropped a game-stopping 'Morning of Allah,' which, for obvious reasons, could not really be topped.

"Just a couple with honey, Hamid." Evan's stomach rumbled as he watched the man expertly flip circles of flat, light pastry dough onto a griddle and pour honey from a rusty iron bowl. The result was a flaky, sweet meal that was good just as long as it remained hot.

Triumphant Sun, Pt. 14

A bent, old man whose face was covered in fine wrinkles set down her coffee and her shisha with a gaptoothed grin and retreated to his permanent post before the flickering television which flashed back and forth between grey and color images. The first sip burnt her lips and she barely avoided spilling the coffee in surprise. She turned her chair so that the flash of the TV no longer hovered at the edge of her vision and puffed thoughtfully on the pipe, watching the cars tracing their chaotic paths across the square.

She'd begun to realize that she really had no leads for the story she wanted to write – no idea who owned the grand houses in Zamalek and in the wealthy suburbs. Once, her father would have known all the owners, her mother would have been to parties at each of them, but now they were as mysterious to her as any tourist. Most of them wouldn't appreciate a journalist poking into them either – they'd send her packing in an instant.

She sipped the coffee again, now cool enough to drink. The taste rolled around on her tongue, at once sweet, bitter and slightly gritty from the fine grounds. Good, but far from the best she'd had. Even in London, there had been a Lebanese cafe down the street from her office where she'd had cup after cup of coffee while trying to finish her deadlines. She fished in her bag for a notebook and her insulin and opened it on the metal table.

Swearing under her breath, she realised she'd forgotten her meter, and paused a moment before simply guessing at the number and dialing in a few units. She earned a few strange glances from the ahwa's denizens as she slipped the needle under the hem of her blouse and injected herself. By this point, she'd grown accustomed to the stares of strangers confused by the operations of her disease. Still, it felt unusually awkward on a street corner in Cairo.

Triumphant Sun, Pt. 13

Samira's head felt full of sand and cotton wool as she levered herself out of sleep. Her tongue had the thick, tingling sensation that meant something was wrong with her blood sugar, and she moaned quietly to herself and shuffled across the room to her desk, sheets still looped loosely around her naked body, trailing on the carpet. The first jab of the lancet failed to draw blood, but the second jabbed too deep and bled profusely.

The glowing numbers popped out in the gloom and Samira hung her head. At 251, no wonder she felt the dragging, sickly sensation. She dialed a moderate dose of insulin and injected it roughly into her thigh, a tiny dot of blood welling up there as well. Though there was no way the drug could act that fast, a sense of relief bloomed through her limbs – a trick of the mind, to be sure, but a reassuring one.

She dialed up the water to its hottest setting and climbed into the cramped shower, shivering as the spray shifted from mildly chilling to almost scalding. The heat blasted her skin, almost burning away the sensation of sickness and lethargy. Head tilted and eyes closed into the scouring flow, she stood motionless for a while.

Her mind wandered – to her empty flat in London, dust gathering on the photographs and newspaper clippings; to her father's empty house, decaying in the middle of the ravenous city; to the quiet house in Greenwich that they had occupied after their personal exodus, with the Egyptian tapestries on the walls and the English records on the stereo, the twin scents of her mother's Dunhill cigarettes and roast lamb filling the house.

She dressed and walked down to the sprawling lobby of the hotel, a confusing sprawl filled with American Express branches and tacky shops hawking fake Pharaonic memorabilia. A vague, irritating sense of nationalism reminded her that the historical souvenirs always managed to conveniently forget the intervening millennium and a half of Islamic rule.

A glance at the absurd prices at the hotel cafés made her laugh in derision as she wound her way out onto the street to start her first true day back in the city.

Triumphant Sun, Pt. 12

I am trying to get the complete story uploaded, but unfortunately, the internet is not cooperating. Here's a bit of the next installment until I get it sorted out. Sorry about all the hold-ups and delays - once I get this running it should be a fair bit smoother.

Triumphant Sun, Pt. 12

In some, the men simply conversed among each other; in others, they inspected crates, containers, even a stack of rifles. In isolation, they proved nothing. But with the framework he had begun to perceive from his conversation with Fuad, they might be a definitive step forward. Unfortunately they were also adrift, lacking reference; though the 'what' was clear, the 'who, where, when' remained absent.

Said had dropped them in his lap and then promptly vanished, in an extremely perplexing and even slightly worrying fashion. The man had an angle, of that there was no doubt. But again, it lay in a vacuum, disconnected from everything else. He threw open the doors of the balcony to let air into the stuffy room, seated himself with a notepad on a plastic chair and began to sketch out his ideas on the pad.

In one corner, Said. In another, Fuad's subtle hints. The photos in the center, a strong line linking them to the Iranian and a weak, dashed one to the Afghan. General Abdel-Kareem went on too, with another strong line to the photographs. After some thought he put Carlos on the edge – with his fingers in every pie in city, he had a tendency to crop up in the most unexpected places.

His glass of coffee had reached the bitter dregs, swirling in the bottom. He peered into the cup, wondering if there was another sip there, but decided against it. In the kitchen, he found that he'd forgotten, yet again, to stock the refrigerator with anything for breakfast.

For a moment he leaned against the door, forehead braced on his arm, mentally berating himself. Then he grabbed a handful of Egpytian pounds, snagged his keys and headed out and down the street to grab a plate of fuul and a pastry at a local dive.

Triumphant Sun, Pt. 11

A rattling pickup trundled beneath his window, the steel canisters of cooking gas clanking back and forth in its bed. It made slow rounds on the street below, stopping at each building to unload its delicate cargo. An Egyptian army truck hurtled by, filled to the brim with underpaid conscripts slumped in dejected rows on narrow wooden benches. The sight brought Evan back to the problem that had been tormenting and tantalizing him – the vast invisible web of connections stretching through aircraft holds and car trunks and poppy fields that funneled a stupefying narcotic stream across the deserts and mountains and valleys of the Middle East.

The unbearable complexity of the idea oppressed him. He felt unable to get a handle on it, a vast smooth globe that glimmered in his mind's eye but eluded his grasp. Already he'd wandered far past the bounds of journalistic practice – he had nothing on which to hang a story, no quotes, no sources. He irritably scratched at his arm, picking at a sore despite his best instinct to let it lie. With a force of effort, he pushed his hand down to the railing. The world troubled him, and the story most of all, a mere amorphous collection of suspicions and allegations – and the photos.

In the thrill of pursuing Fuad and his underworld allegiances, he'd entirely forgotten the photos Said had delivered to him. An aura of distrust hung around them – that sort of thing felt too impossible to be true. Nevertheless, the possibility was too tempting to ignore.

He sat down in a decaying armchair and drew the photos out, laying them out in an arc across the glass table before him. They had the vague, distant quality of a telephoto lens to them, like the paparazzi shots that appeared in glossy celebrity magazines. A dusty milieu and a figure in military uniform featured prominently in them, mingling with militant figures clad in the robes and scarves of mountain guerrillas. Kalashnikovs featured prominently with a kind of totemic significance.

Egypt, 1941

In September of 1941, tensions were mounting daily as the war in Europe ground on and Japan expanded its Pacific holdings. U-Boats and warplanes armed with torpedoes hunted shipping that supplied England and the Allied nations, and sometimes, they made mistakes.

One of those mistakes was the Steel Seafarer - an American merchant vessel which was hit by a torpedo in the Red Sea and promptly sank. Presumably, a German warplane had mistaken it for a British freighter and attacked during the night watch. Fortunately, the crew escaped onto lifeboats and made it away from the ruined hulk, which slipped beneath the waves less than half an hour after the strike. Some were saved by a Danish freighter, but the majority reached the coast under heavy seas, and eventually made their way back across the desert to Cairo, and eventually, home.

My grandfather was a member of the Merchant Marine aboard the Seafarer, and through some family connections, namely my half-aunt Marlene Beggs we've dug up a set of pictures from the incident, as well as clippings from newspapers that reported on it. I think they're pretty interesting, in all.

You can click the photos for bigger images

A photo of me juxtaposed with my grandfather, in nearly identical poses and settings.


Albert Beggs on the Pyramids.

News clippings describing the incident.

Grandfather Albert riding a camel.

Triumphant Sun, Pt. 10

Evan awoke in near darkness, his disorientation almost complete. He stared at the crazed lines and cracks that cut his ceiling into broken shards of ancient plaster. Outside, the muezzin howled the morning prayer, echoing over the rumbling sounds of the city. As he finished another began, then another and another, tumbling over each other in a patchwork symphony of Quranic verses.

He fumbled at his bedside table for a glass of water, knocking his keys and watch to the floor with a metallic crash. A pervasive fatigue enveloped him as he levered himself to sit on the edge of his bed. The floor felt grainy beneath his bare feet so he shuffled his feet into a pair of beaten rubber slippers. The venetian blinds clattered back and forth in the slight breeze, sending erratic blades of light tumbling across the room, illuminating the dust that hung in the air.

Evan peered out the cramped kitchen window as he made coffee in the Arabic style, letting the powder-like grounds steep slowly in a small tin pot with sugar, cardamom and cinnamon. The window opened onto a peculiar shaft that ran the length of his building, supposedly bringing air to cramped interior rooms. Pipes and byzantine tangles of wiring snaked through it, covered in the sand and dust of forty or fifty years. It all hung together in an “Egyptian fix” – slapped together with whatever came to hand until it broke again, hopefully on someone else’s watch.

Evan closed the window shutter and walked to the balcony of the apartment, cradling the steaming glass of coffee in his hand. The first sip brought him awake and upright, the intensity of the dual flavors of coffee and sugar jolting him out of the morning stupor. He’d had no intention of waking so early, but sometimes he still found himself dragged from sleep by the calling of the muezzins. It was a sound at once ethereal and comfortingly familiar – on a trip across the Mediterranean a few months ago, he’d felt the lack of it every morning.

Minarets jutted out over the city like exclamation points – some mere crumbling towers of shoddy brick, others modern stone edifices and a few, selected examples of medieval Islamic architecture. Cairo earned the epitaph “City of a Thousand Minarets” several times over, but the effect became stranger and more affecting with odd, new juxtapositions. A new phenomenon outnumbered the spires – satellite dishes dotting every rooftop, sometimes clustering together like a growth, sprouting out of the fabric of the city. More popped up every day, tenuously wired and affixed to whatever surface provided a modicum of space.

Many of the buildings were unfinished, too – steel bars twisting up out of the concrete giving the roofs a vicious, unfinished appearance. Builders left them that way to dodge taxes – an incomplete building wouldn’t get taxed by the government. That never stopped squatters from moving out onto the exposed roofs, setting up rambling shanty-towns that collapsed upon themselves with depressing regularity. One of the thousands of forgotten, unimportant scandals that got lost in the wandering streets.

Triumphant Sun, Pt. 9

Samira realized that there might be more old mansions like her father's, crumbling slowly under the endless sun. So many of the old families had moved on, to new, fortress-like homes, or out of Egypt entirely. Some day in the far future, their residences might be the object of study, like the ruined temples of Karnak and Aswan. She imagined sand creeping in the shattered windows, while whole tribes of feral cats prowled the grounds. The trees might be slowly reduced to ash and swept away in the endless wind.

The poignancy of the idea saddened her – but she realized that in it lay a potential spark of creation. There might be a feature in the idea – a profile of the noble houses of Cairo, laid low by time and neglect. She could imagine her father’s rage and disapproval, and smiled. She did not remember him spending much time in the house itself, but his presence had lingered even when he left.

She particularly remembered the dressing table where he kept a small castle of decanters and bottles, a wooden humidor for cigars and various other trappings of Western decadence. No one touched it – not her mother, and not the servants, devout Muslims that they were.

Occasionally he would take it upon himself to clean the tray off, clouds of dust floating up from the crystal and glass in the afternoon sun. As a little girl she used to sneak up and lift the heavy tops to smell the exotic, alcoholic scents of the amber and ruby liquids glittering within. Later, once she was older, she used to sneak a nip or two, praying that he wouldn't notice the dusty fingerprints on the side.

A small cluster of students crossed the street towards her. She remembered that the American University dorms were only a few blocks away, and she began wandering towards them. One of the stray cats scrambled up onto the dividing wall and paced for a while above her head, threading through the overgrown wire before leaping down and scurrying off into the maze of streets.

She stopped across the road and watched for a while as students, some foreign but many Egyptian, filtered in and out through the glass doors. Though she had never attended, Samira had fond memories of lounging in the main quads and courtyards of the University; and other, more vibrant memories of a young Irishman on his semester abroad who had so assiduously courted her. His piercingly grey-green eyes stood out vividly in her memory, along with the crooked smile he would flash at her.

With a shake of her head, she tore away the cobwebs of years past and turned towards home. The sun had sunk low and the full weight of her fatigue began to press down on her. The students continued their boisterous laughter as she turned on her heel and headed away.

Triumphant Sun, Pt. 8

The garden had so overgrown the walls of the house that Samira could not discern whether anyone still occupied it. In truth, she could not decide if she really wanted to know. A perverse and contrary instinct pulled her to the place; now that she stood before it, regret suffused her. She let her hand fall down the gnarled iron of the gate.

As she stood, an elderly man shuffled down the street, each hand balancing a metal plate dotted with glasses of tea. He wore a long robe, the end spattered with dust and grime from the street, and his head was wrapped with a grey cloth. Deep lines carved his face, which crinked into a bemused smile when he saw her standing on the sidewalk, arm outstretched.

“Yaa basha,” she called, checking her shawl to make sure it was at a modest level around her head. “I have a question.”

“Yes, mademoiselle?” He said the French word with a rhetorical flourish; Samira felt he might have actually bowed had he not been burdened with the trays of tea.

“Who lives in this house, now?”

The man peered up at the house for a moment. “I think it is almost always empty. Sometimes there are cars, though. But I do not know who it has been in many years – not since Khaleel Rahman left.”

Samira's breath caught in her throat. “You know Khaleel Rahman?”

The man drew himself up with a dilapidated pride. “I was bawab here for 10 years.” His expression fell slightly. “But then, I joined the army.”

She tried to piece together a memory of this wizened man but could not. In her memory, the bawab had been a heavy-set, insouciant man with a deep voice and a barrel chest. No matter how many years had passed, she could not see him transformed into this diminutive figure.

“When was this?”

The man thought for a while, blinking rheumy grey eyes. “Maybe 25, 30 years ago I left? But I remember. Rahman was a great man.”

The hell he was, though Samira to herself. “Shukran, basha,” she replied out loud and inclined her head. He hefted the trays and continued down the street at the same slow, steady pace, slippered feet falling on the uneven pavement with rhythmic slaps.

Triumphant Sun, Pt. 7

If Fuad benefited from the war, he had to be getting help from the Americans. With US troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Gulf, he could use a supply chain that stretched all the way across the Middle East, bypassing Afghan smugglers and Turkish drug runners. The Afghan would be able to cut costs and take advantage of military security. If he could find proof that Abdel-Kareem was mixed up with the operation, it would come together.

For a while, he stared out the tinted windows of the sedan. The city seemed impossibly remote from him, not truly there but merely projected onto the side of the car. His mind was far away, trying to trace the patterns, spiralling out from the Afghan highlands like a woven carpet. Which Americans were involved? He vaguely remembered a story about American drug runners using the coffins of slain soldiers. That didn't seem the likeliest scenario, though.

If Abdel-Kareem was involved, that meant the military would also be involved. Every year, millions of dollars in military aid flowed from the United States to Egypt. Some of that could easily be diverted to running drugs out of the remoter areas of occupied Afghanistan. Fuad wouldn't talk, obviously, but someone else in the chain might. He absentmindedly took the finger-length brick of hash and secreted it away in a pocket.

“So you do opium and guns too, Fuad?” he asked. “Maybe I need something else, I come back to you?”

Fuad gave him a searching look. “Maybe so. But guns, never. Too much risk, too little money. But for now, we have a deal?”

Evan nodded. He would have killed to have his pocket recorder with him right now. He wasn't sure yet what the significance of Fuad avoiding weapons was, but he knew it had to be there. Mentally, he filed it away for future use.

He produced a wad of a battered Egyptian pounds and thumbed through them for the least frayed bills. Money in Cairo circulated endlessly, the cheap paper steadily disintegrating further and further. More than once, Evan's payments had been rebuffed by clerks disdainful of the wretched state of his currency. He handed over the money and Fuad signalled for the driver to pull over. The car rolled to a halt before the front gate of the Nile Hilton under the bored, impassive gazes of the guards.

“This place is good for you?” asked Fuad.

“It's as good as any.”

“Ma'salaam,,” said the Afghan in a firmly dismissive tone. Obviously he didn't much trust Evan.

“Ma'salaam,” replied Evan as he stepped from the car. In front of the armed soldiers, the hashish felt heavy in his pocket. Fuad's driver pulled away from the curb in a cloud of dust and Evan looked after it as it faded into the snarls of traffic, a shimmering mirage of heat hanging over the square.

Triumphant Sun, Pt. 6

Evan stared at the paper before him, trying to decipher the scrawling of the last hour. He took another sip of bitter tea and forced himself to focus on the mess of names and dates that formed the bare skeleton of the story. Coherence hovered at the edges of thought, slipping away whenever he tried to fix upon it. The pieces of the affair lay before him, but he couldn't assemble them. There seemed to be no connection between the various parts – who was the Iranian, Said, for instance? What interest could he have in the scandals of an Egyptian general?

It occurred to him that Carlos might be able to help him after all. He just had to approach it from the right angle. He quickly called and watched the taxis maneuver before him as the phone rang.

“Miss me so soon?” drawled Carlos sardonically.

“Yeah, yeah. Funny. Look, you have Fuad's number?”

“Fuad, like Fuad al-Afghani?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“Well, I got his number, but...no offense on this, but I don't think he'd like it if I gave his number to a journalist. That's just the way he is.”

“Well, maybe you could just set something up for me. Tell him I want to buy something.”

Evan could practically hear the gears turning in Carlos' head as he worked the angles. “OK, sure, where are you now?”

“I'm in an ahwa on 26^th July, the one next to the butcher.”

“I guess that works. I'll give him a call and ask if he can meet you there.”

“Thanks, Carlos. I owe you one.”

“You owe me more than one, Rochester.”

Evan settled back in his seat and asked for more tea from the young boy who sat on his heels, watching a soccer game on a flickering color television. He realized that he had no idea who or what to keep an eye out for – indeed, he knew little more about Fuad other than his reputation as an underworld dealmaker and smuggler, his friendship with Carlos and his Pashtun roots. But if Evan knew about him, than so did other, more important people – and the Aghan's continued presence and survival in Egypt meant he had the right connections, connections Evan could use.

He thought it unlikely that Fuad would agree to go on the record about anything, even anonymously, but he might lead Evan to the loose string that would unravel the whole mess.

A grey sedan rolled to a halt in front of the ahwa and let out a tall, rail-thin man in a tight-fitting black suit, a kaffiyeh wrapped around his neck. Aviator sunglasses shielded his eyes, gold rims flashing in the sun. He walked to Evan's table and peered down at him, long fingers rubbing against each other.

“Carlos tells me you want to talk.”

Evan looked up at his interlocutor. Fuad had a rich, sleek look about him, the kind that comes with plenty of money. “I was hoping we might be able to do business.”
“This way, then,” Fuad said, gesturing at his car.

Evan entered the car behind the Afghan, who gestured at his driver to pull away from the curb. Leather and wood panelled the inside of the Mercedes, old but well-preserved. Fuad took a cigarette from the inside of his coat and lit it, then leaned back. He removed his glasses to reveal disconcertingly bright green eyes that seemed to search Evan for clues.

“I hear you are a journalist.”

“Where'd you hear that?”

Fuad waved his hand dismissively through the curling smoke. “I'm not going to give you an interview, if you think this.”

Evan grinned. “I didn't really expect it.”

“What do you want, then?”

“Hashish, maybe?”

Now Fuad smiled like a shark with gold teeth. “This I like to hear. How much?”

“200 pounds?”

Fuad rapped on the back of his driver's seat and received a neatly wrapped package from him. He snapped open a blade, made a few quick incisions, and produced a thin brick of hash which he wrapped again in foil.

“Where do you get it?” asked Evan, feigning nonchalance. “I mean, which country?”

“Afghanistan, of course. Everything that is the best comes from Afghanistan. You want hash, opium, heroin, jihadis – my country is king.” Fuad said this last with a kind of twinkling, ironic pride.

“Of course,” said Evan, “But I thought the war would make this difficult.”

“Business is maybe a little harder,” conceded Fuad. “But everything is an opportunity. This I learned a long time ago. So for me, I make this war an opportunity. The United States invade, make it more expensive for everyone else, but for me – cheaper. With a little help, so I can bring you the best prices.”

In that moment, it became clear to Evan. The loose string unravelled into a whole messy tapestry, and he had to grind his teeth to avoid gasping in front of Fuad.

Triumphant Sun. pt 5

Outside, the air had almost cleared. Samira checked her blood sugar and decide to go for a walk. Who knew what might have changed in the years since she'd been gone? She rummaged in her luggage for a pair of trousers, looped the blue silk of her scarf loosely around her head and slipped into a pair of shoes more suited for navigating the treacherous paving of Cairo.

The noise of the city hit her in a roaring gale. She'd been so dazed from the flight that she'd barely noticed, but now, on the street, it was almost unbearable. For a moment she considered hailing a cab, but decided that she needed to walk. The scent of diesel and heat played on her memories, bringing back a flood of disassociated images – the gleaming metal boot of the family sedan, a moonlit night on the roof of the house, the feeling of her tiny fingers encapsulated in the calloused hand of her father.

She paused for a moment in the center of 6^th October Bridge. A few feluccas plied the water beneath, one filled with raucous tourists and blasting music. From this spot, the river looked curiously petty and unimportant. As a girl, it seemed to extend forever, and she'd forever heard about how it was the heart and lifeblood of Egypt. But the water in front of her now was dull and murky, narrower than the Thames and filled with petty fishing craft instead of freighters and speedboats.

With a sigh, she turned towards Zamalek and walked on, fingers trailing along the railing of the bridge. A few cars honked as they rolled by, although she wasn't sure whether it was at her or just part of the general chaos.

Reaching the the end of the bridge, she turned off into the quieter streets that made up the rest of Zamalek, winding avenues lined with high walls and trees arcing over the scarred pavement. For a while, she walked by the sprawling, dilapidated grounds of the Gezira Club, with its derelict buildings and overgrown plants. Its history was filled with different uses – a racing track, a social venue, an athletic club. It seemed permanently half in use and half in decay, a colonial relic dissolving into obscurity but hanging on by the strength of its reputation.

It also played host to a horde of horse-drawn carts, giving it a pungent odor of manure which wafted across the avenue. Many of the carriages were elaborate and astonishingly tacky affairs that hauled tourists around the island at exorbitant rates.

The guards of the Russian Embassy stared impassively through her as she passed in front of it. Half of the buildings on the island were embassies and government offices. The thought disquieted her.

A few boys kicked a football back and forth on the street, bouncing it off of cars and trees and flipping it with their heels. There was no structure to the game – it flowed over curbs and around the meager, slow traffic, tumbling over itself in the flush of youth. They paused for a moment and one looked as if he would catcall her, but Samira fixed his eyes with hers and he blushed before throwing himself back into the contest.

She paused for a moment in front of a shabby newsstand selling magazines, cigarettes and ancient cassette tapes which lay stacked in a kind of plastic mural of Egyptian popstars, bygone Western singles and Islamic sermons. Fawning press photos of President Mubarak stared back out at her, his face in different iterations of wise, aloof, fierce and noble, lording over Egypt like a latter-day pharaoh.

The idea put her in a foul mood and half out of spite she bought a pack of Viceroy cigarettes.

Three blocks passed before she realized she had no matches. The pack now sat in the bottom of her purse like a tiny brick, weighing on her consciousness. A little less than two years ago she'd smoked her last cigarette – or at least, so she'd planned.

Her ruminations brought her to her destination without warning. In front of her, the familiar cement wall loomed high, topped with a new addition of curled, rusting razor wire. The spreading palm in the courtyard arced over the wrought iron of the gates, as tall as she remembered. Was this a trick of memory or had it really grown?

She peered through the gate at the entryway, lined with flowers and bushes. It looked dilapidated, overgrown – the gravel lay in erratic lumps and whorls. The paint, too, had faded over the years, its crisp whiteness smudged to a dingy grey. A colony of feral cats squatted in the shadow of the staircase, lean and hungry even in their indolence. One of them whisked its tail as it gazed at her, the only break in their placid indifference.

She drank in every detail – the windows, now listing slightly in their frames; the climbing plants that crept in random patterns up the walls; the broken and missing tiles on the roof; and the asymmetry of the great double doors, one missing its brass door-knocker. The whole thing seemed to be a dream or a reflection in dirty water. Was this really the great house of her youth? Now, more than ever, she wished for a cigarette to smoke.

Triumphant Sun, pt. 4

The envelope rested on a table between the two men. Carlos drummed his fingers irritably on his chair. A thick silence filled the room as he stared at the envelope. Finally, he pushed it away and inhaled a dense stream of smoke. “It's too much of a mess, Evan. I'd like to help you but...”

Evan leaned forward and took the envelope back. Outside, the storm had slowed and the sun began to gleam through the tarnished light. They lapsed back into a wordless haze. Evan rolled the cool, biting taste of lime and tonic around on his tongue, a perfect antidote to the dry harshness outside. The gin stung in the cracks that the heat and sand had left on his lips.

“Fair enough,” said Evan finally. He rose, finishing his drink and walking to the bar to pour himself another. “You should just forget I ever brought it to you.

Carlos crooked a smile with half his face. “Done. So what happened to your leave, anyways? Weren't you going to head home for a bit?”

“I was. But you know how big this is. If I've got to deal with it, I think I'm going to be here for a bit longer. More than a bit.” Evan ran his fingertips, damp from the condensation on the glass, through his hair.

“Bet you're thrilled.”

“Well, on the one hand it's a month or two more in Cairo.”

“And on the other?”
“It's a month or two more in Cairo,” Evan quipped. He paused, staring out the window. “Anyways, I''m going to head out. If I need to drop some stuff here, could I?”

“No worries,” said Carlos, holding open the door. “Any time you get sick of Stella and tea, I'm your man.”

Evan paused at the bottom of the staircase, standing a moment in the cool shadows. Only one of the bulbs was lit, and it blinked fitfully. The beginnings of a headache teased at the back of his head and he rubbed his temples with both hands, staring out at the almost painfully bright sunlight at the end of the corridor. The bawab had returned and dozed in his chair by the entrance, a cup of tea cradled in his wrinkled hand. Evan walked softly so as not to disturb the man as he emerged into the heavy sunlight.

The island of Zamalek felt quiet compared to the rest of Cairo, and the men armed with Kalashnikovs underpinned the sense of prosperity on every street corner. A group of school-boys in uniform scrambled down the street, bouncing off of cars and walls like so many tumbling creatures. A cab swerved to the corner but Evan waved the driver off and donned his sunglasses before the man could speak. The storm seemed a bit weaker now, and the walk to his apartment would help clear his spinning head.

***

Samira licked the blood from her fingertips. It had a salty taste mixed with the tiny grains of sand blowing through across the Nile. She ran her hands through her hair in frustration, threw a scarf around her throat and headed downstairs to the hotel to get a drink and wash away the dry feeling in her throat that she can't shake. The stares of the porters and clerks bounced off the shell of her indifference. She still felt wobbly though her shoes were flat and the dazed sensation of diabetic lows gave her the oddest sensation of standing feet over her own head and directing her motion like a puppeteer. For a moment she leaned on the banister.

Her finger was still bleeding and she put it in her mouth again before it spotted on to her pale blue dress. A group of rich young Egyptian men wearing garish designer clothes walked by with predatory gazes. She stared at coldly at them, shooting contempt from her steel-gray eyes.

One leaned over and blew a kiss to her. “Yaa habibi!” he called to her from across the hall.

Samira consciously snapped out of her unconsciously coquettish pose. “Allah yuqra baytik,” she snapped back, an Egyptian oath more or less translating to 'May God step on your home'. Patently absurd in English, it was effective as a whiplash in Egypt

He recoiled as if punched and stalked away to the laughter of his companions while Samira glided serenely on and got to the bar without shaking to order a gin and tonic and a tall glass of mango juice, draining half the juice in a single gulp and taking a long sip of the cocktail. Her fist coiled in a tight ball around the fringe of her scarf.

She took another drink of juice and felt the effect as it began to steady her nerves. The only thing worse than a low, she thought, was a high, when her body became enervated and the sugar poisoned her from the inside out. Highs and lows, ups and downs in endless cycles that tore one way and then another.

Her phone jangled and she shut it off after a quick glance. Fourteen hours and halfway across the world, London could wait. She took a palm-sized notebook from her purse and jotted down the number 59 in neat, round characters with a red pen. It added to the crimson digits cascading down the page, every single one representing a low blood sugar, with only a few little islands of black or blue interrupting it. Weren't, she thought and not for the first time, diabetics supposed to have high sugars?

She'd smoothed her rough edges and she finally relaxed a little and allowed herself a tight smile. She had wheedled, bullied, begged and twisted arms but at last the paper had chosen her to take over the Cairo desk and it had been a personal point of honor that she hadn't once mentioned her father's name, even if she doubted they would have understood the importance. She wondered what it meant here. Khalil Mohammed Rahman had been a legend and a terror in his time, and being his daughter would have to mean something, even the daughter of his English widow. And what would he have thought of her gin and tonic? Probably just judged her brand of gin. The thought amused her.

She pulled out a second notebook slightly larger than the first and began to write quickly, the letters slanting more with each word until she held the book almost perpendicular to her body. Without a definite assignment from the London desk, the first few weeks would be impressions, local color pieces and soft features about eccentric characters. Her hotel room was too removed from the pulse of the city – that would have to change. An apartment in Mohandiseen or better yet Downtown, if she could manage it. The western hotels and restaurants of Zamalek were too sheltered and other parts of the city lay too far from the centers of power in the Mogamma and the ministry buildings.

Triumphant Sun, Pt. 3

Evan passed through the metal detector at the front of the Sheraton Zamalek. Every major building in Cairo had one, but they were more for the Egyptians than foreigners. He brushed sand from his hair as he headed for the hotel cafe.

Tourists clumped around the glass tables, fanning themselves with magazines while groups of bored, rich Egyptians looked on in faint amusement. He scanned the room from behind his sunglasses. A heavy hand on his shoulder startled him out of his search.

“Evan Rochester, isn't it?” Evan spun around and fought to keep his cool. The man standing before him was dark and conservatively dressed in a Western suit. His thin lips curved in a sardonic smile. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you. Sit, please.” The man moved back to his table and lowered himself into the chair with a stiffness that suggested old injuries. He watched Even for a moment as he toyed with a glass of Egyptian tea.

“And you, I presume, are Said.”

“How astute of you.” He motioned to one of the young men lounging behind the hotel bar.

“Yaa, ustaaz?” asked the youth. He used the word 'professor' as a slangy honorific.

“Bring my friend a tea.” He turned to Evan and spoke English. “Sugar?”

“Black, please,” he responded in Arabic.

Said clicked his tongue. “Don't you find that very bitter?”

“I prefer it – whenever I get sugar, it's always too sweet. Gives me a headache.”

“Of course.” The man reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and produced a steel cigarette case and a lighter. “Smoke? They're British – Dunhills.”

“Thanks,” He took one and flicked the lighter experimentally before lighting it. Said lit one for himself and set the case down in the center of the table.

“You work for a newspaper? So you know what I refer to when I speak of the Abdel-Kareem affair?”

Taken aback by the sudden shift, Evan nodded his assent. “I do.”

“There are a lot of sides in this thing. It's very sensitive.”

“The main one is whether it's true.”

Said waved dismissively. “Of course it's true. The question is how much of it is true, and when, and where.”
Evan leaned forward over the table. “And you know?”

“I know a great many things, Mr. Rochester.”

“A great many things in this world aren't important. Take your name. Is it Said? Isn't it? It doesn't matter the slightest to me. What does is what you can tell me about General Abdel-Kareem and whether or not you can prove it. Or if you don't, who does?”

Said smiled generously and waved his hand through the air. “ And here we are, Mr. Rochester. I know a lot of people. That's the line I'm in. That's it exactly.”

“There's a word in English for someone who knows a lot of people but doesn't know anything important. Lobbyist.” A long pause passed between them. Rochester raised his cigarette to his mouth and found that it had burned halfway down into a thin grey tube of ash. He tapped it out in the marble ashtray.

“I don't know this word.” Said frowned. “But regardless, that's how it stands.”

“And how did you find me?”

The smile returned. “Like I said, some things matter and some things don't. What I want to do is meet with you again, now that we understand each other. Meet with you, and another man who knows a great deal and has some of the same interests as you. Maybe the same interest as me. Maybe even General Abdel-Kareem's. Allah only knows.”

“This is all fascinating.” Evan switched back into English. “We couldn't have done this over the phone?”

“Perhaps. But then I couldn't have given you this.” Said pushed a slim manila envelope across the table. Evan reached for it and Said lifted a finger. “Ah, it's a surprise. Open it after I'm gone.”

“It's not a bomb, is it?”

Said laughed, a sound with a faintly unpleasant edge. “I wouldn't worry about that, Mr. Rochester. And now I must be going. Although be assured, there's plenty where it came from.”

Evan smiled with one side of his mouth. “How can I contact you again?”

“We'll let you know, Mr. Rochester.” Then he was gone, limping slightly as he carried his thin attache case and his Economist, leaving only the envelope and an unusually crisp five pounds for the two teas. 'We,' thought Evan. There was something that might be important. Or it might not.

He didn't reach for the envelope right away. Instead, he stopped the digital recorder in his pocket, threaded a single audio bud into his ear and played it back. Surprise and dismay spread across his face. Where the conversation should have played back to him, the recorder only provided a dull electronic hiss.
“Bloody hell,” he said under his breath. He gingerly turned the envelope over in his hands, giving it an experimental shake, and finding it to be innocuous, he opened it and slid the contents out and inspected them briefly.

He was careful not to let the shock register this time. After a moment, he bundled everything up, tossed it into his battered briefcase and left, humming quietly to himself. He left the hotel and caught a cab up the island of Zamalek to a crumbling old apartment building by the water. There was no doorman but somebody had left a package to prop open the door so he went in and took an elevator to the 14^th floor, an unnerving experience because there were doors inside the elevator so as he went up he could see into the crawlspaces between each floor and ceiling and he had to stand back so his coat wouldn't catch in the gaps. It was one of those things about Cairo.

There was a long wait after he rang Carlos Ribeiro's doorbell and when he finally got the door Carlos looked confused.

“You're not Mustafa,” he said.

“Cheers to you too,” replied Evan as he stepped inside the apartment. Despite the building decaying around it and the general air of abandonment in the darkened halls it ranked as one of the nicer apartments downtown, with its airy view of the river and modernist décor that looked as if it had been installed in 1959. “ You know there's no one downstairs, don't you?”

“Isn't there? How'd you get in?”

“I let myself in. Door's open.”

“Well, the bawab must be drunk again.”

A bawab was a sort of doorman, superintendent and security guard rolled into one, and nearly every building in Cairo had a hereditary dynasties who watched over and made sure the building did not slip off from to day. They were all more or less corrupt in a genial sort of way and the one who looked after Carlos' building manifested his corruption by levying a kind of alcoholic tax in exchange for ignoring the building's nominal prohibition on spirits. This meant he was drunk most of the time which, in the end, didn't hurt anyone.

Evan walked to the window. The day was getting on and the sand had died down so the city was laid out clearly before him and cast in a bronze glow from the sun going down over the edges of the apartment buildings across the river.

“Have a drink?” asked Carlos as he poured himself a gin and tonic from the little bar he kept on his end-table. “I just hit the Duty-Free.”

“When did you fly out?” Evan turned around.

“Oh, I didn't. I just know a man down there. Got a fifth of Tanqueray for a sizable discount.”

“Then make it a T&T for me.”

Evan took his drink and resumed his place leaning on the open windowsill while Carlos took a seat on a leather easy-chair and occupied himself with rolling a joint with hashish from a sticky, foil-wrapped sliver the size of a pencil. His thin brown fingers moved moved quickly and nimbly as he rolled the hash between the tips to soften it and sprinkled it along the cigarette papers.

“Don't you ever work, Carlos?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Like today, for instance.”

“Sure I did work today. I had lunch with a minister from Interior.”

“About?”

“Business,” said Carlos, waving his hand vaguely. “This and that. Nothing very interesting.”

“Oh, it's that sort of thing?”

“Yeah. You know how it is with the government here. Everybody has an angle.” He shrugged and took a long drag. “Same as everywhere, really. But they're more enthusiastic about it here.”

“You got more than most, though.”

Carlos smiled crookedly. “It's true, isn't it? Well, everybody has to be good at something.” He extended his arm lazily, like a billiards player. “Getting the angles.

“Charming, really, Carlos. But I'm not just here to get high and chit-chat. I have some real questions.”

“About?”

“Abdel-Kareem.”

Carlos leaned forward, the joint dangling between two fingers of his left hand. He rolled it back and forth along his knuckles and then carefully doused the burning end with his fingertips. “Careful, Evan. You know what the stakes are here. I don't know if I want to have anything to do with this..”

Evan grinned and swallowed deeply from his drink. He drew the manila envelope from his fingers and fluttered it in the air. “But you want to see these, don't you?