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, 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. 17

The name ticked through Evan's head, turning gears of recollection as it went. Something about the juxtaposition of Arabic and English stirred vague memories.

"I feel I've met you somewhere," he confessed. "I can't really remember, though."

Her eyes never wavered from his face, their gaze sharp and disconcerting. "No, I don't think so."

"You're sure about that?"

She nodded. "Yes."

He leaned back in his seat and watched the city crawl by for a moment. Across the street, soldiers were piling wearily out of a dilapidated, fabric-covered truck, battered rifles slung across their backs. They dropped down from the wooden benches in the back one by one in a disorderly line, marshalling out slowly and without much effort. Put it in black-and-white, Evan thought, and you had documentary footage from the Second World War.

"If you insist, then, Ms. Crane. I guess we haven't met, but I'm not going to stop trying to figure it out."

The smile pulled at her lips again. It had a transforming effect on her face - from a sharp severity anchored by those inescapable eyes, her expression became momentarily open and inviting, her eyes looking almost surprised, they opened so wide.

"Good luck to you in that...Evan, was it?"

"Yes, Evan Rochester. Here, take my card. Evan fished through his wallet and handed one to her, slightly battered and dusty from kicking around the chaos in his billfold. "I've been here a while, if you need any tips. Places to go, not to go. Things like that."

This time she actually laughed. "I think nineteen years in this city more than prepared me. But thank you, Evan."

"Nineteen years?" Evan looked critically at her. They sat in silence for a moment. "But you've only just arrived."

"Hrm?" She raised an eyebrow at him.

He reached over and tapped the slim silver watch on her wrist. "Your watch is on..." Evan twisted his head sideways. "It looks like Greenwich time."

It was strange to see a brown woman blush the way, like someone had poured red wine into a cup of coffee. "Well, you've got me there, Mr. Rochester."

"So when was the last time you were here?"

She sighed. "Almost ten years. We left when my father died, and my mother moved back to England to write for a magazine."

The gears stopped turning in Evan's head and clicked together so clearly he could almost hear it in his head.

"Samira Mohammad Crane Rahman? As in Lena Crane and Khalil Mohammad Rahman?"

She nodded slowly.

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. 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.