The Key to Rebecca Read online

  Ishmael was standing at his shoulder. He said: "Was it a long journey?"

  Achmed nodded. "I came from El Agela, in Libya." The names meant nothing to his cousin. "I came from the sea."

  "From the sea!"

  "Yes."

  "Alone?"

  "I had some camels when I started."

  Ishmael was awestruck: even the nomads did not make such long journeys, and he had never seen the sea. He said: "But why?"

  "It is to do with this war."

  "One gang of Europeans fighting with another over who shall sit in Cairo--what does this matter to the sons of the desert?"

  "My mother's people are in the war," Achmed said.

  "A man should follow his father."

  "And if he has two fathers?"

  Ishmael shrugged. He understood dilemmas.

  Achmed lifted the closed suitcase. "Will you keep this for me?"

  "Yes." Ishmael took it. "Who is winning the war?"

  "My mother's people. They are like the nomads--they are proud, and cruel, and strong. They are going to rule the world."

  Ishmael smiled. "Achmed, you always did believe in the desert lion."

  Achmed remembered: he had learned, in school, that there had once been lions in the desert, and that it was possible a few of them remained, hiding in the mountains, living off deer and fennec fox and wild sheep. Ishmael had refused to believe him. The argument had seemed terribly important then, and they had almost quarreled over it. Achmed grinned. "I still believe in the desert lion," he said.

  The two cousins looked at one another. It was five years since the last time they had met. The world had changed. Achmed thought of the things he could tell: the crucial meeting in Beirut in 1938, his trip to Berlin, his great coup in Istanbul ... None of it would mean anything to his cousin--and Ishmael was probably thinking the same about the events of his last five years. Since they had gone together as boys on the pilgrimage to Mecca they had loved each other fiercely, but they never had anything to talk about.

  After a moment Ishmael turned away, and took the case to his tent. Achmed fetched a little water in a bowl. He opened another bag, and took out a small piece of soap, a brush, a mirror and a razor. He stuck the mirror in the sand, adjusted it, and began to unwind the howli from around his head.

  The sight of his own face in the mirror shocked him.

  His strong, normally clear forehead was covered with sores. His eyes were hooded with pain and lined in the corners. The dark beard grew matted and unkempt on his fine-boned cheeks, and the skin of his large hooked nose was red and split. He parted his blistered lips and saw that his fine, even teeth were filthy and stained.

  He brushed the soap on and began to shave.

  Gradually his old face emerged. It was strong rather than handsome, and normally wore a look which he recognized, in his more detached moments, to be faintly dissolute; but now it was simply ravaged. He had brought a small phial of scented lotion across hundreds of miles of desert for this moment, but now he did not put it on because he knew it would sting unbearably. He gave it to a girl-child who had been watching him, and she ran away, delighted with her prize.

  He carried his bag into Ishmael's tent and shooed out the women. He took off his desert robes and donned a white English shirt, a striped tie, gray socks and a brown checked suit. When he tried to put on the shoes he discovered that his feet had swollen: it was agonizing to attempt to force them into the hard new leather. However, he could not wear his European suit with the improvised rubber-tire sandals of the desert. In the end he slit the shoes with his curved knife and wore them loose.

  He wanted more: a hot bath, a haircut, cool soothing cream for his sores, a silk shirt, a gold bracelet, a cold bottle of champagne and a warm soft woman. For those he would have to wait.

  When he emerged from the tent the nomads looked at him as if he were a stranger. He picked up his hat and hefted the two remaining cases--one heavy, one light. Ishmael came to him carrying a goatskin water bottle. The two cousins embraced.

  Achmed took a wallet from the pocket of his jacket to check his papers. Looking at the identity card, he realized that once again he was Alexander Wolff, age thirty-four, of Villa les Oliviers, Garden City, Cairo, a businessman, race--European.

  He put on his hat, picked up his cases and set off in the cool of the dawn to walk across the last few miles of desert to the town.

  The great and ancient caravan route, which Wolff had followed from oasis to oasis across the vast empty desert, led through a pass in the mountain range and at last merged with an ordinary modem road. The road was like a line drawn on the map by God, for on one side were the yellow, dusty, barren hills, and on the other were lush fields of cotton squared off with irrigation ditches. The peasants, bent over their crops, wore galabiyas, simple shifts of striped cotton, instead of the cumbersome protective robes of the nomads. Walking north on the road, smelling the cool damp breeze off the nearby Nile, observing the increasing signs of urban civilization, Wolff began to feel human again. The peasants dotted about the fields came to seem less like a crowd. Finally he heard the engine of a car, and he knew he was safe.

  The vehicle was approaching him from the direction of Assyut, the town. It came around a bend and into sight, and he recognized it as a military jeep. As it came closer he saw the British Army uniforms of the men in it, and he realized he had left behind one danger only to face another.

  Deliberately he made himself calm. I have every right to be here, he thought. I was born in Alexandria. I am Egyptian by nationality. I own a house in Cairo. My papers are all genuine. I am a wealthy man, a European and a German spy behind enemy lines--

  The jeep screeched to a halt in a cloud of dust. One of the men jumped out. He had three cloth pips on each shoulder of his uniform shirt: a captain. He looked terribly young, and walked with a limp.

  The captain said: "Where the devil have you come from?"

  Wolff put down his cases and jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. "My car broke down on the desert road."

  The captain nodded, accepting the explanation instantly: it would never have occurred to him, or to anyone else, that a European might have walked here from Libya. He said: "I'd better see your papers, please."

  Wolff handed them over. The captain examined them, then looked up. Wolff thought: There has been a leak from Berlin, and every officer in Egypt is looking for me; or they have changed the papers since last time I was here, and mine are out of date; or--

  "You look about all in, Mr. Wolff," the captain said. "How long have you been walking?"

  Wolff realized that his ravaged appearance might get some useful sympathy from another European. "Since yesterday afternoon," he said with a weariness that was not entirely faked. "I got a bit lost."

  "You've been out here all night?" The captain looked more closely at Wolff's face. "Good Lord, I believe you have. You'd better have a lift with us." He turned to the jeep. "Corporal, take the gentleman's cases."

  Wolff opened his mouth to protest, then shut it again abruptly. A man who had been walking all night would be only too glad to have someone take his luggage. To object would not only discredit his story, it would draw attention to the bags. As the corporal hefted them into the back of the jeep, Wolff realized with a sinking feeling that he had not even bothered to lock them. How could I be so stupid? he thought. He knew the answer. He was still in tune with the desert, where you were lucky to see other people once a week, and the last thing they wanted to steal was a radio transmitter that had to be plugged in to a power outlet. His senses were alert to all the wrong things: he was watching the movement of the sun, smelling the air for water, measuring the distances he was traveling, and scanning the horizon as if searching for a lone tree in whose shade he could rest during the heat of the day. He had to forget all that now, and think instead of policemen and papers and locks and lies.

  He resolved to take more care, and climbed into the jeep.

  The captain got in beside h
im and said to the driver: "Back into town."

  Wolff decided to bolster his story. As the jeep turned in the dusty road he said: "Have you got any water?"

  "Of course." The captain reached beneath his seat and pulled up a tin bottle covered in felt, like a large whiskey flask. He unscrewed the cap and handed it to Wolff.

  Wolff drank deeply, swallowing at least a pint. "Thanks," he said, and handed it back.

  "Quite a thirst you had. Not surprising. Oh, by the way--I'm Captain Newman." He stuck out his hand.

  Wolff shook it and looked more closely at the man. He was young--early twenties, at a guess--and fresh-faced, with a boyish forelock and a ready smile; but there was in his demeanor that weary maturity that comes early to fighting men. Wolff asked him: "Seen any action?"

  "Some." Captain Newman touched his own knee. "Did the leg at Cyrenaica, that's why they sent me to this one-horse town." He grinned. "I can't honestly say I'm panting to get back into the desert, but I'd like to be doing something a bit more positive than this, minding the shop hundreds of miles from the war. The only fighting we ever see is between the Christians and the Moslems in the town. Where does your accent come from?"

  The sudden question, unconnected with what had gone before, took Wolff by surprise. It had surely been intended to, he thought: Captain Newman was a sharp-witted young man. Fortunately Wolff had a prepared answer. "My parents were Boers who came from South Africa to Egypt. I grew up speaking Afrikaans and Arabic." He hesitated, nervous of overplaying his hand by seeming too eager to explain. "The name Wolff is Dutch, originally; and I was christened Alex after the town where I was born."

  Newman seemed politely interested. "What brings you here?"

  Wolff had prepared for that one, too. "I have business interests in several towns in Upper Egypt." He smiled. "I like to pay them surprise visits."

  They were entering Assyut. By Egyptian standards it was a large town, with factories, hospitals, a Muslim university, a famous convent and some sixty thousand inhabitants. Wolff was about to ask to be dropped at the railway station when Newman saved him from that error. "You need a garage," the captain said. "We'll take you to Nasif's: he has a tow truck."

  Wolff forced himself to say: "Thank you." He swallowed dryly. He was still not thinking hard enough or fast enough. I wish I could pull myself together, he thought; it's the damn desert, it's slowed me down. He looked at his watch. He had time to go through a charade at the garage and still catch the daily train to Cairo. He considered what he would do. He would have to go into the place, for Newman would watch. Then the soldiers would drive away. Wolff would have to make some inquiries about car parts or something, then take his leave and walk to the station.

  With luck, Nasif and Newman might never compare notes on the subject of Alex Wolff.

  The jeep drove through the busy, narrow streets. The familiar sights of an Egyptian town pleased Wolf: the gay cotton clothes, the women carrying bundles on their heads, the officious policemen, the sharp characters in sunglasses, the tiny shops spilling out into the rutted streets, the stalls, the battered cars and the overloaded asses. They stopped in front of a row of low mud-brick buildings. The road was half blocked by an ancient truck and the remains of a cannibalized Fiat. A small boy was working on a cylinder block with a wrench, sitting on the ground outside the entrance.

  Newman said: "I'll have to leave you here, I'm afraid; duty calls."

  Wolff shook his hand. "You've been very kind."

  "I don't like to dump you this way," Newman continued. "You've had a bad time." He frowned, then his face cleared. "Tell you what--I'll leave Corporal Cox to look after you."

  Wolff said: "It's kind, but really--"

  Newman was not listening. "Get the man's bags, Cox, and look sharp. I want you to take care of him--and don't you leave anything to the wogs, understand?"

  "Yes, sir!" said Cox.

  Wolff groaned inwardly. Now there would be more delay while he got rid of the corporal. Captain Newman's kindness was becoming a nuisance--could that possibly be intentional?

  Wolff and Cox got out, and the jeep pulled away. Wolff walked into Nasif's workshop, and Cox followed, carrying the cases.

  Nasif was a smiling young man in a filthy galabiya, working on a car battery by the light of an oil lamp. He spoke to them in English. "You want to rent a beautiful automobile? My brother have Bentley--"

  Wolff interrupted him in rapid Egyptian Arabic. "My car has broken down. They say you have a tow truck."

  "Yes. We can leave right away. Where is the car?"

  "On the desert road, forty or fifty miles out. It's a Ford. But we're not coming with you." He took out his wallet and gave Nasif an English pound note. "You'll find me at the Grand Hotel by the railway station when you return."

  Nasif took the money with alacrity. "Very good! I leave immediately!"

  Wolff nodded curtly and turned around. Walking out of the workshop with Cox in tow, he considered the implications of his short conversation with Nasif. The mechanic would go out into the desert with his tow truck and search the road for the car. Eventually he would return to the Grand Hotel to confess failure. He would learn that Wolff had left. He would consider he had been reasonably paid for his wasted day, but that would not stop him telling all and sundry the story of the disappearing Ford and its disappearing driver. The likelihood was that all this would get back to Captain Newman sooner or later. Newman might not know quite what to make of it all, but he would certainly feel that here was a mystery to be investigated.

  Wolff's mood darkened as he realized that his plan of slipping unobserved into Egypt might have failed.

  He would just have to make the best of it. He looked at his watch. He still had time to catch the train. He would be able to get rid of Cox in the lobby of the hotel, then get something to eat and drink while he was waiting, if he was quick.

  Cox was a short, dark man with some kind of British regional accent which Wolff could not identify. He looked about Wolff's age, and as he was still a corporal he was probably not too bright. Following Wolff across the Midan el-Mahatta, he said: "You know this town, sir?"

  "I've been here before," Wolff replied.

  They entered the Grand. With twenty-six rooms it was the larger of the town's two hotels. Wolff turned to Cox. "Thank you, Corporal. I think you could get back to work now."

  "No hurry, sir," Cox said cheerfully. "I'll carry your bags upstairs."

  "I'm sure they have porters here--"

  "Wouldn't trust 'em, sir, if I were you."

  The situation was becoming more and more like a nightmare or a farce, in which well-intentioned people pushed him into increasingly senseless behavior in consequence of one small lie. He wondered again whether this was entirely accidental, and it crossed his mind with terrifying absurdity that perhaps they knew everything and were simply toying with him.

  He pushed the thought aside and spoke to Cox with as much grace as he could muster. "Well, thank you."

  He turned to the desk and asked for a room. He looked at his watch: he had fifteen minutes left. He filled in the form quickly, giving an invented address in Cairo--there was a chance Captain Newman would forget the true address on the identity papers, and Wolff did not want to leave a reminder.

  A Nubian porter led them upstairs to the room. Wolff tipped him off at the door. Cox put the cases down on the bed.

  Wolff took out his wallet: perhaps Cox expected a tip too. "Well, Corporal," he began, "you've been very helpful--"

  "Let me unpack for you, sir," Cox said. "Captain said not to leave anything to the wogs."

  "No, thank you," Wolff said firmly. "I want to lie down right now."

  "You go ahead and lie down," Cox persisted generously. "It won't take me--"

  "Don't open that!"

  Cox was lifting the lid of the case. Wolff reached inside his jacket, thinking Damn the man and Now I'm blown and I should have locked it and Can I do this quietly? The little corporal stared at the neat stacks of
new English pound notes which filled the small case. He said: "Jesus Christ, you're loaded!" It crossed Wolff's mind, even as he stepped forward, that Cox had never seen so much money in his life. Cox began to turn, saying: "What do you want with all that--" Wolff pulled the wicked curved Bedouin knife, and it glinted in his hand as his eyes met Cox's, and Cox flinched and opened his mouth to shout; and then the razor-sharp blade sliced deep into the soft flesh of his throat, and his shout of fear came as a bloody gurgle and he died; and Wolff felt nothing, only disappointment.

  2

  IT WAS MAY, AND THE KHAMSIN WAS BLOWING, A HOT DUSTY WIND FROM THE south. Standing under the shower, William Vandam had the depressing thought that this would be the only time he would feel cool all day. He turned off the water and dried himself rapidly. His body was full of small aches. He had played cricket the day before, for the first time in years. General Staff Intelligence had got up a team to play the doctors from the field hospital--spies versus quacks, they had called it--and Vandam, fielding on the boundary, had been run ragged as the medics hit the Intelligence Department's bowling all over the park. Now he had to admit he was not in good condition. Gin had sapped his strength and cigarettes had shortened his wind, and he had too many worries to give the game the fierce concentration it merited.

  He lit a cigarette, coughed and started to shave. He always smoked while he was shaving--it was the only way he knew to relieve the boredom of the inevitable daily task. Fifteen years ago he had sworn he would grow a beard as soon as he got out of the Army, but he was still in the Army.

  He dressed in the everyday uniform: heavy sandals, socks, bush shirt and the khaki shorts with the flaps that could be let down and buttoned below the knee for protection against mosquitoes. Nobody ever used the flaps, and the younger officers usually cut them off, they looked so ridiculous.

  There was an empty gin bottle on the floor beside the bed. Vandam looked at it, feeling disgusted with himself: it was the first time he had taken the damn bottle to bed with him. He picked it up, replaced the cap and threw the bottle into the wastebasket. Then he went downstairs.