Kernel thought: How will I break it to Sadat?
It was the first time Kernel had flown. The desert, so featureless from ground level, had been an endless mosaic of shapes and patterns : the patches of gravel, the dots of vegetation and the carved volcanic hills. Baghdadi said: "You're going to be cold," and Kernel thought he was joking--the desert was like a furnace--but as the little plane climbed the temperature dropped steadily, and soon he was shivering in his thin cotton shirt.
After a while both planes had turned due east, and Baghdadi spoke into his radio, telling base that Imam had veered off course and was not replying to radio calls. As expected, base told Baghdadi to follow Imam. This little pantomime was necessary so that Baghdadi, who was to return, should not fall under suspicion.
They flew over an army encampment. Kernel saw tanks, trucks, field guns and jeeps. A bunch of soldiers waved: they must be British, Kernel thought. Both planes climbed. Directly ahead they saw signs of battle: great clouds of dust, explosions and gunfire. They turned to pass to the south of the battlefield.
Kernel had thought: We flew over a British base, then a battlefield--next we should come to a German base.
Ahead, Imam's plane lost height. Instead of following, Baghdadi climbed a little more--Kernel had the feeling that the Gladiator was near its ceiling--and peeled off to the south. Looking out of the plane to the right, Kemel saw what the pilots had seen: a small camp with a cleared strip marked as a runway.
Approaching Sadat's house, Kernel recalled how elated he had felt, up there in the sky above the desert, when he realized they were behind German lines, and the treaty was almost in Rommel's hands.
He knocked on the door. He still did not know what to tell Sadat.
It was an ordinary family house, rather poorer than Kernel's home. In a moment Sadat came to the door, wearing a galabiya and smoking a pipe. He looked at Kemel's face, and said immediately: "It went wrong."
"Yes." Kernel stepped inside. They went into the little room Sadat used as a study. There were a desk, a shelf of books and some cushions on the bare floor. On the desk an army pistol lay on top of a pile of papers.
They sat down. Kernel said: "We found a German camp with a runway. Imam descended. Then the Germans started to fire on his plane. It was an English plane, you see--we never considered that."
Sadat said: "But surely, they could see he was not hostile--he did not fire, did not drop bombs--"
"He just kept on going down," Kernel went on. "He waggled his wings, and I suppose he tried to raise them on the radio; anyway they kept firing. The tail of the plane took a hit."
"Oh, God."
"He seemed to be going down very fast. The Germans stopped firing. Somehow he managed to land on his wheels. The plane seemed to bounce. I don't think Imam could control it any longer. Certainly he could not slow down. He went off the hard surface and into a patch of sand; the port wing hit the ground and snapped; the nose dipped and plowed into the sand; then the fuselage fell on the broken wing."
Sadat was staring at Kemel, blank-faced and quite still, his pipe going cold in his hand. In his mind Kemel saw the plane lying broken in the sand, with a German fire truck and ambulance speeding along the runway toward it, followed by ten or fifteen soldiers. He would never forget how, like a blossom opening its petals, the belly of the plane had burst skyward in a riot of red and yellow flame.
"It blew up," he told Sadat.
"And Imam?"
"He could not possibly live through such a fire."
"We must try again," Sadat said. "We must find another way to get a message through."
Kernel stared at him, and realized that his brisk tone of voice was phony. Sadat tried to light his pipe, but the hand holding the match was shaking too much. Kemel looked closely, and saw that Sadat had tears in his eyes.
"The poor boy," Sadat whispered.
7
WOLFF WAS BACK AT SQUARE ONE: HE KNEW WHERE THE SECRETS WERE, BUT he could not get at them.
He might have stolen another briefcase the way he had taken the first, but that would begin to look, to the British, like a conspiracy. He might have thought of another way to steal a briefcase, but even that might lead to a security clampdown. Besides, one briefcase on one day was not enough for his needs: he had to have regular, unimpeded access to secret papers.
That was why he was shaving Sonja's pubic hair.
Her hair was black and coarse, and it grew very quickly. Because she shaved it regularly she was able to wear her translucent trousers without the usual heavy, sequined G-string on top. The extra measure of physical freedom--and the persistent and accurate rumor that she had nothing on under the trousers--had helped to make her the leading belly dancer of the day.
Wolff dipped the brush into the bowl and began to lather her.
She lay on the bed, her back propped up by a pile of pillows, watching him suspiciously. She was not keen on this, his latest perversion. She thought she was not going to like it.
Wolff knew better.
He knew how her mind worked, and he knew her body better than she did, and he wanted something from her.
He stroked her with the soft shaving brush and said: "I've thought of another way to get into those briefcases."
"What?"
He did not answer her immediately. He put down the brush and picked up the razor. He tested its sharp edge with his thumb, then looked at her. She was watching him with horrid fascination. He leaned closer, spread her legs a little more, put the razor to her skin, and drew it upward with a light, careful stroke.
He said: "I'm going to befriend a British officer."
She did not answer: she was only half listening to him. He wiped the razor on a towel. With one finger of his left hand he touched the shaved patch, pulling down to stretch the skin, then he brought the razor close.
"Then I'll bring the officer here," he said.
Sonja said: "Oh, no."
He touched her with the edge of the razor and gently scraped upward.
She began to breathe harder.
He wiped the razor and stroked again once, twice, three times.
"Somehow I'll get the officer to bring his briefcase."
He put his finger on her most sensitive spot and shaved around it. She closed her eyes.
He poured hot water from a kettle into a bowl on the floor beside him. He dipped a flannel into the water and wrung it out.
"Then I'll go through the briefcase while the officer is in bed with you."
He pressed the hot flannel against her shaved skin.
She gave a sharp cry like a cornered animal: "Ahh, God!"
Wolff slipped out of his bathrobe and stood naked. He picked up a bottle of soothing skin oil, poured some into the palm of his right hand, and knelt on the bed beside Sonja; then he anointed her pubis.
"I won't," she said as she began to writhe.
He added more oil, massaging it into all the folds and crevices. With his left hand he held her by the throat, pinning her down. "You will."
His knowing fingers delved and squeezed, becoming less gentle.
She said: "No."
He said: "Yes."
She shook her head from side to side. Her body wriggled, helpless in the grip of intense pleasure. She began to shudder, and finally she said: "Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh!" Then she relaxed.
Wolff would not let her stop. He continued to stroke her smooth, hairless skin while with his left hand he pinched her brown nipples. Unable to resist him, she began to move again.
She opened her eyes and saw that he, too, was aroused. She said: "You bastard, stick it in me."
He grinned. The sense of power was like a drug. He lay over her and hesitated, poised.
She said: "Quickly!"
"Will you do it?"
"Quickly!"
He let his body touch hers, then paused again. "Will you do it?"
"Yes! Please!"
"Aaah," Wolff breathed, and lowered himself to her.
She tried
to go back on it afterward, of course.
"That kind of promise doesn't count," she said.
Wolff came out of the bathroom wrapped in a big towel. He looked at her. She was lying on the bed, still naked, eating chocolates from a box. There were moments when he was almost fond of her.
He said: "A promise is a promise."
"You promised to find us another Fawzi." She was sulking. She always did after sex.
"I brought that girl from Madame Fahmy's," Wolff said.
"She wasn't another Fawzi. Fawzi didn't ask for ten pounds every time, and she didn't go home in the morning."
"All right. I'm still looking."
"You didn't promise to look, you promised to find."
Wolff went into the other room and got a bottle of champagne out of the icebox. He picked up two glasses and took them back into the bedroom. "Do you want some?"
"No," she said. "Yes."
He poured and handed her a glass. She drank some and took another chocolate. Wolff said: "To the unknown British officer who is about to get the nicest surprise of his life."
"I won't go to bed with an Englishman," Sonja said. "They smell bad and they have skins like slugs and I hate them."
"That's why you'll do it--because you hate them. Just imagine it: while he's screwing you and thinking how lucky he is, I'll be reading his secret papers."
Wolff began to dress. He put on a shirt which had been made for him in one of the tiny tailor shops in the Old City--a British uniform shirt with captain's pips on the shoulders.
Sonja said: "What are you wearing?"
"British officer's uniform. They don't talk to foreigners, you know."
"You're going to pretend to be British?"
"South African, I think."
"But what if you slip up?"
He looked at her. "I'll probably be shot as a spy."
She looked away.
Wolff said: "If I find a likely one, I'll take him to the Cha-Cha." He reached into his shirt and drew his knife from its underarm sheath. He went close to her and touched her naked shoulder with its point. "If you let me down, I'll cut your lips off."
She looked into his face. She did not speak, but there was fear in her eyes.
Wolff went out.
Shepheard's was crowded. It always was.
Wolff paid off his taxi, pushed through the pack of hawkers and dragomans outside, mounted the steps and went into the foyer. It was packed with people: Levantine merchants holding noisy business meetings, Europeans using the post office and the banks, Egyptian girls in their cheap gowns and British officers--the hotel was out of bounds to Other Ranks. Wolff passed between two larger-than-life bronze ladies holding lamps and entered the lounge. A small band played nondescript music while more crowds, mostly European now, called constantly for waiters. Negotiating the divans and marble-topped tables Wolff made his way through to the long bar at the far end.
Here it was a little quieter. Women were banned, and serious drinking was the order of the day. It was here that a lonely officer would come.
Wolff sat at the bar. He was about to order champagne, then he remembered his disguise and asked for whiskey and water.
He had given careful thought to his clothes. The brown shoes were officer pattern and highly polished; the khaki socks were turned down at exactly the right place; the baggy brown shorts had a sharp crease; the bush shirt with captain's pips was worn outside the shorts, not tucked in; the flat cap was just slightly raked.
He was a little worried about his accent. He had his story ready to explain it--the line he had given Captain Newman, in Assyut, about having been brought up in Dutch-speaking South Africa--but what if the officer he picked up was a South African? Wolff could not distinguish English accents well enough to recognize a South African.
He was more worried about his knowledge of the Army. He was looking for an officer from GHQ, so he would say that he himself was with BTE--British Troops in Egypt--which was a separate and independent outfit. Unfortunately he knew little else about it. He was uncertain what BTE did and how it was organized, and he could not quote the name of a single one of its officers. He imagined a conversation :
"How's old Buffy Jenkins?"
"Old Buffy? Don't see much of him in my department."
"Don't see much of him? He runs the show! Are we talking about the same BTE?"
Then again:
"What about Simon Frobisher?"
"Oh, Simon's the same, you know."
"Wait a minute--someone said he'd gone back home. Yes, I'm sure he has--how come you didn't know?"
Then the accusations, and the calling of the military police, and the fight, and finally the jail.
Jail was the only thing that really frightened Wolff. He pushed the thought out of his mind and ordered another whiskey.
A perspiring colonel came in and stood at the bar next to Wolff's stool. He called to the barman: "Ezma!" It meant "Listen," but all the British thought it meant "Waiter." The colonel looked at Wolff.
Wolff nodded politely and said: "Sir."
"Cap off in the bar, Captain," said the colonel. "What are you thinking of?"
Wolff took off his cap, cursing himself silently for the error. The colonel ordered beer. Wolff looked away.
There were fifteen or twenty officers in the bar, but he recognized none of them. He was looking for any one of the eight aides who left GHQ each midday with their briefcases. He had memorized the face of each one, and would recognize them instantly. He had already been to the Metropolitan Hotel and the Turf Club without success, and after half an hour in Shepheard's he would try the Officers' Club, the Gezira Sporting Club and even the Anglo-Egyptian Union. If he failed tonight he would try again tomorrow: sooner or later he was sure to bump into at least one of them.
Then everything would depend on his skill.
His scheme had a lot going for it. The uniform made him one of them, trustworthy and a comrade. Like most soldiers they were probably lonely and sex-starved in a foreign country. Sonja was undeniably a very desirable woman--to look at, anyway--and the average English officer was not well armored against the wiles of an Oriental seductress.
And anyway, if he was unlucky enough to pick an aide smart enough to resist temptation, he would have to drop the man and look for another.
He hoped it would not take that long.
In fact it took him five more minutes.
The major who walked in was a small man, very thin, and about ten years older than Wolff. His cheeks had the broken veins of a hard drinker. He had bulbous blue eyes, and his thin sandy hair was plastered to his head.
Every day he left GHQ at midday and walked to an unmarked building in the Shari Suleiman Pasha--carrying his briefcase.
Wolff's heart missed a beat.
The major came up to the bar, took off his cap, and said: "Ezma! Scotch. No ice. Make it snappy." He turned to Wolff. "Bloody weather," he said conversationally.
"Isn't it always, sir?" Wolff said
"Bloody right. I'm Smith, GHQ."
"How do you do, sir," Wolff said. He knew that, since Smith went from GHQ to another building every day, the major could not really be at GHQ; and he wondered briefly why the man should lie about it. He put the thought aside for the moment and said: "I'm Slaven burg, BTE."
"Jolly good. Get you another?"
It was proving even easier than he had expected to get into conversation with an officer. "Very kind of you, sir," Wolff said.
"Ease up on the sirs. No bull in the bar, what?"
"Of course." Another error.
"What'll it be?"
"Whiskey and water, please."
"Shouldn't take water with it if I were you. Comes straight out of the Nile, they say."
Wolff smiled. "I must be used to it."
"No gippy tummy? You must be the only white man in Egypt who hasn't got it."
"Born in Africa, been in Cairo ten years." Wolff was slipping into Smith's abbreviated style of speech. I should
have been an actor, he thought.
Smith said: "Africa, eh? I thought you had a bit of an accent."
"Dutch father, English mother. We've got a ranch in South Africa."
Smith looked solicitous. "It's rough for your father, with Jerry all over Holland."
Wolff had not thought of that. "He died when I was a boy," he said.
"Bad show." Smith emptied his glass.
"Same again?" Wolff offered.
"Thanks."
Wolff ordered more drinks. Smith offered him a cigarette: Wolff refused.
Smith complained about the poor food, the way bars kept running out of drinks, the rent of his flat and the rudeness of Arab waiters. Wolff itched to explain that the food was poor because Smith insisted on English rather than Egyptian dishes, that drinks were scarce because of the European war, that rents were sky-high because of the thousands of foreigners like Smith who had invaded the city, and that the waiters were rude to him because he was too lazy or arrogant to learn a few phrases of courtesy in their language. Instead of explaining he bit his tongue and nodded as if he sympathized.
In the middle of this catalogue of discontent Wolff looked past Smith's shoulder and saw six military policemen enter the bar.
Smith noticed his change of expression and said: "What's the matter--seen a ghost?"
There was an army MP, a navy MP in white leggings, an Australian, a New Zealander, a South African and a turbaned Gurkha. Wolff had a crazy urge to run for it. What would they ask him? What would he say?
Smith looked around, saw the MPs and said: "The usual nightly picket--looking for drunken officers and German spies. This is an officers' bar, they won't disturb us. What's the matter--you breaking bounds or something?"
"No, no." Wolff improvised hastily: "The navy man looks just like a chap I knew who got killed at Halfaya." He continued to stare at the picket. They appeared very businesslike with their steel hats and holstered pistols. Would they ask to see papers?
Smith had forgotten them. He was saying: "And as for the servants : .. Bloody people. I'm bloody sure my man's been watering the gin. I'll find him out though. I've filled an empty gin bottle with zibib-you know, that stuff that turns cloudy when you add water? Wait till he tries to dilute that. He'll have to buy a whole new bottle and pretend nothing happened. Ha ha! Serve him right."