He lived for hawks, grew generation after generation of saline-resistant grasses in a biodome on the edge of Chott el Jerid, Tunisia’s salt-crusted inland sea, and had once hired a Soviet cryptographer and one of Caltech’s most brilliant geneticists to extract meaning from the randomness of junk DNA.
Political decisions the Emir made after consulting the heavens. Not listening to a pet astrologer, though that would have been bad enough, but asking questions of the constellations themselves. And when he spoke, in public or private, reports had it that he spoke only in complex couplets, perfectly cadenced and delivered after long thought.
Among the Berber tribes, who still traversed the empty sands and rock seas with little care for international borders, he was regarded as North Africa’s sole sane ruler. It was a minority opinion and one with which it was obvious Major Halim didn’t agree.
“So tell me,” said Raf, “who am I?”
The major looked at the young princeling in the black leather coat, the dark glasses and black gloves whose pale hair blew in the slight night breeze. “The son of the Emir of Tunis,” he said without hesitation.
Raf nodded and offered his hand. This time they shook.
“Very touching,” said Zara. “Now if you’ve both finished with the male-bonding shit, perhaps Major Halim could escort me home. Of course,” she added crossly, “if this wasn’t El Isk I could get myself home. Since I’m perfectly capable of walking, chewing gum and looking where I’m going at the same time. But since this is Iskandryia and any woman alone at night is obviously a prostitute . . .”
Raf grinned. Then smiled some more at Major Halim’s discomfort. “This is nothing,” he said, “you wait until you know her better and she gets really cross.”
“Better . . . ?” The major executed a tiny bow in Zara’s direction. “Much as I’d welcome the chance to get to know Miss Quitrimala better, I’m afraid that’s impossible.” His tone was genuinely regretful.
“Don’t tell me,” said Zara, “you couldn’t cope with a third mistress.”
“It’s not that,” the major said, looking shocked. “I’m leaving for Berlin next week, on secondment to the Thiergarten. After that, if everything goes smoothly, I hope to become Iskandryia’s attaché to Stambul.” For a moment, admitting this, the major seemed almost bashful. But Zara was too cross to notice.
“Then what,” she asked furiously, “was gate-crashing my supper about? All that sucking up to my mother. And the crap about me needing air and taking a walk . . .”
“This is difficult,” said the major and glanced at Raf. When it became obvious that Raf refused to take his cue to withdraw, Major Halim sighed. “The Khedive intends to take a holiday . . . Well deserved obviously.”
Zara opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. A sudden tension locked her shoulders, which refused to budge, even when she twisted her head from side to side. Zara had a nasty idea she knew exactly what was about to come next.
“His Highness was wondering if . . .”
“Have you talked to my parents about this?”
“Of course,” the major said nervously. “Your father said it was your decision where you took your holidays and with whom. Which was not, to be honest, the reaction I was expecting. Your mother thinks it’s an excellent idea.”
I bet she does, thought Zara. Somewhere in her mother’s finely gradated misunderstanding of Iskandryian society, the woman undoubtedly believed that being mother to the Khedive’s mistress was even better than having a bey in the family.
Zara had been spot on about her mother’s desperation that she take this walk, totally wrong about the motives. “It’s not going to happen,” she said calmly.
So calmly that even the major could hear her keep the anger in check.
“Tell the boy I’m not interested. Just that, nothing else. Don’t make it polite, don’t give my apologies or regrets because I’m not sending them . . .”
“You misunderstand,” the major said carefully. “You misunderstand completely. The Khedive’s intentions are entirely honourable. ” He stumbled over the word, not certain how much he could actually say. In his own mind, before supper, when he’d been running through how to approach the coming evening, he’d seen them both taking a moonlit stroll through the terraces of the Palace Ras el-Tin while he proffered the Khedive’s invitation and she accepted gratefully.
“He doesn’t want to get me into bed?”
The major’s lips twisted. “Let me repeat myself. His intentions are strictly legitimate.”
Zara’s eyes widened. Impossible visions of palaces, sleek yachts, long holidays aboard the SS Jannah opened like flowers before her.
“And if I go on this holiday?”
“Then he’ll propose,” said Raf, “won’t he?”
Major Halim looked pained. “You can’t honestly expect me to comment.”
“God.” Raf laughed. “Koenig Pasha must be climbing a wall . . . Only my cousin could decide he needed to marry a hard-line republican. Not to mention occasional communist.” They had files on Zara too, back at the precinct. Files he could recite from memory.
“Have you spoken to my parents about that bit as well?” Zara asked the major.
Major Halim shook his head. “Only tentatively about the holiday. Enough to make clear that you would be an honoured . . .”
“Well, don’t,” Zara stressed. “Speak to them, I mean. It’s nothing they need to know.”
“They’re your parents.”
“Talk to either of them about this,” said Zara, “and I guarantee I won’t go.”
“But the Khedive is determined to do this properly. By the book . . .”
“You do realize,” Zara interrupted crossly, “that if the Prophet had been a woman, there wouldn’t even have been the Book, because no one would have listened, never mind written it down . . .”
CHAPTER 12
8th October
The first of that Friday’s calls to prayer found Raf leaning against a seawall, watching smugglers run empty cigarette boats into Western Harbour under protection of both darkness, which came free, and the Commander of Ras el-Tin, whose protection came anything but . . .
And the Terbana Mosque’s definition of dawn seemed open to debate. The Mufti had defined it as the point not when light first touched the sky but when the absolute utterness of the night first lessened.
Raf thought the man was being unduly optimistic.
Hamzah’s call came four hours later, just as Raf was about to shower away the black dog of his wasted night. Because even blasting his police Honda to Abu Sir and back, fifty klicks along the shore, had done nothing to improve Raf’s mood, even though early mist had hung over the Mariout marshes and the Mediterranean had still worn her night colours.
“For you,” shouted Hani, her call echoing up the lift shaft from the haremlek below. “It’s Effendi.”
Raf had warned Hani not to call Hamzah that, but currently the child was paying zero attention to anything he said.
“Tell him I’ll call back.”
“He says it’s important.”
Sighing, Raf picked up his dressing gown from the floor and pulled on some old leather slippers that Khartoum insisted once belonged to Hani’s grandfather. When Raf made some glib comment about dead men’s shoes, the old porter had pulled deeply on the wrong end of a cigar and nodded like it was obvious.
“This alone is true,” he’d told Raf. “This here, at this time, for this person.” Khartoum had announced it like that was also obvious. Three days later Raf was still puzzling over that one.