Zara caught Hani staring and forced a smile. Instantly the child snatched away her glance, then looked back. When Hani married it was going to be to a pasha, rich and handsome, Aunt Nafisa had promised. Ashraf was a bey, which was almost as good, but he looked weird. Aunt Nafisa said that was because he'd been doing secret work for the government. And no, Hani wasn't allowed to ask him about it.
Everyone in the qaa was sitting on silver chairs, except for the big man leaning against a pillar. Probably he was worried he might break his if he sat on it. The chairs were classically French, made a hundred and fifty years earlier when Third Empire was what families like theirs had wanted, so Aunt Nafìsa had told her.
But instead of the cabinet maker covering each chair-back with walnut veneer, he'd finished the entire frame — legs, back and sides — with a tissue-like sheet of beaten silver. And the matching chest of drawers, divan and semi-circular occasional tables had their own share of similar ornamentation. All of the madersa furniture on display in the public rooms was haute Third Empire, refracted through Ottoman eyes. It looked ugly to Hani but she'd learnt to keep that opinion to herself.
'Sorry ..." Steps rang on the marble stairs leading up to the qaa and Hani forgot furniture at the same moment as she stopped being bored.
'Ashraf!' Lady Nafisa's voice hovered between fury and thinly disguised relief that he'd shown at all. Smoke had been twisting up from the kitchens for at least an hour. And while Nafisa's cook Donna might have been spit-roasting a goat over an open fire of juniper twigs, Hani's money was on something in an oven beginning to burn.
'I'm sorry,' said Raf, looking round the qaa. 'I was at my office,'
'On a Saturday!' Hani snorted, not bothering to disguise the disbelief in her voice. Even she could lie better than that.
'He went to his office.' She hooked Ali-Din up onto her lap and nibbed her nose in his fur, ignoring her aunt's scowl. It said something about how determined Aunt Nafisa wras that things should go smoothly that she didn't immediately order Hani to take the puppy outside.
'Yes,' said Raf. 'And then I walked home.'
'Doesn't look far on a map,' growled a voice he knew. 'Rather different against the crowds.' Hamzah Effendi left his place at the balustrade, wrung Raf's hand heartily and retreated back to his pillar.
'Lady N doesn't like it,' he said, waving a fat cigar. 'Nor does my wife. Don't blame you going to the office. Probably the only place you can get some peace. Still,' he said, 'you're here now and that's what counts.' Dropping his cigar to the floor, Hamzah ground the butt under heel.
Lady Nafìsa tried not to wince.
'My nephew, Pashazade al-Mansur, Ashraf Bey,' she said to a short thickset woman loaded down with more gold than the federal reserve. 'His father is the Emir of Tunis.' Lady Nafisa sounded as if she was selling a horse at auction.
'Ashraf, this is Madame Rahina ...' It was obvious from the shock on the fat woman's face that her husband hadn't warned her about Raf's beard or dreadlocks.
"... And you know Dr Hamzah Quitrimala Effendi, who owns HZ Oil ...'
'Bloody hard work,' said Hamzah, tapping a fresh cigar from a leather case that looked like it should contain shotgun shells. 'Pity you took that job at the Third Circle. Could have done with a good man on board. God knows, Kamil's never going to be up to —'
Both Lady Nafisa and Hamzah's wife suddenly found something else to talk about, so Raf never heard who Kamil was or what he wasn't up to. But from the frown on the face of Federal Reserve and the quarrelsome expression of Hamzah Effendi himself, Raf guessed that, whoever he was, they argued about him a lot.
'And this is my daughter,' said Madame Rahina hastily. 'She has a very good job at the New Alexandrian Library.'
'We've met,' said Raf.
Madame Rahina looked at him in shock.
'Four days ago,' said Raf, talking to the girl. 'On a green tram. Going south, heading for Rue Derida. You were carrying flowers.'
'It can't have been Zara,' Madame Rahina said firmly. 'She stayed over with a friend in Abukir. They both caught the most terrible food poisoning.'
'Then I must be wrong.' Raf peeled off his glasses and dropped them in his pocket. 'Still...' he shrugged, 'I'm surprised there are two such attractive girls in El Iskandryia.'
Zara shot him a look that mixed relief with outrage and her mother smirked. But it was Hamzah Effendi who spoke. 'Nasty stuff, food poisoning,' he said, looking at Zara.
'It's disgraceful,' said Lady Nafìsa firmly from her end of the table. 'Completely disgraceful that we let immigrants mutilate each other in the name of RenSchmiss. I've written to General Saeed himself and asked him to complain to the Khedive ...'
She glanced to her right, as if daring Hamzah to argue. There was no fear the person sat to her left would disagree. So far, Madame Rahina had nodded fiercely every time Lady Nafìsa opened her mouth.
The big man just shrugged, though from his position at the other end of the table Raf couldn't tell if this was because Hamzah couldn't be bothered to argue or because he genuinely didn't concern himself with Germans.
'What's RenSchmiss?' Hani asked.
The table went very still.
'I'll tell you later,' Lady Nafisa said, in a voice that meant she wouldn't.
'I want to know now,' Hani demanded. She dipped sticky fingers into a bowl of warm water and rose petals, shook them dry and sat back. Everything about her said she wasn't going to rest easy until someone had answered.
'Hani,' said her aunt.
'Well?' The small girl tugged Raf's sleeve and when he shrugged she turned to Zara. Hani could put up with Ali-Din being banished while they ate but didn't see why she had to put up with not understanding what everybody else was talking about as well.
'You tell me.'
Zara smiled as she dipped her own fingers in a rose bowl and shook them. 'Have you seen those gashes German boys have on their cheeks?'
Hani shook her head.
'We think it looks ugly but it's tradition for them,' said Zara.
'Renommer schmiss, the scars prove their bravery. When boys like that get to about fifteen, they go to a gymnasium, put on special jackets, helmets and metal goggles. And then they stand absolutely still, while an opponent slashes open their face ...'
'Zara wrote a paper on it at Colombia,' Madame Rahina said hastily.
'Not to be encouraged,' Lady Nafisa said. She might have been talking about RenSchmiss but, equally, her comment could apply to letting girls go abroad to college. 'Cousin Jalila and I have also sent a letter to El Iskandryia demanding the practice be banned.'
'We also have our traditions,' Zara said quietly, 'ones which they could call—'
Lady Nafisa set her mouth into a straight line. 'No,' she said. 'There is a difference between barbarism and the medical demands for a healthy life.'
Hani giggled. The mention of healthy living having brought a smirk on her face. 'You know where my Aunt Jalila goes?' she whispered to Raf when he bent to listen.
He shook his head.
It involved hoses and bottoms.
Lunch was in the qaa, at an oval table cast from marble dust and inlaid along the top with swirling Persian-blue tesserae arranged as a peacock displaying its tail. Matching benches curved down both sides of the table. Only Lady Nafisa had a chair.
The main part of the meal was goat, split open and spit-roasted until the flesh was so tender no knife was necessary and hot mouthfuls could be pinched off between finger and thumb. Two French waiters from a local café carried the dishes from the kitchens, Lady Nafisa having promised to pay what they demanded, provided they wore their uniforms from the café and the uniforms were clean.