‘Will it be as you say?’ she suddenly burst out. ‘That they will kill a lot of people?’
‘It depends how they are used,’ he said. ‘But, yes, they could kill a lot of people.’
He waited, and then, as she did not speak, he said, ‘Have you any idea how they are going to be used?’
She shook her head.
‘I just know they are there.’
‘And will be used.’
She nodded slowly.
‘Unless you tell me.’
He could see she was hesitating.
‘I would tell you,’ she said, ‘if only I could be sure-’
‘What do you want to be sure about?’
‘There are people,’ she said. ‘I want to give you the explosives; but I don’t want to give you the people.’
‘The explosives are what matter,’ said Owen. ‘No explosives, no killing. Although even then we could not be sure. It would be better if I knew the people.’
She shook her head.
‘It has to be a deal,’ she said. ‘I tell you about the explosives; you don’t ask me about the people.’
‘Very well, I accept that.’
‘Also,’ she stipulated, ‘you don’t use the knowledge to trap the people.’
‘It is hard to separate knowledge out. What if I already have knowledge? How can I set that aside?’
‘What I meant,’ she said, ‘was that you must not set a trap for them. You must not lie in wait for them.’
‘It might be better if I did.’
She shook her head firmly.
‘No,’ she said. ‘You must promise me that. Otherwise I shall tell you nothing.’
‘What if I take them by other means?’
He was afraid she was going to stipulate an immunity but she did not.
‘If you find out in other ways,’ she said in a low voice, ‘let it be so. But you must not take them through any action of mine.’
‘I give you my promise.’
She put her hand up to her face, unclipped the veil and took a drink of water. Then she replaced the veil and stood up.
‘Let us go then,’ she said.
Once again Owen found himself in the Fustat, and once again he lost himself in the narrow, overhung streets and had to find his way to the ferry for orientation. He realized suddenly that in this part of the Fustat that was what you did. Everyone thought instinctively in terms of the river. The smell of the river lingered in the dark streets, the tall masts of the gyassas tied to the bank hung over the low houses. The little alleyways all led down to the river.
The river was the centre of people’s lives. It provided work for the men, whether as boatmen working the little boats that went to and fro across the river with vegetables or fish, or the bigger gyassas that went up and down the Nile carrying grain, or as porters unloading the grain in its gaily patterned biscuit-coloured sacks, or as boat builders working with little bits of wood not much bigger than bricks out of which most Nile boats were built. There were rope yards and tarring pits, porters’ cafes such as the one in which the gang had had its headquarters, lettuce carts waiting for the vegetables to be unloaded, sentry boxes protecting men from the sun as they sold the water from the public taps-and, of course, the low dancing booths with their low ladies.
It had never quite come home to him before how different this part of Cairo was, different from the modern city which was hardly orientated to the river at all, different, too, from the world of the Ders which was only a few hundred yards away. The difference could be seen in the attitudes to thoroughfares. For the dock people, the Nile was the great thoroughfare along which all traffic flowed. In the Ders there were no thoroughfares, there were hardly any streets. You passed from building to building by going through underground passages, from vault to vault. There was nothing by which to orientate yourself. You had to know the way.
Once she was in the Der, Katarina did. More surely than Georgiades, she picked her way through the cloisters and tunnels until they came out into the sunlight and saw up above them the magnificent curtain wall of the old Roman fortress and the great arch of the old Roman gate. He knew now where he was; and was not so very surprised to find himself climbing once more the handsome staircase which swept up to the Hanging Church, the Mo’allaka.
Once more he saw the antique swinging lamps with their tiny flames, the golden ikons, the slender outlines of the delicate marble pulpit standing out against the overpowering richness of the dark screen, the low Moresco arches outlined with ivory which led into the sanctuary.
He looked across the church to the corner where the restorers had been working, but this time there was no subdued lamp, nothing moved in the darkness.
Katarina led him across the church and behind the screen. There was space to walk and giving off the space were various little cabinets or chapels. One had an image of the Virgin, soft and delicate, painted by Roman hands before dour Byzantine ideas crushed human outlines out of holy faces. Another had a strange painted cabinet with a lamp swaying in front of it, and wooden drums like shells for modern field guns which contained holy relics. Ostrich eggs hung from the roof.
To the left of the sanctuary was a low arch, so low that Katarina had to stoop deeply to go through it and Owen had to go down almost on to his knees. There was no light and for a moment or two he could not tell where he was. But then he saw the top of a very large tank and realized that he was in the baptismal room. Copts baptized by immersion.
He advanced cautiously to the tank and looked down, expecting to see water. There was, however, only a dry, cold musty smell. The tank had not been used for many years.
On one side of the tank, going down into it, there were wooden meshrebiya steps, slippery smooth to the touch. Katarina directed his hand down beneath them. He groped uncertainly but found nothing.
Katarina put her own hand down, gave a little surprised gasp and then clambered down into the tank. He could feel her scrabbling at the bottom.
Then she stood up.
‘They’ve gone,’ she said.
In the church a priest was lighting candles.
‘The restorers!’ said Owen. ‘Where are they?’
The priest looked up, surprised.
‘Aren’t they here? They were here. The workshops, perhaps?’ Owen ran down the stairs. In the courtyard a donkey was contentedly cropping the foliage that pushed through the trellis. The workshop was empty.
Back in the courtyard he found the donkey’s owner washing his face in the fountain.
‘Peace be with you!’ he said.
And with you, peace!’
‘I am looking for two men. They work in the church here.’
‘Do they wear boots?’
‘Yes.’
The donkey’s owner nodded.
‘I know them.’
‘They are neither Arab nor Copt.’
‘They wear boots,’ said the man, picking out the-for him-salient thing.
‘That is so. And I look for them.’
‘You are fortunate, then, for I have seen them.’
‘This morning?’
‘But shortly. As I was coming in at the gate.’
‘Were they carrying anything?’
‘Not they, but their donkey. Two heavy bags that made the donkey groan.’
‘They would go slowly, then.’
‘Slower still, were it not for the donkey.’
The gate was still the tremendous gate of the Roman builders. Its columns dwarfed the steady stream of passers-through below and were large enough to admit even heavy stone carts, although what happened to them once they had entered, and how they managed with the low arches and tunnels, Owen could not think. There was the usual crowd of beggars at the gate and to them Owen made application.
Two men with a donkey? Alas, there were many men with donkeys, too many to recall, Effendi. With boots? Ah, that was a different matter. Two men, neither Copt nor Arab, had passed through the gate scarcely more than an hour since.
The direction? As, in the Fustat, you would expect. The Effendi was not in the Der now. All roads in the Fustat led not to Babylon but to the river.