Elizabeth Peters: The Golden One

“One never knows. I only hope they haven’t got themselves in trouble.”

“Why should you suppose that?”

“They usually do.”

FROM MANUSCRIPT H

The infamous Red Blind district of Cairo was centered in an area embarrassingly close to the Ezbekieh and the luxury hotels. In the brothels of el-Wasa, Egyptian, Nubian, and Sudanese women plied their trade under conditions of abject squalor. In theory they were under government medical supervision, but the government’s only concern was the control of venereal disease. There had been no place for the women who had suffered beatings or botched abortions or illnesses of other kinds. Even more difficult to control were the brothels in the adjoining area of Wagh el-Birka, which were populated by European women and run by European entrepreneurs. They were foreigners and therefore subject only to the authority of their consuls. Ramses had heard Thomas Russell, the assistant commander of the Cairo police, cursing the restrictions that prevented him from closing down the establishments.

The alleys of el-Wasa were fairly quiet at that early hour. The stench was permanent; even a hard rain only stirred up the garbage of the streets and gathered it in oily pools, where it settled again once the water had evaporated. There were no drains. Ramses glanced at his wife, who walked briskly through the filth, giving it no more attention than was necessary to avoid the worst bits, and not for the first time he wondered how she could bear it. To his eyes she was always radiant, but in this setting she glowed like a fallen star, her golden-red hair gathered into a knot at the back of her head and her brow unclouded.

Initially the clinic had been regarded with suspicion and dislike by the denizens of the Red Blind district, and Nefret and her doctor friend Sophia had deemed it advisable not to advertise its presence. Now it was under the protection of the Cairo police. Russell sent patrols around frequently and came down hard on anyone who tried to make trouble. Emerson had also come down hard on a few offenders who had not known that the person in charge was the daughter of the famed Father of Curses. They knew now. Nefret had found another, unexpected supporter in Ibrahim el-Gharbi, the Nubian transvestite who controlled the brothels of el-Wasa, so the expanded building now proclaimed its mission in polished bronze letters over the door, and the area around it was regularly cleaned of trash and dead animals.

“I’ll not come in this time,” Ramses said, when they reached the house.

Nefret gave him a provocative smile. “You don’t like trailing round after me and Sophia, do you?”

He didn’t, especially; he felt useless and ineffective, and only too often, wrung with pity for misery he was helpless to relieve. This time he had a valid excuse.

“I saw someone I want to talk with,” he explained. “I’ll join you in a bit.”

“All right.” She didn’t ask who; her mind was already inside the building, anticipating the duties that awaited her.

He went back along the lane, kicking a dead rat out of his path and trying to avoid the deeper pools of slime. The man he had seen was sitting on a bench outside one of the more pretentious cribs. He was asleep, his head fallen back and his mouth open. The flies crawling across his face did not disturb his slumber; he was used to them. Ramses nudged him and he looked up, blinking.

“Salaam aleikhum, Brother of Demons. So you are back, and it is true what they say – that the Brother of Demons appears out of thin air, without warning.”

Ramses didn’t point out that Musa had been sound asleep when he approached; his reputation for being on intimate terms with demons stood him in good stead with the more superstitious Egyptians. “You have come down in the world since I last saw you, Musa. Did el-Gharbi dismiss you?”

“Have you not heard?” The man’s dull eyes brightened a little. It was a matter of pride to be the first to impart information, bad or good, and he would expect to be rewarded. He looked as if he could use money. As a favorite of el-Gharbi he had been sleek and plump and elegantly dressed. The rags he wore now barely covered his slender limbs.

“I will tell you,” he went on. “Sit down, sit down.”

He shifted over to make room for Ramses. The latter declined with thanks. Flies were not the only insects infesting Musa and his clothes.

“We knew the cursed British were raiding the houses and putting the women into prison,” Musa began. “They set up a camp at Hilmiya. But my master only laughed. He had too many friends in high places, he said. No one could touch him. And no one did – until one night there came two men sent by the mudir of the police himself, and they took my master away, still in his beautiful white garments. They say that when Harvey Pasha saw him, he was very angry and called him rude names.”

“I’m not surprised,” Ramses murmured. Harvey Pasha, commander of the Cairo police, was honest, extremely straitlaced, and rather stupid. He probably hadn’t even been aware of el-Gharbi’s existence until someone – Russell? – pointed out to him that he had missed the biggest catch of all. Ramses could only imagine the look on Harvey ’s face when el-Gharbi waddled in, draped in women’s robes and glittering with jewels.

Musa captured a flea and cracked it expertly between his thumbnails. “He is now in Hilmiya, my poor master, and I, his poor servant, have come to this. The world is a hard place, Brother of Demons.”

Even harder for the women whose only crime had been to do the bidding of their pimps and their clients – many of them British and Empire soldiers. Ramses couldn’t honestly say he was sorry for el-Gharbi, but he was unhappily aware that the situation had probably worsened since the procurer had been arrested. El-Gharbi had ruled the Red Blind district with an iron hand and his women had been reasonably well treated; he had undoubtedly been replaced by a number of smaller businessmen whose methods were less humane. The filthy trade could never be completely repressed.

“My master wishes to talk with you,” Musa said. “Do you have a cigarette?”

So Musa had been on the lookout for him, and had put himself deliberately in Ramses’s way. Somewhat abstractedly Ramses offered the tin. Musa took it, extracted a cigarette, and calmly tucked the tin away in the folds of his robe.

“How am I supposed to manage that?” Ramses demanded.

“Surely you have only to ask Harvey Pasha.”

“I have no influence with Harvey Pasha, and if I did, I wouldn’t be inclined to spend it on favors for el-Gharbi. Does he want to ask me to arrange his release?”

“I do not know. Have you another cigarette?”

“You took all I had,” Ramses said.

“Ah. Would you like one?” He extracted the tin and offered it.

“Thank you, no. Keep them,” he added.

The irony was wasted on Musa, who thanked him effusively, and held out a suggestive hand. “What shall I tell my master?”

Ramses dropped a few coins into the outstretched palm, and cut short Musa’s pleas for more. “That I can’t do anything for him. Let el-Gharbi sweat it out in the camp for a few months. He’s too fat anyhow. And if I know him, he has his circle of supporters and servants even in Hilmiya, and methods of getting whatever he wants. How did he communicate with you?”

“There are ways,” Musa murmured.

“I’m sure there are. Well, give him my…” He tried to think of the right word. The only ones that came to mind were too friendly or too courteous. On the other hand, the procurer had been a useful source of information in the past, and might be again. “Tell him you saw me and that I asked after him.”

He added a few more coins and went back to the hospital. Dr. Sophia greeted him with her usual smiling reserve. Ramses admired her enormously, but never felt completely at ease with her, though he realized there was probably nothing personal in her lack of warmth. She had to deal every day with the ugly results of male exploitation of women. It would not be surprising if she had a jaundiced view of all men.