Once we had traversed the Muski and its continuation, the Sikkeh el-Gedideh, our progress slowed, since the thoroughfares (bearing various names with which I will not burden the Reader) were narrower and crowded with people. The sun was setting and I was increasingly anxious to reach our destination but I did not urge Ramses to go faster. We made better progress than some might have done, since people tended to scamper briskly out of the way when they recognized the vehicle. Nodding from side to side, as regally as a monarch on progress, Emerson acknowledged the greetings of passersby. I wondered if there was anyone in Cairo he did not know. Most of them knew him, at any rate.
“Perhaps we ought to have come on foot,” I murmured in his ear. “Our presence certainly will be noted.”
“It would be noted in any case,” said Emerson. “Do you suppose we could go ten yards without being observed? Look at that.”
Ramses had slowed almost to a stop in order to give the driver of a particularly stubborn camel time to drag it out of our path. A pack of ragged urchins now hung from both doors, exchanging comments with Ramses and paying compliments to Nefret. The compliments had, I admit, a certain financial element. “O beautiful lady, whose eyes are like the sky, have pity on a poor starving…”
Ramses made a remark in Arabic that I pretended not to hear, and the assailants withdrew, grinning appreciatively.
The motorcar had to be left on the Beit el Kadi, since it could not enter the winding ways that surround the picturesque sprawl of the Khan el Khalili. Emerson helped me out and started off without so much as a backward look; he assumed, probably correctly, that none of the local vagabonds would dare touch an object belonging to him. Ramses lingered briefly to speak to a man who had come out from under the open veranda on the east side of the square. Something passed from hand to hand, and the fellow nodded, grinning. Goodness, what a nasty suspicious mind the boy has, I thought.
He must have got it from me.
“Wait a moment,” I said, tugging at Emerson. “We should all stay together.”
“What? Oh, yes, of course.” He turned. “Get hold of Nefret, Ramses, and hurry up.”
“Yes, sir.”
The archway on the east side of the square leads into the narrow lanes of the Hasaneyn quarter and to one of the entrances to the Khan el Khalili. Emerson led the way through this maze without a pause or a false step, despite the increasing darkness. The old houses have enclosed balconies jutting out from the upper stories, almost bridging the narrow street. This made the lanes pleasantly cool during the day and dark as pitch during the night. There are seldom any windows on the lower floors of these houses, and the only illumination came from an occasional lantern hanging over the doorway of a considerate householder.
“Didn’t you bring your electric torch?” I asked, thankful that I was wearing stout shoes instead of low slippers.
“Do you really want to see what you just stepped into?” Emerson inquired. “Hang on to me, my dear, we are almost there.”
The restaurant was near the Mosque of Huseyn opposite the eastern entrance to the Khan el Khalili. Mr. Bassam, the proprietor, rushed to embrace us and heap reproaches on our heads. All these weeks we had been in Cairo and we had not visited his place! Every night he had hoped to entertain us, every night he had prepared our favorite dishes! He began to enumerate these.
“It is as God pleases,” said Emerson, cutting him off. “We are here now, Bassam, so bring out the food. We are all hungry.”
As it turned out, this was the one night Mr. Bassam had not prepared food in advance. He had quite given us up. After all, we had been in Cairo …
“Anything you have, then,” Emerson said. “The sooner the better.”
First a table had to be placed for us at the very front of the restaurant, near the door. This suited me very well. It also suited Mr. Bassam, who wanted such distinguished customers to be seen. He even dusted off the chairs with a towel. I hoped it was not the same one he used to wipe the dishes, but decided I would feel happier if I did not ask.
“And what will she have?” he inquired, as Ramses put Seshat down on a chair.
“She is omnivorous,” Nefret said gravely, in English.
“Ah? Ah! Yes, I will prepare—uh—it at once.”
“Don’t tease him, Nefret,” I scolded. Seshat sat up and inspected the top of the table. Finding nothing of interest there except a few crumbs, she jumped down onto the floor.
“Put her on the lead, Ramses, and tell her she must stay on the chair,” I instructed. “I don’t want her going out on the street to eat vermin.”
“She eats mice all the time,” said Emerson, as Ramses returned the cat to her chair and began searching his pockets—a token demonstration, as I well knew, for I had forgotten to mention the lead and he would never have thought of it himself. The collar was primarily for purposes of identification; it bore our name and Seshat’s.
“They are our vermin,” I said.
“Use this.” Nefret unwound the scarf from her neck and handed it to her brother.
Seshat accepted the indignity without objection after Ramses had explained the situation to her. The other diners, who were watching us with the admiring interest our presence always provokes, looked on openmouthed.
Mr. Bassam began heaping food, including a dish of spiced chicken, on the table. Seshat was not really omnivorous, but her tastes were more eclectic than those of many cats; she licked the seasoned coating off the chicken before devouring it, with more daintiness than certain of the other patrons displayed, and joined us in our dessert of melon and sherbet.
By the time we finished, darkness was complete. Across the way the gateway of the Khan was hidden in the shadows, but there were lights beyond it, from the innumerable little shops and stalls. The shoppers and sightseers passing in and out of the entrance included a number of people in European dress and a few in uniform.
“Nothing yet,” I whispered to Emerson, while Ramses and Nefret argued amiably over how much melon Seshat should be allowed to eat. “It isn’t that far away. We would hear a disturbance, wouldn’t we?”
“Probably. Possibly. Cursed if I know.” Emerson’s curt and contradictory remarks told me he was as uneasy as I had become. Sitting on the sidelines is not something Emerson much enjoys. “Let’s go over there.”
“Go where?” Nefret asked.
“To the Khan,” I replied, with my customary quickness. “I suggested we stroll a bit before returning home. Have we all finished?”
At one time the gates of the Khan were closed before the evening prayer. An increasing number of merchants were now “infidels”—Greeks or Levantines or Egyptian Christians—and the more mercantile-minded of the Moslem Cairenes had seen the advantage of longer hours, especially when the city was bursting with soldiers who wanted exotic gifts and mementos. (Some of them spent their pay in quite another quarter of the city and took home mementos that were not so harmless. But that is not a subject into which I care to enter.)
The Khan el Khalili is not a single suk, but a sprawling collection of ramshackle shops and ruinous gateways and buildings. The old khans, the storehouses of the merchant princes of medieval Cairo , were architectural treasures, or would have been if they had been properly maintained. A few had been restored; most had not; mercantile establishments occupied the lower floors and huddled close to the flaking walls; but one might catch occasional glimpses of delicately arched windows and tiled doorframes behind the shops.
The smells were no less remarkable. Charcoal fires, donkey and camel dung, unwashed human bodies, spices and perfumes, baking bread and broiling meat blended into an indescribable whole. One may list the individual components, but that gives the reader no sense of the composite aroma. It was much more enjoyable than one might assume, in fact, and no worse than the sort of thing one encounters in many old European towns. There were times, when the fresh breeze blew across the Kentish meadows carrying the scent of roses and honeysuckle, when I would gladly have exchanged it for a whiff of old Cairo.