During the previous evening he’d made his obligatory visit to the home of his parents. He loved his mother deeply but disapproved of her decision to stay at home to care for his invalid father. His mother had been one of the first women in Egypt to obtain a university degree, and Ahmed would have preferred it if she had used her education. She was a highly intelligent woman and could have been a great help to Ahmed. His father had been critically injured in the 1956 war, the same war that had taken Ahmed’s older brother. Ahmed did not know a family in Egypt that had not been touched with tragedy from the many wars, and when he thought about it, it made him tremble with anger.
After his visit to his parents, Ahmed had slept long and well in his own rambling mud-brick home in Luxor. His housekeeper had prepared a wonderful breakfast of fresh bread and coffee. And Zaki had called, reporting that two special plainclothes agents had been dispatched to Saqqara. Everything seemed quiet in Cairo. And perhaps most important, he had successfully handled a potential family crisis. A cousin, whom he had promoted to chief guard of the Necropolis of Luxor, had become restive and wanted to move to Cairo. Ahmed had tried to reason with him, but when that did not work, he had dispensed with diplomacy, and becoming angry, had ordered him to stay. The cousin’s father, Ahmed’s uncle-in-law, had tried to intervene. Ahmed had to remind the older man that his permit to run the concession stand in the Valley of the Kings could easily be revoked. That being settled, Ahmed had been able to sit down to some paperwork. So the world seemed better and more organized than the day before.
Placing the last of the memoranda he had brought to read in his briefcase, Ahmed had a sense of accomplishment. It would have taken him twice as long to go through the same material in Cairo. It was Luxor. He loved Luxor. Ancient Thebes. For Ahmed there was magic in the air that made him feel happy and at ease.
He stood up from his chair in the large living room. His home was dazzling white stucco outside, and although rustic inside, it was spotlessly clean. The building had been made by connecting a series of existing mud-brick structures. The result was a narrow house, only twenty feet wide, but very deep, with a long hall running on the left side. A series of guestrooms opened on the right. The kitchen was in the back of the house and was quite crude, without running water. Behind the kitchen was a small courtyard bounded by a stable for his prized possession, a three-year-old black Arabian stallion he called Sawda.
Ahmed had ordered his houseman to have Sawda saddled and ready by eleven-thirty. He planned to interrogate Tewfik Hamdi, Abdul Hamdi’s son, at his antique shop before lunch. Ahmed felt it was important to do this himself. Then, after the midday heat had abated, he planned to cross the Nile and ride unannounced to the Valley of the Kings to inspect the new security system he’d put into effect. There would be time to return to Cairo in the evening.
Sawda pawed the ground impatiently when Ahmed appeared. The young stallion was like a Renaissance study, with each muscle defined in flawless black marble. His face was sharply chiseled, with flaring nostrils. His eyes rivaled Ahmed’s for their black watery depth. Once en route, Ahmed sensed the sheer power and life force in the exuberant animal beneath him. It was with difficulty that he kept the horse from exploding in a burst of thunderous speed. Ahmed knew that Sawda’s unpredictable personality mirrored his own volatile passions. Because of their similarities, sharp words spoken in Arabic and forceful use of the reins were needed to control the stallion so that rider and horse could move as one in the sun-speckled shade of the palms along the banks of the Nile.
Tewfik Hamdi’s antique shop was one of many nestled within a series of dusty crooked streets behind the ancient Temple of Luxor. They were all close to the major hotels and depended on the unsuspecting tourists for their continued existence. Most of the artifacts they sold were fakes manufactured on the West Bank. Ahmed did not know the exact location of Tewfik Hamdi’s shop, so once he got in the area, he asked.
He was told the street and the number, and he found the shop without difficulty. But it was locked. It wasn’t just closed for lunch. It was boarded up for the night.
With Sawda hitched in a patch of shade, Ahmed inquired about Tewfik in the neighboring shops. The answers were consistent. Tewfik’s shop had not been open all day, and, yes, it was strange, because Tewfik Hamdi had not missed a day in years. One proprietor added that Tewfik’s absence might have something to do with his father’s recent death in Cairo.
Heading back toward Sawda, Ahmed passed directly in front of the shop. The boarded door caught his attention. Looking more closely, Ahmed found a long fresh crack in one of the boards. It appeared as if a portion had been torn off and then replaced. Ahmed inserted his fingers between the boards and pulled. There was no movement whatsoever. Looking up at the top of the crude shutter, Ahmed noticed that the boards were nailed to the doorjamb instead of being hooked from inside. He decided that Tewfik Hamdi must have left with the expectation of being gone for some time.
Ahmed stepped back from the building, stroking his mustache. Then he shrugged his shoulders and walked back toward Sawda. He thought that it probably was true that Tewfik Hamdi had gone to Cairo. Ahmed wondered how he could find out where Tewfik Hamdi lived.
En route to his horse, Ahmed met an old family friend and stopped to chat; his thoughts, however, strayed beyond the exchanged pleasantries. There was something particularly unsettling about Tewfik nailing his door shut. As soon as he could, Ahmed excused himself, skirted the commercial block, and entered the maze of open passageways that led into the area behind the shops. The noontime sun beat down and reflected off the stuccoed walls, bringing perspiration to his forehead. He felt a rivulet of sweat trickle down the small of his back.
Directly behind the antique shops, Ahmed found himself in a warren of hastily made shelters. As he continued, chickens scattered and naked young children paused in their play to stare at him. After some difficulty and several false turns, Ahmed arrived at the rear door of Tewfik Hamdi’s antique shop. Through the slats of the door he could see a small brick courtyard.
While several three-year-old boys watched, Ahmed put his shoulder against the wooden door and forced it open far enough to enter. The courtyard was about fifteen feet long, with another wooden door at the far end. An open doorway was on the left. As Ahmed returned the wooden door to its original position, he saw a dark brown rat dash from the open doorway across the courtyard into a clay drainage pipe. The air was heavy, hot, and still.
The open doorway led into a small room where Tewfik apparently lived. Ahmed stepped over the threshold. On a simple wooden table a rotting mango and a wedge of goat cheese lay covered with flies. Everything else in the room had been opened and dumped. A cabinet in the corner had its door torn off. Papers were indiscriminately thrown about. Several holes had been dug in the mud-brick walls. Ahmed surveyed the scene with mounting anxiety, trying to comprehend what had happened.
Quickly he moved from the apartment to the door into the shop. It was unlocked and swung open with an agonized rasp. Inside, it was dark. Only small pencils of light penetrated the slats of the boarded front doorway, and Ahmed paused while his eyes adjusted from the harsh sunlight. He heard the scurrying of tiny feet. More rats.
The disarray in the shop was much greater than in the sleeping room. Huge cabinets lining the walls had been pulled down, splintered, and thrown into a large pile in the center of the room. Their contents had been smashed and scattered. It was as if a cyclone had hit the shop. Ahmed had to lift portions of the broken furniture to enter. He picked his way to the center of the shop; then he froze. He’d found Tewfik Hamdi. Tortured. Dead. Tewfik had been pulled over the wooden counter, which was stained with dried blood. Each hand had been nailed palm down to the counter with a single spike, his arms spread apart. Almost all Tewfik’s fingernails had been pulled out. Then his wrists had been cut. He had been forced to watch himself bleed to death. His bloodless face was ghostly pale, and a filthy rag had been stuffed in his mouth to silence his screams, making his cheeks bulge grotesquely.