The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters [14]
“I trust you extracted a description?”
“Certainly. Tall, heavyset, black beard and mustache.”
“That’s no help. Even if it was true.”
“Aslimi would not lie to me. Emerson, please don’t walk so fast.”
“Ha,” said Emerson. But he slowed his steps and gave me his arm. We had emerged onto the Muski, with its roaring traffic and European shops. “We’ll just have time to tidy up before luncheon,” he added. “Do you suppose the children are back?”
“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