'Listen,' he said. 'Our army is winning in the desert. We can help them. They need to know about the British strength-numbers of men, which divisions, names of commanders, quality of weapons and equipment and-if possible-battle plans. We're here, in Cairo; we can find these things out. Then, when the Germans take over, we will be heroes.'
'We?'
'You can help me. And the first thing you can do is give me a place to live. You hate the British, don't you? You want to see them thrown out?'
'I would do it for anyone but you,' She finished her champagne and refilled her glass.
Wolff took the glass from her hand and drank. 'Sonja. If I had sent you a postcard from Berlin the British would have thrown you in jail. You must not be angry, now that you know the reasons why.' He lowered his voice. 'We c4n bring those old times back. Well have good food and the best champagne, new clothes and beautiful parties and an American car. We'll go to Berlin, you've always wanted to dance in Berlin, you'll be a star there. Germany is a new kind of nation-we're going to rule the world, and you can be a princess. We-' He paused. None of this was getting through to her. It was time to play his last card. 'How is Fawzi?'
Sonja lowered her eyes. 'She left, the bitch.'
Wolff set down the glass, then he put both hands to Sonja's neck. She looked up at him, unmoving. With his thumbs under her chin he forced her to stand. 'I'll find another Fawzi for us,' he said softly. He saw that her eyes were suddenly moist. His hands moved over the silk robe, descending her body, stroking her Banks. 'I'm the only one who understands what you need.' He lowered his mouth to hers, took her lip between his teeth, and bit until he tasted blood.
Sonja closed her eyes. 'I hate you,' she moaned.
In the cool of the evening Wolff walked along the towpath beside the Nile toward the houseboat. The sores had gone from his face and his bowels were back to normal. He wore a new white suit, and he carried two bags full of his favorite groceries.
The island suburb of Zamalek was quiet and peaceful. The raucous noise of central Cairo could be heard only faintly across a wide stretch of water. 'The calm, muddy river lapped gently against the houseboats lined along the bank. The boats, all shapes and sizes, gaily painted and luxuriously fitted out, looked pretty in the late sunshine.
Sonja's was smaller and more richly famished than most. A plank led from the path to the top deck, which was open to the breeze but shaded from the sun by a green-and-white striped canopy. Wolff boarded the boat and went down the ladder to the interior. It was crowded with furniture: chairs and divans and tables and cabinets full of knickknacks. There was a tiny kitchen in the prow. Floor-to-ceiling curtains of maroon velvet divided the space in two, closing off the bedroom. Beyond the bedroom, in the stern, was a bathroom.
Sonja was sitting on a cushion painting her toenails. It was extraordinary how slovenly she could look, Wolff thought. She wore a grubby cotton dress, her face looked drawn and her hair was uncombed. In half in hour, when she left for the Cha-Cha Club, she would look like a dream.
Wolff put his bags on a table and began to take things out 'French champagne . . . English marmalade . . . German sausage ... quail's eggs ... Scotch salmon...'
Sonja looked up, astonished. 'Nobody can find things like that-there's a war on.'
Wolff smiled. 'There's a little Greek grocer in Qulali who remembers a good customer.'
'Is he safe?'
'He doesn't know where I'm living-and besides, his shop is the only place in North Africa where you can get caviar.'
She came across and dipped into a bag. 'Caviar!' She took the lid off the jar and began to eat with her fingers. 'I haven't had caviar since-'
'Since I went away,' Wolff finished. He put a bottle of champagne in the icebox. 'If you wait a few minutes you can have cold champagne with it.' 'I can't wait.'
'You never can.' He took an English-language newspaper out of one of the bags and began to look through it. It was a rotten paper, full of press releases, its war news censored more heavily than the BBC broadcasts which everyone listened to, its local reporting even worse-At was illegal to print speeches by the official Egyptian opposition politicians. 'Still nothing about me in here,' Wolff said. He had told Sonja of the events in Assyut.
'They're always late with the news,' she said through a mouthful of caviar.
'It's not that. If they report the murder they need to say what the motive was--or, if they don't, people will guess. The British don't want people to suspect that the Germans have spies in Egypt. It looks bad.'
She went into the bedroom to change. She called through the curtain: 'Does that mean they've stopped looking for you?'
'No. I saw Abdullah in the souk. He says the Egyptian police aren't really interested, but there's a Major Vandam who's keeping the pressure on.' Wolff put down the newspaper, frowning. He would have liked to know whether Vandam was the officer who had broken into the Villa les Oliviers. He wished he had been able to look more closely at that man, but from across the street the officer's face, shaded by the peaked cap, had been a dark blank.
Sonja said: 'How does Abdullah know?'
'I don't know.' Wolff shrugged. 'He's a thief, he hears things.' He went to the icebox and took out the bottle. It was not really cold enough, but he was thirsty. He poured two glasses. Sonja came out, dressed: as he had anticipated, she was transformed, her hair perfect, her face lightly but cleverly made up, wearing a sheer cherry-red dress and matching shoes. A couple of minutes later there were footsteps on the gangplank and a knock at the hatch. Sonja's taxi had arrived. She drained her glass and left. They did not say hello and goodbye to one another.
Wolff went to the cupboard where he kept the radio. He took out the English novel and the sheet of paper bearing the key to the code. He studied the key. Today was May 28. He had to add 42-the year-to 28 to arrive at the page number in the novel which he must use to encode his message. May was the fifth month, so every fifth letter on the page would be discounted. He decided to send HAVE ARRIVED. CHECKING IN. ACKNOWLEDGE.
