The camel howled, or whatever they do—it’s a horrible sound—its rider screamed, and Schmidt, writhing on the ground, added a few howls of his own. I stood frozen for a second or two; then a fat, white-clad arm waved imperiously, and I realized that this was Schmidt’s idea of a distraction and that he had fallen, not been knocked down.
When I emerged from the loo, swathed in black, Schmidt was still carrying on at the top of his lungs. I could hear him but I couldn’t see him because his prostrate form was surrounded by a crowd—Feisal, Saida, the camel driver, the camel, the cook, the waiter, and a motley collection of passersby. One, I was happy to see, was a woman, unveiled but robed in black, carrying a baby. I sidled up to her and stood watching with the other spectators. Nobody was leaving the scene, it was just too darned interesting.
Finally Schmidt allowed himself to be raised to his feet and led back into the restaurant. He was doing his best to cover my retreat, insisting that it was his fault, that the hysterical camel rider was not to blame, that he wanted water, beer, and the arm of Saida to support him. My newfound friend shifted the baby to her other arm and spoke to me. I shrugged apologetically and pointed at the spot where my ear lurked under the head covering. She smiled and offered me the baby.
I took it as it was meant, as a gesture of goodwill and sympathy. I also took the baby. The baby did not approve. As Mama and I started off down the road, side by side, it began to cry. The veil covering my face might have put it off, or maybe it was just me. I don’t have much experience with babies. It was too good a disguise to give up, though. Feisal and Saida had realized I was missing. They had hurried out of the restaurant and were making little dashes along the road, first in one direction, then in another, shouting questions at everyone in sight. The two ladies in black, one of them toting a screaming infant, didn’t register on their radar.
I parted company with the baby, to the relief of baby and Mama, as soon as we were out of sight of the restaurant. Hiccuping sobs succeeded the screams when Mama took it. I thanked her for the treat by ducking my head, and then struck off to the right.
I was still some distance from my destination, but I was in no hurry. Trudging along the path, I went over my program. It was simple: Get into the house unobserved, find a place to hide, stay there until something happened…or it didn’t.
I have a lot of faith in hunches, which are often based on evidence observed but unprocessed by the conscious mind. In this case, the processed evidence was thin. A house that fit all the specifications we had come up with, a house purportedly unoccupied, but which had been entered within the last few days, a house where I had thought I might have heard a suspicious noise, a house whose custodian hadn’t been carrying out his duties. A house shunned by the locals because it was haunted by a demon cat. I could be way off base on all those counts. The only way of finding out for sure was to do what I was doing now.
Dust sifted into my shoes and whitened the hem of my robe as I plodded along. What did I have to lose, after all? If my hunch was wrong, a few hours of my time. If I was right…A few years of my life?
Don’t be such a pessimist, Vicky, I told myself. If you’re right you stand to gain a lot.
I began to understand why some Muslim women regarded the veil as protection rather than a sign of subjugation. The people I met along the way paid no attention to me. The men didn’t even look in my direction. The closer I got to the house, the fewer people I encountered. That was either a good sign or a bad one—good because it showed the locals did avoid the place, bad because anyone approaching was conspicuous. I slowed to a slower shuffle.
The first item on my program was the hardest—getting inside without being observed. I didn’t see any signs of life, but it wouldn’t have been sensible to march up to the front door and knock.
Someone had gone to considerable lengths to establish and maintain a garden. There must be water somewhere, an irrigation ditch or pool, although most of the plants might be varieties that can survive in hot, dry conditions. I’m no gardener; the only ones I recognized were cacti and palms, and stands of the dusty green tamarisk that is common in the area. I hadn’t cased the place in detail on our first visit, having no reason to do so, but I remembered a view of some kind of green stuff outside the window of the director’s study. I wandered off to the right, following a narrow track that appeared to go in the direction I wanted—around the house, toward the side. The grounds were more extensive than I had realized. Wings stretched out at odd angles, and I could see other buildings and sections of wall through the trees. More to the point, a grove of low, shrubby trees, vine- entangled, ran along the side of the house, from the veranda toward the back.
It was mid-afternoon, when people in hot climates stay indoors, napping or resting. I couldn’t be seen from the house, thanks to those convenient trees; a quick look around assured me that there wasn’t another soul in sight. It wasn’t going to get any better than this. I divested myself of my black shroud; it left me feeling naked and exposed, but the folds of fabric encumbered easy movement and no disguise was going to do me any good if I was found inside. And now I could get at the objects I had stowed away in my pockets. I had abandoned the backpack, with the pious hope that an honest soul would turn it in to the proprietor of the restaurant, or that Saida would retrieve it. I took out my wristwatch. Quarter to three. It had taken me too damn long to get here. Siesta time would end soon.
I moved carefully, pushing branches aside instead of plowing through. The trees, whatever they were, prickled. The vine was a pretty thing, covered with sprays of little pink flowers. It had climbed and intertwined, reaching for light, and it provided a screen so thick I didn’t see the window until I was almost upon it.
The window was open.
Seeing the first actual confirmation of my wild theory shocked me into a brief mental blackout. I guess I had never really expected to get this far. It took several seconds for me to get my wits, or what passes for them, back.
The couch is under the window, I reminded myself. The sill is about four feet above the ground. Now, before you rush in where angels fear to tread, make sure nobody is there. That’s not too hard. Look and listen and take it slow.
The room was shadowy and still, except for a buzzing, which, after a heart-stopping second, I identified as a gathering of flies. The doors, one to the library and one into the central hall, were closed. The couch was unoccupied. One of the high-backed chairs had been pushed away from the table. Otherwise the room looked pretty much as it had before.
John would have been over the sill in a single movement. John. I didn’t let myself think about him. It took me three movements: one foot in a crack, a knee on the sill, the other knee onto the couch.
The sound wasn’t loud, just a faint squeak of rusty springs. It was echoed by another sound, a cross between a snore and a snort.
I was under the couch before the snort stopped. There’s nothing like sheer terror to inspire agility. Someone was sitting in that big chair. I hadn’t seen him—or her?—because of the high back. Luckily for me, the occupant had been napping.
The couch was long enough to conceal me, but there wasn’t a lot of room underneath, thanks to those sagging springs. One of them poked into my derriere and another into my left shoulder. I didn’t dare wriggle around to find a more comfortable position. The snoring had resumed—not in a steady rhythm, but the intermittent noises of a sleeper who has been disturbed and has not sunk back into deep slumber.
I lay there for what seemed like hours. Nobody had dusted under the couch in recent memory; I kept swallowing sneezes. My nose itched. Splinters dug into my cheek. By turning my head sideways, a millimeter at a time, I found I could see out from under the spread. The view was limited; however, it included the suspect chair and one of the doors, the one leading to the central hall. Something new had been added, after all; a pile of buff storage boxes next to the library door.
None of them was long enough to hold Tutankhamon.
The sleeper’s breathing had evened out and so—finally—had mine. Now for the next maneuver.
My left arm was straight at my side, my right slightly bent at the elbow. My mobile was in the right-hand pocket of my pants. I could only move horizontally unless I wanted to risk another screech from the rusty springs. If I hadn’t let that snore panic me I would have got the cursed phone out before I squashed myself under the couch. With the same slow deliberation, flinching at every rustle of fabric, I got my hand down and in the pocket. I was breathing fast, from sheer nerves, when my fingers closed over the cell, and I was sorely tempted to proceed by feel alone. I knew I couldn’t risk it, though. This call had to be dead right, and fast. By the time I got my hand up to my face I was sweating bullets, and not from the heat, though it was pretty warm under there.
Discomfort was succeeded by numbness and, believe it or not, drowsiness. (I am told by those who know
