* * *
That night when he declined to go ashore at Luxor again, the Earl asked him if his trip to Egypt had been a success, if he had found what he wanted.
"I think I did," he said, scarcely looking up from his book of maps and countries. "I think I found the future."
2
THIS HAD been a Mameluke house, a little palace of sorts, and Henry liked it well enough though he wasn't entirely sure what a Mameluke was except they had once been rulers of Egypt.
Well, they could have it, as far as he was concerned. But for the moment he was enjoying himself and had been for days, and in this little house crammed with Eastern exotica and big comfortable old pieces of Victorian furniture, he had just about everything he wanted.
Malenka kept him fed on delicious spiced dishes that for some reason he craved when he was sick from drink, and which enticed him even when he was very drunk and all other food tasted like gruel to him.
And she kept him in booze, taking his winnings into British Cairo and coming back with his favorite gin, Scotch, and brandy.
And his winnings had been good for a straight ten days, as he kept the card game going from noon until late into the evening. So easy to bluff these Americans who thought all British were sissies. The Frenchman he had to watch; that son of a bitch was mean. But he didn't cheat. And he paid his debts in full, though where such a disreputable man got the money Henry couldn't imagine.
At night, he and Malenka made love in the big Victorian bed, which she loved; she thought that was very high class, that bed, with its mahogany headboard and yards of mosquito netting. So let her have her little dreams. For the moment, he loved her. He didn't care if he never laid eyes on Daisy Banker again. In fact, he had more or less made up his mind that he wasn't going back to England.
As soon as Julie and her escorts arrived, he was heading on to America. It had even occurred to him that his father might go for that idea, might settle an income on him with the understanding mat he stay over there, in New York, or even in California.
San Francisco, now that was a city that had an allure for him. They'd almost completely rebuilt it since the earthquake. And he had a feeling he might do well out there, away from all that he had come to loathe in England. If he could take Malenka with him, mat wouldn't be half-bad either. And out there in California, who would give a damn that her skin was darker than his?
Her skin. He loved Malenka's skin. Smoky, hot Malenka. A few times he'd ventured out of this cluttered little house and gone to see her dance at the European club. He liked it. Who knows? Maybe she might be a celebrity in California, with him managing her, of course. That might bring in a little money, and what woman wouldn't want to leave this filthy hellhole of a city for America? She was already learning English from the gramophone, playing records she had bought in the British sector on her own.
It made him laugh to hear her repeating the inane phrases: "May I offer you some sugar? May I offer you some cream?" She spoke well enough as it was. And she was clever about money, that was obvious. Or she wouldn't have managed to keep this house, after her half-breed brother left it to her.
Trouble was his father had to be handled carefully. That was why he hadn't left Cairo already. Because his father had to believe he was still with Julie, and looking after her, and all that utter rot. He'd cabled his father for more money days ago, with some silly message that Julie was quite all right. But surely he did not have to follow her back to London. That was preposterous. He had to work something out.
Of course there was no rush to leave here, really. The game was going splendidly for the eleventh day.
And it had been some time since he'd set foot out of doors, except of course to take his breakfast in the courtyard. He liked the courtyard. He liked the world being completely shut out. He liked the little pond, and the tile, and even that screeching parrot of Malenka's, that African gray-the ugliest bird he'd ever seen- wasn't entirely uninteresting.
The whole place had a lush, overblown quality that appealed to him. Late at night he'd wake up dying of thirst, find his bottle and sit in the front room, amid all the tapestried pillows, listening to the gramophone play the records of Afda. He'd blur his eyes and all the colors around him would run together.
This was exactly what he wanted life to be. The game; the drink; the utter seclusion. And a warm, voluptuous woman who'd strip off her clothes when he snapped his fingers.
He made her dress in her costumes about the house. He liked to see her shining flat belly and her mounded breasts over the gaudy purple satin. He liked the big cheap earrings she wore, and her fine hair, oh, very fine, he liked to see that down her back so that he could grab a handful of it, and tug her gently towards him.
Ah, she was the perfect woman for him. She had his shirts done, and his clothes pressed, and saw to it his tobacco never ran out. She brought him magazines and papers when he asked for them.
But he didn't care much for that anymore. The outside world didn't exist. Except for dreams of San Francisco.
That's why he was so annoyed when they brought a telegram to the door. He never should have left this address at Shepheard's. But then he had no choice. How else could he have gotten the money his father telegraphed? Or the other telegrams his father had sent? Important not to make his father angry until some sort of deal had been struck.
With a cold, nasty expression the Frenchman waited as he tore open the yellow envelope and saw that this message wasn't from his father. Rather, it had come from Elliott.
"Damn," he whispered. "They're on their way here." He handed it to Malenka. "Get my suit pressed. I have to go back to the hotel."
"You can't quit now," said the Frenchman.
The German took a long drag on his smelly cigar. He was even more stupid than the Frenchman.
"Who said I was going to quit?" Henry said. He upped the ante; then bluffed them out one by one.
He'd go to Shepheard's later and see to their rooms. But he wasn't sleeping there. They shouldn't expect that of him.
"That's quite enough for me," said the German, flashing his yellowed teeth.
The Frenchman would stay there until ten or eleven easily.
* * *
Cairo. This had been desert in Ramses' time, though somewhere to the south lay Saqqara, where he had come on a pilgrimage once to worship at the pyramid of Egypt's first King. And of course he had gone on to visit the great pyramids of the great ancestors.
And so now it was a metropolis, bigger even than Alexandria. And this the British sector looked for all the world like a part of London, except that it was too warm. Paved streets; neatly clipped trees. Motor cars in profusion, their engines and horns scaring the camels, the donkeys, the natives. Shepheard's Hotel-another "tropical" palace with broad porches, replete with wicker, slatted blinds, and vague Egyptian artifacts thrown in among the English furnishings, the whole crowded with the same rich tourists he'd seen everywhere.
A great advertisement for the opera stood in front of the two ironwork lifts. Alda. And such a lurid, vulgar picture of ancient Egyptians entwined in each other's arms amid palms and pyramids. And in the foreground in an oval yet another sketch of a modern man and woman dancing.
OPERA BALL-OPENING NIGHT-SHEPHEARD'S HOTEL
Well, if this was what Julie wanted. He had to confess he wanted to see a large theater, and hear an orchestra of great power. Oh, so many things to see! He had heard talk of motion pictures.
But he must endure these last few days on his native soil without complaint. There was a good library here, Elliott had said. He'd load up with science textbooks and study, and then slip out at night to stand before the Sphinx and speak to the spirits of his ancestors.