Feeling a need to move, he launched himself on a tour of the construction work in the north wing, where Herr Meister was building a grillroom out of old arolla pine rescued from the roof of a condemned treasure in the city. No one knew why Herr Meister wanted a grillroom, no one could recall when he had started it. The numbered panels were stacked in rows against the unrendered wall. Jonathan caught their musky smell and remembered Sophie's hair on the night she walked into his office at the Queen Nefertiti Hotel in Cairo, smelling of vanilla.
Herr Meister's building works could not be held to blame for this. Ever since seeing Roper's name at half past five that afternoon, Jonathan had been on his way to Cairo.
* * *
He had glimpsed her often but never spoken to her: a languid dark-haired beauty of forty, long-waisted, elegant and remote.
He had spotted her on her expeditions through the Nefertiti's boutiques or being ushered into a maroon Rolls-Royce by a muscular chauffeur. When she toured the lobby the chauffeur doubled as her bodyguard, hovering behind her with his hands crossed over his balls. When she took a menthe frappe in Le Pavilion restaurant, dark glasses shoved into her hair like driving goggles and her French newspaper at arm's length, the chauffeur would sip a soda at the next table. The staff called her Madame Sophie, and Madame Sophie belonged to Freddie Hamid, and Freddie was the baby of the three unlovely Hamid brothers who between them owned a lot of Cairo, including the Queen Nefertiti Hotel. Freddie's most celebrated accomplishment at twenty-five was to have lost half a million dollars at baccarat in ten minutes.
"You are Mr. Pine," she said in a French-flavoured voice, perching herself on the armchair on the other side of his desk.
And tilting her head back and viewing him on the slant: "The flower of England."
It was three in the morning. She was wearing a silk trouser suit and a topaz amulet at her throat. Could be legless, he decided: proceed with caution.
"Well, thank you," he said handsomely. "No one's told me that for a long time. What can I do for you?"
But when he discreetly sniffed the air around her, all he could smell was her hair. And the mystery was that though it was glistening black it smelled blond: a vanilla smell and warm.
"And I am Madame Sophie from penthouse number three," she continued, as if to remind herself. "I have seen you often, Mr. Pine. Very often. You have steadfast eyes."
The rings on her fingers antique. Clusters of clouded diamonds set in pale gold.
"And I have seen you" he rejoined, with his ever-ready smile.
"You also sail" she said, as if accusing him of an amusing deviation. The also was a mystery she did not explain. "My protector took me to the Cairo Yacht Club last Sunday. Your ship came in while we were drinking champagne cocktails. Freddie recognised you and waved, but you were too busy being nautical to bother with us."
"I expect we were afraid of ramming the jetty," said Jonathan, recalling a rowdy bunch of rich Egyptians swilling champagne on the club veranda.
"It was a pretty blue boat with an English flag. Is it yours? It looked so royal."
"Oh my goodness no! It's the minister's."
"You mean you sail with a priest?"
"I mean I sail with the second man at the British Embassy."
"He looked so young. You both did. I was impressed. Somehow I had imagined that people who work at night are unhealthy. When do you sleep?"
"It was my weekend off," Jonathan replied nimbly, since he did not feel inclined, at this early stage in their relationship, to discuss his sleeping habits.
"Do you always sail on your weekends off?"
"When I'm invited."
"What else do you do on your weekends off?"
"Play a little tennis. Run a little. Consider my immortal soul."
"Is it immortal?"
"I hope so."
"Do you believe so?"
"When I'm happy."
"And when you are unhappy, you doubt it. No wonder that God is so fickle. Why should He be constant, when we are so faithless?"
She was frowning in rebuke at her gold sandals, as if they too had misbehaved. Jonathan wondered whether after all she was sober and merely maintained a different rhythm from the world around her. Or perhaps she does a little of Freddie's drugs, he thought: for there were rumours that the Hamids traded in Lebanese hash oil.
"Do you ride horseback?" she asked.
"I'm afraid not."
"Freddie has horses."
"So I hear."
"Arabs. Magnificent Arabs. People who breed Arab horses are an international elite. You know that?"
"So I have heard."
She allowed herself a pause for meditation. Jonathan availed himself of it: "Is there something I can do for you, Madame Sophie?"
"And this minister, this Mr...."
"Ogilvey."
"Sir Something Ogilvey?"
"Just Mister."
"He is a friend of yours?"
"A sailing friend."
"You were at school together?"
"No. I wasn't at that kind of school."
"But you are of the same class, or whatever the expression is? You may not breed Arab horses, but you are both ― well, my God, what does one say? ― both gentlemen?"
"Mr. Ogilvey and I are sailing companions," he replied with his most evasive smile.
"Freddie also has a yacht. A floating bordello. Isn't that what they are called?"
"I'm sure not."
"I'm sure yes."
She made another pause while she reached out a silk-clad arm and studied the underside of the bracelets on her wrist. "I would like a cup of coffee, please, Mr. Pine. Egyptian. Then I shall ask a favour of you."
Mahmoud the night waiter brought coffee in a copper pot and poured two cups with ceremony. Before Freddie came along she had belonged to a rich Armenian, Jonathan remembered, and before that an Alexandrian Greek who owned dubious concessions along the Nile. Freddie had laid siege to her, bombarding her with bouquets of orchids at impossible moments, sleeping in his Ferrari outside her apartment. The gossip writers had printed what they dared. The Armenian had left town.
She was trying to light a cigarette, but her hand was shaking.
He struck the lighter for her. She closed her eyes and drew on the cigarette. Lines of age appeared on her neck. And Freddie Hamid all of twenty-five, Jonathan thought. He put the lighter on the desk.
"I too am British, Mr. Pine," she remarked, as if this were a grief they shared. "When I was young and unprincipled I married one of your countrymen for his passport. It turned out he loved me deeply. He was a straight arrow. There is no one better than a good Englishman and no one worse than a bad one. I have observed you. I think you are a good one. Mr. Pine, do you know Richard Roper?"
"I'm afraid not."
"But you must. He is famous. He is beautiful. A fifty-year-old Apollo. He breeds horses, exactly as Freddie does. They even talk of opening a stud farm together. Mr. Richard Onslow Roper, one of your famous international entrepreneurs. Come."
"Not a name to me. I'm sorry."
"But Dicky Roper does a lot of business in Cairo! He is English, like you, very charming, rich, glamorous, persuasive. For us simple Arabs, almost too persuasive. He owns a splendid motor yacht, twice the size of Freddie's! How come you do not know him, since you are also a sailor? Of course you do. You are pretending, I can see."
"Perhaps if he has a splendid motor yacht he doesn't have to bother with hotels. I don't read the newspapers enough. I'm out of touch. I'm sorry."
But Madame Sophie was not sorry. She was reassured. Her relief was in her face as it cleared and in the decisiveness with which she now reached for her handbag.