Demon Box

When Marag returned and woke me I was sweating and panting. So was he, after his run. But this time he had only one little taped cartridge to show for his hours of effort. He handed it to me, apologizing. It lay in my hand in the dim light and both of us felt very sad.

As he guided me from his house through the tiny thoroughfares to Sphinx Street, he continued to apologize and promise to make things good. I told him the deal was cool and not to worry over it! It was just a little burn.

“The deal is not cool!” he insisted. “Is a bad burn. I bring the rest of the deal tonight, eight o’clock at Mena House—guaranteed!”

He kept on and on about it in a distracted tirade. I finally got him off the subject by telling him what a nice family he had.

“You are kind saying so. What about Sami, you like Sami? Is smart boy, my Mister Sami?”

I told him yeah, I liked Sami, he was plenty smart.

“Smart enough to catch up in one of your modern schools?”

“Sure. He’s a bright kid. Personable and alert and bright, like his daddy. I bet he would be up with the other kids in a matter of weeks.”

“I bet, too,” he said, pleased.

I told him good night at the Sphinx. I was over the hill and nearing the hotel before I finally put it together. Marag hadn’t been promoting himself—it was Sami. Like any father he has his dream: the son is taken back to the Land of Opportunity by some gentleman, raised in a modern home, sent to a modern United States school. The kids get a chance to break into the twentieth century; the gentleman gets a permanent liaison with the past…”A friend always at the pyramid.” Not a bad scam. No wonder you were so upset about that hash; you had bigger deals wheeling. For all your light touch and soft sell, Marag, you’re a stone hustler…

October 29. Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, 300th day. Slept till Muldoon and Jacky wake me just in time to see the sun going down. They push me into the shower and send a pool boy to bring a pot of coffee. Jacky has reservations at the Auberge to see Zizi Mustafa, the most famous dancer of them all, and Muldoon has news of a hot archeological find in Ethiopia.

“An abdomen that ought to be put in the Louvre!” Jacky promises.

“A human skull that pushes us millions of years back further than Leakey’s find!” says Muldoon. “And no monkey business about it; this cranium is human! Darwin was full of crap!”

“Maybe,” says Jacky, always a little reluctant to reorient his thinking or his anatomical focus. “On the other hand, maybe his evolutionary theory was right but his time scale was slightly off. That we still come from monkeys only it took us longer.”

“That’s not the question, Jacky.” I’m out of the cold shower and hot into the discussion. “The question is did we or did we not fall!” As we are walking through the lobby I suddenly remember Marag’s resolve to meet me at eight with the rest of my purchase.

“Eight in Egyptian means somewhere between nine and midnight,” Jacky translates. “That’s if he shows up at all.”

I leave word at the desk to have Marag go on down to my cabana if he shows up before I return. I go back and unlock the door just in case and leave the hookah on the nightstand.

After we eat the elaborate Auberge supper we find that the dancer doesn’t come on until nine. At ten they say midnight. Muldoon says he’s in the middle of exams and can’t wait any longer. I talk Jacky into coming back out to the Mena House with me; we can check out Marag and still make it back for the dancer. We get a cab, drop Muldoon at his place, and head back to Giza. By the time we get to the Mena House it is after eleven and no sign of Marag. The door to my cabana is ajar but nothing is waiting for me on the nightstand. We walk out to the street while Jacky regales me with some Arabic wisdom regarding gullibility. The doorman signals for a cab, then asks in a hazy afterthought, “By the way, sir, are you not Mister Deb-ree?”

I tell him I am called so by some.

“Ah, then, there was waiting for you a person. But he has left.”

When? Ah, sir, minutes ago, sir; he waited a long time. Where? In utility room, sir, out of sight. Didn’t you tell this person to go on down to my cabana as I instructed? Oh, no, sir; that we cannot do! They would be bothering our guests, these persons… They! Who the hell do you think you are? Official doorman, sir. How long did this person wait for me? Oh, that we could not say; the person was sitting waiting when we came on duty at seven thirty.

“But when he left,” he says, finally dragging his fist free of his gaudy pocket, “he gave for you me this package.”

And he holds out my red handkerchief. Inside are the other four taped cardboard cartridges and my Uni pen.

October 30, Wednesday. My last day in Egypt.