The Cairo Affair

3

By the time she returned to Stan’s apartment in Garden City and placed herself back on the sofa, the iPad in her lap and a cold cup of the morning’s coffee in one hand, she understood in a way she hadn’t before just how alone she was. She’d seen it in the unfamiliar face of the teenaged girl who’d opened the door to apartment five, a cell phone pressed to her ear. A pretty girl with eyes the shade of teak, she raised her eyebrows at Sophie, saying something like Aye khidma?

“Zora Balašević?”

The girl frowned, then muttered into the phone before lowering it to her hip. “You’re English?”

“Yes, sorry. I—I was looking for my friend who lives here. Zora Balašević.”

The girl—Pili, she assumed—shook her head. “We’ve been here since November. I don’t know who was here before.”

Sophie nodded, only too late realizing her eyes were filling with tears. “Okay. Right. Thanks.” She raised a hand in farewell, then fled.

On the bus ride back she’d spotted among the dark crowds a pay phone outside a convenience store. She got off at the next stop and trudged back to the spot, finding a layer of dust on an old phone box that advertised the RinGo phone card. Most Egyptians didn’t go near these machines, preferring the mobile phones that had helped make their revolution possible. She headed into the convenience store and bought a phone card from a sniffing man, a victim of late-season flu, then went back to the machine and took out business cards. Strauss, Reardon, Kiraly.

A crowd of women passed along the sidewalk, heads covered, chatting merrily, laughing. She almost didn’t hear the voice on the line when it said, “Kiraly Andras.”

“Mr. Kiraly,” she said, nearly shouting. “Hello? This is Sophie Kohl.”

“You’re still in Cairo, I see.”

“Have you told the American embassy?”

Silence, then: “You sound different, Mrs. Kohl.”

“Do I?”

“I almost thought you were someone else,” he said. “Pretending to be you.” Then, realizing the emptiness of his statement, he said, “No, we haven’t told the American embassy, and we won’t until we better understand why you’re doing what you’re doing.”

“You know the reason,” she said. “Jibril Aziz.”

“He’s in Cairo?”

“I don’t know. You told me he flew here.”

“Yes.”

“So he should be here, somewhere. Unless …” She frowned into the handset as it occurred to her. Stumbler. Aziz had written Stumbler.

“Unless what, Mrs. Kohl?”

“Unless he’s in Libya.”

Silence.

She said, “Do you really not know where he is?”

“I do not. Perhaps you should ask his family.”

“Family?”

He seemed amused by her surprise. “Most people have families, Mrs. Kohl. If you give me a phone number, I can call you with that information tomorrow. From the office.”

“What do you know about Zora Balašević?”

“Excuse me?”

She repeated the name, then at his request spelled it, and as he wrote it down she said, “She’s connected to my husband’s murder, but I don’t know how or why.”

“How do you know this for sure?”

“Can I just say that I know it?”

Silence, then he said, “Mrs. Kohl, if it hasn’t become clear to you yet, you are the one in control of what you do and do not say. Eventually, I would like for you to say more, but for the moment you’re choosing reticence. I will have to accept this.”

“Apologies, Mr. Kiraly.”

“I will look into this woman, as well as Mr. Aziz’s family. Would you like to give me a telephone number?”

“I’ll call you.”

“Of course,” he said. “Tomorrow, then, Mrs. Kohl.”

“Tomorrow, Mr. Kiraly.”

Back on Stan’s sofa, she remembered what Kiraly had said. Did she sound like a different person? Maybe. Someone new? Or had she again become last year’s Sophie Kohl, Sofia, who had thrived under Zora’s tutelage?

Yes, but the world was different now, too. She was alone. Zora had disappeared. Emmett was gone. She was in a city that had become even more foreign, for now Hosni Mubarak was holed up in faraway Sharm el-Sheikh. She had felt this on the bus, surrounded by the young and old who, for the first time in memory, were part of the construction of their own society. It didn’t matter that the military was in control; they knew that all it took to change their country was a critical mass of humanity willing to stand in the street. While she could appreciate this, it also scared her, for their newfound power made them that much more menacing.

All she had was Stan. Stan, who had lied to her immediately after her arrival by pretending to know nothing about Zora—but hadn’t he just been covering for himself? It was understandable, and beyond that mistake he seemed to be trying. He was committed.

No, she wasn’t alone, not really, and she could sense his desire when they stood close. She would have to make sure she didn’t lose him.

She had told Emmett the truth: For a week she had thought she might love Stan Bertolli, but that feeling had gone away. Yet she was fond of him, and he was the only thing left to her.

She used his old cell phone to call him. “What have you got?”

“Not much. How about you?”

“I …” she began, then changed tack. “I’ve been dozing in front of the television.”

“Give me another hour, and we’ll talk when I get home.”

When he returned that evening with a takeout bag of grilled chicken, she thought of Zora’s other girl, the one with the long legs who could convince Russian thugs and kleptocrats to give up secrets, but seduction had never been Sophie’s forte. She tried, though, for now she was thinking in terms of practicality, of balances of power, of what Zora had called the push and the pull of seduction. Yet when she focused on Stan, using her eyes, stroking her hair, trying to look dreamy and enthralled, she felt ridiculous, knowing that it wasn’t working.

As he prepared the food, she said, “Did you find out about Jibril Aziz?”

“Not much. Just his position in the Office of Collection Strategies. I sent him an e-mail—maybe he’ll get back to me.”

“No phone number?”

“None.”

That made no sense. “Why not?”

“Sometimes they don’t list numbers. Either they’re changing offices or the section head wants them undisturbed because of a project.”

“How about a wife?” she asked, thinking of what Kiraly had said. “A family?”

“None.”

So not even her gloomy Hungarian spy knew what he was talking about.

As they ate, he told her about Zora—Zora and Emmett and the ways in which Stan had gotten everything so wrong last year, hounding poor Emmett until he had to flee to Budapest. She wanted to cry, knowing it was her fault, but instead she turned it around. Misdirection, Zora called it. “You pretended you’d never heard of her. You lied to me.” Put them on the defensive, always the defensive. It worked, but as he made excuses, she felt the distance between them growing, and another part of her grew frightened: He’s the only one you have, and you’re scaring him away. So she moved to the sofa, knowing he would follow, and he did.

“Where is Zora?” she asked.

“Serbia. She went back home in September.”

Where else?

Then he told her the thing that she would not be able to shake for a very long time. “She told Emmett she was working for the Serbs. That was a lie.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“My Serb contact says that by then she was working for the Egyptians.”

A year, a full year, believing that, if nothing else, she was helping Zora’s people. She hadn’t even been doing that. She’d been feeding everything that Emmett brought home into Hosni’s grand machine. God, she hated Zora. Briefly, she also hated Stan for holding up this cracked mirror.

He went on, though, explaining how he’d put together his fantasy of Emmett’s guilt, then telling her why he hadn’t sent Emmett home. “The disaster is that you would have left, too.”

She didn’t have to do this, she realized. She didn’t have give herself to him tonight. But she had to give herself to someone, and with Zora gone who else was there?

He said, “What did Balašević have on Emmett?”

Misdirection. Now.

She leaned close and placed her head on the side of his chest; he wrapped an arm around her. In her head, she saw a flash of dirty leg, spastic, kicking at the damp earth of a musty basement floor. All desire fled her body; the only thing left was survival. When he kissed her neck, she knew it was accomplished.

The first orgasm surprised her. Entirely mechanical, but strong. She’d almost forgotten how good it could be, and the little, shattering explosions transported her elsewhere, to a hard bed in the Hotel Putnik, and a much younger Emmett praying between her legs.