The Cairo Affair

3

Again, she was late. He had been waiting a full twenty minutes in Steaks, dressed better than before. He’d been given the week off, and he’d spent his first free day once again cleaning his apartment. He’d taken out a fine suit that he’d kept covered in thin plastic in the back of his closet. He had showered twice that day—once after taking Sophie Kohl to the airport in the morning, again before dressing to come here—and was by now in perfect shape. At least, in as perfect shape as John Calhoun would ever be. After class, he would meet Maribeth at Deals, and they would see how that went.

The aroma of grilling meats made him light-headed, so to quell his stomach he ordered a beer. As he took his first sip, he remembered what Harry had said yesterday, after he’d brought Sophie Kohl back to his home.

Don’t jump to conclusions, John. You may think you understand what’s happened, but you’re just a bit player. So am I. Hell, maybe everyone is, and there is no lead in this play. Only the Egyptians can put it all together—that, I’m sure of. I doubt they’ll give me the whole story, but they have to give us something. Stan’s dead, for Christ’s sake.

John had agreed with that—a bit player was all he wanted to be. It was how you stayed alive.

Or was it? How much had Stan known? How about Jibril? The truth, which gnawed at him as he tried to enjoy his beer, was that it didn’t matter how much he knew—what mattered was how much other people thought he knew.

He was halfway through his beer when Mrs. Abusir showed up, her long skirts fluttering as she approached. He put down his glass and stood to shake her hand. Her smile lit up the room.

She was in a delightful mood, though he began to despair of ever perfecting her English, yet he tried. When she said, “I seen a wonderful film on the Martin Luther King Jr.,” he replied. “I have seen a wonderful film about Martin Luther King Jr. You don’t put ‘the’ before someone’s name.”

A shade of her excitement slipped away. “Yes, exactly.” Then it was back, for she believed that by watching the hardships suffered by midcentury African Americans in Selma, Birmingham, and Albany, she had gained new insights into her English teacher. John found this relentlessly charming, and let most of her awkward sentences slide by unnoticed. She gazed at him with eyes full of sorrow, as if he had been lynched by Klansmen only last week.

He was basking in this great wave of sympathy when, looking past her and through the large window, he saw a man loitering on the sidewalk. A tall man who looked Egyptian but spoke like an American. Who claimed to be FBI, but was not.

“What I have saw was terrible,” Mrs. Abusir said, her English breaking down with her emotion. “How does your people cope?”

“What I saw was terrible,” John corrected, though from the look on her face he knew that she hadn’t understood his meaning. She nodded heavily, eyes so sad, and reached over to cover his hand with hers. John’s hand was cold, and because hers was so warm he didn’t bother setting her straight.