Palace Circle Part 28

JACK.

1941.

TWENTY-FIVE.

Jack's satisfaction when his commanding officer told him he was to be transferred to Cairo was so deep it was all he could do to keep from punching the air.

"You'll still be part of Security Intelligence Middle East, but you'll liaise with Cairo's Special Investigation Branch."

The officer shuffled papers into a file.

"All the usual rules apply. You can wear civvies or the uniform of any other rank below your own as the situation necessitates. And the situation, I may tell you, is grim. Someone in Cairo is pa.s.sing cla.s.sified information to the enemy. Your task is to hunt him out before Rommel is on the terrace at Shepheard's ordering a beer."

The officer leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk and steepling his fingers.

"I see from your file that your wife is Egyptian and is living in Cairo." He frowned slightly. "It's a situation that could prove good cover for intelligence work, but I think I'd keep it under my hat. And there are no married quarters. Army wives, apart from those of brigadiers and generals, have been evacuated. Not many went willingly and so you can see the bad feeling that would arise if you were to move in with your wife."

Jack nodded. The minute he'd heard of his transfer his thoughts had flown to Fawzia and the difficulties his work would cause them. Not being able to live together would ease those difficulties immeasurably.

He flew from Jerusalem to Cairo crammed uncomfortably in a Wellington bomber, realizing to his shame that his thoughts were centered not on Fawzia but on Petra.

The last time he had seen her was when he visited Cairo after his marriage. She'd spent as little time as possible in his company, and when she'd been in his company she hadn't wanted to talk to him. She hadn't even seemed to be the same woman. She had been so tense, so b.u.t.toned-up that it was as if she were going to explode at any moment. Only one thing had been clear. If she had ever been in love with him, she no longer was. Their affair was over. And to make sure he had got the message she had married that long shallow streak of facile charm, Sholto Monck.

Monck, he knew, was still in Cairo and because of his position at the emba.s.sy, he was someone Jack was going to have to rub along with. It wasn't something he looked forward to.

As the Wellington set down at an airstrip near Hilmiya Camp he put aside all thoughts of Petra, allowing the pleasure of returning to Cairo to flood through him. Without doubt, Cairo remained his favorite city in all the world.

Stepping onto the tarmac and breathing in the familiar hot, spicy air, he suddenly relaxed. After eighteen months he was about to be reunited with his wife, and though his marriage had always been far shakier than he had ever admitted, it was a union he was determined to make work.

He knew from several sources-Davina's letters, Delia's letters, his father's trips to Cairo-that Darius had suspended his anti-British activity. That he had was certainly going to make things easier where their friendship was concerned.

A young lieutenant saluted courteously, took his briefcase, and led him across to a waiting staff car.

"It's a filthy city, Major Bazeljette," the lieutenant said, a.s.suming it was his first time there. He slid behind the wheel. "The b.l.o.o.d.y wogs are a nightmare. You can't trust them as far as you can throw them."

Jack took a packet of Camels out of his pocket. "My wife is Egyptian," he said, lighting up.

The jeep almost slewed off the road. "I'm sorry, Major!" The lieutenant spluttered apologies. "I didn't know ... Didn't think ... Oh, Christ!"

Jack didn't tell him not to worry. He let him suffer. The news that his wife was Egyptian would, he knew, now spread throughout the British military community. This was directly opposite to the advice he had been given, but he didn't care. It would save him from hearing the word "wog" every few minutes and that, for his temper's sake, was of prime importance.

Hilmiya Camp was six miles from the center of Cairo and, as it was an approach to the city he had never made before, he settled back to enjoy the ride. The narrow road was so congested with army traffic that there were times when he thought it would have been quicker to walk.

Quicker, but far more exhausting. It was July and the heat was so intense that he could feel the sweat trickling down between his shoulder blades. By the time the Citadel and the gleaming white alabaster walls of the Muhammad Ali Mosque came into view, he was gasping for an ice-cold beer.

As they entered the city he saw that the cafes were thronged with troops who all had the same idea. There were British, Australian, Free French, South African, and Indian uniforms. Always a crowded city, Cairo was now bursting at the seams.

Almost submerged under the endless sea of khaki he spotted the familiar sights. Sherbet-sellers wove their way through the crowds. Beggars stood on every corner. Old men in dirty gal.a.b.i.as pushed hand barrows piled high with fruit and vegetables through the traffic, dusty leather slippers slapping against their bare heels. Overloaded donkeys fought with cars for road s.p.a.ce and survival.

At Ezbekiya Gardens the ancient bandstand was untouched. At the corner of Opera Square and Kasr el-Nil Street, Cicurel's department store still boasted a window display of hats so fashionable they could have done the Champs-Elysees proud.

The long wailing notes of the muezzins calling the faithful to prayer sounded as they motored down Kasr el-Nil Street and then, minutes later, he caught his first glimpse of the Nile.

His driver swerved left out of Kasr el-Nil onto the road that flanked the river bank, heading straight for the British army headquarters.

GHQ was situated in a modern block of flats called Grey Pillars at the southern end of Garden City, not far from his father-in-law's family home and close to Nile House. Knowing that a reunion with Fawzia was going to have to wait until he had checked in with his commanding officer, he fought down his impatience and wondered if his CO in Jerusalem had got it right when he had said that Jack's prime task was to hunt down one specific spy.

Brigadier Haigh, the director of military intelligence, left him in no doubt about it.

"The b.u.g.g.e.r's got to be caught, Major, and so far we've no lead on him. We just know that the German military learns everything we're going to do before we do it. The information could be coming from anywhere. The former prime minister, Ali Maher Pasha, is still a force politically and is so pro-German he'd inform the Germans of our plans at the drop of a hat. The King is no different. Amba.s.sador Lampson has a terrible time getting His Majesty to toe the line."

That the brigadier regarded Lampson's relationship to the King as that of a schoolmaster to a fractious pupil would have been comic if it didn't mean good relations with the palace were well-nigh impossible.

Hoping to aid his superior officer's understanding without finding himself on the first plane back to Palestine, Jack said mildly, "Since Egypt has never declared war with Germany, Farouk is always going to be fractious. It can't be much fun for him having his cities full of foreign troops."

"The b.u.g.g.e.r's lucky to have us here!" the brigadier snapped. "If it wasn't for us, the Italians would have swarmed into Cairo a year ago and sent him packing. You're here, Major Bazeljette, because you have knowledge of the city and studied Arabic at Oxford. Being a Gyppo-lover isn't a requirement-and it won't make you many friends."

Wisely keeping further thoughts to himself, Jack saluted and made a judicious exit.

The next two hours were spent in familiarizing himself with his office and staff. Grey Pillars was a ma.s.sive rabbit warren. Scores of what had once been separate flats had had their walls ripped out and part.i.tioning put up to make offices out of every available inch of s.p.a.ce. Narrow corridors linking what had been one flat with another were thronged with hara.s.sed army personnel.

Jack's own corner was furnished with a desk, a chair, a filing cabinet, a telephone, and much to his great relief, a window.

"I'm Doris, your typist, sir," said a pleasant-faced young woman in army uniform. She put a huge sheaf of files on the desk. "I'm also the typist for six other officers, so if you want me you have to shout quite loud. Would you like a cup of tea? Some of these files haven't been dusted off for months. You'll probably find them thirsty work."

It wasn't the way he'd been addressed by WACs in Jerusalem, but he preferred a free and easy working atmosphere to a stiff and formal one. "A cup of tea would do the job, Doris. I was told my staff included a Captain Reynolds and a Corporal Slade. Is either of them about?"

"Captain Reynolds has been transferred to another unit, sir. We're expecting a replacement, but he hasn't shown up as yet. Corporal Slade is hunting down a staff car for you to use. Nothing in Cairo is as organized as you might be used to. I believe Corporal Slade is also checking out your quarters. Or rather, finding you quarters. Sleeping s.p.a.ce is more precious than gold. As you are intelligence you'll probably find yourself sharing a flat with a couple of other officers. The barracks are packed to overflowing."

An hour later, after meeting with his radio-room staff, he left Grey Pillars to make the short walk to Fawzia's family home.

It had been eighteen months since he had last seen her, and when they had parted it had been after a furious, blistering row about money. Fawzia simply could not understand why they didn't live the same lifestyle Delia or his mother and Theo Girlington lived.

"But your father is a baronet and your mother is a d.u.c.h.ess!" she said. "So why are we living in a flat that would fit into my family home six times over?"

That the flat was palatial by London standards made no difference to her. It wasn't the equivalent of a mansion in Cadogan Square-and a mansion in Cadogan Square was what she had expected.

Jewelry had been an issue, too. His wedding present to her had been a diamond-and-emerald brooch that had been his paternal grandmother's. The family tiara that in normal circ.u.mstances would have been given to her was in the possession of his mother, and despite the fabulous jewelry collection that had come her way when she married Theo, she had shown not the slightest desire to relinquish either it or any other items of family jewels. To compensate, his father's wedding gift to Fawzia had been a splendid tiara from Aspreys.

Fawzia's false expectations were not ones he could make good. His Foreign Office salary and the private income left to him by his grandmother ensured he was relatively well off, but even looking to the future, he had no expectations of being rich on the scale Fawzia aspired to.

That she'd had so little idea as to the realities of being Mrs. Jack Bazeljette, he blamed on himself. In Cairo she had been brought up in a luxuriously coc.o.o.ned world. Though she had been friends with Petra and Davina she had never, apart from the lessons they had shared as schoolgirls, lived as they lived. By the time she was fifteen Davina had volunteered at the orphanage and was traveling unaccompanied on public transport. Fawzia, he knew for a certainty, had never been on a Cairo tram in her life.

In London as Delia's guest, she had been equally coc.o.o.ned. Delia had been far stricter about where Fawzia could and couldn't go than she had ever been with her own daughters.

When Jack reached the heavy cedarwood door he addressed the Nubian guarding it in Arabic. Seconds later he stepped into the familiar shade of the courtyard.

Two safragis ran to meet him dressed in blindingly white gal.a.b.i.as sashed in crimson. Hard on their heels was Zubair Pasha, a welcoming smile on his heavily lined face.

"So you are finally back in Cairo, Jack!" he said exuberantly, clapping his son-in-law on his shoulders in a gesture of affection. "Fawzia said you would move heaven and earth in order to get posted here. I will have the guest bedroom made ready immediately. And where is your kit?"

"No kit, I am afraid." Jack's answering smile was rueful. "Orders are not to draw attention to the fact that I have a wife in the city. The evacuation of the army wives is apparently a very sensitive issue."

Zubair nodded. After a lifetime at Abdin, first with King Fuad and then with Farouk, he knew the nuances of p.u.s.s.yfooting around sensitive or potentially sensitive situations.

"You must have a drink," he said as a safragi appeared at their side with rose-scented water on a silver tray. "And I must tell you that Fawzia is not at home. She spends a lot of time at Nile House, with Davina."

Grateful that Zubair Pasha showed no intention of delaying him, Jack drank the sickly sweet water and minutes later was making his way down the elegant winding roads of Garden City.

Adjo greeted him with deep affection.

Delia was in the drawing room arranging yellow lilies and, when he walked in on her unannounced, she dropped the flower she was holding and with a cry of delight ran toward him, a smile of blazing pleasure on her face.

"Jack! How grand!" she gasped as he hugged her tight. "We'd no idea you were coming! Does Fawzia know? And if she did, how could the little minx have kept it to herself?"

"No one knew," he said, filled with the huge sense of well-being Delia always imparted to those she loved. "I didn't know till two days ago. Is she here?"

"Here?" Delia stepped away from him. In her late forties, her beauty was more full-blown than it had once been, but he knew that she would never lose it. She was wearing a straight-skirted white linen dress, the waist cinched by a wide, cornflower-blue belt. "No, she isn't here," she said, looking a little startled. "Apart from running into her at parties I haven't seen Fawzia for weeks. If she isn't at the palace, she'll be at home."

"She isn't at home," he said easily, not letting his faint sense of disquiet show. "Why should she be at the palace?"

Delia tucked her hand comfortably into the crook of his arm. "She's always at the palace. Farouk neglects his little queen quite disgracefully and Farida relies on friends such as Fawzia for company-sometimes too much so. Davina says that more than once when she and Fawzia have been out a royal car has drawn up, a servant has announced that Fawzia's presence is required at the palace, and Fawzia's been borne off whether she really wanted to go or not."

A pergola had been built over the terrace since he had last been at Nile House and as they stood beneath the shade of the vines growing over it, he said, "Zubair Pasha didn't mention her palace visits. He said she spent most of her time with Davina."

"Well, she probably would if she could," Delia responded drily, "but Davina is always busy. Every nurse in Cairo is working eighteen hours out of twenty-four-and then some. And Zubair Pasha isn't well versed in what's going on at Abdin. Pride will prevent him telling you, but he's been out of favor with the King for some time now-probably because he's too pro-British for the King's comfort."

As they began walking down the terrace steps onto the lawn, she said, "Now what else d'you need bringing up-to-date on? There's the divorce, of course. Ivor is going to make an honest woman out of Kate at last and hopefully father a son and heir. Needless to say, everything is extremely amicable-though I think Cairo society rather wishes it weren't. Back in England, Shibden Hall is full with evacuees and orphans-including a little boy I think will soon be a member of the family."

The news that she and Ivor were divorcing wasn't a total surprise. The little boy, however, was a complete mystery.

"The orphan," he prompted, seeing with amus.e.m.e.nt that the lawn by the river had been turned into a field for aged donkeys.

"Davina's friends, Aileen and Fergus Sinclair, were killed in a road accident in Scotland. Miriam s...o...b.., the receptionist at Toynbee, notified your father. She went to the funeral and realized there was no family to take care of the Sinclairs' six-year-old son. For the moment Andrew is at Shibden, where your father visits him as regularly as he is able. The long-term plan is for Davina to adopt him."

They reached the stone embankment and Delia said, "As for Shibden, when the war is over, it will remain a children's home. Ivor has no use for it-he and Kate intend to remain in Cairo-and though I shall return to London when the Allies have put paid to Hitler, I won't have much use for it either. The days of keeping a house Shibden's size are long gone."

She turned to face him, the light breeze from the river blowing hair that was still a defiant t.i.tian-red. "The same goes for Sans Souci, of course. But I have every intention of spending long periods of time there when the world regains its sanity." Her smile lit up her face. "And when I do go back to Sans Souci," she said in a sudden burst of confidence, "I shall do somethin' I've wanted to do for twenty-eight years, Jack. I shall take your father with me."

It was, he knew, the broadest hint possible that when her divorce was finalized, she and his father were going to spend the rest of their lives together.

Finally Jack asked the question that had been on his mind since he landed in Egypt. "How is Petra, Delia?"

TWENTY-SIX.

"Petra," Delia said, looking toward the house, "is fine. You will stay for a late lunch, won't you? We can catch up on all the other gossip. Boo Pytchley is in Cairo, and so is Archie Somerset. I don't think Petra has had news of Rupert and all we know of Annabel and Fedya is that Fedya is in the RAF. It's impossible to get news of Suzi. What life is like in occupied Paris is hard to imagine, but at least Suzi isn't Jewish. I say my prayers every night for the French who are. As for Magda ..."

She tucked her hand once more in the crook of his arm and they began walking back to the house. "As for Magda, I sincerely hope she no longer thinks. .h.i.tler is the Savior of Germany. In the days when she admired him much of English high society shared her opinion. In 1936, when Ribbentrop was the German amba.s.sador to London, he was accepted nearly everywhere. I met him twice when we were both guests at the same dinner party. Sholto, I believe, knew him quite well. As for poor Wallis ..."

She lifted her shoulders in a gesture of despair. "According to your father there's a rumor that she and Ribbentrop were lovers. It's the usual bunk. Wallis would never have put her relationship with David at risk in such a way. Why people are such skunks about her is beyond me."

It was a familiar refrain and Jack's thoughts turned to Petra again. Delia's brief comment about her had been infuriatingly unsatisfactory. He was fairly sure he knew why she'd changed the subject so quickly. She didn't want him upsetting Petra's marriage, or his own to Fawzia.

And she was quite right about the dangers. British social life in Cairo had always revolved around a handful of venues: the Gezira Sporting Club, the Turf Club, Shepheard's, the Continental, Groppi's, and a few others. That he would meet Petra continually went without saying. For him, seeing her could easily destroy his own shaky union.

Resolved to make his marriage work, he stepped into the shady coolness of the dining room and began paying attention again to Delia's conversation.

"Your father don't get to ride half as much as he would like these days," she said as they took their places at the beautifully laid table. "In Virginia he'll be able to ride to his heart's content."

With amus.e.m.e.nt he saw that Adjo had taken it for granted that he would be staying for lunch and that the table was laid for two.

"When I was a girl," she said, her green eyes growing dreamy with memory, "I had the most wonderful horse; his name was Sultan. Saying goodbye to him was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do."

A young safragi, who Jack suspected was probably one of Adjo's great-nephews, poured the wine and then left them to enjoy their meal.

"Was that when you married Ivor?" he asked, dipping a piece of warm pita bread into a dish of hummus.

"Yes," she said, unusually thoughtful. She took a black olive from a blue-and-white glazed bowl, bit into it, and then said, "He wasn't in love with me when we married, although he was deeply attracted and had a genuine affection for me- an affection that has lasted, I'm glad to say."

It was something he had long suspected, but hearing her speaking so frankly was a shock. He said carefully, knowing he was on dangerous ground, "But if he didn't love you, why did he marry you?"

She put some fava-bean salad onto her plate and added a stuffed sweet pepper. "He was a widower who had no heir. I was young and he thought I would be able to provide him with a son. As it was, after Petra and Davina there were no more children. Considering his disappointment, he took it mighty well."

"If Ivor didn't love you," Jack said, "who did he love?"

Her eyebrows rose slightly, as if it was a question she was surprised he had to ask. "Why, your mother, of course," she said.

Her eyes held his with perfect candor.

"Your mother was the love of Ivor's life when he was a young man. He was in love with her when he married Olivia, and he was in love with her when he married me-and she remained his love long after she ended their affair and married Theo Girlington."

There was no bitterness or resentment in her voice and he realized that all resentment and hurt were long over.

"Kate, who is so utterly different in every way from your mother, brought happiness back into his life." Her affection for Kate was clear. "I've always been grateful to her. With luck she'll be able to give him the son he has waited so long for."

Jack didn't have to ask where Delia's own happiness lay, but there was one question he had to pose while she was in such a starkly honest mood.

"Why," he said, as she took a sip of her wine, "did you object so strongly to my marrying Petra?"