We waited all the rest of yesterday, and through the day today.
Mahmoud’s eldest son scoured the east bank with his grandfather, speaking to dozens of people. No one had seen anyone fitting the descriptions. His mother, Parveen, the one who calls me daughter, has said that I should not give up hope, but I feel my reserves of belief slipping away. If the woman, Fatimah Salawi, is not here in Luxor, how can we possibly hope to find her? If my friend from the Directorate is right and a terrorist attack is coming, somewhere here, then surely Eugène is in even greater danger. Terrible possibilities begin to form in my mind and I pretend that I have not glimpsed them; I force myself to think of other things.
My God, what if you are right, Claymore, about Eugène? Am I deluding myself?
I have been going through the Kemetic’s diary, the one that you took from his apartment. I have decided never to tell you about what happened that day. Even though you may suspect something, you have not asked me about it. If you ever do, I will reveal nothing. What you already know is enough.
Much of what is written in the diary is in hieroglyphs, or in demotic – a simplified ancient Egyptian script. This material is impenetrable. But he also used a shorthand of his own devising, which I am starting to understand. There are also many passages in plain Arabic, which are relatively complete. In one, he writes:
We had a big argument tonight with H. He is very angry, and has been for several days now, ever since Y declared himself. My heart aches for my poor friend, trapped in a physical body that desires love from men, as mine craves the love of women. We are both miserable creatures, but we believe we are fighting a just cause. Perhaps it will absolve us both in the eyes of Allah. The Consortium is a cancer, eating away at our society from within. H has begun to express sympathy with the extremists. Tonight he said he agrees with GI, and that there is no other way to defeat and remove the Consortium. Fatimah has begun to influence him. She is beguiling and beautiful, and I do not trust her. It is wrong to invoke the name of our God in such a mission.
I reread the words, ensuring I have not made an error. If this can be believed – and why would I not believe it? – the Kemetic was a Muslim. The ancient religion must have been a hobby, or an affectation, or perhaps camouflage. It also corroborates what Yusuf told you – that Hamid rejected his advances, and that this led to a breakdown in the professional relationship. Hamid never expressed to me, in the time we were married, any revulsion towards homosexuals. He was always very liberal about such matters whenever we discussed them, very modern. He reminded me so much of my father.
I looked for a date for the entry, but could not find one. Looking at the other entries, it was probably written sometime between July and September of this year, well before the acquittal. It is clear, now, that Fatimah knew my husband for some time before then. Did she lure him in, use sex to get close, disguise her real intentions?
This is another passage I was able to decipher, a more recent entry:
The lady who calls herself Veronique came to see me today. Y sent her to me. She is seeking information about H, about the case. She seems to know a lot already. I want to help her, but I am afraid of myself. She is beautiful. Uncommonly so. I promised myself, after the last time, that it would be the end of it. I swore, made a promise to God.
After the last time! Those photographs. He had done it before. Perhaps with Fatimah? My God! That there are such depraved people in this world. And yet, I can see that he was a good man, fighting a terrible injustice as best he could, with grace and perseverance. We are all flawed, all suspect, hiding our secrets, struggling against our baser selves.
Claymore, you just knocked on my door. We spoke only briefly.
The distance between us opened up like a cold sea. After our conversation with Parveen, I know that you do not love me. This is clear to me now. You act only from some deep sense of loyalty. Perhaps, God help you, it is simply that you have no one else. Your ignorance is shocking. I pity you. You know nothing.
You came to tell me that you had just spoken to Atef on the telephone. The girls are fine. Yusuf was found yesterday in an industrial landfill site outside Suez. He had been shot in the head.