The Key to Rebecca Read Free

the leaves of the book. Carefully, Achmed picked it up and put it back. He closed the book, replaced it in the case, and closed the case.
    Ishmael was standing at his shoulder. He said: “Was it a long journey?”
    Achmed nodded. “I came from El Agela, in Libya.” The names meant nothing to his cousin. “I came from the sea.”
    “From the sea!”
    “Yes.”
    “Alone?”
    “I had some camels when I started.”
    Ishmael was awestruck: even the nomads did not make such long journeys, and he had never seen the sea. He said: “But why?”
    “It is to do with this war.”
    “One gang of Europeans fighting with another over who shall sit in Cairo—what does this matter to the sons of the desert?”
    “My mother’s people are in the war,” Achmed said.
    “A man should follow his father.”
    “And if he has two fathers?”
    Ishmael shrugged. He understood dilemmas.
    Achmed lifted the closed suitcase. “Will you keep this for me?”
    “Yes.” Ishmael took it. “Who is winning the war?”
    “My mother’s people. They are like the nomads—they are proud, and cruel, and strong. They are going to rule the world.”
    Ishmael smiled. “Achmed, you always did believe in the desert lion.”
    Achmed remembered: he had learned, in school, that there had once been lions in the desert, and that it was possible a few of them remained, hiding in the mountains, living off deer and fennec fox and wild sheep. Ishmael had refused to believe him. The argument had seemed terribly important then, and they had almost quarreled over it. Achmed grinned. “I still believe in the desert lion,” he said.
    The two cousins looked at one another. It was five years since the last time they had met. The world had changed. Achmed thought of the things he could tell: the crucial meeting in Beirut in 1938, his trip to Berlin, his great coup in Istanbul ... None of it would mean anything to his cousin—and Ishmael was probably thinking the same about the events of his last five years. Since they had gone together as boys on the pilgrimage to Mecca they had loved each other fiercely, but they never had anything to talk about.
    After a moment Ishmael turned away, and took the case to his tent. Achmed fetched a little water in a bowl. He opened another bag, and took out a small piece of soap, a brush, a mirror and a razor. He stuck the mirror in the sand, adjusted it, and began to unwind the howli from around his head.
    The sight of his own face in the mirror shocked him.
    His strong, normally clear forehead was covered with sores. His eyes were hooded with pain and lined in the corners. The dark beard grew matted and unkempt on his fine-boned cheeks, and the skin of his large hooked nose was red and split. He parted his blistered lips and saw that his fine, even teeth were filthy and stained.
    He brushed the soap on and began to shave.
    Gradually his old face emerged. It was strong rather than handsome, and normally wore a look which he recognized, in his more detached moments, to be faintly dissolute; but now it was simply ravaged. He had brought a small phial of scented lotion across hundreds of miles of desert for this moment, but now he did not put it on because he knew it would sting unbearably. He gave it to a girl-child who had been watching him, and she ran away, delighted with her prize.
    He carried his bag into Ishmael’s tent and shooed out the women. He took off his desert robes and donned a white English shirt, a striped tie, gray socks and a brown checked suit. When he tried to put on the shoes he discovered that his feet had swollen: it was agonizing to attempt to force them into the hard new leather. However, he could not wear his European suit with the improvised rubber-tire sandals of the desert. In the end he slit the shoes with his curved knife and wore them loose.
    He wanted more: a hot bath, a haircut, cool soothing cream for his sores, a silk shirt, a gold bracelet, a cold bottle of champagne and a warm soft woman. For