The Girl in the Nile by Michael Pearce Page B

interested in gambling. They tend to be European, though, or Europeanized Egyptians and expect the social style of a club on the Riviera. There’s a reception area where they can sit and talk and the girls sit in there too and help the conversation along.”
    At the request of the salon’s owner they met the girls not at the salon but in a hotel nearby. The salon was in the Ismailia quarter where all the best hotels were. They met in the Hotel Continental.
    When they arrived they were taken at once to a private alcove. Owen was amused to see that hospitality had been provided. That wouldn’t get far with Mahmoud, who, strict Muslim that he was, drank only coffee.
    The women must already have been there, for the maître d’hôtel brought them immediately. They were dressed in discreet though well-cut black and, in deference to the customs of the country, long veils, which they put aside as soon as they sat down. One was Belgian, the other Hungarian. Their names were Nanette and Masha.
    “We’ve got other names, too,” they pointed out. Mahmoud addressed them as Mademoiselle.
    Yes, they had been on the dahabeeyah. They had been approached beforehand and had agreed to go to Luxor and back as members of the Prince’s party.
    “A Prince, after all,” said Nanette, with a roll of her eyes.
    Masha was less impressed. Apparently, princes were two a penny in Hungary.
    “What did that entail?” asked Owen.
    “What do you mean?”
    “How friendly did you have to be?”
    Nanette shrugged her shoulders.
    “So-so,” she said.
    They had met Narouz previously.
    “He came to the salon. Not regularly. He would come several times in a week and then you wouldn’t see him for ages.”
    He liked talking to them, they said. Just talking. They wouldn’t have minded other things too but talking was what he wanted.
    “He could get as much of the other as he liked,” said Masha. “The one thing he couldn’t get in Egypt, he said, was intelligent female conversation. It’s the lives they lead,” she explained. “Shut up in those harems!”
    “You’re not saying he came to the salon just for conversation?”
    “No, no. He liked gambling. But when he wasn’t playing he liked to talk.”
    “Especially with women,” said Nanette.
    “And it was as a result of these conversations that he invited you to join him on the dahabeeyah?”
    “Yes. He said it was the only thing that would get him through it.”
    “I don’t understand,” said Mahmoud. “Are you saying he didn’t want to go up to Luxor?”
    “He hated going on the river at all. He said it was slow and boring.”
    “Then why—”
    Nanette shrugged. “He said he was doing it only because it was his duty.”
    “Duty? I don’t understand that.”
    Nanette shrugged again.
    The two girls had been fetched by car, the Prince’s car, from the salon and been taken to the river at Beni Suef, where the dahabeeyah had called in for them.
    What about the other girl?
    A little silence.
    “We didn’t know her,” said Nanette.
    “She wasn’t one of us,” said Masha.
    “Meaning?”
    “She was Egyptian for a start,” said Masha.
    “What kind of Egyptian? Levantine Egyptian, Greek Egyptian, Italian Egyptian—?”
    “Egyptian Egyptian.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yes. She told us about her family once. Her father’s a big merchant or something. They have a big house. Only she doesn’t live there anymore.”
    “Didn’t,” said Masha.
    Nanette shrugged again: a sudden, nervous jerk.
    “Where has she been living up to now?” asked Mahmoud.
    “With an aunt, I think.”
    “Do you know where?”
    “No.”
    “We’d never seen her before,” said Masha, “not till we got into the car.”
    “She was already in the car? He’d picked her up first?”
    “I suppose so.”
    The girl hadn’t said much, then or at any other time. She had kept herself to herself. Owen had the impression that this was the first time for her, as it certainly wasn’t for the other two.