Egypt, 1943
The press and bustle that is Cairo … I cannot convey it to you. You must experience it. I have a thousand fevered impressions of my time there: dust; wind from the Nile delta so heavy with the smell of life it is like the beginning of time; towering palms against enamel blue skies; the cacophonous language of the place, everyone talking over the next fellow in the marketplaces; veiled women carrying or herding grubby-faced children; and the heat that tries to make a relic of you. I loved it all. The smells of spices, coffee, smoke from the shisha pipes, ancient corners where the shadows are thousands of years old. The sounds of the muezzin’s cry at dawn, the bellowing of camels, the rapid beat of the tabla that stirs the blood and the limbs.
It didn’t matter there was a war on, not to me in my youth and brashness. I was drunk on being alive and mostly able-bodied after my motor accident. I’d seen horrors and been in mortal danger, but all of it only caused me a fierce sense of personal victory over death. If I had that camera in front of me, I felt invincible - removed from it all, a mere observer and chronicler.
It was like I’d drifted through everything hidden behind a magic shield, quite a feat when plenty of my fellow camera jockeys were killed or captured. When I stopped to think about it, it crashed in on me, so I didn’t stop often. When I had time to do some darkroom work, watching the images come up through the chemicals … that’s when it hit me.
I went out on my own whenever the opportunity presented itself, shooting for myself the things that spoke to me or pleased my eye. The souks, or open-air markets, were some of my favorite haunts. One evening in the Khan el-Khalili, as I searched for candid portrait subjects, I saw a face of such exquisite expression that all other faces have seemed dull masks since.
A woman, dressed in floating indigo veils over a loose gown the creamy color of a gardenia blossom, stood among the glowing lamps and smoking incense burners, haggling in spirited fashion with a shopkeeper. She seemed to be toying with him, although I could not hear her words. The man, blanched and sweating, appeared to be pressing a lamp upon her in offering.
Of course, she was lovely. In profile, the curve of her cheek gleamed like burnished almond, and above the sheer blue of her veil flashed an eye as dark as starless night. But her beauty was not what attracted me as I raised the camera. There was that in her face and posture that simultaneously animated and subdued the air around her, as if she were a strong flame in windy darkness, and I thought to capture that sense of power. I was not quick enough. She had turned her back to me and crouched among the shop’s wares, her slender hand pointing at what she wanted, the indigo veils pooling over the cobbles.
“This one,” she said in Arabic, and named a price that made the shopkeeper’s pained smile tremble.
He made her a small bow, and the exchange was swift. I saw her press a ring into his hand, gleaming dull gold in the lamplight. She turned toward me, and at her back the man jabbed his fingers in the air as though warding off a curse, his lips moving silently. I thought him a superstitious fool and a poor sport and gave him a glare, but he only made a slight shake of his head, his eyes darting toward the woman.
I had no time to puzzle out his meaning as her gaze fell upon me and the camera I still held before me. The unfathomable depth of her black eyes froze the blood in my veins even as it stilled my nervous fingers on the camera. Behind the gossamer veil, I could see the outline of a sharp smile that did not reach her eyes.
“You are British,” she said in perfect English, with only a hint of Egypt in it. Her voice was soft, but deep. “You are not a soldier?”
I bristled a bit at that, but she could not have known about the smashed leg that had kept me from service.
“I’m a photographer, here with the British Army,” I stammered, brandishing the camera. “May I take your portrait?”
She laughed, a musical sound but hollow. “No, never. It is the worst kind of luck. You would not wish me harm?”
“Certainly not,” I said.
My head swam as though I’d had too much drink, and every hair on my body rose up, electrified. My feet, which seemed a mile from my addled brain, wanted to carry me far from her regard, but I could not obey them. Over her shoulder, I could see the shopkeeper watching us, a frown on his face. He caught my gaze and, crossing his arms over his chest, gave another slight but vigorous shake of his head.
“I am Keket,” the woman said, reaching toward the camera. “I have seen your fellow photographers. They swarm after death like coffin flies.”
Her fingertip touched the lens of the camera, and shadow bloomed there. I shook my head to clear it, disbelieving my eyes as I never had before. A hot, humid breeze stirred the hanging lamps and threw weird shapes over the walls of the khan, and with it came the intoxicating scent of the woman – lily, myrrh, and cinnamon.
“This eye…” Keket said, stirring the smoky shadow collected about the lens with her retreating fingers, “You should be careful what it looks upon. One may invite darkness by looking into it.”
Her last words hung in my ears like whispers before the vibrant noise of the souk rushed in. Time seemed to slip and judder like a hitch in a reel of film. I staggered back a step, jostling a fellow with a tray of cheap jewelry and earning a peeved expletive, but Keket was gone. I turned about, staring into the shifting crowd, but could see no trace of indigo veils nor detect the fragrance of her perfume. I thought to question the lamp seller, but his little shop had gone dark, and a trio of young boys was busy packing the wares into crates.
Out of sheer habit, I raised the camera to my eye to snap a shot of the boys. I could see nothing through the viewfinder but a roiling black. Not the flat dark of mere blocked light - this had depth, as though I could fall forward endlessly into it. I felt I was looking at something; more accurately, at someplace. Vertigo seized me, and I jerked the camera from my eye. I would have cast it from me if the strap had not been about my neck.
I decided I was unwell and made my way back to my quarters on shaky legs, my limp more pronounced than ever. The night had turned cool and slunk after me like a hungry hyena. I shivered as I turned down the dark little alleyway to my room behind a corner café. Nassor, an Egyptian fellow who had attached himself to me as a sort of guide and casual manservant, had found the place for me.
I saw, as I passed under the archway to the narrow arcade that ran along the ribs of the building, that he had been by and lighted the lamps. Grateful for the welcoming illumination, I staggered through my door and pitched onto my bed fully clothed, the camera rolling away among the many pillows. I fell into a fevered sleep and knew no more until sunrise.
***
With the morning came Nassor, bearing newspapers and a flask of strong, hot coffee. Already, I was awake and examining my camera with a fresh perspective. The viewfinder remained dark, though I could see no defect anywhere.
“What is wrong with your camera, Charles,” said Nassor, dumping his bundle of newspapers on the table across from me.
“What makes you think anything is wrong with it?” I growled around my cigarette.
I squinted up at him through the smoke, and he gave an eloquent shrug and turned toward the tray that held the brass dallah, into which he decanted the coffee. His quick brown hands poured perfect cups of the bitter brew, aromatic with cardamom. From some hidden pocket, he magicked a brown paper parcel and unwrapped sweet dates.
When the tray was between us and he had pulled up his chair, he said, “You peer at it the way my young nephew peers at a favorite toy that is broken - full of curiosity to mend it, and at the same time angry that it should not function properly.”
He gestured at the tray with its steaming cups. “Please to have some coffee. The dates are very nice. Sahtain.”
We saluted one another with our cups. The coffee cleared the last of the fog from my brain, and the dates were, indeed, quite nice.
“I met a woman in the khan last evening,” I began, feeling for the words to describe my encounter.
Nassor’s brows rose in amusement. “Ah. And in your passion for her, you dropped your camera, yes?”
“This isn’t a joke, Nassor. She did something to it, I don’t know how. She touched the lens, and now everything is dark. If I can’t repair it, I will need a new camera as quickly as I can lay hands on one.” I scowled at him. “And that means you will be out hunting for one. I have darkroom work to do.”
The smile faded from his face. “She touched the camera? May I look at it?”
“Certainly.” I handed it across the table. “You can’t see any damage at all. The mechanism works. I can only assume her touching it before it went black is nothing more than coincidence.”
My words sounded rational to my ears, and yet I did not believe them. The memory of my bewilderment and fear of the previous night was fresh, slumbering just below my skin, and it stirred, causing a shudder. The truth was that I could not bear to look through the viewfinder of the camera at the living darkness there. Still, I was curious to discover if Nassor would see what I had seen. He turned the camera about in his hands, examining it as if he had never beheld such a device, and then he raised it to his eye.
“Allah y’een,” he gasped, lowering the camera to the table. “This woman, Charles. Tell me of her.”
I leaned forward and put my hand over the camera. “What did you see, Nassor?”
“That which is written, but no longer believed.” He looked away, clearly distressed, and my heart hammered in my chest. “Do you know this woman’s name?”
“Her name is Keket, and she told me some nonsense about being cautious when looking into darkness. I presumed she meant my work for the army. She seemed to have had a poor opinion of the photographers here in Cairo.”
“Old wives’ tales, surely,” muttered Nassor, but his gaze fell on the camera, and he shook his head. “Charles, listen. This creature you met in the khan, what was she doing there when you saw her?”
“Haggling over a lamp. She reduced the lamp seller to a quaking kitten. He closed his shop directly afterward, and the evening was young.”
Nassor nodded. “We will go to the khan, Charles. We will see this lamp seller. Then I may tell you all that is in my mind. I pray that we will laugh about it.”
“What about my camera?”
He shrugged, once more aloof. “We will find you another in the souk.”
***
The bustle and din of the souk had not diminished a whit. If anything, the day trade was more vigorous. The heat was stifling, and the delicious aromas of food and perfumes wafting from the khan were corrupted with the stench of goats and camels choking the street. We shoved our way through the press, Nassor clearing the livestock and beggars from our path with sharp taps from the riding crop he carried for the purpose.
In the nominal cool of the khan, we made our way to the lamp seller’s corner, but we did not find him. Instead, a slim young man with doleful black eyes had set up a shop selling rugs where lamps had been. We approached, and Nassor questioned him. The young man spread his hands in a helpless gesture and there ensued a rapid-fire exchange of Arabic which I could not follow. The fellow smote his chest in an attitude of grief and indicated his wares.
“Let us go from this place,” Nassor said, turning to me.
The young rug merchant called after us, but Nassor continued out into the blinding sun of the street, and I followed. My friend stalked along the street in silence, his face a study in deep thought. We approached a café, and as Nassor indicated that we should sit beneath its awning, we claimed a corner table. I was hardly in the mood for more coffee, but we went through the rituals of ordering it and accepting it before he would speak.
“You must leave Egypt, Charles,” he said. “You must go in haste. My friend, you have attracted the notice of something … unimaginable.”
I was speechless, caught between laughter and anger.
“What the devil are you blathering about? Did that rug merchant tell you a bogey-story?” I snorted in derision. “Nassor, don’t tell me you believe such superstitious drivel. Where is the lamp seller? We went there to speak with him.”
“The lamp seller is dead.” Nassor’s expression had closed, his eyes hooded. “There will be more death and sorrow. The Mother of Darkness is among us.”
“Dead?”
My mind reeled. I recalled the frightened face of the lamp seller, his reluctance to accept the gold ring Keket had pressed into his palm. I recalled how he had tried to warn me away from her, and how her proximity had inspired a mindless fear in my body as if I were in the presence of a hunting lion. For a moment, I was overcome by a profound sense of hopelessness, and then I rallied.
“Well, I am sorry to hear of his death, but such things happen every day. There is a war on, after all. And I am here to document it. I have no plans to leave Egypt any time soon.” I hesitated, then asked, “Who is the Mother of Darkness?”
Nassor sighed and sipped his coffee.
“Keket. She is part of old Egyptian lore, the Bringer-In of the Night, and a twin or consort to Kek, the god of obscurity and chaos. Kek rules the hours before the dawn, he is the Bringer-In of the Light. With Keket comes the night, the hours after sunset.”
“That is mythology, and neither of us believes it.” I looked at Nassor for confirmation of this, but he would not meet my gaze. “For argument’s sake, let’s say it is true. Bringing in the night doesn’t sound like a bad thing. There is an entire mythology about the movement of the sun and the moon. It merely seeks to explain natural phenomena.”
“I did not say Keket was bad,” Nassor said in a soft voice. “She simply is. She is not of the night the way you and I know it. She is of the first darkness, that which existed before anything else. That is what she brings, that is where she would return” --he gestured at everything around us-- “all of this.”
I brooded on this fantastic concept for several minutes, and Nassor watched me. Finally, I pushed my cup from me and stood.
“I do not have an explanation for what happened to my camera,” I said. “But this is not it. Now, I am off to find another so I can be ready to work when the division moves out. Will you accompany me?”
Nassor nodded, and we returned to the souk.
to be continued…
I could almost smell and feel the heat and aromas of the khan.