convention."
"Or love?" Pitt risked asking.
Again, Yacoub gave the delicate gesture which could have meant almost anything. "I think she loved many times, but how deeply I have no idea."
Was that a euphemism? Pitt was floundering in a culture far different from his own. He still had little idea of what kind of woman Ayesha Zakhari was, except that she was unlike any other he knew. He wished profoundly that he could have asked Charlotte. She might have been able to cut through the words and grasp reality.
"What sort of people did she love?" he asked.
Yacoub finished his green soup and the waiter removed the plates and returned with the pigeon.
Yacoub looked not at Pitt but at some point in the distance. "I knew only one personally," he answered. Then, raising his eyes suddenly to Pitt's, he demanded, "How does this help her, that you should know about Ramses Ghali? He is not in England. He can have nothing to do with her present troubles."
"Are you certain?"
There was no hesitation in Yacoub's face. "Absolutely."
Pitt was unconvinced. "Who is he?"
Yacoub's eyes were soft, but his expression was an unreadable mixture of anger and sorrow. "He is dead," he explained quietly. "He died over ten years ago."
"Oh..." Death again. Had she truly loved this man? Could he be the key to her behavior now? Pitt was reaching for straws, but there was nothing else. "Might she have married him, had he lived?"
Yacoub smiled. "No." Again he seemed absolutely certain.
"But you said she loved him..."
Yacoub looked patient, as with a child who needs endless and detailed explanations. "They loved each other as friends, Mr. Pitt. Ramses Ghali believed passionately in Egypt, as his father did." A shadow crossed his face, and an emotion Pitt could not read, but he thought there was a touch of anger in it, a darkness.
The bombardment of Alexandria had occurred ten years ago. Was that the chill Pitt saw? Or was it deeper than that, the whole matter of General Gordon and the siege of Khartoum, south from here in the Sudan? In 1882 British forces had defeated Orabi at Tel-el-Kebir, and six thousand Egyptians had been massacred by the Mahdi in Sudan. The following year an Egyptian army even larger had been similarly destroyed, and in 1884 yet a further army was defeated, and General "Chinese" Gordon had arrived. In January, Gordon had perished, and less than six months later the Mahdi himself was dead; but Khartoum was not yet retaken.
Suddenly, Pitt felt very far from home, and for all the European decoration of the hotel dining room, and its Italian name, he was acutely aware of the ancient and utterly different heritage of the young man opposite him, and of the African spice and heat of the air beyond the walls. He had to force himself to try to think clearly.
"You said Ayesha Zakhari believed in Egypt just as fiercely," he said, beginning to eat his pigeon, which he thought absentmindedly was the best he had ever had. "Is she a person to take any kind of action on her beliefs? Did she speak for a cause, seek to draw in others?"
Yacoub gave a tiny, almost smothered laugh, cut off instantly. "Has she changed so much? Or do you simply know nothing about her, Mr. Pitt?" His eyes narrowed and he ignored his food. "I have read the newspapers, and I think the English government will seek to get their own minister off, and hang Ayesha." Now there was a world of bitterness in his voice, and his smooth olive face was as close to ugly as it could be, so dark was the rage and the pain inside him. "What is it you want here? To find a witness who will tell you she is a dangerous woman, a fanatic who will kill anyone who stands in her way? That perhaps this Lieutenant Lovat knew something about her which would spoil her life of luxury in England, and he threatened to tell people?"
"No," Pitt said instantly, and perhaps the force with which he meant it carried between them.
Yacoub let out his breath slowly and seemed to listen instead of merely waiting his chance to interrupt.
"No," Pitt continued. "I would like to find the truth. I can't think of any reason why she would kill him. All she had to do was ignore him and he would have had no choice but to desist, or be dealt with, possibly unpleasantly, for making a nuisance of himself." He