In the course of research I met a man known as a specialist in the investigations surrounding a series of lurid murders that occurred in 1920. Sisters Raya and Sakina bint Ali Hamam were prostitutes who lured innocent girls to their apartments in a red light district of Alexandria and, with the help of their husbands/pimps, robbed, killed and buried 17 victims beneath the floorboards. I needed an original photograph of the sisters and Mahmoud X was said to have some. His flat was out by the pyramids, in a block of nondescript 1980s apartment buildings beside what was once a tree-lined canal, now flattened and filled to widen the street.
I found the address, and entered a mirror-lined vestibule carpeted with dusty animal skins, mostly sheep and goat. Bouquets of plastic flowers sprouted from vases in every corner; Islamic slogans in gilded calligraphy and photographs of sheikhs and Mecca covered the walls. An elevator opened, emitting a puff of incense, its interior so smoky I could hardly see the man inside who beckoned he’d take me up. We stood in this private cloud for several storeys, until the elevator doors parted to reveal a massive door of heavy carved wood, embedded with brass slats, chunks of turquoise, silver ashtrays (yes, ashtrays) and, so help me god, a faux diamond brooch. Above it was a small bust, presumably of my host, in stone.
