Cairo: The King's Jungle
51
above us. Behind an ancient, battered switchboard sat Cairo's
most excitable man: a gray-haired toothless police officer with
a face like well worn brown leather and two earphones perched
over his bald head. In front of him were two old-fashioned
desk phones and a mouthpiece protruding from the switchboard, and into these he screamed alternately. Evidently there
were no extension phones in the building, for he would scrawl
a message, howl for a courier, and scream at him to hurry
with it. I watched, fascinated by the sight of this toothless
old man frantically and conscientiously trying at this antique
board to handle all the incoming and outgoing messages of an
extremely busy police station. Every few minutes he would rip
out all of the plugs, slam down both phones, clamp his fist
over the mouthpiece, pull off the earphones, and glare, like a
madman in a fit of temporary sanity. I could not blame him.
Any man could easily go out of his mind in that black
dungeon.
I was in line to make my call when he suddenly stiffened.
Apparently an urgent message was coming in. He gestured to
us to be quiet, listened intently, then chattered excitedly. Sergeant Fattah said it was from the "European Division" and it
concerned me. For the next few minutes my fate hung in the
balance, as the operator wrote the message while the two
phones jangled madly. Finally he gave the note to the sergeant, who read it silently, and then motioned me to follow
him. We retraced our steps, the two police clinging behind
me like bloodhounds.
When we arrived at his desk, Sergeant Fattah announced
that he was compelled to keep my camera pending further investigation. Paper, cord, and sealing wax were brought. My
camera was wrapped as carefully as any of Pharoah's mummies, and tucked away in a desk drawer, with the promise that
it would be returned to me. I was free.
Returning to my hotel room, I delegated my hat—a collapsible Stetson—to the bottom of my suitcase. It definitely