I moved forward to embrace him. His head rested against my chest and his crisp white gallabeya fluttered around my shins.
“A full Avvocato now, ready to take your money and run,” I joked. “It is good to see you again, old friend.”
Amm Attia stepped back and his eyes travelled up and down. “You’ve grown, Ramy. You look older.”
“The things you see in service of the law, Amm Attia, they grey your hair.”
His laugh was hearty and punctuated with the cough of a smoker whose tobacco was cut with too much of the black stuff.
“They’re all inside, your degenerate scum friends,” he said, waving in the direction of the houseboat. It moved on a bed of molasses, tiny tremors rising and falling in the black of the Nile.
“Do they know you’re here?”
I shook my head and stepped onto the gangplank. It felt like an old friend, and familiar steps took me towards the inviting wooden door. I rapped twice and it swung open to the sun.
The sun clapped both hands to her mouth at the sight of me. Her wisps of flame had grown into thick tendrils that crept around her shoulders and down her back. The sun’s face, a smooth oval as pale as its fire was hot. Twin jewels sparkled in greeting; to call them emeralds would be to insult their luster. The sun dazed me and its silence told me I had dazed it.
“Sabah, who is at the door?” a man yelled from within. The sun moved aside in silence, and I stepped into the dingy room.