Free Flora's War by Pamela Rushby

running around four sides of a large hall on the floor below. Parts of the balcony were screened with mashrabiya like the ones I’d seen in the street on the way here.
    ‘This was the harem of the house,’ said Mr Bilal. ‘Look.’ He opened the door of a cupboard in the wall. But it wasn’t a cupboard. It was a secret balcony, overlooking the hall, a place to hide and spy on the room below.
    It was almost too much. I felt dizzy. ‘This is available to rent?’ I asked.
    ‘It is,’ said Mr Khalid. ‘If you like it.’
    ‘Like it?’ I said faintly. ‘Oh Mr Khalid, I love it!’
    Mr Khalid looked at me gravely. ‘I thought you might,’ he said.
    ‘I want to move in right away!’ I said. Mr Khalid and Mr Bilal smiled.
    ‘Furniture,’ murmured Mr Khalid.
    ‘Staff,’ said Mr Bilal. ‘You will need a cook, a housekeeper, houseboys. My wife, Mrs Maryam, can arrange this.’
    ‘Perhaps two weeks,’ Mr Khalid said. Nothing happened in a hurry in Cairo.
    I left them to arrange everything and went back upstairs to the roof terrace. The stone benches needed cushions, but I was sure that would all be organised. I sat down and looked out over the mysterious roofs of Cairo. A soft, cool breeze that would be cold later, rolled across from the river and a flock of white pigeons wheeled and flashed around the minarets of the mosque next door.
    I looked down across the alley and noticed that in the wall opposite there was a small door, with a stone lattice above it. That must be part of this house, I thought. I wondered where the door led. There hadn’t been an entry courtyard in the house across the street. The door, besides, was small and low, not a formal entry at all. What could it lead to – another small, secret room? As soon as we moved in, I promised myself, I’d explore that mysterious door and see what lay behind it.
    I wanted this house, the House of the Butcher and Blacksmith. I wanted to live here forever, and never go back to Australia. I wonder, I thought dreamily, if Fa would consider that?
    …

    A couple of days later Gwen and I met the picnic group in the afternoon at my hotel. Gwen and I were a novelty: girls who had visited Cairo many times before, lived here, knew our way about, and even spoke a little Arabic.
    ‘Flora knows everything about the pyramids and can guide us through one,’ Lydia immediately announced to the Australian nurses and young officers.
    I laughed and said, ‘I certainly don’t know everything, but I can arrange a guide to take us into a pyramid. But is anyone nervous of being in small spaces?’ I glanced around the group. ‘We’ll have to bend very well over for quite a long time along narrow passages.’
    ‘I think I’ll stay outside,’ Emily said faintly. ‘I’m not fond of cramped places.’
    ‘I’ll stay with you,’ quickly offered an officer we’d been introduced to as Lieutenant Joseph Callendar. Hmmm. I was sure he wasn’t at all nervous about small spaces. I suspected he was keen on spending one-on-one time with Emily.
    It was only a short distance and we could easily have walked, but riding donkeys was very popular with the nurses and officers. I knew we’d be covered with eau de donkey, but shrugged and went along with the group. Once at the pyramids of Giza, I gave a brief history of their construction about three-and-a-half thousand years ago over an eighty-year period for a father, son and grandson: the Pharaohs Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus.
    I kept it brief. I knew my audience. I saw they were eager to get inside the Great Pyramid.
    ‘Right, we have to climb up there.’ I pointed out the small entrance. ‘It’s about fifty feet above the ground. When we get there, boots off.’
    ‘Why can’t we wear our boots?’ a blonde nurse asked.
    ‘The stone inside is polished,’ I explained. ‘It’s very slippery. You’ll slide and fall if you leave your boots on.’
    ‘I hope I haven’t got a hole in my socks,’ an officer said, and