I left a message for Eichmann and, later on, met up with him and Hagen in the hotel bar. They were accompanied by a third German, Dr. Franz Reichert, who worked for the German News Agency in Jerusalem, but who quickly excused himself from our company, pleading an upset stomach.

“Something he ate, perhaps,” said Hagen.

I slapped at a fly that had settled on my neck. “Just as likely it was something that ate him,” I said.

“We were at a Bavarian restaurant last night,” explained Eichmann. “Near the Central Station. I’m afraid it wasn’t very Bavarian. The beer was all right. But the Wiener schnitzel was horse, I think. Or even camel.”

Hagen groaned and held his stomach for a moment. I told them I had brought Fievel Polkes with me and that he was staying at the Savoy. “That’s where we should have stayed,” complained Hagen. And then: “I know why Polkes came to Cairo. But why did you come, Papi?”

“For one thing, I don’t think our Jewish friend quite believed you really were here,” I said. “So you can call it a sign of good faith, if you like. But for another, my business was concluded sooner than I had expected. And I decided that I might never have a better chance to see Egypt than this. So here I am.”

“Thanks,” said Eichmann. “I appreciate your bringing him down here. Otherwise we very probably wouldn’t have met him at all.”

“Gunther’s a spy,” insisted Hagen. “Why listen to him?”

“We applied for a Palestinian visa,” said Eichmann, ignoring the younger man. “And were turned down again. We’re applying again tomorrow. In the hope we can get a consular official who doesn’t dislike Germans.”

“It’s not Germans the British don’t like,” I told him. “It’s Nazis.” I paused for a moment. Then, realizing that this was a good opportunity to ingratiate myself with them, said, “But who knows? Maybe the official you got last time was a yid.”

“Actually,” said Eichmann, “I think he was Scottish.”

“Look here,” I said, affecting a tone of weary honesty. “I might as well level with you. It wasn’t your boss, Franz Six, who asked me to spy on you. It was Gerhard Flesch. From the Gestapo’s Jewish Department. He threatened to investigate my racial origins if I didn’t. Of course, it’s all a bluff. There are no kikes in my family. But you know what the Gestapo are like. They can put you through all sorts of hoops in order to prove that you’re not a yid.”

“I can’t imagine anyone who could look less Jewish than you do, Gunther,” said Eichmann.

I shrugged. “He’s after proof that your department is corrupt,” I said. “Well, of course, I could have told him that before we left Germany. I mean about my meeting with Six and Begelmann. But I didn’t.”