The western half was frangi, or French—the word was used locally for anything foreign. The whole district used to be inundated yearly by the Nile’s flood, but after European engineers dammed the river, it was possible to build on the high ground. Foreigners were allowed to settle, and frangi Cairo came to look like a southern European city, filled with banks, hotels, consulates, and Art Nouveau residences. There was even a Sporting Club with a race course. To the east was beledi Cairo, the real city, in his opinion, where ordinary Egyptians lived and worked amid mosques, coffee shops, tiny stores, little factories, markets, and schools.

The Continental Hotel was frangi, set in the Gazirah neighborhood, a quiet enclave popular with Europeans. “Gazirah means island,” the colonel said, as the dragoman turned off a broad boulevard onto a handsome bridge that crossed one of the Nile’s strands.

The Europeans I’d seen at the Semiramis were a group of British officials. “Winston and his Forty Thieves,” Lawrence called the delegation. They had been assembled for a few days in Cairo to finish some business left undone at Versailles. Much of it had been decided years ago, in London and Paris, but details remained to be worked out.

I nodded and murmured as he spoke, touched by his kind awareness of my speechless embarrassment. Only when we arrived at the Continental did I feel capable of asking the question that made my cheeks burn. “Colonel Lawrence, at the Semiramis … Was it my dog who was objectionable, or was it myself?”

He sat still a moment, staring at his shoes, which were as scuffed as a schoolboy’s. “To a Muslim, all dogs are objectionable,” he informed me, “but those with short legs are especially to be despised.” He glanced at me to see if I was “buying it.” I must have looked skeptical, for he added, “I have no idea why, but that is the case.”