Michael Pearce - The Mingrelian Conspiracy

‘You wouldn’t treat the Russians with generosity,’ said Sorgos; ‘not if they’d been to your village in Wales!’

‘Those battles are for the Caucasus. We’ve got enough trouble of our own here without your adding to it.’

‘Trouble? What kind of trouble? I have lived here for thirty years and I have not seen any trouble. Not as it is in the Caucasus, anyway. That’s real trouble! Egypt is a peaceful country. Except when your soldiers go out and wreck a cafe. Just exuberance, of course,’ he added conciliatorily.

‘Trouble between Muslim and Christian,’ said Owen sternly. ‘That’s what I’m worried about.’

‘No problem,’ Sorgos assured him. ‘This is strictly between Christian and Christian.’

‘Yes. But it wouldn’t stay that way. Not in Cairo.’

‘They would take our side? Well, that is understandable. They are men of spirit. Fine men! I know them. We fought side by side against the Russians.’

‘Wait a minute; where is this?’

‘Back home in the Caucasus. The Muslims were our allies. Against the Russians. I won’t pretend we always saw eye to eye. There were differences between us. I mean, we had been fighting each other for several centuries. The Muslims were our natural enemy, you might say. But then the Russians came along and they were even more our natural enemy, so we sank our differences and fought side by side. Fine men! And women, too. To tell you the truth’-Sorgos drew Owen to him and whispered in his ear-‘I think Katarina has got a bit of Muslim blood in her. It was always claimed that her grandmother’s father had taken a girl from one of the tribes. A raid, you know. There were plenty in those days. And I think it was sometimes done for the sake of the women-’ Owen piloted him gently out of the square. The old man was still buoyant with excitement and Owen knew that his words were getting nowhere. He would have to talk with him again tomorrow. And with the others. The old man was in many respects the key, however. He seemed to have a bit of a following and they couldn’t all be Mingrelians, either, if what Katarina had said was true, that there were only sixty families left. Perhaps the fact that he was an elder was something to do with it. He was looked to generally for leadership. Or, perhaps, of course, he was being used.

A man came running out of the square after them. He came up to them and threw his arms around Sorgos.

‘I wanted to catch you before you left,’ he said. ‘A wonderful speech! The fire! That’s what was missing until you spoke. I was in despair. And then you came forward-’

‘I spoke as a man should.’

‘They don’t speak like that nowadays.’

‘Then they should!’

‘Oh, yes,’ said the man; ‘they should!’

He saw that Owen was supporting the old man and looked at him enquiringly.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘I’d come with you myself, only-’

‘I’ll see him home,’ said Owen.

The man shook hands with them both and dashed off back into the square. Owen saw that beneath his galabeeyah he was wearing boots.

‘A Mingrelian?’ he asked.

‘Mingrelian?’ said Sorgos, surprised. ‘No, Georgian.’

He seemed suddenly very tired. The excitement had ebbed. He was barely able to stumble along. Owen offered him an arm, which he accepted gratefully. ‘Like a son,’ he murmured. ‘Like a son.’

He recovered briefly when they reached his house.

‘Like a son!’ he roared, as Katarina came running to the door.

‘What?’ said Katarina.

‘He’s been like a son to me,’ said Sorgos, gesturing in Owen’s direction.

‘Well, that’s nice,’ said Katarina.

‘I needed a bit of help to get home.’

‘I told you you would,’ said Katarina, annoyed. ‘But you wouldn’t listen.’

‘There was work to be done. Work for men.’

‘You leave it to the men, then. You’ve had your turn. Just help me a moment, would you?’ she said to Owen.

Together they got Sorgos to a divan. Katarina lifted his legs up and gently pushed him back. He fell asleep immediately.

‘He’s going to overdo it one of these days,’ she said.

‘He’s overdone it tonight,’ said Owen.

‘What’s he been saying?’

‘It isn’t the saying,’ said Owen. ‘It’s what might follow on from the saying.’

‘It’s only words now,’ said Katarina reassuringly. ‘He won’t be able to do anything.’

‘Only words?’ said Owen. ‘In a situation like this, words are enough.’

‘What is the situation?’

Owen told her.

She was silent for a moment. Then she said: ‘He shouldn’t come.’

‘Duke Nicholas?’

‘Duke Nicholas or any other Russian. He’s only doing it to provoke us.’

‘The Mingrelians? For God’s sake, he’s probably never heard of the Mingrelians.’

‘That may well be true. It’s easier to crush a people if you’ve never heard of them. He ought to have heard of us. We were a people. We had lives.’

‘Look, I’m not exactly in favour of him coming-’

‘Tell me,’ she said; ‘suppose you are right, and suppose he has never heard of the Mingrelians; and now suppose you tell him they are here, in Cairo, these people whom he crushed. What do you think he will say? Do you think he will be ashamed, do you think he will postpone his visit? I don’t think so. I think he will say, let the visit go on. What do we care for these Mingrelians? If they cause trouble, put them down! That is what he will say, won’t he?’

‘Something like it,’ said Owen, remembering the Charge.

‘Very well, then. In that case I am with my grandfather. I think we should stand up. To show that we cannot be put down. We can be knocked down but we will never stay down.’

‘Well, I have some sympathy with that,’ said Owen. ‘But standing up is one thing and throwing a bomb is another.’

‘The Russians should have thought of that,’ said Katarina, ‘when they threw the first bomb.’

‘That is all in the past.’

‘The past is never all in the past. You always carry some of it with you.’

‘You can’t do it forever. Where do you think we’d have been in Wales if we’d gone on thinking like that?’

Sorgos stirred in his sleep.

‘The Welsh,’ he said drowsily. ‘A mountain people.’

‘That’s right,’ said Owen. ‘We’d still be in the bloody hills, that’s where!’

‘-and so the dog dropped the sack and ran away,’ said the storyteller, ‘and all the names were just left lying there in the street. Now, the trouble was that in all the confusion, and what with all the shaking and jolting they had received, they had got mixed up. There were bits of men’s names mixed with bits of women’s names. Well, they all began crying out. One would shout, “Who am I?” and the other bit would shout, “you’re not you, you’re me!” So then they all began fighting each other. Well, then the blind man came running along the road and he tripped on the sack and fell right in on top of them-’

‘Ho, ho!’ said the big man standing in the doorway. ‘Very good!’

‘Selim!’ came a shout from inside.

‘Coming!’ called the big man. ‘You old bastard!’ he added sotto voce.

Owen followed him in.

‘Not you again!’ said the cafe owner, aghast.

‘Me again,’ said Owen cheerfully. ‘How are things going?’

‘Terribly,’ said the cafe owner. ‘Your man is useless. He’s big, all right, but he’s got something missing up top. The trouble is, that’s the sort my wife goes for. They’ve only got to be simpletons for her to feel all soft about them.’

‘She’d better not feel too soft about this bloke,’ said Owen uneasily.

‘That’s just what I’ve told her! Kick the bugger up the backside, I say. That’ll get him moving! Only that’s what I say about all of them and she doesn’t take a blind bit of notice. Here, you idle sod! Fetch some coffee for the effendi! He’s your boss, isn’t he?’ he added more quietly.