Michael Pearce - The Mingrelian Conspiracy

Sidi took the coins with surprising inattention.

‘Effendi,’ he said, ‘that reward you mentioned: would it apply to me?’

‘If you found what I want, yes.’

‘I would buy donkeys,’ said Sidi. ‘It would be better if they carried the loads, not me.’

‘With such an abundance of management insight, Sidi, you are bound to prosper.’

‘I hope so, Effendi. Now, about my sister: are you sure-?’

In the Bab-el-Khalk, the headquarters of the Cairo Police, the heat was stupefying. Owen, working at his desk, had wedged a sheet of blotting paper beneath his writing hand to soak up the persistent trickles of sweat that ran down his arm and threatened to turn everything he wrote into an indecipherable damp smudge. The water in the glass beside him was lukewarm again; only a few minutes before, his orderly had come round to fill the glass with ice. Yusef had said the ice was melting even in the ice house. It had been melting, he said, even when the cart arrived and the men had carried the ice loaves, each tenderly wrapped in sacking, down into the cellar.

The Bab-el-Khalk was as quiet as a morgue. Christ, what would the morgue be doing if the ice was melting! He decided not to think about that. Instead, he changed the image. As quiet as a tomb. Yes, he quite liked that. As quiet as a tomb and as dark as a tomb, with all the shutters closed against the sun, as they had been since early morning.

But not so quiet! Voices, feet running. Someone running along the corridor. The pad of bare feet, the slap of slippers.

Yusef burst into the room.

‘Effendi! Effendi! A man-’

A man with his galabeeyah hoisted up round his knees, the better to run, his feet bare, his turban dishevelled, exposing his skull cap, his face running with sweat-’

‘Effendi! Mustapha is being attacked again!’

‘Mustapha?’

‘The cafe! Oh, Effendi, come quickly! It is terrible!’

Owen jumped to his feet, grabbed his topee-better than a tarboosh if there was a prospect of being hit on the head-and ran out of the room. He found the man running beside him.

‘Quick, Effendi! Oh, quick!’

Well, yes, but how? Arabeah? There was a line of the horse-drawn carriages in front of the Bab-el-Khalk but no one would describe them as speedy. Donkey? There would be donkeys tied up in the courtyard, but somehow-Got it! The Aalim-Zapt’s bicycle! He ran down into the courtyard. There it was, green, gleaming, modern!

‘Tell the Aalim-Zapt!’ he shouted, as he sped through the gate.

He hurtled across the Place Bab-el-Khalk. That was easy. It was when he came to the more crowded streets of the native city that he ran into trouble. A massive stone cart was almost entirely blocking the thoroughfare, useless to shout, a little gap at one side-Christ, another one just behind! Another gap, at the expense of a chicken, Jesus, stalls all over the road, onions, tomatoes a few more onions and tomatoes when he’d finished, and now a bloody Passover sheep! Fat, obtuse and in the way! A flock of turkeys, a man carrying a bed, a line of forage camels, three great loads of berseem flopping up and down on either side-steer clear of them-and now a donkey with a rolled-up carpet stretched across its back, the two ends sticking out right across the street, a man sitting on top-! Or was he on top, still? Owen did not dare to look.

He became aware of someone running beside him.

‘Nearly there, Effendi!’ said the messenger indomitably.

One last street, a crowd outside, well, you’d expect that. He jumped off the bicycle.

‘Out of the way! Out of the way!’ he shouted.

‘Make way! Make way for the Mamur Zapt!’ shouted the storyteller.

He pushed his way through. Hands helped as well as hindered.

Suddenly he was through, popped out the front, like a cork out of a bottle.

The cafe was a scene of destruction. Chairs, tables, hookahs lay all over the floor. In the middle of the room, prone on his face, lay Selim.

Mustapha’s wife was on her knees beside him. There was blood all over her burka.

‘A lion!’ she kept saying tearfully. ‘A lion!’

Owen bent down. There was a huge gash on the back of Selim’s head. Owen bent closer.

‘He breathes,’ he said.

‘A lion!’ said the woman, in tears. ‘A wounded lion!’

The wounded lion groaned.

‘Water!’ said the woman. ‘Bring water!’

Mekhmet, terrified, plucked at her sleeve.

‘Lady,’ he said. ‘Lady!’

‘Fetch water.’

‘But, Lady-’

‘Go on, you stupid bastard!’ said a voice from across the room. It was the owner of the cafe, Mustapha, pale and limp, sitting exhaustedly on the bottom of the stairs. ‘Fetch water, can’t you?’

Mekhmet looked around in despair, saw Owen and clutched his arm.

‘Effendi! Oh, Effendi!’

‘It’s all right,’ said Owen. ‘It’s over now.’

‘But, Effendi-’

‘Get some water, can’t you? And after that, some coffee. For me and the Effendi. I bloody need it!’

‘Effendi!’ pleaded Mekhmet.

‘Move your ass!’

Mekhmet fled into the kitchen. Mustapha prised himself up and limped across to Owen.

‘A fine bloody job he’s done!’ he said bitterly, looking down at Selim. ‘My cafe’s wrecked! And what did he do about it?’

‘He fought like a lion!’ said the woman indignantly.

‘Maybe, but he fell down like a sheep when they knocked him on the head.’

‘And where were you? Under the bed!’

‘I’ve got a broken leg, haven’t I? Isn’t that enough for you? Or do you want me to get a broken skull as well?’

‘It is not for you to chide the one who fought!’ said the woman angrily.

‘Well, that’s his job, isn’t it? Fighting? I just wish he’d made a better job of it, that’s all.’

‘Shame on you!’ said the woman. ‘While he lies there bleeding!’

‘Well, it didn’t work, did it? He was supposed to stop this from happening. That was the idea of it, wasn’t it? Well, look around you,’ he said to Owen. ‘A fat lot of use he’s been! Protection? Protection, my ass! The only thing he’s good for is drinking coffee. You know what? She was more use than he was. Threw boiling water over them!’

‘God forgive me!’ said the woman.

‘God is all-merciful,’ replied Mustapha automatically, and then started. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘I hope He doesn’t carry it to extremes. We don’t want Him forgiving the bastards who wrecked my cafe!’

Mekhmet appeared from the kitchen with a bowl of water. He put it down and then plucked Owen by the sleeve.

‘Effendi,’ he said anxiously.

‘What about that coffee?’ said Mustapha. He picked up a chair and sat down on it heavily. ‘There’s another for you!’ he said to Owen. ‘That Mekhmet! Idle as the other one and even more useless! Go and get some coffee, can’t you?’

‘But, Effendi-’ said Mekhmet desperately.

‘Coffee!’ said Mustapha peremptorily.

Mekhmet looked this way and that and then fled to the kitchen.

Owen turned Selim on to his back. The woman took his head gently on to her knees and began sponging it.

‘That’s more like it!’ murmured Selim.

Suddenly his eyes opened.

‘Those bastards!’ he said, trying to get up.

The woman pulled him back.

‘Well-’ said Selim, yielding.

His eyes opened again.

‘At least I got one of them!’ he said.

Owen glanced around.

‘He’s not here. They must have taken him away,’ he said.

Mekhmet shot gibbering out of the kitchen.

‘Effendi-!’

‘I threw him in there,’ said Selim faintly. ‘After I had broken his neck.’

Owen went across to have a look.

‘Effendi, he stirs!’ said Mekhmet.