Michael Pearce - The Mingrelian Conspiracy

‘Dignity!’ said the proprietor. ‘You lot?’

‘One day, Rice Pudding went up on to the roof to hang out the washing and when she had finished, she sat down among the bean plants to rest from her labours. Fancying herself concealed, she took off her veil to cool her face. Now it so happened that in the house next to hers, there lived a handsome youth who, that very afternoon, had gone up on to the roof to air himself among the tomato plants and cucumber flowers and melons. He should have been happy but he was sad at heart. He took two melons in his hands.’

‘ “Alas,” he said, “these are warm and round and inviting as the breasts of a beautiful maiden. But where is there a beautiful maiden for me?”

‘At that very moment he looked across the roof and saw Rice Pudding sitting in her bower.’

‘He let the melons fall.

‘ “Light of my life!” he said. “Delight of my days! Hope of my heart! Dream of my dreams!”

‘Unfortunately, in his ecstasy, he spoke so loudly that Rice Pudding heard him and took fright.

‘ “You have seen what you should not have seen,” she said, and ran back down below.

‘Every day after that the youth went up on to the roof and hid among the tomato plants and hoped that Rice Pudding would come again. For many days she did not but then one day, when it was very hot, she said to herself. “Oh, how I would like to cool my face! Surely, if I sit among the bean plants he will not see me?” ’

‘These women!’ said Selim from the doorway. ‘Talk themselves into anything!’

Some women in the crowd hushed him indignantly. The storyteller gave him a cold look and then went on:

‘So she went up on to the roof and sat among the bean flowers. And after a while she took off her veil. The youth could not contain himself.

‘ “Flower among the flowers!” he called. “Beauty among the beautiful! Bestow the brilliance of your eyes upon him who worships you!”

‘Rice Pudding started up with surprise.’

‘Oh, yes?’ said Selim. ‘I’ll bet!’

The storyteller paused ostentatiously but then allowed himself to be persuaded to continue.

‘ “What is this?” she said. “A man’s voice? A man’s eyes!” And she made to rush from the roof.

‘ “Stay!” cried the youth. “Oh, stay! Heart of my heart, take not your light from me! All I ask is permission to woo thee honourably!”

‘ “Alas!” said Rice Pudding. “That can never be!”

‘ “My house is honourable, my family rich. How, then, can your father object?”

‘ “It is not that,” said Rice Pudding sadly. “It is not that.” ’

The repetition, delivered in a faltering cadence, was felt by his audience to be a fine touch. It murmured appreciatively. Even Selim was impressed.

‘ “What then can it be?”

‘ “I have lost,” said Rice Pudding, “that which I would have kept.” ’

‘Already?’ said Selim, aghast. ‘The bitch!’

‘ “My name,” said Rice Pudding, “has been taken from me.”

‘ “Your good name? But-?”

‘ “ Not my good name,” said Rice Pudding, a little crossly. “My name. My actual name. It ran away.”

‘ “I am bemused,” said the youth.

‘ “Well, that is understandable,” said Rice Pudding kindly. “But you can see the difficulty.”

‘ “If that is all,” said the youth, recovering, “then it is nothing. I will go out and find the name. And when I find it, I will return it to you. What is yours will be yours. But after that I shall marry you. And then what is yours will be mine.” ’

‘Oh, very good!’ said Selim, applauding vigorously. The crowd, too, was much taken by the rhetorical inversions.

The storyteller bowed acknowledgement, got up off the mastaba, and sent a boy round with the bowl.

‘Tell me, Mustapha,’ said Owen, sipping his coffee, ‘how did you come to get a storyteller such as this? For he is neither an Abu Zeyd man nor a Sultan Baybars man.’

‘He’s all right, isn’t he? Good for business. A bit different.’

‘How did you come by him?’

‘Well, I was sitting in here one day when a man came in, an effendi, like yourself. At that time I had one of the old storytellers, an Abu Zeyd man, I think he was. Well, this effendi listened to his story and afterwards he beckoned me over.

‘ “A cafe like this which is going somewhere,” he said, “needs something a bit different. Have you ever thought of getting a new storyteller?” “Well,” I said, “they’re all the same, really, aren’t they? The stories are all the same and they don’t amount to much. To tell the truth, I hardly listen to them nowadays.” “That’s just the point,” he said. “You don’t listen to them and nor does anybody else. They’re hardly a draw, are they? Now suppose you got somebody telling new stories; they’d come and listen to him, wouldn’t they?” “Well, they might,” I said, “but really what they come here for is coffee and a bit of chat, a bit of company, you know, and a breath of cool air.”

‘Well, he laughed at that. “All the same,” he said, “you could do with a new attraction. Bring in one or two more.” Well, you know, there was something in what he said. Business builds up for a bit, you know, and then it stagnates. “I could put you in touch with someone,” he said. “Abdul Hosein wouldn’t like that,” I said-Abdul was the storyteller I had at the time, the one that we’d just been listening to. “Whose money are we talking about?” he said. “His or yours?”’

‘And so Abdul Hosein went?’ said Owen.

‘He certainly did. Kicked up a bit of a fuss about it. Said he had friends who wouldn’t like it. I mentioned that to the new storyteller. “I’ve got friends, too,” he said, and smiled. “Yes,” I said, “but how many? He’s an Abu Zeyd man and there’re a lot of them.” “There’s a lot of me, too,” he said. “We’re a new lot. We’re growing fast. You don’t want to get stuck with the old lot, not now, when the competition’s hotting up.” He had something there. Anyway, I kept him on.’

‘This effendi, what sort of man was he?’

‘Small, very polite.’

‘English?’

‘No, no.’ Mustapha hesitated. ‘It’s hard to say. None of the usual ones. Not Greek. Not Turk. Somewhere over there, though.’

Owen guessed he was hearing about Katarina’s father. He had hitherto, without thinking about it, put him down as a bookish man. Sorgos had given the impression that he lacked spirit. Was it just that his spirit expressed itself in ways other than the old man’s nationalism?

‘Djugashvili,’ said Georgiades. ‘Friend of Sorgos, friend of the man working on the ikons, friend of quite a lot of people down in the Der. Came to Cairo only six years ago. Left Georgia in a hurry after some trouble with the Russians.’

‘What was the trouble?’

‘I don’t know exactly. There was a sort of Nationalist movement, anti-Russian, of course, and he was involved. How far it got, I don’t know, but he’s much admired, down in the Der, as a man of action.’

‘Sorgos likes men of action,’ said Owen.

‘They need money,’ said Nikos. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? We know they were having difficulty in finding it-Nicodemus said so. Well, time is running out. They’ve got to find it quickly. So they’ve had to turn to this.’

‘Commissioning a gang to get it for them?’

‘Why not? We’ve said all along they’re amateurs. It’s the first time they’ve done anything like this. Want money? How about a spot of protection? Don’t know how to go about it? How about someone who does?’

‘And you find someone near to you, a gang in the Fustat, and you approach them through an intermediary because you don’t know any gangs yourself. I can see all that: but what I don’t see is how they are paying for it. If it’s with money, that destroys the object.’