Michael Pearce - The Last Cut

Aye. There is that.’

‘Still, one of ours-!’

‘What I cant understand,’ said Macrae, ‘is how he could bring himself to do it. You’ve met our men,’ he appealed to Owen, ‘you can see what sort of men they are. Now, would they do a thing like that?’

‘Well-’

‘No more would he. At least, that’s what I would have said.’

‘Someone must have got at him,’ said Ferguson.

‘Aye. That’s what I’m thinking. And do you know what more I’m thinking? I’m thinking that it’s not over yet. If they can turn one good man, they can turn another. They might try it again. I shan’t feel happy till I know what’s behind this.’ He looked at Owen. ‘I hope you weren’t thinking of stopping?’

McPhee stuck his head in at the door.

‘I’m worried, Owen.’

‘You are? About what, particularly?’

‘The licentiousness.’

Owen put his pencil down.

‘I don’t know that we can do a lot about that, can we?’ he said cautiously.

McPhee came further into the room.

‘I do feel that we ought to make some effort to, well, contain it.’

‘I’m not sure-’

‘You see, Owen, there will be mothers there. And children. Not to mention the Kadi.’

Ah, you’re talking about the Cut?’

‘I am sure it must make him uncomfortable.’

‘I don’t know. He’s been opening it for centuries, hasn’t he? I would have thought he was pretty used to it by now.’

And then there’s the Diplomatic Corps.’

‘Licentiousness? That’s hardly likely to trouble them!’

And think of the Consul-General’s wife!’

‘She’s not involved, surely?’

‘No, no. But she will see it. That’s the point. It’s pretty unavoidable. I do feel people ought to be protected against immodesty, Owen.’

‘Well, I… You don’t think she could just stay away? If it bothered her?’

‘But, Owen, she goes every year!’

‘Well, then… Surely, that means-?’

‘Owen!’ said McPhee severely. ‘She goes out of a sense of duty!’

‘I’m sure, I’m sure. Only-’

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t see what I can do about it.’

‘Couldn’t you ban some of the more outrageous forms of behaviour?’

‘Such as?’

‘I really wouldn’t like to specify,’ said McPhee, cheeks growing pink.

‘That makes it difficult.’

‘I just feel,’ said McPhee earnestly, ‘that something ought to be done. Before it is Too Late.’

‘McPhee thinks I ought to ban immodest behaviour,’ said Owen, as he and the Consul-General’s Aide were leaning on the bar of the Sporting Club that lunchtime.

‘Certainly. I’ll speak to the Diplomatic Corps about it.’

‘No, no. He means in general.’

‘Isn’t that the Kadi’s business? Religion, morals and all that?’

‘But he’s going to be opening the ceremony!’

‘Well, then, doesn’t that suggest that he thinks it all right? I mean, his view of what constitutes immodesty might be different from that of a Scottish Presbyterian.’

‘I think I shall go to the Cut this year,’ announced Zeinab. ‘McPhee is worried about the immodesty of the proceedings.’

‘Then I shall certainly be going,’ said Zeinab.

Yussef, Owen’s orderly, put the mug down and waited.

‘Yes?’

‘Effendi, the whole office will be going.’

‘Going? Where?’

‘To the Cut.’

‘All right, you can go.’

‘Thank you, Effendi. It is not for me I ask, but for my wife.’

‘You are taking her? Well, that’s very nice.’

‘Yes, Effendi. She believes it will make her fertile, you see.’

‘Really?’

A thought struck Owen.

‘Just a minute. I thought she was fertile? Haven’t I been giving you days off-? Let me see, how many of them? Five, six, seven-’

‘But that’s it, Effendi! It works, you see!’ ffm?)

All Cairo seemed to be quickening at the prospect of the festivities. More and more bunting was appearing in the streets around the canal. Along the river bank, boats were breaking out in flags. Enclosures for spectators, carpeted (on the enclosing fences, not the ground) were rising at both ends of the dam. Anxious overseers came twice a day to inspect the earthworks.

‘Fifteen and a half digits!’ cried the crier.

Gardeners were perpetually watering the maize on top of the ‘Bride of the Nile’ and patting the cone into shape. The other Maiden, found beneath its base, seemed, fortunately, to have been forgotten.

There had been a telephone call for him in his absence.

‘From a woman,’ said Nikos.

This was remarkable. The telephone system in Cairo was still in its infancy and mostly confined to Government offices and businesses, in neither of which did women figure largely; indeed, at all.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure!’ snapped Nikos testily.

The reason for the testiness was apparent when he revealed whom the call was from: Labiba Latifa. Nikos was not used to women; still less was he used to female steamrollers.

Owen rang her back.

‘Ah, the Mamur Zapt! So pleased!’ she said. ‘I understand you’re taking an interest in this poor girl?’

‘No,’ said Owen hastily. ‘No. Absolutely not!’

‘That’s strange,’ she said. ‘I understood that you were.’ She hesitated. ‘But surely,’ she said, ‘you were with Mahmoud el Zaki when-?’

‘Coincidentally. Yes, coincidentally.’

A fortunate coincidence, though. For if it were known that the Mamur Zapt was taking an interest-’

‘I’m afraid not. Not formally, that is. I am afraid that as Government officers we have to keep to our remits. And mine is the political.’

‘But this is political.’

‘Not in my sense of the word. Which is rather strictly defined.’

‘The trouble is,’ said Labiba, ‘that there is a danger of the case falling between stools. Stools which are over-strictly defined. I suspect that Mr el Zaki feels much as you do.’

‘That is the problem,’ said Owen, ‘when you talk to Government officers. Perhaps you should really be talking to politicians?’

‘I always find it difficult to bring things home to them. Whereas when a Parquet lawyer is assigned a case, it is hard for him to deny that it is something to do with him.’

‘I am sure that Mr el Zaki will do everything he can. Unfortunately, I, myself-’

‘I understand that you were involved because of the connection with the Cut?’

‘I don’t think there is any connection. There was a risk at one time of one being wrongly made because of where the body was found but I think that risk has now diminished.’

‘Actually,’ said Labiba, ‘that is what I am ringing about.’

‘Oh?’

‘I think the risk has grown again.’

‘Of course, there will always be ill-informed people who talk-’

‘Not entirely ill-informed; the girl’s father.’

He asked Mahmoud if he could go with him. It was Mahmoud’s case; but if there was any possibility of those stupid-and potentially troublesome-rumours about the Maiden reviving he meant to get in there and kill it off quick.

The man lived out beyond the bazaars, on the very edge of the old Arab city, just where it gave on to the Muslim graveyard and the desert. The streets in this part of the city were full of crumbling and decaying houses, many of them still beautiful. Beyond them, though, were houses which were not beautiful, little squat blocks, single-storey and single-room, made of cheap sun-baked bricks which the rain, sometimes hard in Cairo in winter, was already dissolving. The walls had shrunk and the roofs sagged, so that some of the buildings were now only half the height they had been, and you had to crouch to go in and crouch while you were inside. Many of them were shared, as in the countryside, with animals. But these were the richer houses.