Michael Pearce - The Last Cut

‘I cannot,’ said the man, distressed.

‘Why not? I refuse to believe, Babikr, that you are unfeeling to your friends.’

‘Effendi, I am not. Believe me, I am not!’

‘Well, Babikr, I will tell them that. That, at least, they will be glad to know.’

‘Thank you, Effendi,’ said the man brokenly.

‘But cannot you tell them more?’

‘Believe me, Effendi, I cannot. I would, but-’

‘What is it that stops you?’

Babikr shook his head in misery.

‘Is it that you are not alone in this? That you think of others? That,’ said Owen with sudden inspiration, ‘you are perhaps bound to them?’

‘I have sworn an oath,’ said the man, in a low voice.

Owen considered for a moment. This was where it could go wrong.

‘Then I can understand you,’ he said at last, gently. ‘May I tell your friends that, Babikr? That you had sworn an oath?’

‘You may, Effendi. I would be glad if you would.’

‘I will. But, Babikr, some oaths are good, some bad. They will want to be sure that this was a good oath. What shall I tell them?’

‘Tell them I was beholden.’

‘Ah, it was something you owed?’

‘Yes, Effendi.’

‘To a man, or to men?’

Babikr looked him straight in the face and shook his head. Owen knew that, for the moment, he had taken it as far as he could.

He was still sitting there thinking it over when Yussef, his orderly, announced that there was someone who wished to see him. Owen knew from this that he was an ordinary Arab. Most others, that is to say, those who were not Arabs or who did not think of themselves as ordinary, described themselves as effendi. Effendi wishing to see Owen usually presented themselves directly to Nikos, the Mamur Zapt’s official clerk. The ordinary Arab, abashed by the huge facade of the Bab-el-Khalk, lingered out- side on the steps until he could pluck up enough courage to accost an orderly, who would, in lordly fashion, instruct him to wait outside the orderly room until his betters decided what to do with him.

The man, when Yussef brought him along, confirmed Owen’s assumption. Almost. He was not the lowest of the low for his dress was of good cloth. The white turban bound round his tarboosh, for example, was of cashmere. But he was wearing a turban and not the pot-like tarboosh by itself, which would have been the mark of the effendi; and he was wearing a galabeeyah not a suit.

Owen rose to greet him and led him across to the two cane-work chairs put beneath the window where there was a chance of catching a breath of air. The windows were shuttered against the sun but through the slats there occasionally crept a waft of something which was not entirely tepid.

Yussef hovered for a moment outside the door. Owen knew why. He was wondering whether the man merited coffee. Evidently he decided that he did, for a little later Owen heard the pad of returning feet and smelt the coffee. That in itself was significant, for Yussef’s judgement in these matters was usually fine. All the same there was something about the man that was slightly puzzling, something that Owen was not familiar with.

His name, he said, was Al-Sayyid Hannam, and he had come about his son.

‘You are Suleimans father?’

‘Yes.’ He sighed. And sometimes I wonder what I have done.’

All fathers do that.’

All fathers have hopes for their sons; and when they see themselves disappointed, they ask themselves why.’

‘Sometimes it is mere youthfulness.’

‘That is what I told myself. When this foolish business of the girl first came up.’

‘You knew about it?’

The man nodded.

‘Suleiman, since he came up to the city, has been staying with the family of a business friend of mine. When he learned what was happening he was troubled and spoke to me. I said: “Let it be. The boy is young. It will come to nothing.” But that was before I knew who or what she was.’

A water-carrier’s daughter?’

‘That would be bad enough. For I had set my hopes higher. I had sent my son to the city in the hope that he would do better than his father.’ He looked at Owen. ‘Not that I am complaining. God has smiled on me and I have prospered. But I work the land. Our family has always worked the land. Well, that is good; but it is hard work and a father always wants better for his boy. I had friends and they found him a place with the Water Board. It is a good job, I told him: water is a thing of the future as well as a thing of the past, and you will rise with the future.’

‘And so he has,’ said Owen, ‘if what he told me is true.’

‘I say nothing against him at work. It is when he is not at work that I am troubled.’

Owen was used to people discussing their family problems with him. Yussef did; his barber did; Nuri Pasha did; all Egyptians did. It was the principal subject of conversation, taking the place of the weather in England. He wondered, however, if Suleiman’s father knew where things had got to.

‘You have doubtless heard,’ he said, ‘what has befallen the girl?’

‘I have heard she is dead. Well, that is bad, and, although her father may not believe it of me, I grieve for him. I grieve for my son, too, for I cannot believe that his love was anything but honourable. Foolish, perhaps, but not dishonourable. All the same, mixed with my grief, is a certain relief.’

‘You have heard of what she died?’

The man nodded.

‘I have heard two things. The first is terrible, but must be as God wills. It is about the second that I have come.’

‘What have you heard?’

‘That the girl was strangled. And that my son is suspected.’

‘I would not go so far as that. The Parquet suspects all until they are proved innocent. That is how it is with your son. He is suspected neither more nor less.’

‘Nevertheless he is suspected? Well, my friend was right. It is time I came.’

‘There are powerful people who speak for him.’

The old man smiled.

‘But not as powerful as the Mamur Zapt.’

He had come in the time-honoured way to plead for his son. And in the time-honoured way he had gone to the Mamur Zapt, not for justice, for that was the prerogative of the Kadi, but for mercy, because that was the prerogative of power, and for centuries the Mamur Zapt had been the Khedive’s right-hand man, the man, after him, most powerful in the city. Things had, of course, changed; but many in the countryside were not yet aware of this.

‘The time for intercession is not yet,’ he said. ‘It may be that there will be no need of it. The Law has still to ask the questions.’

‘In the asking,’ said Suleiman’s father, ‘lies danger.’

‘The man who asks,’ said Owen, ‘is a man of honour. But perhaps it would be well to find another man of law who can watch over your son and advise him.’

‘I have already done that. It is not that. It is-’ he hesitated-‘that the questions could go deep.’

‘Why should they go deep?’

‘Because these things have roots. There is bad blood between me and the girl’s father.’

‘Why should that affect your son?’

‘It already has affected him. It was why the girl’s father spurned him. If there had not been bad blood, perhaps none of this would ever have happened. That is why I wonder what I have done.’

‘You should not blame yourself. One cannot trace these things to their infinite cause. All these things are past.’

‘I wish they were,’ said the old man. ‘I wish they were. It was never my intention-but sometimes these things return upon us.’

‘How came it that there was bad blood between you?’

‘We came from the same village. We worked fields next to each other. There was a dispute between us over water. I thought I was in the right, he thought he was. We went to a kadi, who ruled in my favour.’