Michael Pearce - The Last Cut

‘You see,’ he said, ‘here I am again.’

‘What is it this time?’

‘The same. I’m checking the pipes.’ He made a gesture of despair. ‘In so far as I can check them under all this stuff.’

‘Don’t you have instruments?’

‘We do. They show there’s a big water loss in this part of the system. We want to get it sorted out before we bring the new pipes in.’

‘You know the canal well?’

‘This part of it.’ He sniffed. ‘Too well.’

He was looking all the time at Mahmoud, seemed, in fact, almost to be avoiding looking directly at Owen. Owen thought this strange, since Mahmoud was the one who was pressing hardest. Something seemed to be bothering him with respect to Owen. Was it Zeinab? Had he seen them outside the Committee

Room in the National Assembly? Had it offended his prudishness? Or his feelings about Arab and Englishman? Whatever it was, it made it difficult for Owen to have a fatherly talk with him.

‘What do you think about it?’ Suleiman said suddenly to Mahmoud. ‘This business of female circumcision?’

‘Well, I-’ said Mahmoud, taken aback.

‘Labiba thinks you might be sympathetic to our cause.’

‘I am sympathetic,’ said Mahmoud, after a moment’s thought. ‘But it has to be a separate thing from my work.’

‘You’re a member of the Nationalist Party, aren’t you? Labiba says the younger members are beginning to understand that circumcision is bad. She says it will take time, but if the key younger ones are convinced, then a Nationalist Government of the future will take action.’

‘There will be a lot of things on which they will have to take action,’ said Mahmoud, neutrally but not unsympathetically.

He and Owen continued on their way. It was, as Mahmoud had said, a long way. And difficult to negotiate, even in daylight. Even more so in the dark. You would, indeed, have to know the canal well.

Owen was expecting Mahmoud to refer to this again. Instead, he said:

‘Why carry her this far? He must have had some reason. You know,’ he said, ‘I am beginning to change my mind. I am almost beginning to think there could be some connection with the Cut, after all.’

When they emerged from the canal, just by the temporary earth dam which divided the canal from the river, and where the Cut was to be made, Owen found the scene very different from when he had last visited it. Everywhere, brightly-coloured pavilions had sprung up, many of them walled round by little carpeted fences to form enclosures within which patrons could sit. Sellers of sweets, pastries, peanuts and sugar cane were marking off their pitches. Boats hung with bunting were already crowding about the entrance to the canal on the river side of the dam. And there were people everywhere, some of them workmen, many of them vendors, most of them simply onlookers getting in the way.

There was a great mass of people down in the bed of the canal pressing in round the foot of the giant earth cone. Over their heads Owen could see McPhee, large, pink, determined, and around him a ring of constables. He looked up and saw Owen.

Ah, Owen, pleased to see you. Very pleased.’

Owen forced a way through the throng.

‘What’s the trouble?’

McPhee pointed down to the foot of the cone.

‘This!’

The earth had been scraped away in what looked like the start of a small burrow, the sort of thing a rabbit might have made, if, of course, there had been any rabbits.

‘I don’t see the problem.’

‘What made it?’

‘A dog?’

‘What for?’

‘Well, Christ, I don’t know. A bone?’

‘Or several. They think another woman’s been buried here.’

‘It’s just a dog!’

‘They think it’s smelt it.’

‘Well, is that bloody likely?’

‘They think so. The first one was taken out, they say, so another one has been put there.’

‘It’s the Jews,’ said someone in the crowd.

‘We’re going to have to dig,’ said McPhee. ‘To show them.’ Owen nodded.

‘Right.’ He raised his voice. ‘The Bimbashi and I are sure there is no one buried under here. But just to show you, and set your minds at rest, we are going to dig. Now, are any of you good at-?’

A man shouldered forward.

‘Effendi, I am an expert!’

Owen recognized one of the Muslim gravediggers.

‘Just the man! Any more like you?’

Several fellahin eagerly came forward.

‘Spades?’

The constables cleared some space, linked arms and then leaned back against the crowd. The crowd supported them happily, craning over their shoulders to get a better look.

The gravedigger seized the first spade and began work enthusiastically.

Allah, what strength!’ said the crowd appreciatively.

The gravedigger, preening, redoubled his efforts.

‘What need is there for more when we have men who can work like this?’ asked Owen rhetorically.

‘What need for Jews?’ said the gravedigger over his shoulder.

‘Is that the place where the other was found?’ asked Mahmoud, who had pushed his way through to join Owen.

‘The very place!’ chorused the crowd.

‘I thought it was round the other side,’ said one of the constables doubtfully.

Mahmoud turned to him.

‘You were here?’

‘Yes, Effendi. I was at the station when they reported it. I came with the Mamur.’

‘And you think it was round the other side?’

‘I’m pretty sure, Effendi. And it wasn’t really under the mound. It was more beside it.’

‘Whereabouts?’

The constable extended an arm and pointed.

‘Under their feet?’

The crowd on that side moved back in consternation.

‘Yes, Effendi.’

Abdul, I don’t like standing here!’ said an alarmed voice. ‘Suppose the ground opens?’

‘Well, then, you’d bloody fall in!’ said the constable.

‘But then if there’s another body there-’

‘It’d be over here,’ said Owen, annoyed. ‘This damned dog is not a gold-miner.’

‘Just watch it!’ said McPhee. ‘We don’t want the whole cone coming down!’

‘Not on us, we don’t!’ said the constables, pressing back harder against the crowd, which had now grown to fill the whole bed. At the sides, men were climbing on to each others’ backs in order to see better. Above them, the bank of the Canal was lined yards-deep with people.

The gravedigger’s spade struck something hard.

‘Bone!’ shouted the crowd.

The gravedigger plunged his hand in before Mahmoud could stop him.

‘Stone!’ he said disgustedly, producing it.

Disillusioned, he stood aside to let the others take over. ‘Guide them!’ said Owen. ‘We don’t want the cone falling in.’

‘It takes an expert,’ said the gravedigger modestly.

‘If the body was found beside the cone,’ Mahmoud asked the constable, ‘why were they digging there?’

‘It’s the way they dig,’ said the constable. ‘They dig around it and pile the earth on top.’

‘How was the body lying?’

‘I didn’t look too closely,’ said the constable. ‘It was all bulged up. Like a camel’s belly.’

‘Why was it swollen? Had it been lying in water?’

‘There had been water. Because they’re always digging out the bed at this place, the bed is deeper here than elsewhere and the water lies longer.’

‘So she could have been thrown into water?’

‘Yes, Effendi.’

‘Not buried at all?’

The crowd had been hearing this.

‘Not buried at all?’

‘Just thrown there,’ said Mahmoud. ‘It could have been anywhere.’

‘Just like the Jews!’ said the gravedigger. ‘Couldn’t even make a good job of it!’

‘It wasn’t the Jews,’ said Mahmoud. ‘It was some bad man.’ The crowd was clearly disappointed. The diggers who had also heard, began to lose heart.