Michael Pearce - The Last Cut

‘There will still be water, indeed, better water. They are building pipes-’

‘Pipes!’ said the old man contemptuously. ‘Where once there was the canal itself, which all could see! It is not the Cut that they should be ending but all these new dams!’

‘All do not think as you do,’ said Owen quietly.

He got to his feet.

‘I had hoped that you would help me to ease Babikr’s load,’ he said, ‘for I do not think that his alone was the hand that broke the dam.’

The fiki looked troubled.

‘I would help Babikr if I could,’ he said. ‘But I do not know to whom he swore the oath.’

As Owen was going out of the door he turned back to the old man.

‘Did Babikr bring you flowers?’ he asked.

‘Flowers?’ said the fiki incredulously, looking at Owen as if he had gone out of his mind.

As Owen was crossing the Place Bab-el-Khalk, a Parquet bearer came running up to him.

‘Effendi! A message. For you. Urgent!’

It was from Mahmoud. It said:

‘Ali Khedri arrested by local police. Involved in fracas.

Now at Gamaliya police station. Shall wait there for you!

‘I don’t want to see him!’ shouted Ali Khedri. ‘I don’t ever want to see him. Why does he come to see me?’

‘He came to offer you the hand of friendship,’ said Owen reprovingly.

‘I spit in his hand! He kills my wife, he kills my daughter, he takes my land! And then he talks of friendship!’

‘Come, this is wild talk,’ said Owen. ‘If he has done you injury, he wished to make amends.’

‘What amends can there be after what he has done?’

‘All that is in the past.’

‘You have seen my house. You know how I live. Is that in the past?’

All is not the fault of the past.’

‘I tried to put the past behind me and then he sent his son!’

‘What are you saying?’

‘He sent his boy.’

‘Suleiman?’

‘Is that his name? I know the Devil has many names but did not know that was one!’

‘This is wild talk. What has the boy done?’

‘He took my daughter. Was it not enough to take my land? Did he have to take my daughter too?’

‘If the land was taken, it is nothing to do with the boy.’ And the boy is nothing to do with the father?’

‘Not in this. The father did not know. He was afraid to tell his father. As Leila was afraid to tell you.’

‘You expect me to believe that? That the Devil does not know his works?’

‘This talk of the Devil is foolish. The boy’s love was innocent. He did but look upon her.’

‘And she looked back. Is that innocent, too?’

‘She did but look.’

‘And smile. Is that innocent also?’

‘With a pure heart, yes. And hers was pure.’

And talk. That, too, is innocent?’

‘It was but talk. They meant nothing by it.’

‘He meant something by it.’

‘No more than any young boy does.’

‘He knew who she was. And you still say he meant nothing by it?’

‘He recognized a playmate from his childhood. That was all.’

And he wanted to play with her again!’

‘His heart was as innocent as hers. They were both as children.’

‘He knew who she was and she knew who he was and you call that innocent?’

‘They wished to put the past behind them. As you should, too.’

‘You think he wished to put the past behind him?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Then why did he seek her out?’

‘He did not seek her out. He saw her by chance.’

‘In the whole of this big city, where no man knows another and there are a million faces, he found her by chance?’

‘I think it more likely than that he should seek her out.’

‘You do not know him,’ said Ali Khedri with conviction. ‘Nor his father.’

When Mahmoud had arrived at the water-carrier’s house he had found it empty and the whole quarter in uproar. Shortly before, the police had removed Ali Khedri to the local caracol, a consequence less of his attack on Suleiman’s father-the police took a relaxed view of street brawls-than of his inability to calm down. In the end, the police, exasperated, had been obliged to clip him over the head with a baton; but then, as they had explained to Mahmoud, they could not leave him lying there, ‘lest his adversary return and stab him,’ and so had taken him to the police station.

Indifferent to finer points of justice, they had taken Suleimans father as well, and had been on the point of thrusting him into the cell with Ali Khedri when Mahmoud, fortunately, had arrived.

He and Owen exchanged glances. They had interrogated many times together and did not need to speak. Mahmoud took over.

‘Why should he seek her out?’ he asked.

‘To destroy me.’

‘You make too much of this,’ said Mahmoud. ‘It was chance that brought them together.’

‘Was it chance that brought him to the Gamaliya:’ demanded Ali Khedri. ‘Was it by chance that he was always creeping around? Spying on me, so that I could never go out of my door without him watching?’

‘He came but to gaze on your daughter. He was but a lovesick calf.’

‘Oh, was that it?’ said Ali Khedri, affecting surprise. ‘Was that all it was? And I thought he was seeking a way to destroy me!’

‘This is sick fancy!’ said Mahmoud.

‘Well, would that not have been enough?’ whispered Ali Khedri, more to himself than to Mahmoud. ‘Without the other?’

‘What other?’

Ali Khedri took no notice.

‘Would that not have been enough to end my hope?’

‘Hope?’

‘Of escape,’ said Ali Khedri. ‘Of life. Of not ending life like a dog.’

‘Through marrying your daughter to Omar Fayoum?’

‘It was there,’ whispered Ali Khedri. ‘There in my hand. And she took it from me.’

‘She did not take it from you,’ said Mahmoud. ‘You took it from yourself.’

‘She betrayed me.’

‘She did not betray you. She sent the boy away.’

Ali Khedri made a gesture of dismissal.

‘It was too late,’ he said. ‘By then the whole world knew. Omar Fayoum knew.’

‘The boy wished to come to you. Fie wanted to ask you for her hand. He would have given you more than Omar Fayoum.’ The water-carrier smiled bitterly.

‘You think so?’ he said.

‘He would have persuaded his father. His father loves him.’

‘Loves him?’ said Ali Khedri, almost as if he were encountering the words for the first time.

‘His father came to you,’ Mahmoud reminded him, ‘seeking to make amends.’

Ali Khedri stared at him for a moment and then, very deliberately, leaned to one side and spat.

‘That is what I think of his amends,’ he said.

He had not injured Suleiman’s father seriously. The neighbours, alarmed by the shouts, had come running and prised Ali Khedri’s hands from his throat. Mahmoud asked him if he wished to press charges.

‘What would be the point?’ he said.

(5’tsss’t?)

Owen and Mahmoud made a tour of the Gamaliya. The quarter was quiet now. In front of Ali Khedri’s house, however, there was still a small knot of people. Mahmoud went across to them.

‘Return to your houses!’ he said. ‘There has been enough bad work for one night.’

‘What of Ali Khedri?’ someone asked.

‘He stays in the caracol for the night.’

‘It was not his fault. Why did that man have to come pestering?’

‘He came to offer the hand of friendship.’

One of the men spat derisively into the darkness. Owen thought it was Fatima’s husband. He could see now that the group consisted largely of water-carriers.

‘If he means friendship, why is that boy always creeping around?’ said one of them.