Michael Pearce - The Last Cut

‘And what is that?’

‘Anti-Government feeling,’ said the Kadi.

‘Anti-British feeling,’ the Minister corrected him hurriedly. ‘You think the Lizard Man is a Nationalist?’ asked Paul. ‘Well, no,’ admitted the Minister. ‘It’s just that there’s a lot of popular unrest at the moment over the ending of the Cut and they blame-’

‘There’s a lot of feeling, too, about the dams,’ said the Kadi.

‘Well,’ said Paul, beginning to gather up his papers, ‘I don’t know that there’s a lot this Committee can do about either of those. As for the Lizard Man,’-he took care not to meet Owen’s eye-‘that, I feel, is the sort of thing that is best left to the Mamur Zapt.’

When Owen got back to the Bab-el-Khalk he found his orderly, Yussef, fussing around in his office, changing, among other things, the water in the earthenware pitcher which, as in all Cairo offices, stood in the latticed window. The theory was that the breeze would cool it but that, of course, worked only when there was a breeze. Today there wasn’t and the water was on the hot side of lukewarm. It had, moreover, a fly in it, which Yussef dispatched, with the water, out of the window. Then he refilled the pitcher from the big brass-beaked jug that he was carrying.

‘It’s the best, Effendi,’ he said reassuringly to Owen. ‘Straight from the river.’

‘Oh, good.’ Owen took a sip.

He put the glass down.

‘Straight from the river, you say?’

He had only just begun to think about such things.

‘It’s all right, Effendi,’ said Yussef anxiously. ‘It’s not green.’

‘Green’ water was the first of the year’s ‘new’ water, the beginnings of the new flood, so-called because of the greenish tinge given it by either the vegetable matter of the Sudd or the algae of the Sobat (opinion was divided). Opinion was divided again over the properties of the ‘green’ water. Did it induce love-sick-ness? Or did it merely cause diarrhoea?

Green or not, the water was the only water in town, or, at least, in the Bab-el-Khalk and Owen had been happily drinking it for the past two or three years. Now, however, he sipped it meditatively.

‘Effendi,’ said Yussef, eager, possibly, to divert him, ‘there is a man to see you.’

‘There is?’ Owen put the glass down. ‘How long has he been waiting?’ he demanded.

Yussef waved the question aside.

‘He is but a fellah, Effendi,’ said Yussef dismissively. Yussef had been but a fellah too but now that he had risen to the dizzy heights of orderly he was inclined to look down upon his country cousins.

‘Show him in!’

Suleiman’s father came diffidently into the room.

‘Effendi-’

‘Mr Hannam!’

And to show Yussef what ought to be what, Owen ordered coffee.

‘Effendi, I apologize for disturbing you when you must be so busy but Labiba Latifa told me-’

‘Labiba Latifa? You’ve met her?’

‘Yes, and she told me that you were concerned about- Effendi, I have tried to persuade him, I have even used a father’s authority, although that doesn’t seem to go far these days-’

‘What about?’

‘My son. You asked Labiba-’

‘Yes, indeed. I advised her to use her influence to get the boy out of the Gamaliya for a time. And you have been adding your efforts?’

‘Well, yes, Effendi. But without success. He will not listen to me. He will not listen to his father! He says he is on the brink of finding out something that his chiefs will be very pleased about and that will make his career. He asks me if I do not wish well for him, if that is not what I want, him to do well, to make a success of his career? And, Effendi, I do, that is what I sent him up here for. Water is our life-blood, I told him, but it comes in different forms. In the fields it is sweat, in the city it is money. Effendi, I have laboured in the fields and done well enough, but that is not what I want for my boy. And now he says: “Father, I have done what you ask and now, just when I am getting somewhere, you bid me to leave!” “You can do as well elsewhere,” I said. But he said: “No, father. We get but one chance in our life-you have told me that yourself-and for me this is it!” So what shall I do, Effendi? What shall I say to him? I come to you!’

‘Has he said what he is on the brink of finding out?’

‘No, Effendi. It is to do with his work.’

‘I think I know what it is. It is important but it is nothing compared with his life.’

‘You think it may come to that?’ said Suleiman’s father, troubled.

‘I hope not. Nevertheless, he has enemies in the Gamaliya. As you have.’

‘He is too young to have enemies. Such enemies!’

‘I think so, too. And therefore I think he would be better out of the Gamaliya.’

‘I begin to wish I had never sent him up here. Terrible things happen in the city. First that girl. Then this!’

‘Good things happen also, and they can happen to him. But I think it would be well if he were out of the Gamaliya for a time. He stands on the brink, you say? How near is that? Is it a matter of days? Or weeks?’

‘I do not know. Days, I think.’

‘If it were a day or two, and if he watched his step, all could yet be well.’

‘I will tell him that,’ said Suleiman’s father, relieved.

‘But let it not drag on!’ Owen warned.

‘I will tell him that, too. And insist that a father’s authority shall not be set aside!’

Yussef brought coffee. Over its aromas, Suleiman’s father calmed down.

‘What things happen in the city, Effendi!’ he sighed. ‘What things happen in the city!’

‘Things happen in the country, too,’ said Owen, ‘and one thing that especially interests me is what happened once, years ago, between Ali Khedri and yourself.’

Suleiman’s father was silent for a while, a long while. Owen sipped his coffee and waited. He knew better than to hurry the old man. In Egypt, where all present things had roots in the past, such conversations took a long time.

‘It was a dispute over water,’ said Suleiman’s father at last. ‘In the villages most disputes are. We ploughed adjoining fields. Between our fields there was an old canal, not much used because now there was a new and better one which went past the end of my field but not past his. I allowed him to build a gadwal across my land and take off water from the new canal. The old canal was on my land and one day I decided to fill it in. Ali Khedri objected.

“You cannot do that,” he said.

“Look,” I said, “we have the new canal and I have allowed you water. The old canal stands idle, and it is on my land. I will plant it with cotton.”

‘But Ali Khedri said: “The canal is not yours but the village’s.’”

‘I said: “It is on my land.’”

‘Well, we went to the sheikh and to the omda and then to the Inspector and they said that I was in the right. So I filled it in and planted cotton. And Ali Khedri was very angry and one night he came and beat the cotton down. And I said: “If that is what you do, then I will beat you down!” And I tore out his gadwal.’

‘So then he was without water?’

‘He had to carry it. Well, it is hard to carry enough if you have fields, and his crops dwindled and my crops throve. I would have let him build his gadwal again if he had said a soft word, but he did not. So I hardened my heart against him.’

‘Did not the neighbours bring you together?’

‘They tried but he would not listen to them. “I would rather carry,” he said, “than accept from him, even though I go poor.” Well, he went poor and in the end he had to leave, and now I own his fields, and many others.’

He looked at Owen.

‘These things are not good, I know, but life in the fields is hard. Although not as hard as life in the city if you are a water-carrier.’