Michael Pearce - The Fig Tree Murder

‘Old Zaghlul’s in the mosque most mornings now. It’s amazing how devout he gets when the pilgrims are around!’

‘Well, that was how he made his fortune wasn’t it? Supplying the pilgrims.’

‘That was in the old days. These days he’s into ostriches. Got out at the right time, too, I’d say. Once that new town gets built, the storekeepers there will have their eyes on the Birket-el-Hadj.’

‘They’ll have their eyes on richer people than pilgrims, if what I hear is true.’

‘What do you hear?’ asked Owen.

‘That Heliopolis is going to be for the rich.’

‘The poor will get shouldered out,’ said the barber. ‘That’s always the way of it.’

‘Old man Zaghlul will get shouldered out, from what I hear. Ostriches and horses don’t mix.’

‘He won’t like that,’ said Ja’affar.

‘It’ll be for the second time, too. He won’t take that lying down.’

‘He’s in the wrong place, that’s the trouble. The rich have got their eye on it and the rich always get what they want.’

‘We’re in the wrong place, too. And do you know why? Because they’re not building out on our side. If they were, we could be doing very well for ourselves. They’d be offering us money for our land like they’re doing in Tel-el-Hasan.’

‘Tel-el-Hasan? That’s where that Copt comes from. I’ll bet he’s doing all right!’

‘He’s doing all right anyway. What with that Tree!’

‘Ah, but he won’t have the Tree much longer. They’re going to take it away.’

‘Take it away? They must be crazy!’

‘Well, they are crazy. They’re foreigners. That’s right, isn’t it?’ he appealed to Owen.

‘Some foreigners do want to take it away. But it won’t happen.’

‘Take the Tree away! Whatever next!’

‘It won’t happen,’ said Owen, ‘at least, not for years.’

‘One day, though, it will,’ said the barber. ‘That’s it, you see. Everything’s changing. You think things are going to go on forever as they are and then one day they start building a town and the next thing you know there’s a massive town on your doorstep, and it spreads and spreads-one day, you mark my words, there’ll be houses from here to Cairo!’

‘Oh, come on!’

‘Ridiculous!’

‘You’re letting yourself be carried away, Suleiman!’

‘Houses all the way from here to Cairo,’ repeated the barber, highly satisfied at the effect of this conjuring up of the Apocalypse.

‘You don’t think so, do you?’ they appealed to Owen.

‘Houses all the way to Cairo? No!’

‘I don’t think so either,’ said one of the men. ‘And do you know why? Because before the houses get to Cairo, they’ll get to Birket-el-Hadj. And there they’ll stop.’

‘Why?’ asked the barber.

‘Don’t be daft, Suleiman. Because that’s where the pilgrims are. That’s where the caravan starts.’

‘So?’

‘They’re not going to change that, are they?’

‘Well-’ began the barber.

But his words were lost in the chorus of disbelief and disapproval.

For Owen, squatting on the sand, drinking the bitter, black, but oddly refreshing tea of the fellahin, listening to the creak of the sagiya from the well and the gurgles of the doves in the palms, the sounds and tastes and sensations of Egypt immemorial, it seemed inconceivable too.

Yet the railway was stretching over the desert and the houses were being built. The world was changing, as he had so glibly said to Sheikh Isa. For perhaps the first time he realized fully how it must appear to the villagers, how it must appear to Isa, and felt a twinge of sympathy.

‘Sheikh Isa does not like it,’ he said.

‘He does not.’

‘He hasn’t liked it from the first,’ said someone, ‘not from the day Ibrahim said he was going to work for them. He had us all in and said it was the devil’s work we’d be doing. But Ibrahim said it was just like any other work and that he needed the money. Several others thought that, too. Sheikh Isa was very angry and said that it would be on our own heads.’

‘So you didn’t go, Mohammed?’

‘They wouldn’t have me. I’m glad now. He was right, wasn’t he? Look what happened to Ibrahim.’

‘That’s nothing to do with it!’ said the barber. ‘What happened to Ibrahim happened because he was fooling around with other women and got across those mad brothers of his wife. I always said he shouldn’t have married out of the village!’

‘Not to someone from Tel-el-Hasan, anyway,’ said Ja’affar. ‘There’s always trouble when you mix with that lot.’

‘Yes, but it wouldn’t have happened if God hadn’t willed it,’ said Mohammed, unwilling to relinquish his position.

The free-thinking barber, however, would have none of it.

‘God’s got better things to do than breaking Ibrahim’s neck,’ he said firmly.

Owen, listening soporifically in the sun, and slipping ever deeper into the villagers’ world, was becoming more and more convinced that the answer to the riddle of Ibrahim’s death lay here in the village and not in the city. Mahmoud could look there if he wished.

A violent tooting disturbed the slumbers of the houses.

‘What’s that?’ said Owen, startled.

‘It’ll be the Pasha’s son,’ said someone.

‘Come to see Jalila,’ said the barber.

A motor car — the motor car-nosed its way into the street with a horde of urchins running alongside. It came to a stop beside the barber’s.

‘Hello, Owen!’ called Malik.

Owen got to his feet.

‘Thirsty? I wouldn’t drink that stuff. It’s the water, you know. Best avoided. I’ve got something better here. Fancy a drop?’

‘No, thanks. Not while I’m working.’

‘Working? Here? What on?’

‘It’s the case of that chap who was found on the line.’

‘The villager? But my dear fellow, you don’t bother about villagers! They’re always killing each other. Leave them to it, is my motto.’

‘Ah, yes, but, you see, it was interfering with work on the line.’

‘Oh, that fellow! Damned nuisance. Why they didn’t just push him off and get on with it I can’t understand. But, my dear chap, you shouldn’t be concerning yourself with this sort of thing! Leave that to the Parquet. What you ought to be doing is seeing that the Nationalists don’t exploit it.’

‘Well, thanks.’

‘They’re only too ready, you know.’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘Stick to essentials, that’s my advice.’

‘Thank you. And you: sticking to essentials, too?’

Malik laughed.

‘I’m over here to see a woman, if that’s what you mean. But I wouldn’t call her essential. Not in particular, that is. Just women in general.’

‘And none nearer at hand? But, Malik, how sad!’

‘There are plenty nearer at hand,’ said Malik, offended. ‘I just happened to be passing, that’s all.’

‘All the same, I’m surprised you think her worth your attention.’

‘A mere village woman, you mean? Well, you know, she has her points.’

‘I must confess, though, Malik, I am a little surprised. Someone like you! Sharing her with the villagers!’

Malik looked at him.

‘You know about that?’ he said, slightly disconcerted. ‘Well’- recovering-‘one mustn’t be narrow-minded about these things. She’s still a village woman, after all.’

Owen didn’t quite follow.

‘Well,’ said Malik seriously. ‘They all belong to me, you know. In principle. The whole village belongs to me.’

‘I don’t belong to you, you bastard,’ muttered the barber, sotto voce.

‘You mean, the women-?’

‘Of course, I don’t choose to exercise my rights. Not these days. But the right is still there. It’s a matter of tradition. Tradition is very important to these people, you know, Owen. You wouldn’t understand that, as an Englishman coming in from outside. But I know how important it is to them. They really want me to sleep with their wives. They expect it of me. And I, well, I really hate turning them down. It goes against the grain, Owen. But then I am also a man of the modern world. The fact is, I am torn. Torn, like all Egyptians, between the Old and the New.’