Michael Pearce - The Fig Tree Murder

‘Against the Pasha? He’ll have your balls off!’

‘Anyway,’ said another of the circle, ‘I thought you didn’t agree with selling off the Tree to foreigners?’

‘The Tree? What is the Tree? It is mere superstition. Sell it off, I say. Pocket the money. The money is real; the Tree is but vapour.’

‘This is a different tune from what you were singing yesterday.’

‘I sing with the times. I am,’ said the barber with dignity, ‘on the side of Progress.’

‘Now you are, but-’

‘You’ll never make any money out of this!’

‘Malik’s the one who’ll make the money.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ said someone else. ‘Zaghlul owns some of the land, too, and he’s not going to sell. He doesn’t like Malik.’

‘He’ll sell if the money’s right.’

‘No, he won’t. Just to spite Malik.’

‘Anyway,’ said someone who had not yet spoken, ‘what does Malik want a gallop for? He goes on enough gallops with Jalila!’

They all laughed.

‘Not any more, he doesn’t,’ said the barber. ‘She won’t have anything to do with him now. Not since Ibrahim died.’

‘Why not?’ asked Owen.

‘She used to like Ibrahim. Of course, she had to go with Malik if he asked her, because he was the Pasha. But she preferred Ibrahim. Anyway, one day when he called, there was Ibrahim. “Bugger off!” he says to Ibrahim. Well, you know Ibrahim. Head too hot, tongue too quick. “It’s not for me to bugger off,” he says. “Times have changed. You don’t own me now. And it won’t be long before you and your lot’ll be swept away.” “Oh, is that so?” says Malik. “We’ll see about that!” And then, do you know, that stupid woman has to butt in. “Take yourself off!” she says to Malik. “He’s right. You don’t own him now and you don’t own me either.” So off Malik has to go, with his tail between his legs.’

‘She oughtn’t to have said that!’ said someone. ‘Not to the Pasha!’

‘Well, she’s sticking to it. He’s been over to see her several times and each time she says, “Not you, Malik.” ’

‘She was always too outspoken,’ said someone uneasily.

Owen went to see Jalila.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘this is a surprise!’

Her brother was obviously not there, for she did not invite him in.

‘I’m still looking for the man who killed Ibrahim.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I know you are.’ There was a pause and then she said: ‘You’ve got him, haven’t you?’

‘Have I?’

She did not reply.

‘What did you come to see me for?’

‘Ibrahim and Malik quarrelled. Since then you have refused to see Malik. Why?’

‘What’s the Pasha’s son to me?’ she said. ‘Ibrahim was right. Their day has gone.’

‘Is that all?’

‘What else could there be?’

‘Did Malik come to see you on the night that Ibrahim was killed?’

She looked at him in surprise.

‘No.’

‘Sure?’

She suddenly understood.

‘If Malik had been anywhere around,’ she said bitterly, ‘I would have told you.’

He had felt he had to explore it. But really he could not see it. A quarrel over a woman, affronted pride, revenge taken, yes; but Malik? Somehow Owen could not see him in the part. Ali, now, Leila’s ferocious brother, that was a different matter: a rough, tough customer, used, probably, to such work through his association with the racecourse gang, quick, as Owen had seen for himself, to reach for a gun in an argument, more than ready to resent an affront-Owen could certainly see him doing it.

And that, clearly, was what the village thought. Even Jalila herself, probably. Malik? He didn’t come into it-except that he obviously loomed much larger in the life of the village than Owen had supposed.

Besides, one always came back to it-if Malik had been involved, what could one make of the body’s being placed on the line? It was directly contrary to Malik’s interests. What he wanted was to get the line completed as quickly as possible. No, revenge might have had some part to play in Ibrahim’s death, but it wouldn’t have been Malik’s desire for revenge-if desire for revenge he had; more likely, he viewed the whole thing as simply beneath him-but someone else’s. There seemed to be plenty of desire for revenge washing around the village, not least on the part of Ali. And that, Owen was convinced, was far more likely.

Coming out of Sheikh Isa’s house he saw Zaghlul. Unexpectedly, the old man crossed the street and came up to him.

‘This is a bad business,’ he said.

‘There are many bad businesses, especially just now. Which one is troubling you?’

Instead of replying, Zaghlul nodded his head.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘there are many bad businesses just now. But they all come from one thing. Two years ago everything here was like that.’ He pointed out across the fields shimmering in the sun to the more distant shimmer of the desert. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘it is like that.’

He gestured towards the houses.

‘Everywhere they build. The city creeps out into the desert. The railway-’

He spat into the dust.

‘They squeeze us out,’ he said. ‘At first we say: “The desert is big enough for both of us,” and let them come. But the desert is not big enough for both of us. They want more and yet more. They squeeze us out.

‘At first I said: “The times are changing and I must change with them.” I saw the railway coming out to Heliopolis and saw them building the big stores. And I said to myself: “Zaghlul, you must learn new tricks.” So I bought some land out in the desert, away from Heliopolis, and I stocked it with ostriches. And I thought, “Here I will be safe,” for it is away from Heliopolis and among the palaces of the Khedives and the Pashas and they will not let them build there. But always they want more. Now they are building these gallops.’

‘Not yet,’ said Owen. ‘And, anyway, does it matter? The gallops will be land, not houses. And they are still two miles from your farm.’

‘But what if they want more gallops?’ Zaghlul shook his head. ‘Ostriches and horses don’t get along with each other. They smell each other and and are frightened.’

‘Zaghlul,’ said Owen, remembering suddenly, ‘are other animals besides horses frightened by ostriches? Goats, for instance?’

‘Goats?’ said Zaghlul, startled. ‘I do not know. I have not thought about it.’

‘I have heard that it is so. But if it were so, the bird would have to pass close, would it not?’

‘It is the smell. They would have to be able to smell it.’

‘But then, if it passed close, in the night, let us say, they would be disturbed and restless?’

‘I would expect so.’

‘Yes,’ said Owen, ‘I would expect so. Tell me, Zaghlul, do your birds often escape?’

‘That is what they say,’ said Zaghlul, ‘but it is a lie!’

‘There was one that escaped. I saw it.’

‘There would have been no problem if that fool Malik had not chased it and scared it. I would have caught it and it would have been back behind the fences before anyone knew anything about it!’

‘So they do escape?’

‘Occasionally. But-’

‘And you pursue them. Tell me, Zaghlul, did one escape on the night that Ibrahim was killed? And did you by any chance pursue it?’

Zaghlul’s face darkened.

‘You take the side of the city,’ he said angrily. ‘For you, my ostriches are always breaking out. No, one did not break out on the night that Ibrahim was killed. And no, I did not pursue it.’ He stumped furiously away and a little later Owen saw him riding off into the fields on his way back to his farm.

For a moment the village street was empty and then a group of women came along, chattering as they went to fetch water for the evening meal. They called out to Owen cheerfully as they passed. Everyone in the village knew him, he suddenly realized. He had been out here so often over the past two weeks that they almost took him for granted.