Michael Pearce - The Snake Catcher’s Daughter

“It’s not the neighbours, Guptos,” said one of the bystanders quietly.

“It’s someone in the Gamaliya,” said the Copt bitterly. “Don’t tell me they came right across the city just to break up my shop!”

Owen went inside with him. At the back of the shop were some stairs which led to an upper storey. Some children, huddled on the stairs, peeped down at him.

“It’s the effect on the kids,” said the shopkeeper. “We’ve always let them run around, play with who they like. They’ve got friends…Now my wife is afraid to let them out of her sight.”

He bent down and began to pick up cylinders from the floor.

“It’s not the shop I mind about,” he said. “We can always start again. It’s the kids, my wife. How can she go to the suk and look them in the face, knowing what they’ve done? What they could do again? We’ll have to move.”

Owen looked around. The fittings of the shop were very simple. The walls were lined with shelves, as in a cupboard, on which the goods were stored. There was a low counter at the front on which, when a potential customer inquired, particular items could be displayed; or on which, typically, the shopkeeper would sit when he was not working. He worked on the ground behind the counter. Owen could see some tools scattered among the debris.

There was not, in fact, a lot of debris. This was not the moment to tell the man he was lucky; but he was. Owen had often seen worse. This did not look like the random, total violence that usually resulted when a mob ran amok. It was something measured, selected, perhaps, to send a message. “Why was it you?” he asked.

“Why is it ever us?” said the shopkeeper bitterly.

“Are there other Copts in this part of the Gamaliya?”

“A few. It’ll be their turn next.”

“There will be men here tonight,” said Owen. “It won’t happen again.”

“They’ll be here tonight,” said the shopkeeper, “but they won’t be here every night. And it will happen again.”

He went out of his shop and began to pick up cylinders left lying in the street. The onlookers began to help him. A woman, dark-gowned, black-veiled, came up and unobtrusively placed a bowl of beans on the ground in front of the shop and then went away again.

Owen crossed to the other side of the street to look over at the shop. His foot caught something in the gutter. It was a cylinder that had rolled across. He bent down and picked it up.

One or two of the cylinders had rolled their way to this side of the street and a man came across picking them up. He took Owen’s from him.

“Women’s wares,” he said, turning it over in his hand dismissively.

An old man, white-galabeahed, white-turbaned and white-bearded, came stumping along the street, supporting himself with a stick. He came to a stop beside Owen.

“A bad business,” he said, gesturing across the road with his stick.

“It’s always a bad business,” said Owen, “when neighbours fall out.”

“Neighbours?” said the old man sharply. “It wasn’t neighbours who did this. Hello, Guptos!” he called across to the shopkeeper. “A bad business, this!”

“Hello, Mohammed!” he said. “A bad business, indeed!” The old man limped across and embraced him.

“There you are!” he said. “A Muslim embraces a Copt! I don’t care who sees me.”

One or two of the spectators looked uneasy.

“Not too much of that, old man,” someone muttered. The old man whirled on them.

“What’s wrong with it, hey? He’s one of us, isn’t he? Been in the Gamaliya twenty years! That’s good enough, isn’t it?”

“Yes, yes. Just don’t overdo it, that’s all.”

“You watch out, Mohammed!” someone called out. “It’ll be your shop next time!”

“Just let them try it!” shouted the old man, waving his stick. “Just let them try it! I’ll soon show them what’s what!”

“It would be at night, you old fool,” said someone. “You’d be too busy showing Leila what’s what!”

There was a general laugh, in which the old man joined, and then, still excited, he was gently persuaded on his way.

“He’s right, though,” someone said. “It ought to count if you’ve lived here twenty years.”

“Yes,” said someone else, “they ought to have picked one of the other Copts.”

"Hello, Osman,” said Owen. “How is your sister?”

“Sister?” said the orderly. “I haven’t got a sister.”

“That’s funny,” said Owen. “You had one last week.” Osman shook his head.

“Not me,” he said. “You’re thinking of someone else, effendi.”

“I don’t think so. Didn’t you tell Bimbashi McPhee that you had a sister?”

“No, effendi. It was someone else. I’ve never had a sister.”

“The one who was possessed by evil spirits? Who was at the Zzarr?”

Osman swallowed.

“That wasn’t my sister, effendi. That was…my cousin. Yes, my cousin.”

“And was she cured?”

“Oh, yes, effendi, thank you very much. She’s quite better now.”

“Oh good. All the same, these things recur, you know. We’d better take her along to the hospital and get the hakim there to have a look at her.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary, effendi,” said Ocman faintly. “It’s-it’s not worth troubling the mighty hakim.”

“No trouble at all,” said Owen briskly. “I’ll arrange an appointment for her tomorrow. Now, what was her name?”

“Amina,” said the orderly in a whisper. “Yes, Amina. I think.”

“Right. Well, I’ll arrange that and let you know the time.”

“Yes, effendi,” said the orderly, worried.

Owen waited.

“Or perhaps,” he suggested, “you haven’t got a cousin either?”

“Oh, no, effendi,” said Osman hurriedly. “I have a cousin. In fact, several.”

“Make sure,” said Owen, “that it’s the right one who turns up.”

He turned up at the hospital himself to make sure. Osman looked even more worried; indeed, aghast.

He had, however, brought a woman with him, heavily muffled in head veil and face veil and dressed in the usual shapeless black of the poor women of Cairo.

“Greetings, madam,” said Owen cheerfully. “I am sorry to hear about your affliction. But do not worry. The hakim will soon cure you. The treatment may be a bit painful-” The woman gave a twitch.

“-but it won’t last more than a few weeks.”

The hooded figure gave Osman a look.

“Now, I just want to put a few questions to you before you go in to the hakim.”

They would have to be put through Osman, her nearest male relative, but Owen had never yet met an Egyptian woman prepared to stay silent and let the male answer on her behalf. “First, how long have you suffered from this affliction?”

“Six years,” said Osman at random.

“Six years? Are you sure it isn’t five years?”

“Six,” said Osman.

“But you haven’t asked her yet.”

Osman did so now. The woman muttered something back which sounded suspiciously like “How do I know?”

“Perhaps it was five,” said Osman.

“Quite a long time, anyway. So that all the world will know of your affliction. There will be no doubt, then, when I ask people-”

“Ask people?” said Osman.

“Your family-”

Osman nodded but looked grim.

“The local hakim-”

Osman winced. This was going to cost him.

“The neighbours-”

Osman drew a deep breath. Things were getting out of hand.

“How sad that you should be so afflicted!” said Owen sympathetically. “And that all the world should know! And what a price you’ll have to pay,” he said to Osman, “to get any man to take her! I’d be surprised if you could get anyone to marry her at all.” There were signs of stirring beneath the shapeless black. “Never mind,” he said encouragingly, “when everyone knows you’ve been to the English hakim to be cured of not being quite right in the head-”