Michael Pearce - The Snake Catcher’s Daughter

“No chance,” said Owen. “We wouldn’t let him.”

“Quite so,” said Paul. “But he does love to raise the spectre.”

He had taken Owen by the arm and led him behind some potted palm trees; and it was then that he asked about I’hilipides, and whether any of it made sense.

Owen nodded.

“Good. Because it didn’t to me.”

“And now it does?”

“I have been brushing up on past history. At the C-G’s request,” Paul said with emphasis.

“Why is that?”

“He thinks it’s going to come up again.”

“The corruption business?”

“The Garvin business.”

“On what grounds?”

“Miscarriage of justice. They were convicted only on Garvin’s word.”

“There was a police officer-”

“One of Garvin’s subordinates. Coerced, so they claim.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

“We don’t know. All we know is that the Parquet wants formally to reopen the whole affair.”

“Philipides is out,” said Owen.

“Yes. Early. I don’t know if that’s cause or result. Possibly it’s just the pretext. Anyway, someone’s using it to have a go at Garvin. And what we are beginning to think is that it’s not so much Garvin they want to have a go at, it’s us.”

“Garvin just a pretext, too.”

“Exactly. So, old chap, the Consul-General would like you to take a look.”

“Have you tipped off Garvin?”

“He’ll soon find out. But we can’t ask him to handle this. He’s a material witness. Besides-”

“Yes?”

“This really is political. It really is.”

Paul caught someone’s eye and went across to shake hands. “ Cher ministre,” Owen heard him begin. Then he, too, began to do his duty, circulating less among politicians and diplomats-that was Paul’s patch-than among senior civil servants and Pashas. They were all, of course, Egyptian, but the language spoken was not Egyptian Arabic. Nor, significantly, was it English. It was French. The Egyptian elite’s cultural allegiance was to France. It went to France for its education, its reading, its clothes and its vacations. It spoke French more naturally than it spoke Arabic.

When he was with Zeinab they habitually spoke French. Zeinab’s father was here now on the other side of the room with a circle of his cronies. He extended a hand to greet Owen as he arrived.

“My dear boy,” he said. “So nice to see you! You know everyone, don’t you?”

They were all Pashas; like him, hereditary rulers of vast estates. Nowadays they were deeply into cotton and international finance (borrowing, mostly). They looked outward to Europe, where they spent most of their time, adjusting to the loss of power which had come with British rule. They supplied most of the Khedive’s cabinet but their capacity for action, or, indeed, inaction, was severely constrained now by the presence of British Advisers at the top of each Ministry. Nevertheless, Governmental posts were much sought after, not least by Nuri, Zeinab’s father, and his cronies. They belonged, however, to a previous generation; a fact to which they were by no means reconciled.

They were all known to Owen, except one.

“Demerdash Pasha,” introduced Nuri, with a wave of his band.

The Pasha bowed distantly.

“Captain Owen. The dear boy has a tendresse for Zeinab,” he explained.

“How is Zeinab these days?” asked one of the other Pashas.

“The Mamur Zapt,” he heard another one amplifying for the benefit of the newcomer.

Owen saw the impact.

“Mamur Zapt?”

A little later he found an opportunity to speak to Owen.

“I knew your predecessor,” he said.

“A friend?”

“We worked together. A true servant of the Khedive.”

“As I aspire to be,” said Owen.

The Pasha looked puzzled.

“How can that be?” he said.

One of the other Pashas linked arms with him affectionately.

“Demerdash Pasha has been away for a long time,” he said with a smile.

“And where have you been spending your time, Pasha?” asked Owen.

“Constantinople,” the man said shortly.

“Demerdash Pasha is a great friend of the Turks,” said one of the other Pashas.

Demerdash turned on him.

“I am not a great friend of the Turks,” he said sharply. “I was there because the Khedive asked me to be there.”

“You are a friend of Egypt, mon cher,” said Nuri.

“Yes,” said Demerdash, “a friend of Egypt. But of Egypt as she was and not as she is.”

“Oh la la,” said Nuri, and led him away.

“Just the same as he used to be,” said one of the other Pashas, watching them go. “He doesn’t give an inch.”

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” said another Pasha.

“That remains to be seen,” said the first Pasha.

The group broke up with Nuri’s departure and Owen continued his circulation. Some time later, however, he found himself standing next to Nuri and Demerdash at the buffet table. They were talking to someone who had, apparently, just returned from the Sudan.

“And how were things down in the Bahr-el-Ghazal?” asked Demerdash.

The other man shrugged. “Hot,” he said.

“What about women?”

“All right.”

“That was where the best slaves came from,” said Demerdash. “Beautiful black ones.”

“None of that these days. They’ve got rid of slaves.”

Demerdash made a gesture of dismissal.

“Does it make any difference?”

“You’ve got to be careful.”

“The British!” said Demerdash scornfully.

“All the same-”

“Don’t tell me you spent that time there without sampling at least a few little negresses.”

“What’s that?” said Nuri.

Demerdash turned to him.

“ Il me dit qu’il a passe six ans au Sudan sans une seule petite negresse!”

“Impossible!” said Nuri.

The table bowed under the weight of food. There were gigantic Nile perch with lemons stuffed in their jaws, pheasants cooked but then with their feathers replaced so that they looked as if they had just wandered off an autumnal English field, ducklings shaped out of foie gras, huge ox heads from which the tongues, cooked, lolled imbecilely.

Paul regarded these latter with disfavour.

“Exactly like a Parliamentary delegation,” he said sourly.

The reception finished about eleven. The night was still young by Cairo standards and many of the guests went off to revel less stiffly in more congenial places. Owen decided to walk home. The other side of rising with the light was that he declined with the light, and midnight always found him totally stupid.

Besides, the night was the best time for walking in Cairo. The city was at its coolest then. Shadow veiled the strident and the angular and cooperated with the moon to emphasize the soft shapes and arches. The lower level of the city disappeared and you suddenly became aware of the magical beauty of the upper parts of the houses, with their balconies and minarets, the fantastic woodwork of the overhanging, box-like meshrebiya windows, and the grotesque corbels which carried the first floor out over the street. Higher still and the moon revealed more clearly than in the day the delicacy of the domes and minarets of the mosques and the slender towers of the fountain houses. Everything was silvery. The moon seemed even to strike silver out of the fine, tight-packed grains of sand of the streets.

As Owen set out, an arabeah drew up alongside him. He waved it away but it stopped just in front of him determinedly.

“Hello!” said a soft female voice, which somehow seemed familiar. Suddenly he remembered.

“You again!” It was the girl he had found in his bed. “What do you want?”

“I want you to be nice to me. And I want to be nice to you.”