Michael Pearce - The Snake Catcher’s Daughter

“He can’t come. He’s sent me.”

“He doesn’t know anything about it.”

“Effendi,” appealed Jalila desperately, “we need the money.”

“The Rifa’i wouldn’t like it,” an orderly said.

Owen thought that was probably true.

“Is he really drunk?” he asked Jalila.

Jalila hung her head.

“Yes, effendi,” she said miserably. “He always is these days.”

“It’s shame,” said one of the orderlies. “Shame at having a daughter like this.”

Jalila looked at him savagely.

“Can’t he be woken up?”

“No, effendi,” said Jalila sadly. “When he’s like this he sleeps for a day and a night.”

“Perhaps we’d better leave it till tomorrow,” said Owen.

“Effendi, Suleiman-”

“You can’t have it both ways,” Owen snapped. “If you won’t let her do it, you’ll just have to manage without.”

“It would be all right if her father was here,” someone muttered. “No one minds her helping.”

Owen suddenly had an idea.

“Very well. Fetch him!”

“Fetch him?”

“Carry him if necessary.”

Abu was fetched. He arrived slung unceremoniously across a donkey and snoring loudly.

“Right. Put him down.”

Abu was dumped in the courtyard. Owen bent over him. The stench of alcohol rose up and hit him in the nose.

“He’s out for the count, all right,” he said.

“Effendi,” said Jalila in despair, “believe me, he won’t wake up-”

“Never mind that. You get on with it.”

“Get on with it?”

“He’s here, isn’t he? Right, well, you’re helping.”

Jalila looked at him doubtfully.

“Go on. Get on with it.”

Jalila picked up her bag and set out across the yard to the little, square mud-brick building which was the orderlies’ lavatory.

The orderlies watched interestedly.

“Rather her than me.”

“It’s fortunate it’s only a woman.”

Beside the lavatory was a heap of rags which got up as Jalila approached.

“Who’s that?” said Owen.

“Nassem. He cleans the lavatory.”

Jalila spoke to him and they went round to the back of the lavatory. A moment later Jalila reappeared following a trail which led to a hole in the large whitewashed wall which surrounded the courtyard. On the other side was a piece of wasteland. Owen, guiltily, was reminded of his garden.

Jalila put her bag down and stood for a moment looking around her carefully. A large crowd had gathered, most of them orderlies from within the building, in the hope of seeing something interesting, like the hunt going wrong.

Jalila’s eye lit on a small heap of crumbled masonry. She approached it carefully and then squatted down to think. Owen could see what the problem was. The snake was down the hole under the masonry and Jalila couldn’t get at its tail. Snake catchers liked to approach from the rear and seize the tail. That way it couldn’t twine round something and hold fast.

Jalila went back to her bag, put her hand in and pulled out a snake. She held it for a moment or two in her hand, stroking the back of its head gently with her finger. Then she put it down on the ground in front of the hole. It found a warm brick and settled itself comfortably in the sun.

Nothing happened for about a quarter of an hour. Then something stirred in the hole. A little dark head appeared. It hung there uncertainly for a moment or two and then slid out.

When the snake’s whole body was clear of the hole, Jalila pounced, pinning it to the ground with her stick. It tried to rear but couldn’t. The head lifted and spat.

Still pinning it with one hand, Jalila dangled a fold of her skirt in front of its face. The snake struck at it savagely, then withdrew its head and struck again. As it lifted its head back, Owen could see the yellow drops on the cloth.

Jalila teased it again, and then again. The snake went on striking until it was exhausted.

“The bag,” said Jalila, “bring me the bag.”

Owen pushed it towards her. She opened it with one hand and then, quick as a flash, dropped the stick, seized the snake with two hands, lifted it and dropped it in, closing the neck of the bag quickly. For a moment the bag thrashed about. Then it went still.

Unhurriedly, Jalila picked up the other snake, still drowsy about the brick, and dropped that in as well. Then she tied the neck of the bag.

“Well, that was rather disappointing,” said one of the orderlies.

“It all looked a bit easy to me,” said another.

“I don’t think the snake was really trying. Probably knew it was a woman.”

“Yes, you get more excitement with a man.”

“Ah, well, that’s because snake catching’s not really a job for a woman.”

“Lucky her father was here.”

“Back inside!” said Owen. “All of you. The fantasia is over for the day.”

He paid Jalila generously.

“What about your father?”

Jalila shrugged.

“He can lie there until he comes to,” she said. “He won’t know where he is but that’s no different from any other time.”

“You were very good,” said Owen. “It’s harder when you can’t see their tails.”

Jalila was pleased and went off beaming.

That evening, as he came out of the Bab-el-Khalk, she was waiting for him.

“I want to thank you,” she said. “They wouldn’t have accepted it if you hadn’t made them.”

“I had seen you with snakes,” he said. “Remember?”

She fell in beside him shyly.

“Yes,” she said. “That-that is what I wanted to talk to you about.”

In fact, for some time she didn’t say anything. As they passed a sherbet shop, Owen considered buying her a sherbet. It was, of course, a thing you did not do; but then, you didn’t walk down the street with stray young women, either, not unless they were very stray. Jalila, admittedly, was walking a step behind him, to keep things decent. The position was doubly respectable, since it was a little out to one side, where a suppliant might walk. A wife would walk directly behind. The darkness, however, was probably the greatest safeguard of Jalila’s reputation.

“You were kind to me,” she said suddenly, “so I will help you. You asked me once if I saw the men who had taken the Bimbashi. I did not, but-”

“Yes?”

“I smelt them.”

“What do you mean?”

“In the cistern. There was a smell.”

Owen tried to remember.

“There was a smell of snake?” he said.

“More.”

“Spices,” he said. “Palm oil.”

He had a very acute sense of smell, which was not always an advantage in Egypt. He tried to conjure back the smells in the cistern. The air had been trapped, he had smelt something distinctly. Snake, he could remember, anyone who had ever kept a snake, even a humble grass snake, knew how the smell clung to your hands, and there in the cistern the smell- sour, acid-had been very pronounced. But what else?

She held out her arm to him.

“Smell,” she said.

It brought back to him the smells in the cistern, pungent, spicy.

“Ointment,” she said. “You make it from snake fat. Snake fat is the base and then you add to it various spices and other oils. But the main thing is the venom.”

“It contains venom?”

“Venom of cobra. You also take it internally. There is a drink called teryaq, where the venom is mixed with the juice and rind of limes. You take it in small, very small quantities, but you take it every day.”

“It gives you protection?”

“So they say.”

“And your father has been giving it to you?”

“Yes. But he is not supposed to. It is for the Rifa’i only.”

“But, Jalila,” said Owen, thinking, “I do not understand. You say you smelt the men?”