Michael Pearce - The Snake Catcher’s Daughter

“Again?”

“Well,” said McPhee defensively, “Egypt is a country of mixed cultures and that goes back a long time. Popular ritual is rarely pure, you know. It contains a mixture of elements, incorporates contributions from different cultures. In a place like Egypt, that’s a good thing. It brings cultures together, blurs the differences between them. That’s half the trouble with the country. As the old popular rituals decay, there’s nothing to bring the different groups together, not in a sort of lived celebratory way. So they come apart.”

“There’s some sense in that,” said Owen, “but there’s no going back now.”

“But do we have to go onwards quite so fast?” asked McPhee. “It sometimes seems to me that the aspirations of the politicians-and of the people like Garvin who are always wanting to change things-are running ahead of what ordinary people actually want.”

“Yes, well,” said Owen. “See you there!”

Back in his office. Selim again.

“Effendi, it’s not my idea,” said Selim, “it’s hers.”

“What idea?”

“To invite the Aalima. We need someone to preside at the ceremony and Aisha said why not try the Aalima? Effendi, I’m not too happy about this, mine has always been a respectable house, well, fairly respectable, and I said, what with the Effendi coming, not to mention the Bimbashi, I mean, what would the Bimbashi think, he might think someone was going to slip something in his drink, but, effendi, there won’t be anything like that, I mean, there will be something in the drink, but just for you and me, I’ll see to that, anyway, Aisha said why not ask the Effendi instead of just saying no-so would you mind, effendi?” concluded Selim, looking at Owen anxiously.

“Mind?” said Owen. “No I don’t think so. No,” he said, “I don’t think so at all.”

As Owen was passing the orderly room, he bumped into the orderly from whom McPhee had first heard about the Zzarr. “Greetings, Osman,” he said heartily. “How is your cousin?”

“Cousin?” said the orderly unhappily.

“Amina, I think her name was. Or wasn’t.”

“She is well,” Osman muttered.

“Good. And have you given back the hundred piastres, as you said you would?”

“Not yet, effendi,” the orderly admitted. “I have not seen the man-”

“A pity. I was hoping you were keeping an eye open for him.”

“I am, effendi, oh, I am!”

“I hope you see him soon.”

Osman looked despondent.

“And what did Zeinab think?” asked Mahmoud.

“She wondered who the other whore was.”

Mahmoud laughed, but uncomfortably. It was exactly her capacity to make this kind of remark that bothered him about Zeinab. He wasn’t quite sure how to handle it, coming from a woman. Mahmoud, like most young Egyptians of the professional classes, had had very few opportunities of meeting women at all; still less one of the ‘new’ European sort. In theory, he approved of female emancipation; encountering it in practice, however, made him uncomfortable. And then there was this business of sexual liberation. Again, in principle, Mahmoud was all in favour; in practice he felt uncomfortable about the relationship between Owen and Zeinab.

“You may be interested, too.”

“Well, I think-” began Mahmoud, even more uncomfortably.

“Mrs Philipides.”

Mahmoud shot bolt upright in his chair.

“ Our Mrs Philipides?”

Owen nodded.

“The same.”

“But-”

He told Mahmoud about his encounters with the lady.

“But this is wrong!” said Mahmoud. “Very wrong! Trying to influence the course of justice by favours. Bribery and- and sexual favours!”

“She seemed to think that was the way to proceed.”

“Well, I know that has been the practice in the past. But- but we’re trying to get away from it now. It’s outrageous!”

“As you say, it’s the old way of doing things. Which Garvin, of course, is trying to change. And Al-Lewa, it appears, is anxious to go back to.”

“That is a mistake!” cried Mahmoud. “They are quite mistaken. I assure you, that is not the position of the Nationalist Party. It is precisely that sort of thing that we wish to get rid of. It is humiliating, shaming!”

He banged his fist on the table.

“In this case,” said Owen, “it is also puzzling. Why does she address me?”

“You’re the Mamur Zapt.”

“Yes, but you’re in charge of the investigation. Why doesn’t she solicit you?”

“Because she knows I wouldn’t-”

“Thank you.”

Mahmoud beat his brow with his fists.

“What have I said? Forgive me, dear friend, forgive me!” He leaped up and embraced Owen. “I withdraw that! I withdraw that absolutely!”

He sat down again and buried his face in his hands. The people at adjoining tables did not even look up. They took this as perfectly normal conversational behaviour.

“Actually,” said Owen, “I don’t think it’s that, or just that. Or even that she’s so locked in the past that she thinks the Mamur Zapt is still the one to go to. I wonder, in fact, if this is about intercession at all.”

Mahmoud raised his head and stared.

“Well, of course it is!” he said. “It must be. What else?”

“There were three of us attacked in that article,” said Owen, “and I wonder if it is just coincidence.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I am wondering whether the Philipides business connects up with the McPhee business. Not to mention the side-swipes aimed at me.”

“But how could-I mean, why should-?”

“I wonder if there is a plot to get rid of the three of us.”

“Oh, my dear fellow,” said Mahmoud, putting a hand on Owen’s arm, “how could there be? It is so unlikely!”

“Any more unlikely,” said Owen, “than that Garvin should have tried to get rid of Mustapha Mir, Philipides and Wain-wright?”

Georgiades came into the office and perched himself on Nikos’s desk, which he knew Nikos hated. It was not that Nikos had anything personal against Georgiades; it was just that, obsessively tidy-minded, he believed that the top of a desk was for paper not flesh.

“That orderly of Philipides,” Georgiades said. “Hassan was his name; you were going to go through the lists.”

“Halfway through,” said Nikos, without raising his head.

“Don’t bother. He’s not dead.”

“Right!” said Nikos, without interest.

“Not dead?” said Owen, overhearing.

“No. Alive and kicking. And in the Gamaliya somewhere. I’ve found someone who knows him. Would you like to meet him?”

The kahweh was like any other coffee shop which you might find in the poorer, more traditional quarters. Along its front was a raised stone seat, or mastaba, about three feet high and about the same width. Similar benches ran along the walls of the single room inside. They were the only seats. You sat with your back against the wall and, if you smoked, your pipe on the ground beside you.

In this hot weather most of the customers had brought their water pipes. There was a gourd-shaped bowl on the ground which held the water and the smoke was inhaled through a flexible hose. The whole contraption was quite a thing to carry and if you were sick you employed a servant for that purpose. Most of the men of the kahweh were not rich and carried their own.

Owen and Georgiades stepped down into the room inside. For a moment they stopped to let their eyes grow accustomed to the dark. The only light came through the open front door. In this country the object was to keep the sun out, not let it in.

There was hardly anyone inside. Most of the regulars preferred to sit outside on the exterior mastaba, where they could take the air and chat with the people going past. That suited Owen and he made for an empty corner on the other side of the room.