Michael Pearce - The Snake Catcher’s Daughter

Cups were brought first, little porcelain ones held inside larger brass ones which were better for holding. The coffee came in a hanging pot, supported from three chains and with charcoal at the bottom. The strong bitter smell filled the room.

Sayeed Abdullah arrived a few minutes later. He was a small, spare man with the hair at his temples beginning to grey. He walked with a limp.

He greeted them in a way you seldom saw now, putting his hands to his brow and ducking his head. He seemed nervous of their proffered hands and shook them hesitantly. Then he sat down on the mastaba beside them, tucking one leg up beneath him. The other, the injured one, he let hang.

He had met Georgiades before and for a while, until the man became used to him, Owen was content to let the two make conversation. Talk was mainly about old times. Sayeed Abdullah had been an orderly at one of the sub-police stations in the Citadel quarter. Georgiades appeared to know it well and they had acquaintances in common, most of whom had now retired. Georgiades asked after them.

At last he came to the point, the point that Sayeed had been expecting.

“And Hassan?”

“He still comes.”

“You see him?” asked Owen.

“Every week,” said Sayeed Abdullah. “He comes round to collect.”

“Collect?” said Owen. “What is it that he is collecting?”

“The subscription,” said Georgiades.

“Subscription? What to? A benefit society or something?”

“You could call it that.”

“In those days, effendi,” Sayeed Abdullah explained, “if you wanted a job with the police, you would go to someone who could arrange it. You paid them money, of course. Usually you did not have money. So you would agree to pay so much a week after you got the job.”

“But surely that was years ago? How is it that Hassan is still collecting? You must have paid the debt off years ago.”

“That is what I said, effendi.”

“And?”

Sayeed pointed to his leg.

“He did that?”

“They did that. Effendi, I still would not have paid, only afterwards, when I was in hospital, they came and said: First you, then your wife, then your sons. So I paid.”

“But all this was long ago. You have left the service, Hassan has left-”

“That is why he collects, effendi. He needs the money, he says.”

“Even though you no longer have the job?”

“I have a pension, effendi. It was given me after-after this.” He touched his leg.

“It must be very small.”

“After I have paid the subscription,” said Sayeed Abdullah, “there is little left.”

“Why have you not told someone?”

Sayeed Abdullah looked at him steadily.

“Who should I speak to, effendi, seeing for whom Hassan worked?”

“It is different now.”

“So they say.”

“It is different now,” said Georgiades.

Sayeed Abdullah shrugged.

“Hassan still comes round,” he said. “And I still have a wife and sons.”

“Are there others like you?” asked Owen.

“I do not ask, effendi. But I think so.”

“And they, too, were treated like this?”

He pointed to Sayeed’s leg.

“After they had seen what happened to me,” said Sayeed Abdullah, “that was not necessary.”

Owen signalled for more coffee. Sayeed Abdullah acknowledged it with the same old-fashioned, traditional bob of the head as before.

“He had other ways, too,” he said. “There was a new man who came to our station. He was just up from the country and had a new wife who was expecting a child. Hassan had a friend, an evil woman who could cast spells. And he said to this man who had come up from the country, if you do not pay, I know someone who will put the evil eye on your wife.”

“And did he pay?”

“No, effendi. He said, what is this nonsense about the evil eye? But the baby died, effendi, and the next time he paid.”

Owen was silent for a while. Then he said: “It is time this was ended.”

“That was what your friend said.” Sayeed Abdullah looked at Georgiades. “He said, too, that you were the man who could end it.”

“I need your help.”

“You want me to speak,” said Sayeed Abdullah. “Yes, I know.”

“And will you?”

“It is easy to ask, effendi. Harder to do, if you have a wife and sons.”

“I shall put Hassan in a place where he will not be able to harm you. And until then I will give you a guard. In fact, I know just the man. For both you and your family.”

Sayeed Abdullah hesitated.

“It is easy for you, effendi. Things happen not to you but to people in the streets.”

“I intend to see that they don’t happen to people in the streets. But for that I need your help.”

Sayeed Abdullah sat for a long time looking down on the ground. Then he raised his eyes.

“I will do it, effendi. Because I know that only in this way can it be ended, effendi, I will do as you ask.”

Owen sat there with him until Georgiades returned with the guard he had in mind. Selim.

He noticed the change in atmosphere as soon as he got back to the Bab-el-Khalk. The bearers, who normally greeted him with backchat, averted their eyes. He went into his office and summoned his orderly.

“What’s up?”

Yussuf considered beating about the bush, then took a look at Owen’s face and decided not to.

“Effendi, you’re in trouble.”

“Why?”

“That snake business. Everyone thinks you pulled a fast one. The Rifa’i don’t like it.”

“What are they complaining about? We tried to use our ordinary snake catcher, didn’t we? And then when we couldn’t find him we tried to use others. We couldn’t find anybody. They want to make it a bit more possible to find their members before they start complaining.”

“Effendi,” said Yussuf desperately, “that’s not the idea.”

“What do you mean, it’s not the idea?”

“It’s the other way round. The Rifa’i want to make it harder to find a snake catcher when you want one. That way they can put their prices up.”

“And that’s what they were doing?”

“Yes, effendi,” said Yussuf sadly, “and you spoiled it.”

“Well, that’s too bad.”

“Yes, effendi, but now everyone’s afraid the Rifa’i will put the snakes back and…and…”

“Yes?”

“Suleiman wants to use the lavatory again.”

Zeinab had been out having her hair done. She frequented a modish salon in the Ismailiya and used it as an opportunity to catch up with the fashionable gossip of the town. Today she was gleeful.

“The Whore of Babylon!” she said. “Samira is most envious.”

“What’s all this?”

“They’ve been reading Al-Lewa. It is not, it must be confessed, a paper that they usually read but when they heard that I was in it…! ‘What company you keep, Zeinab’, Felicite said; ‘all those policemen! Still, someone must be the criminal, I suppose.’ And do you know what they say? There’s going to be more tomorrow.”

“Oh, is there?” said Owen. “I’ll soon see about that.”

“They don’t mind. Demerdash is paying all the fines, you see.”

“Demerdash?”

“Unlikely, I know. And I do take it amiss. Gets the paper to write the article and then blames me for appearing in it!”

“Just a minute. Are you sure?”

“That’s what Iolanthe says, and she should know since she’s sleeping with Daouad. They can hardly believe their luck, she says, and can only think Demerdash has never read the paper. Well, that’s quite possible, I suppose; he’s been out of the country a long time and I dare say that in Damascus or Constantinople or wherever he’s been he doesn’t get much chance to keep up with things. But I do think it’s nasty of him to get me put in the paper or, at least, not to object, and then to make all that fuss with my father! Still,” said Zeinab, thinking, “I prefer that to the other way round.”