Michael Pearce - The Donkey-Vous

“All the same,” said Mahmoud, “there is considerable freedom of movement. If you saw a dragoman on the terrace you’d probably assume he was just chasing up stragglers.”

“Porters,” said Owen. “Wouldn’t there be porters?”

“Yes. But not at this time of day. Guests arrive earlier or later.”

“Suppose a guest has been buying things in the bazaar?”

“The dragoman would help carry. If it was heavy Reception would get porters.”

“Reception,” said Owen. “Do they ever come out on the terrace themselves?”

“Never. Once you’ve made it to Reception you don’t do things like that. That’s for underlings.”

It had to be the waiters or the dragomans. Mahmoud had been through the waiters with a fine-tooth comb. Certainly they would have helped Moulin down the steps, if he had gone down the steps. But on the terrace it was busy and you couldn’t afford to be absent from your post for too long. Being a waiter at Shepheard’s was a plum job and not one you would want to throw away too easily. Of course, it wouldn’t have to take long. It would take only a moment to help Moulin down the steps. Someone must know. The snake charmer. The donkey-boys.

Near to where Owen and Mahmoud were standing was another donkey-vous. It was on the opposite side of the street from the hotel donkey-vous and as far removed from it in self-esteem as it was possible to be. The donkeys here were shadows of the splendid beasts on the other side of the road. Their trappings were tawdrier, the saddles more worn, the henna less dazzling. The donkeys themselves were older, smaller, flyier, more careworn, more beaten down. They were also cheaper and this was the only thing that kept the donkey-vous going. Few tourists came their way-the hotel donkey-boys would consider themselves disgraced if they let a tourist through who then went across the street and chose a donkey from a rival donkey-vous. The clientele was local and Arab and on the whole from the poorer streets by the Wagh el Birket.

The donkey-boys, too, seemed a beaten-down lot, sitting subdued in the shade, hardly daring to pluck up enough courage to address Owen and Mahmoud. Or perhaps not courage but hope. They seemed a hopeless bunch, listless and faint-hearted.

One of them, however, after a while summoned up enough assertiveness to ask Owen if he wanted a donkey. He seemed quite relieved when Owen said he didn’t. The ice thus broken, however, he seemed emboldened enough to want to chat.

“You’re often over there, aren’t you?” he said.

“We have been lately,” said Owen.

“Ever since that old man went from the terrace. That was a smart move! No one knows who did it or even how it was done. Smart work!”

“I’ll bet they’ll make a lot of money,” said one of the other boys enviously.

“A hundred thousand piastres!”

They shook their heads almost in disbelief.

“I wouldn’t mind that,” said one.

“They’ll have to share it.”

“Still…”

It was obviously the main topic of conversation in the neighborhood.

“What I’d do with it-!” said a boy dreamily.

“You wouldn’t have it long. The police would get you.”

“Not before I’d spent it. It would be worth it.”

“Anyway,” one of the other boys put in, “the police haven’t found out yet and maybe they never will!”

“If you could get away with it-!”

“One hundred thousand piastres!”

The incident was fueling pipe-dreams all along the Street of the Camel, thought Owen. That was another reason why, even if Moulin were released, it could not be allowed to rest.

“You were talking to Daouad,” said the first donkey-boy diffidently.

“Was I?”

“Yes. Over there!”

He pointed across the street to the other donkey-vous.

“I know Daouad,” he said with pride. “He’s going to marry my sister!”

“Ah. I think I heard them speak of it.”

“It won’t happen,” said another boy spitefully. “Your family can’t pay a dowry big enough for someone like Daouad.”

“My sister’s beautiful.”

“That may be. But someone like Daouad isn’t looking for beauty, not when he marries, that is. He’ll want money.”

“My uncle may help us.”

“Your uncle!”

“He’s doing well. He’s just bought a new horse for his arabeah.”

“To go with his old one. One new horse, one old horse, that isn’t a fortune!”

“Your uncle drives an arabeah, does he?” asked Owen. Arabeah-drivers were generally one up from donkey-boys, though this would have been hotly disputed by the donkey-boys across the road.

“Yes,” said the first boy proudly.

“One of those over there?”

“No. He is in the Ataba el Khadra. Sometimes he brings people to the hotel.”

“Does he ever take people from the hotel?”

“They wouldn’t let him! Not those drivers over there!”

“He took someone last week.”

“Ah, but that was different.”

“Why was it different?” asked Owen.

“Because he was only picking someone up from the hotel. There was someone in the arabeah already.”

“Does that often happen-other carriages come?”

“No. Not often.”

“It happened the other day, though, didn’t it?” said one of the other donkey-boys with a grin.

They all laughed.

“It was for that woman, the one your uncle picked up. We know whose carriage it was, too!”

“A posh one,” suggested Mahmoud.

“Very posh. A bit different from your uncle’s,” they said to Daouad’s friend, who appeared to be something of a butt; though perhaps they were merely envious.

“All the same, your uncle did pick her up,” said Owen consolingly.

“That was on another day. She’s popular, that one.”

“Did he pick up anyone with her?”

“A man.”

“I didn’t know your uncle’s arabeah would take three people, Ali,” said one of the donkey-boys.

“It can do.”

“If they sit on each other’s knees.”

“That new horse of your uncle’s would have to work hard.”

“Because the old one doesn’t.”

“A two-man arabeah will take three people,” Ali insisted. “But not your uncle’s.”

The conversation seemed to be setting into a groove. Owen and Mahmoud walked slowly back across the street. They would pick up the question of Ali’s uncle and his passengers later.

They took an arabeah themselves to the police headquarters at the Bab el Khalk. That was where Owen’s own office was but they weren’t going there. Instead, they went down to the basement and got a clerk to bring them the files of the hotel dragomans.

There was little in them: application forms for a dragoman’s license (all the dragomans could write); health certificates (in case of contagious diseases) and testimonials. There were quite a lot of these, copied out in the ornate script of the bazaar letter-writer. Many were from former guests at hotels, some implausibly effusive, others deliberately ambiguous. Most were politely appreciative, one or two genuinely perceptive. Of Osman someone had commented: “You can trust this man absolutely provided you pay him more than anyone else does.” The testimonial was written in English and transcribed faithfully by the letter-writer. Of Abdul Hafiz someone had written, again in English: “Can be relied on for confidential commissions.” Owen wondered what they were.

Mahmoud went through all the files, including the ones of those dragomans who had been at the Pyramids on the day Moulin had disappeared. He concentrated particularly, though, on the two who had been in the corridor. One of these was Osman.

Osman had been at Shepheard’s longer than any other dragoman, a tribute to his dexterity if not necessarily to his integrity. He was better educated than the other dragomans, having been not only to the madrisseh, the secondary school, but also, for a time, to the University of El Azhar. The university admitted students at an early age and Osman had gone there when he was thirteen and left when he was fifteen, without completing his studies. At El Azhar these were mainly of a religious character. It could well be that Osman’s bent was more for the secular, since he had started by serving in a hotel and worked gradually toward the status of dragoman.