Michael Pearce - The Mamur Zapt and the Night of the Dog

“Effendi! Effendi!”

It was the boy he had met when Georgiades had taken him back to the Place of the Dead; Ali, Yussuf’s nephew.

“This way!”

He raced off across the rubble. Owen stumbled behind him, his feet sliding and tripping on the loose stones.

They came to a blank white stuccoed wall. Owen stopped abruptly. The boy had completely disappeared.

“Effendi! Here!”

To his left an urgent face, an arm beckoning. He ran across.

“Under here!”

There was a gap in the lower part of the wall big enough for a boy, hardly big enough for a man to squeeze through. He forced his way through it. They were in what had been a walled garden and was now just a mass of rubble. Ali turned immediately to his right and climbed over a broken-down wall. They were in another disused, rubble-filled space which might once have been a yard or garden.

Ali ran to the next wall.

“Effendi! Quickly!”

“Is he there?”

“Yes, but they have barred the door.”

Owen found a hole in the wall, used it as a stepping place and swung his leg over the top. Then he stopped.

Below him was another space which had once been a courtyard. It was filled now with heaps of brick and stone. These had perhaps once been outhouses which had long ago fallen down. Piles of rubble lay against the side of the house. There had once been an outside staircase leading up to the flat roof but that too had collapsed. There was a mud brick wall round the roof of the house, over which looked two agitated faces, those of a man and a woman. The wall was crumbling and there were great gaps in it. It offered no defence; and defence was needed, for on the opposite side of the yard a wall ran right up to the house and although it was lower than the roof an agile man might easily scramble from it up onto the roof itself. And along the wall a man was climbing. Yussuf.

“Yussuf!”

Yussuf stopped, startled. He looked round, saw Owen and hesitated.

“Yussuf! Come down at once.”

Yussuf almost started to obey. Then he shook his head and began to climb determinedly on. In between his teeth he was holding a huge knife.

The wall was narrow and missing many of its bricks. It was not easy to climb along it and he had to go slowly. He needed both hands as well as his toes.

Owen called again but Yussuf ignored him. The faces on the roof disappeared and then appeared again. A woman began screaming.

Owen threw himself over the wall and dropped down. He had hoped to find a door. There was one but it was blocked up. There was no other way in which he could get up to the roof.

“Have you a gun, effendi?”

He shook his head. He never carried one unless there was a special reason why he might have to use it. He would never have thought of bringing it out against Yussuf.

He looked round for a stick or prop which he could use to dislodge Yussuf. There wasn’t one. Wood was as scarce as silver in the poorer parts of Cairo.

He seized a brick desperately and threw it at Yussuf. It hit the wall four feet below him. Ali threw, more accurately. The brick hit Yussuf and jolted him but he shrugged it aside. The top of the wall was in better repair closer to the house and he scurried along it.

He had almost reached the house when another brick hit him. It would have struck him in the face if at the last moment, sensing it coming, he had not ducked his head. The movement threw him off balance. A brick beneath him crumbled and suddenly the whole wall began to sag. Yussuf tried to recover his balance, tried to jump, but the wall collapsed too fast. It subsided in a great cloud of dust. Yussuf was pitched off onto the other side. They heard the heavy thud as he fell.

Owen ran across. The dust was so thick that for a moment he could not see. Then, below him on the rubble, he made out Yussuf’s motionless body.

And beyond him, for some strange reason, on the other side of the neighbouring courtyard, was a totally amazed and bemused Mahmoud.

Owen slid down into the courtyard in a small shower of mud and masonry.

There was a woman standing beside Mahmoud. She had thrown her hands up over her face in shock. He could see the hands very clearly; well enough to notice the hand-painting.

“What the hell is this?” said Mahmoud. He rarely swore.

“My bearer,” said Owen briefly.

He knelt beside Yussuf. There was an ugly wound on his head. If he breathed it was imperceptible.

Ali came across and touched Yussuf with his foot.

“He is not dead,” he said.

Ali was an expert on such matters.

The woman brought water from the house, knelt down beside Yussuf and began to mop his wound. Ali went and sat in the shade.

Owen went across to Mahmoud.

“What’s she doing here?” He motioned to the woman kneeling beside Yussuf.

“Don’t you remember? You told me.”

“Christ, is this where she lives?”

“Where she lives now. She’s moved, if you remember.”

“Have you talked to her?”

“I was talking to her.”

“Did you find out anything?”

“Not much. A man certainly came that night but it was to see her, not her husband.”

“That late?”

“She wouldn’t see him before. It wouldn’t have been proper to have seen him alone. Her husband was out.”

“So the man waited till he got back?”

“He knew he would be late. Zoser was at the church.”

“Zoser says. She says. It would be worth checking.”

“It’s easily checked. Zoser occasionally stayed late to help with the charity dispensation. She was involved with that too. That was what the man came to see her about. There were some women he wanted her to take relief to. She often did that, she says. Of course, the men couldn’t go to the women themselves.”

“Did the man talk to her husband?”

“She doesn’t think so.”

The woman went into the house to get some water. Yussuf was beginning to stir. Mahmoud went across and picked the knife up out of the rubble.

Ali had been listening to the discussion.

“I know that woman,” he said.

“How do you know her?”

“She was at the house that night. The night of the dog.”

“The house of Andrus?”

“Yes.”

“She is a relative of Andrus?”

“No, no.” Ali was shocked that anyone could make a mistake so gross.

“She was there to cry.”

Owen thought he understood. She must be a professional mourner. When a significant person died, women were sometimes hired to weep during the funeral ceremonies.

“Andrus paid her?”

“No,” said the woman, returning with the water. “No one paid me. Much. I do it out of friendship.”

“For Andrus?”

“Not for him especially. I do it for all of the community. Other families were in the Place of the Dead that night. I was with Sesostris. He sent me to Andrus in the early part of the night because he knew Andrus lacked women.”

“In the early part of the night? Did you go past the tomb of Andrus?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see anything untoward?”

“Only the shadows,” said the woman. “I saw the shadows and was frightened. It is the night that the spirits return.”

“And did you see them about the tomb?”

“Yes, and I was frightened and hurried on. When I reached the house of Andrus I spoke of it to the other women and we said a prayer. And when I left, I looked again, and there were no shadows, so I knew our prayer had been heard.”

“That was in the morning? Before the dawn?”

“No. It was in the middle of the night. I had to mourn for Sesostris so I went back to his house.”

“You only spent part of the night with Andrus?”

“The early part. Then I went to Sesostris. And then at dawn I went to Zakatellos. I had promised him I would be there for the visit.”