Michael Pearce - The Mamur Zapt and the return of the Carpet

“You don’t think it was a student quarrel, then?” said Mahmoud, who had asked for Owen’s company. Owen sensed that Mahmoud found Nuri difficult to handle. They were both Egyptians but different kinds of Egyptian. Nuri was of the old, feudal society, a grand seigneur in a system that had been corrupt for centuries, aware only of the levers of pleasure and power, experienced, cynical, blase, interested, a little, in Mahmoud as a bright, up-and-coming new man, but ultimately dismissive of the powerless. For Mahmoud, Nuri represented everything that stood in the way of a New Egypt: conservatism, venality, a disillusion which cut efforts to reform off at the knees before they even got started, power to block but not to do. There was, too, the social difference between them, which Mahmoud denied but could not help being sensitive to and which Nuri knew how to assert without lifting a finger. Mahmoud had not been at ease on their last visit and he was not at ease now. He needed Owen for assurance, or perhaps it was insurance.

“No,” said Nuri, “I don’t think it was a student quarrel.”

“You think it was directed at you?”

“Of course.”

He looked at them seriously. He was a different man today, more the elder statesman, less the old roue. Owen suspected, however, that Nuri was a man of many parts.

“Through striking at my son they strike at me. And they strike,” he said somberly, “where I am most vulnerable.”

Was this another part, Owen wondered: the loving father? Not entirely, he decided. Nuri genuinely seemed to have a soft spot for the boy; perhaps, in this male-oriented society, because he was a boy.

“We are doing what we can,” said Mahmoud reassuringly.

“Yes,” said Nuri sceptically. “And meanwhile?”

Mahmoud caught the tone and flushed slightly. He and Nuri always seemed to rub each other up the wrong way. Owen thought he saw traces of woodenness beginning to appear in Mahmoud’s face. Nuri was exactly the sort of person he was likely to react against.

“Did you have anything in mind?” Owen asked Nuri. He thought it best to intervene.

“I hoped you would have something in mind,” said Nuri. “Haven’t you?”

“That depends,” said Owen.

“Really?” said Nuri. “On what?”

Instead of answering, Owen said: “You could always get him a bodyguard.”

“I have suggested that. He won’t have it. For some strange reason he confuses a bodyguard with a nursemaid.”

Owen could just imagine the touchy Ahmed’s response.

“It is difficult being a rich man’s son,” Mahmoud put in unexpectedly.

Nuri looked at him quickly.

“Yes,” he said, with a slight touch of surprise as if he had not expected Mahmoud to be so perceptive, or sympathetic. “Yes, I am inclined to forget that.”

He turned to Owen.

“Couldn’t you put a man on him?” he asked. “Unobtrusively, I mean?”

Uncomfortable visions of Hamid danced before Owen’s eyes.

“It wouldn’t necessarily help.”

“If it’s a question of money-?” said Nuri.

“It isn’t. It’s a question of men.”

“As I said,” Nuri picked him up with a flash of his old self, “it’s a question of money.”

Owen laughed, as he was expected to.

“You might do better than me,” he said. “Still, I’ll think about it.” “At least he wasn’t badly hurt,” said Mahmoud.

It was meant encouragingly, but again it came out awkwardly. Nuri looked at him.

“This time,” he said.

“Will there be a next time?” asked Owen. “If you’re right about it being a warning?”

Nuri was amused.

“Will I heed the warning, you mean?”

“If you did, there might not be a next time.”

“True,” said Nuri.

“What exactly are you being warned to do or not to do?”

This time Nuri laughed right out. He put his hand on Owen’s arm. “Not to meddle, mon cher. ”

“And are you meddling?”

“Of course!” said Nuri, with all his old ebullience. “Of course!”

Ahmed, however, was far from ebullient. He lay in a dark room, the shutters drawn, with a single sheet over him because of the heat and a Coptic nurse- female, and therefore borrowed from the European hospital-in attendance. He was lying on his side with his back turned towards them and remained like that when they came in.

Mahmoud went round to the other side of the bed, drew up a chair and sat down facing him, like a friendly doctor, and began questioning him about what had happened. At first Ahmed replied only in faint monosyllables but gradually, as he became involved in the recitation of his wrongs, his voice took on greater strength and he began to reply at more length, sitting up in the bed so as to emphasize his points indignantly. The sheet slipped off his shoulders showing the purple bruises on his back.

Owen had seen the doctor’s report. There was nothing broken, no damage apparent other than severe external bruising. And all the bruises were on his back and limbs. That was unlikely to be an accident, Owen thought. The men had been instructed to give him a good beating and no more. His face was untouched.

But Ahmed’s back was not the only thing bruised. His pride was very much dented. He could hardly bear to talk about the blows. Indeed, Mahmoud found it very hard to get him to say anything precise about the incident at all. He denounced his friend for deserting him, complained about the slowness of the police in coming and their general lack of interest when they got there, and criticized the hospital for its reception of him and treatment afterwards.

Mahmoud broke through the flood of rhetoric eventually: Did Ahmed think that the attack might be a warning?

Ahmed stopped in mid-flight.

“A warning?” he said. “A warning?” He seemed to freeze. “Why should it be a warning? Why do you ask me if it was a warning?” He regarded Mahmoud suspiciously.

“I thought-” Mahmoud began. But Ahmed interrupted.

“It is not a warning,” he said. “How could it be a warning? It was a criminal attack.” His voice rose. “A criminal attack! That is all!”

“What was the point of the attack?”

“To rob me!” Ahmed cried excitedly. “Yes, to rob me! They were thieves! Robbers!”

Had they, in fact, stolen anything from him?

“How do I know? No, they took nothing! Perhaps the police stopped them! My friend came back in time! How do I know? Why do you ask me these questions?” he shouted.

The nurse gave Mahmoud a reproachful look and came forward. Ahmed threw himself back on the pillow and glared at them angrily.

Mahmoud patiently began again.

“He did think it was a warning, didn’t he?” said Owen, as he and Mahmoud walked back beneath the pepper trees.

“He wasn’t sure,” said Mahmoud. “But the possibility was enough to scare him silly.”

Someone else thought it was a warning, too. Shortly after Owen got back to his office he received a phone call from Ahmed’s half-sister, Zeinab.

“Have you heard?” she asked. “My brother has been attacked.” “Yes,” said Owen. "I’ve just been to see him.”

“Oh.” Then, after a moment: “He’s all right, isn’t he?”

“He’ll be all right in a day or two.”

“Good,” she said, relieved.

Owen was quite pleased that she looked to him for reassurance. “It’s linked with this, isn’t it?” she said.

He wondered what she meant by “this.” Her father or the grenades? Or both? The Nuri case was slipping into the background so far as he was concerned. It would have to wait till after the Carpet. “I expect so,” he said.

“Why would anyone want to attack Ahmed?” she asked. “Him of all people?”

“Why of all people?”