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

“I don’t know,” she said. “Because he’s not worth attacking, I suppose.”

“Your father thought it might be intended as a warning.”

He heard the quick intake of breath.

“To him,” Owen said.

There was a little pause. Then she said: “I thought it was a warning, too. To me.” She laughed a little shakily.

“Because of last night? I doubt it. Unless they had advance knowledge. The attack on your brother happened at about the same time.” “That’s what I worked out,” she said.

“I wouldn’t worry,” said Owen. “If there was a message, it was meant for your father.”

“Thank you!” said Zeinab tartly. “That is very reassuring!” “Sorry!” Owen apologized. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“No.”

He tried again.

“Do you think your father was right? That it was a warning? Directed at him?”

“He’s usually right in such matters,” she said.

“I don’t suppose you’ve any idea,” said Owen casually, “what might have prompted such a warning?”

“No. He’s always up to things.”

“That’s more or less what he said. Only it’s not very helpful.”

“It might be protection,” she offered.

“That’s what we thought.”

“He is always getting demands for money. Usually he knows who to pay and who not to. Perhaps he got it wrong this time.”

“You wouldn’t know who’s been doing some asking recently, would you?”

“No. Tademah?”

“I’ve looked through some of the letters he’s received recently. Nothing from Tademah among them.”

“Wasn’t there?” She sounded surprised. “I thought there was,” she said.

“Not among the ones I was shown,” said Owen, remembering suddenly who had shown him them.

“Well, I’m not sure,” she said, “but I thought there was. Perhaps it’s just that they were on my mind. But it would fit, though, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Owen. “It would fit.”

The hammam, like all the old hammams, had a facade of red and white stone. With its complex panelling and its fantastic arabesques it looked very like a small mosque, Dervish perhaps, except that its entrance was unusually narrow and had its door recesses painted green. If it had been a bath for women it would have had a towel hung across the sunken entrance.

Owen ducked down and entered a pleasant, spacious room with several broad, marble-topped couches on which patrons were sitting in various stages of undress, already embarked on the main purpose of their visit, which was not to bathe but to chat. Owen went over to one of the couches and began to undress. An attendant brought him towels and clogs and stood by to receive his clothes and valuables. Owen wound one of the towels about his waist and the other around his head and went through into the next room.

This was the first of the warm chambers and in the winter when the Cairenes thought it cold, bathers would undress there and not in the outer room. Today, however, it was empty and he went straight on into the main bath room.

This was a large, square room with a marble-paved depression in the middle in which there was a beautiful fountain of white marble. From it shot a high jet of very hot water, all around the depression, at the sides of the room, were low, marble-covered couches. The couches were set back in Moorish arches which pointed in to carry the central dome, and there were other, smaller domes directly above the couches with little glazed holes in them through which the light came.

Several customers were already in the bath room, lying on the couches being scraped or massaged by the attendants, or else sitting with their feet in the central sunken area talking to their friends. One of the towel-swathed figures, Owen did not know which, was Mahmoud.

When they had talked this over beforehand, they had wondered how to cover all the rooms. If any money changed hands it would almost certainly be in the outer room, either before or after bathing. It was more likely to be afterwards. The men would meet in the baths and leave together. As they dressed, the balance of the money would be handed over and then the parties would leave separately. Or so they thought. Whether they had guessed rightly remained to be seen.

Owen and Mahmoud had agreed that it would be best for them to be in the bath room. They would try to spot their men, wait until they left and then go with them into the outer room. If they missed them it should not matter too much; the normal attendants in the outer room had been replaced for the day by Owen’s men.

Owen went across to one of the marble couches and lay down. A huge Berberine attendant, naked except for a loin-cloth, approached and seized him. Without a word he began to work systematically over him, kneading the flesh and cracking the joints. Whenever he applied pressure he would give a little grunt. From all over the bath room came similar little grunts, both from the massagers and from the massaged. Mixed in with them was another sound which Owen could not at first identify. When the Berberine turned him over he saw that it came from the slab next to his. A man was having his feet rasped. If you always went barefoot or half-slippered your feet developed large, hard callosities. The rasps were made of Assiut clay and shaped like crocodiles, and as rough as breadcrumb graters.

The Berberine removed the towel from Owen’s head and began to twist his ears. When they cracked, he transferred his attention to the neck, twisting the head first one way and then the other. Little drips of sweat fell from the Berberine on to Owen’s body. Everyone in the room was sweating profusely. The bath room was heated with hot air and the water which played from the fountain was only just below boiling point. In two of the corners of the room were further tanks of extremely hot water. Occasionally, helped by an attendant, a man would plunge into one of these.

The Berberine finished with Owen and moved on to someone else.

Owen lay for a few moments recovering. Then he went to a separate water-tank for cleansing. The attendant lathered him with soap using a large loofah and then washed it off. When the real work was done the attendant went away and Owen was allowed to play with the taps and spray himself with water which he considered to be at a more reasonable temperature.

The attendant returned with four fresh towels. Owen wrapped himself in them and wandered back into the first of the warm chambers. It was cooler in there, though still too hot for the singing birds. Owen could hear them next door in the outer room. He chose a couch and sat down. An attendant brought him cushions and coffee and he made himself comfortable.

From where he sat-he had chosen the spot deliberately-he had a good view into the bathroom. Mahmoud, he knew, was still in there. Between them they would cover the two rooms.

He sipped his coffee and waited.

Hamid had given descriptions of the men but that was not what helped him to spot them. Two brawny men wandered in a lost fashion through the warm chamber, came to the doorway of the bath room and stood sheepishly, obviously never having been in the place before. One of them muttered something to the other and they walked to the far side of the sunken area and sat down with their feet in the water and their backs to one of the slabs.

Two only of the men had come, one to watch the other, Owen supposed. The others would be waiting outside. And outside Georgiades would be waiting, too, along with Hamid and a few other men.

The man they had come to meet did not appear for some time. Owen would have worried, had he not seen the men worrying, too.

Eventually he appeared. His head was screened in towels and at first when he came in he did not go anywhere near them. But then, watching from under his own towel, Owen saw him make his way as if by chance across to them and sit down beside them. He spoke to them. The men’s faces cleared and they sat waiting docilely while he went over to the water-tank for his soaping and washing.