Michael Pearce - The Mamur Zapt and the Donkey-Vous

‘But he did this afternoon. With the old man?’

‘Yes. But not to the bottom.’

‘The other, though, the old one with sticks, did come to the bottom?’

‘Yes, yes. I think so.’

‘And then?’

The snake-charmer made a gesture of bewilderment.

‘I—I do not know.’

‘He took an arabeah, perhaps?’

‘No, no.’

‘A donkey? Surely not!’

‘No, no. None of those things.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘I do not know,’ said the charmer. ‘I do not know. I was confused.’

‘You know all things that happen on the steps,’ said Mahmoud. ‘How is it that you do not know this?’

‘I do not see,’ protested the charmer.

‘But you hear. What did you hear on the steps this afternoon?’

‘I heard nothing.’

‘You must have heard something.’

‘I could not hear properly,’ protested the charmer. ‘There were people—’

‘Was he seized?’

‘I do not know. How should I know?’

‘Was there a blow? A scuffle, perhaps.’

‘I do not know. I was confused.’

‘You know all that happens on the steps. You would know this.’

The snake-charmer was silent for so long that Owen thought the conversation was at an end. Then he spoke.

‘I ought to know,’ he said in a troubled voice. ‘I ought to know. But—but I don’t!’

The donkey-boys were having their evening meal. They were having it on the pavement, the restaurant having come to them, like Mohamet to the mountain, rather than them having gone to the restaurant.

The restaurant was a circular tray, about a yard and a half across, with rings of bread stuck on nails all round the rim and little blue-and-white china bowls filled with various kinds of sauces and pickles taking up most of the middle, the rest being devoted to unpromising parts of meat hashed up in batter. The donkey-boys in fact usually preferred their own bread, which looked like puffed-up muffins, but liked to stuff it out with pieces of pickle or fry. They offered some to Mahmoud as he squatted beside them.

‘Try that!’ they invited. ‘You look as if you could do with a good meal.’

Mahmoud accepted politely and dipped his bread in some of the pickle.

‘You can have some too if you like,’ they said to Owen. ‘That is, unless you’re eating up there.’

‘Not for me. That’s for rich people.’

‘You must have a piastre or two. You’re English, aren’t you?’

‘Welsh,’ said Mahmoud for Owen.

‘What’s that?’

‘ Pays Galles ,’ said a knowledgeable donkey-boy. Many of them were trilingual.

This sparked off quite a discussion. Several of them had a fair idea of where Wales was but there were a lot of questions about its relation to England.

‘They conquered you, did they?’

‘It was a long time ago.’

‘It’s hard being a subject people,’ they commiserated. ‘We should know! Look at us!’

‘The Arabs.’

‘The Mamelukes.’

‘The Turks.’

‘The French.’

‘The British.’

‘We’ve had a lot of rulers,’ someone said thoughtfully. ‘When’s it going to end?’

‘Very soon, if the Nationalists have it their way,’ said someone else.

That set off a new round of discussion. Most of the donkey-boys were broadly in sympathy with the Nationalist movement but one and all were sceptical about its chances of success.

‘They’re the ones with the power,’ said somebody, gesticulating in the direction of the terrace, ‘and they’re not letting it go.’

‘They’ve got the guns.’

‘And the money.’

‘At least we’re getting some of that,’ said someone else.

‘You’re doing all right, are you?’ asked Mahmoud.

‘Not at the moment we’re not.’

‘When the next ship gets in we’ll be all right,’ said someone.

‘When a new lot arrive at the hotel,’ one of the donkey-boys explained, ‘the first thing they do is come down to us and have their pictures taken with the donkeys.’

‘For which we charge them.’

‘It’s better than hiring them out for riding. You don’t tire out the donkeys.’

‘Or yourself,’ said someone.

There was a general laugh.

‘The children are best.’

‘It’s a bit late in the year for them, though,’ said someone.

‘Not too busy, then, today?’ suggested Mahmoud.

‘Busy enough,’ they said neutrally. The donkey-boys did not believe in depreciating their craft.

‘There’s been a lot of excitement up there today,’ one of them said.

‘Oh?’

‘They’ve lost someone.’

All the donkey-boys laughed.

‘It’s easy enough for these foreigners to lose themselves in the bazaars,’ said Mahmoud.

‘Oh, he didn’t lose himself in the bazaars.’

‘No?’

‘He lost himself on the terrace.’

There was a renewed burst of laughter.

‘Get away!’

‘No, really! There he was, sitting up on the terrace as bold as life, and then the next minute, there he wasn’t!’

Again they all laughed.

‘You’re making this up.’

‘No, we’re not. That’s how it was. One minute he was there, the next he wasn’t.’

‘He just walked down the steps?’

‘Him? That old chap? He couldn’t even fall down them.’

‘He went back into the hotel.’

‘They can search all they like,’ said someone, ‘but they won’t find him there.’

‘You’ve got me beat,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Where is he, then?’

‘Ah!’

‘Try the Wagh el Birket,’ someone suggested.

They all fell about with laughter. The Sharia Wagh el Birket, which was just round the corner, was a street of ill-repute.

‘If you don’t find him there,’ said someone, ‘you’ll find every other Frenchman in Cairo!’

‘And Englishman, too!’

‘But not Welshman,’ said someone kindly.

‘They know something,’ said Owen.

‘Yes.’

Owen and Mahmoud were sitting wearily at a table on the terrace. It was after eleven and the hotel manager had just sent them out some coffee. The night was still warm and there were plenty of people still at the tables. Across the road they could see the brightly-coloured lamps of the Ezbekiyeh Gardens but here on the terrace there were fewer lights. There was just the occasional standard lamp, set well back from the tables because it drew the insects, which circled it continuously in a thick halo. Because of the relative darkness, the stars in the yet unpolluted Egyptian sky seemed very close, almost brushed by the fringed tops of the palms. The air was heavy with the heady perfume of jasmine from the trays which the flower-sellers held up to the railings for inspection. Some women went past their table and another set of perfumes drifted across the terrace. In the warm air the perfumes gathered and lingered almost overwhelmingly.

Owen watched the light dresses to the end of the terrace. There was a burst of laughter and chatter as they reached their table and the scrape of chairs. Someone called for a waiter, a suffragi came hurrying and a moment later waiters were scurrying past with ice-buckets and champagne. A cork popped.

The railings were still crowded with vendors and the crowd in the street seemed as thick as ever. Every so often an arabeah would negotiate its way through and deposit its passenger at the foot of the hotel steps. Then it would join the row of arabeahs standing in the street. The row was growing longer. There were few outward journeys from the hotel now.

The donkey-boys had stopped all pretence of expecting business and were absorbed in a game they played with sticks and a board. They threw the sticks against the wall of the terrace and moved broken bits of pot forward on the board depending on how the sticks fell. The scoring appeared to be related to the number of sticks which fell white side uppermost. The dark sides didn’t seem to count unless all the sticks fell dark side uppermost, which was a winning throw.