Michael Pearce - The Mamur Zapt and the Girl in Nile

‘In that? I don’t think so,’ said Owen.

But Mahmoud, fired with enthusiasm for the life marine, was already descending the bank.

With the two of them on board, the stern dipped until the gunwale was inches above the water. The bows, with the woman and the goat, rose heavenward. The boatman inspected this critically for a moment, but then, unlike Owen, seemed satisfied.

He perched himself on the edge of the gunwale and took the two ends of the rope in his hands. One he wedged expertly between his toes. The other he wound round his arm.

The wind caught the sail and he threw himself backwards until the folds of his galabeah were trailing in the water. The boat moved comfortably out into the river.

Now they were in midstream they could see the new bridge more clearly. There were workmen on the scaffolding and, down at the bottom, a small boat nudging its way along the length of the works.

The boatman pointed with his head.

‘That’s the police boat,’ he said. ‘It comes every day to pick up the bodies.’

‘Can you take us over there?’ asked Mahmoud.

The boatman scampered across to the opposite gunwale, turned the boat, turned it again and set off on a long glide which took them close in along the bridge.

‘Bring us in to the boat,’ said Mahmoud.

A tall man in the police boat looked up, saw Mahmoud and waved excitedly.

‘Ya Mahmoud!’ he called.

‘Ya Selim!’ answered Mahmoud warmly.

A couple of policemen caught the boat as it came in alongside and steadied it. Mahmoud and the other man embraced affectionately.

‘Why, Mahmoud, have you done something sensible at last and joined the river police?’

‘Temporarily; this is my boat.’

Selim inspected it critically.

‘The boatman’s all right,’ he said, ‘but I’m not so sure about the boat.’

He shook hands with the boatman.

‘Give me your money,’ said the boatman, ‘and I’ll have a boat as good as yours.’

‘And the Mamur Zapt,’ said Mahmoud.

Selim shook hands again and gave him a second look.

‘I don’t think we’ve met,’ said Owen.

‘No. I’ve met Mahmoud, though. We were working on a case last year.’ He looked at them again. ‘The Mamur Zapt and the Parquet,’ he said. ‘This must be important.’

‘It’s the girl,’ said Mahmoud. ‘You’ve received notification, I’m sure.’

‘Pink shintiyan? That the one?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Not come through yet. When did it happen?’

‘The night before last. About three miles upstream.’

‘She’ll have sunk, then. Otherwise she’d have come through by now.’

Owen looked out along the works. There seemed a lot of water passing through the gaps.

‘Could she have gone through and missed you?’

‘She could. But most of them finish up against the scaffolding. In the old days before we started building the bridge they used to fetch up on a bend about two miles down. That was better for us because it’s in the next district and meant they had to do the work and not us.’

‘Ah, but that meant they missed all the glory, too!’

‘I think the average Chief would prefer to do without the glory!’

Owen laughed. ‘We’ve known a few like that!’

‘Yes. We sometimes get the feeling that not all the bodies that come down to us need have done.’

‘You think so?’

‘Sure of it.’

‘It’s important to pick up this one,’ said Mahmoud.

‘Yes, I’m checking them myself. We’ve had two women through this week. One of them’s old and one of them’s young, but I don’t think the young one could be the one you’re looking for, not unless she changed her trousers on the way down.’

‘The trousers is about all we’ve got at the moment. I hope to add some details later. Keep the young one just in case.’

‘It’ll be some time before she’s traced and identified anyway. They don’t always come from the city. Sometimes it’s a village upstream.’

‘Well, keep her. Just on the off-chance.’

‘If she’s sunk, what then?’ asked Owen.

‘Oh, she’ll come up. Gases. In the body. It’ll take a day or two. Then the body comes up and floats on down to us. We get them all in the end.’

‘I hope you get this one.’

They pushed off. Their boat was now downwind and they had to tack. The boatman tucked up the skirts of his galabeah, hooked his knees over the gunwale and leaned far back over the side. Owen, more confident of his transport now, trailed a hand over the side and turned his face to catch the breeze. Beside him, Mahmoud, hands clasped behind head, was thinking.

In the bows the boatman’s wife sat muffled from head to foot, invisible behind her veil, anonymous.

‘Does this girl have a name?’ demanded Zeinab.

They were lying on cushions in her appartement . Very few single women in Cairo had an appartement of their own, but Zeinab was rich enough and imperious enough and independent enough to insist on one.

The richness and imperiousness came from her father, Nuri Pasha, not quite one of the Khedive’s family but certainly one of his confidants, not exactly trusted—the Khedive, wisely, trusted nobody—but regularly called upon when the Khedive was reshuffling the greasy pack of his Ministers. Nuri was one of Egypt’s great landowners and the Khedive considered there was sufficient identity of interest between them for him to be able to use Nuri’s services without fear.

Zeinab was Nuri’s daughter: illegitimate, but that, as he explained, was not his fault. Her mother had been a famous courtesan, doted on by all Cairo but in particular by Nuri, who, though a mature man, had taken the reckless step of proposing that she become his wife and a member of his harem.

Unaccountably, the lady had refused. She was more than willing—since Nuri was handsome as well as rich—to extend him her embraces; but enter his harem? She was a fiercely proud, independent woman and these qualities had passed in more than abundant measure to her daughter.

Nuri had gained his way on one thing. Their child had been acknowledged as his daughter and raised in his house, which gave her all the privileges and benefits of belonging to one of Egypt’s leading families. While, admittedly, these were not normally conspicuous in the case of women, for Zeinab they were substantial.

Like most of the Egyptian upper classes, Nuri was a Francophile. He spoke French by preference, read French books and newspapers and followed French intellectual and cultural fashions rather than Egyptian ones. The culture of educated Egyptians was, anyway, in many respects as much French as it was Egyptian. Mahmoud, for instance, had been educated as a lawyer in the French tradition. The Parquet was French through and through.

Zeinab had been brought up in this culture. Her father, finding in her many of the qualities he had admired in her mother, had given her far greater freedom from the harem than was normal and from childhood she had sat in on the political and intellectual discussions her father had with his cronies. She came to share many of his interests and tastes and as she grew up she became something of a companion to him.

All this made Zeinab an interesting woman but a rather unusual one. Men found her formidable and she advanced into her twenties, long past the usual marrying age, without Nuri having received a suitable offer. He began to think of this as a problem.

It was a problem, however, which Zeinab herself solved. She moved out and set up her own establishment. Nuri, though advanced in his thinking, was rather shocked by this. Shocked but intrigued: was Zeinab taking after her mother?