Michael Pearce - The Mamur Zapt and the Camel of Destruction

‘Recently?’

‘Yes.’

‘You saw a change in him?’

‘Yes.’

‘What sort of change, Miss Fingari?’

‘He became – not disorderly, but not so ordered. He would come home late. He never used to do that. Now he did it often. He wouldn’t say where he had been–’

‘You asked him?’

‘Yes. We were close. We had been close. He would talk to me when he wouldn’t – He didn’t always feel he could – talk to my parents.’

‘What did he talk about, Miss Fingari?’

‘Oh, nothing much. This goes back a long time. To when he was at school. If something had gone wrong during the day, if someone had been unkind to him, he would run home and pour it all out to me. I was his big sister and – and I remained so even after he started work.’

‘He still talked to you?’

‘Yes. Perhaps even more so. Our parents were growing older. They did not always understand the sort of things he was doing at work–’

‘But you did?’

‘No!’ She laughed. ‘How could I? A woman? Shut up in the house all day. All I knew was the family and the souk . But I had friends, other girls, and they talked about their brothers and I – I learned something, I suppose. Anyway, he felt he could talk to me.’

‘And then he stopped talking to you? When was this?’

‘It was not – not suddenly, not like that. It just – built up over time.’

‘But when did it start? When did you first become aware that you could not talk to him as you used to?’

‘I – I don’t know. Recently. The last few months.’

‘Since he joined the Board?’

‘No. Yes, I suppose,’ she said, surprised. ‘But, effendi, he was not like that. It was not because he became proud. Oh, he was proud of being appointed to the Board, he was very proud of it – and so were we all – but it wasn’t – that wasn’t the reason.’

‘He did change, though?’

‘Not because of that.’

‘Why are you so sure?’

‘Because I know him. And – and because he did talk to me about that, about the people he met – they were very famous people, effendi, even I had heard of them – about the places he used to go to. No, it was not that, it was – afterwards.’

‘Afterwards?’

‘About the time he started coming home later.’

‘That was some time after he had joined the Board?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you any idea, Miss Fingari, why that was? Why did he start coming home late?’

‘He – he was meeting someone. I – I thought it was a woman and teased him. But it wasn’t. He said it wasn’t. And then–’

‘Yes?’

‘That was when he started to come home smelling of drink. I knew then that it was not a woman, that it was someone who was bad for him. I was angry with him, I told him he must not see them, but he said – he said he had to see them–’

‘Had to?’

‘Yes. He said it was business and I said what sort of business was it if it was in the evening and he came home smelling of drink after it and he became angry and said I did not understand. And after that he would not speak with me.’

She began to sob.

‘If I had not been so fierce, perhaps he would have spoken to me. Perhaps I would have been able to help him, save him–’

‘You must not blame yourself, Miss Fingari.’

‘But I do blame myself!’ she said, sobbing. ‘I do blame myself. You were right when you spoke of him being alone. He was alone, and he would not have been if I–’

‘You did what you could, Miss Fingari.’

‘No, not what I could!’

There was a little spasm of sobbing in the shadows. He moved towards her uncertainly, intending to comfort her, but then she stepped forward herself and seized him by the arms.

‘But if I am to blame,’ she hissed, ‘so are they! They brought him to this! You said there was something outside himself. Someone. There was!’

‘Miss Fingari, these may just have been friends–’

‘No. He was different after he had been with them. He began to be different all the time. There was a change, oh yes, there was a change!’

‘You said he was more lax in his behaviour–’

‘No, not lax. Not just lax. Different. They were bad men, Owen effendi. They changed him. He had always been a good man, a good son, a good brother …’

She began to weep steadily.

‘Effendi, you are too rough with her,’ said a voice from outside the archway. ‘Didn’t I tell you she doesn’t know about this sort of thing?’

The sobbing stopped abruptly. There was a sharp intake of breath.

‘Ali, you are disgusting!’ said Aisha, and stalked out into the sunlight.

‘First, it was the kuttub . Then it was the hospital. Then it was the Place for Old People. I tell you, they’re determined to get you one way or another. Next thing, it will be the cemetery!’

‘Next thing it will be the mosque. That comes before the cemetery.’

‘It already is the mosque. Have you talked to Sayid ben Ali Abd’al Shaward lately?’

‘Not him too! I tell you, they’re determined to get us one way or another. The little we’ve got, they want to take away! That’s how it always is for the poor man.’

A general mutter of agreement ran round the circle squatting round the barber’s chair.

‘Abd el-Rahim is not a poor man!’ someone objected.

‘I’m not talking about Abd el-Rahim,’ said the barber, flourishing his scissors. ‘I’m talking about us !’

‘Watch it!’ said the man in the chair, flinching as the blades flashed past his ear.

The barber ignored him and turned to address the assembly.

‘Don’t you see? We’re the ones who are going to lose out. They’ll take the kuttub away. Well, you’ll say, I don’t mind that; my children are grown up. But then, what about the hospital? What about the Place for Old People? You will mind that one day!’

‘What about the mosque?’ muttered someone.

‘You can always go to another one,’ said someone else.

‘Yes, but that’s my point,’ said the barber. ‘You can always go to another one. Your children can go to another kuttub , you can drag your aching bones to another hospital or your old bones to another Place for Old People, but they’ll be somewhere else !’

‘Are you going to cut my hair or not?’ asked the man in the chair.

The barber turned back to him hurriedly.

‘What will become of the neighbourhood,’ he asked over his shoulder, ‘if they take all our amenities away?’

‘It’s going downhill anyway,’ said someone. ‘It’s been going downhill ever since those Sudanis moved in.’

‘It will go downhill a lot faster if there isn’t a kuttub and a hospital,’ said the barber, declining to be diverted. The Sudanis were customers of his.

‘The Shawquats have always had that kuttub ,’ said someone ruminatively.

‘And done very well out of it,’ said someone else sceptically.

‘Yes, but it’s terrible to take it away just when they need it, now that the old man’s died.’

‘They’ve still got a piastre or two, I’ll bet. I shan’t be shedding any tears for them.’

‘It still doesn’t seem right. They’ve always had it.’

The barber swung round excitedly.

‘ We’ve always had it. The waqfs were set up to benefit us . And now they’re being taken away. All right, the Shawquats have done well out of it, and so has Sayid ben Ali Abd’al Shawad; but we’re the ones who are going to lose!’

‘He’s cut me!’ shouted the man in the chair.

‘It’s nothing! Just a scratch!’

‘I’m bleeding!’

‘He moved! Didn’t he move?’ the barber appealed to the crowd.