The Snake Catcher’s Daughter mz-8

by Michael Pearce

  Mahmoud nodded.

  “Yes, but I will have to check them. I will have to investigate his accusations too, though.” He looked at Owen. “That means going through the files.”

  “Whose files?”

  “Yours, perhaps,” said Mahmoud. “Or rather, Mustapha Mir’s.”

  Owen was silent. There was a lot of secret material in the Mamur Zapt’s files. Would the Administration agree?

  “More to the point,” said Mahmoud, “I shall have to go through the Commandant’s files. Did Wainwright authorize Mustapha Mir to conduct an investigation into corruption in the Police Force? If he did, there ought to be some reference to it in the files.”

  “Garvin’s sitting on those files now,” said Owen.

  “I shall have to ask him to release them.”

  Owen was silent again. Garvin, he felt sure, had nothing to hide, but he might well object to opening his files to the Parquet. It was the principle of the thing, he would say. The Commandant of the Cairo Police was such an important post that its incumbent was appointed directly by the Khedive, not by the Minister of Justice. There was a reason for that. The Ministry was responsible for the administration of justice; but the Commandant was responsible for maintaining order, and the Khedive cared a lot more about maintaining order than he did about justice.

  It could be put, too, another way. The Khedive appointed the Commandant on the direct advice of the British Administration, and the British were even more interested in maintaining order than they were in the administration of justice. The niceties of the legal administration they were quite happy to leave to the Egyptians; the exercise of power, though, they wished to keep to themselves.

  The British Administration was advisory only. In theory, the Khedive and his ministers could reject that advice. In practice, because of the Egyptian Government’s financial dependence on Britain, and because of the large British army stationed in Egypt, the advice was not something the Egyptians could easily disregard.

  The British were punctilious in observing the advisory form. On the one hand it gave them something they could shelter behind; on the other, it saved the Khedive’s self-respect.

  Up to a point. As the years went by, and memory of the financial crisis receded into the background, the Khedive became increasingly restless. So did ambitious ministers. And so, much, much more so, did the growing forces of Egyptian Nationalism. There were many now, especially among the young professionals, who were eager to challenge the advisory form, to bring matters to a head over whether the British were here as advisers only or whether they were here to rule by force. The young lawyers of the Parquet, for instance. Mahmoud.

  Like Garvin, Mahmoud might well see this as an issue of principle. Was the Commandant of the Cairo Police Force subject to the same judicial process as everyone else in Egypt or not? Did he answer to the Khedive and the National Assembly and the Ministry of Justice? Or only to the British?

  “It may be necessary to interview Wainwright Pasha,” said Mahmoud.

  “Wainwright? He left the country years ago!”

  “He is still alive? These are grave charges,” said Mahmoud. “He will have to come back.”

  “Come back?” said Paul incredulously.

  “Wainwright? Fat chance of that! He’ll be too busy watering his roses, or whatever you do to roses.”

  “If we cover his expenses.”

  “Mahmoud’s very free with my money,” said Paul.

  “He might jump at it. A holiday in Egypt at the Government’s expense.”

  “Wainwright may be daft,” said Paul. “But he’s not as daft as that!”

  “Mahmoud seems very determined,” said Owen. “I think the Ministry might make a formal request.”

  “Well, it will get a formal answer,” said Paul. “Plus an informal one: Ha! Ha!”

  “It’s an issue of principle.”

  “Is it hell!” said Paul. “It’s a matter of practice. How do you compel a chap to come back if he doesn’t want to? Appeal to his better nature? Anyone who’s served in the British Administration hasn’t got one. Compel him legally? That would mean working through the Egyptian legal system, which is some task, I can tell you, especially when you get lawyers on to the job. And then it would have to go through the British legal system, which is even worse. It would take years. Wainwright would have died by the time it got to court. Of course, you could always bribe him, but that, given the nature of the investigation, hardly seems the appropriate thing to do. It might be worth trying, though. Since he’s on a Government pension, he’s bound to be short of money.”

  “I’ll put the suggestion to Mahmoud.”

  “Actually,” said Paul, thinking, “there’s another issue of principle involved, too. It is; once you’ve retired, ought they to be able to get you for the things you’ve done? Assert that as a principle and the prisons will be full of old age pensioners. No administrator will ever take a decision on anything. It’s only because they think they’ll be retired by the time there’s any comeback that they take the decisions they do. No,” said Paul, shaking his head, “this will not do. Mahmoud is tampering with sacred things. The principle of wiping the slate clean when you retire is fundamental to our society. Abolish it and the Western way of life falls apart.”

  “You think there’s no chance then?”

  “It’s Mahmoud v the Rest of the World. Again, poor chap.”

  “Access to my files?” said Garvin. “He’ll be lucky!”

  “Not so much yours as Wainwright’s.”

  Garvin shook his head.

  “Impossible. Can’t separate them. Besides, isn’t there a question of principle?”

  “Access to the files?” said Nikos, shocked, standing in front of the cabinets as if an immediate attack was about to be made on their honour. “Never!”

  “Only those dating back to Mustapha Mir’s time,” said Owen.

  “All destroyed,” said Nikos. “It’s an important principle. When you leave office you destroy all your papers. Anyone with any intelligence knows that.”

  “Did Wainwright know that?”

  “Well, of course, Wainwright-”

  “There may not have been any papers,” Owen said to Mahmoud. “And if there were, there won’t be now.”

  He found Zeinab fastening a necklace around her neck. It was a silver chain with pendant razzmatazz dangling from the front of it which sparkled and flashed in the lamplight. “Very nice!” he said, kissing her just above the pendant. Zeinab examined herself in the mirror.

  “Yes,” she said, “it suits me quite well. You don’t usually have such good taste, darling.”

  “What?” said Owen.

  Zeinab put her arms round his neck and kissed him. “Thank you, darling,” she said. “We haven’t seen each other for at least two days and I was just beginning to think that in your absent-minded way you had completely forgotten about me, when you produce something like this!”

  “Just a minute!” said Owen.

  Zeinab released him.

  “Something wrong?”

  “It doesn’t come from me.”

  “Oh!”

  She sat down on the divan. After a moment she reached up and unfastened the necklace.

  “Another admirer?”

  “Shut up!” said Zeinab, and threw the necklace on the floor.

  He tried to make amends by kissing her but she turned her head away.

  “Perhaps your father sent it,” he suggested.

  “When he gives me presents he likes to give me them directly.”

  “Or one of his friends?”

  It always worried Owen that one day Nuri Pasha might seek to marry his daughter off. Nuri was a westernized Francophile but you never knew in a thing like this and there had been recent signs that he was prepared to use his daughter to cement a political alliance.

  “Marbrouk, for instance?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! He’s still on the Riviera. Where he went at your suggestion.”


  “What about that new man your father seemed very thick with the other night at the Khedive’s reception?”

  “Demerdash Pasha?”

  “That’s right. The pro-Turk one.”

  “He’s not pro-Turk,” said Zeinab, “he’s pro-Khedive. Khedive as he was twenty years ago.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Just because my father flirts with him,” said Zeinab coldly, “that doesn’t mean he flirts with me.”

  “All right, all right. I just thought an alliance might be in the making.”

  “If it was,” said Zeinab, “I don’t think Demerdash would think of consulting me. Or that it was necessary to placate me with gifts.”

  Owen picked up the necklace. It felt heavy. That sometimes meant such things were genuine silver.

  “Whoever sent it will find a way of letting you know, won’t they?”

  “Why? Would you kill them?”

  “Not exactly, but-”

  Zeinab was disappointed.

  “You English,” she complained, “lack passion.”

  “Let me convince you otherwise,” said Owen.

  The Aalima’s house, or perhaps he should call it coven, was a small modest building in a respectable part of the Gamaliya. Inside, however, it was surprisingly well furnished, with carpets on the walls, several low, well-cushioned divans and an unusual profusion of knick-knacks: fine porcelain lamp bowls, copper and silver trays and little silver filigree boxes. A brazier with a coffee pot was already waiting. Witch, she might be, but she knew how to behave.

  She was, this time, decently veiled. Only the fine eyes were visible to remind Owen of the striking face. The matronly bearing, however, remained. Owen was shepherded firmly to one of the divans and given a cup of coffee. The Aalima sat down opposite; alone. She plainly had no truck with the usual convention which required a male family friend to be present when conversation was had with a lady.

  “Well?” she said.

  Owen discarded the smooth introduction he had prepared.

  “Did you know the Bimbashi was going to be there?” he asked.

  “No,” said the Aalima firmly.

  “Then how was it you had the drug ready?”

  The Aalima started to speak then stopped, as if changing her mind.

  “We always have drugs,” she said. “They are part of the ceremony. We use different ones at different times. This was one we normally use late on: if someone is over-excited.”

  “Why, then, was it given to the Bimbashi?”

  The Aalima’s eyes flashed.

  “It was none of his business!” she said angrily. “It was not right that he should be there. I could not have done everything if he had been watching, I would not have been able to complete the ceremony.”

  “So you sent him to sleep?”

  “What is wrong with that?”

  “You gave him too much. You could have killed him.”

  The Aalima hesitated.

  “We had no wish to kill him. If we gave him too much it was because we wished to make sure. We were not used to giving such doses.”

  Owen nodded.

  “The girl,” he said, “Jalila; she put it in?”

  “Jalila? No. She merely carries the bowl.”

  “Did you put it in yourself?”

  “It was part of the ceremony,” she said evasively.

  “No matter; you are the one who will be held responsible.”

  “He should not have come,” she said.

  “I know; and therefore I am prepared to be lenient with you. Give me the information I want and you need hear no more of this.”

  “What information do you want?”

  “Let me ask my first question again. Did you know the Bimbashi would be there?”

  “No,” she said. “I knew only that he might be.”

  “Who gave you that information?”

  “I cannot say. Truthfully,” she added quickly. “These things come to one, some words muttered in the suk, and one does not always see who has spoken. One only knows afterwards that they are important by the gift.”

  “There was a gift?”

  The Aalima inclined her head.

  “What were the words?”

  “A man might come.”

  “There must have been more words than that.”

  “No. Only that a man would come, a foolish Effendi, and I would know him when I saw him.”

  “What were you to do?”

  The Aalima hesitated.

  “I was to let him stay,” she said reluctantly. “I was to let him see.”

  “No more?” said Owen, puzzled.

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “There was nothing else?”

  “Nothing, I swear.”

  “You have sworn,” said Owen, “and I accept your word. If it turns out that you have forsworn, I must warn you that it will go heavy with you.”

  “I have not forsworn. That was all that was said. And,” said the Aalima, “I did not do what I was bid.”

  “You did not let him see?”

  “Not all. Some, yes, but not all. I could not bring myself to do it. The present they gave me was good, yes, but all the gold in the world-”

  “I understand.”

  “When I saw him there, and saw that he was looking, after he had said that he would not, I was angry and told-”

  “Them to put in the drug?” Owen finished.

  “Yes,” said the Aalima, looking at him defiantly.

  Owen took his time about replying. He sipped his coffee carefully and then put the cup down on the little copper tray beside him.

  “That, I could understand,” he said softly, “although it was wrong; but why put him in the snake pit?”

  “That was nothing to do with me.”

  “Did you not give instructions?”

  “No.”

  “Who did?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Come,” said Owen, “the Bimbashi was in the inner courtyard, where there were only those who follow you. Would they have done this without your command?”

  “It was done,” said the Aalima, “and I did not know it was done. I looked and saw that he was asleep and that was enough. I had my duties to think of.”

  “Who commands in the courtyard?”

  “No one commands,” said the Aalima. “We are women and at the Zzarr we are free people. Only at the Zzarr.”

  “I cannot believe that it was done without your knowledge.”

  The Aalima shrugged.

  “I have told you truly,” she said.

  “Very well. Again I shall believe you. But tell me now,” said Owen, “if you do not know, who would?”

  The Aalima seemed genuinely to be thinking.

  “Jalila?”

  The Aalima gestured impatiently. “She merely carries the bowl.”

  “She was out in the courtyard.”

  “True, but… it would have had to have been someone else. She does not command enough respect.”

  “She may have seen.”

  “Others must have seen,” said the Aalima. “The chair was in the courtyard. But-”

  “Yes?”

  “They may have seen,” said the Aalima, “but I do not think they would have done it. He is a heavy man for women to carry. Especially that far into the Gamaliya. And who would have been willing to leave the ceremony?”

  “Men?” suggested Owen.

  “There were no men in the courtyard,” said the Aalima definitely, “apart from the Bimbashi. I will tell you what I will do,” she said. “I will ask my women. And then I will tell you.”

  “Thank you,” said Owen, rising. “That is all I ask.”

  As she was showing him out, he said to her: “Why the snake pit? Are snakes something to do with the Zzarr?”

  “The only snakes at the Zzarr,” said the Aalima, “are men.”

  Chapter 8

  It was only half past ten and the city was already like an oven. Inside the
offices it was even worse and Owen, eager as always to keep things in perspective, headed for the cafe. Just as he was about to sit down, he saw Mahmoud and waved to him to join him. Mahmoud, however, did not notice and went hurrying on past. Owen waved again and then went across to intercept him. Reluctantly, Mahmoud came to a stop.

  His face had none of its usual alertness and vigour. It was pinched and withdrawn.

  “Hello!” said Owen, recognizing the signs. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” said Mahmoud. “Nothing.”

  He tried to smile and failed, then began to edge away.

  “Got something on,” he muttered.

  “No you haven’t,” said Owen, putting his arm around him. Arabs were always putting their arms round each other. If you didn’t, you struck them as cold and unfriendly.

  “Coffee,” said Owen. “Come on!”

  He shepherded Mahmoud back to his table. Mahmoud allowed himself to be persuaded but looked at Owen without any light in his eyes. Indeed, he seemed almost hostile.

  “What’s the trouble?” said Owen.

  “Nothing,” said Mahmoud coldly.

  “I know you too well to believe that,” said Owen.

  The waiter, unusually, came quickly with the coffee. Mahmoud took a sip which was almost like a spit.

  “Do you?” he said. “Do you?”

  Owen laid his hand on Mahmoud’s arm.

  “Come on,” he said, “what’s the matter?”

  Mahmoud sat huddled and silent. When he was like this he was peculiarly exasperating. Normally he was so full of bounce that a chair could hardly contain him. On occasion, though, he swung to the other extreme, crumpling into apathy and lifelessness. You might have thought he suffered from some polarizing or cyclical illness; but the Arabs were all like this. They either burned with exhilaration or collapsed into the dumps; not like the stable British, who remained puddingy throughout.

  They had been talking in French. Now Owen switched to the more intimate Arabic.

  “If my brother is troubled,” he said, “then I am troubled. And if he does not tell me his trouble, so that I can share it, then I am doubly troubled.”

  Mahmoud said nothing for some time. When he replied, however, it was in Arabic, which was a kind of response. “You cannot share,” he said, “because you cannot feel.”