The Snake Catcher’s Daughter mz-8

by Michael Pearce

  Selim clapped his hands.

  “Beans for the Effendis! And lemonade. Good lemonade,” he whispered to Owen with a nudge.

  “Not for the Bimbashi,” Owen whispered back.

  “Not this time, no,” said Selim, with a great laugh.

  The lemonade, in Owen’s case, turned out to be marissa beer. He sipped it contentedly and looked down on the spectacle below.

  “Where’s that bitch of an Aalima?” said Selim crossly.

  Down in the street there was a thunderous knocking. A little later the Aalima appeared. She went round the yard sprinkling something on the ground.

  “Fennel and maize,” said McPhee, “the fruits of the earth. Fertility symbols, obviously. And salt.”

  “Salt?”

  “To avert the evil eye. That’s what she’s singing. ‘Salt in the eye of the evil beholder.’ ”

  “Is she doing that right?” asked Selim anxiously.

  “Oh, I think so.”

  “If she’s not,” said Selim, still only half-convinced, “I’ll put some salt on her tail all right.”

  “No, no,” said McPhee, “she knows her stuff.”

  “It’s just that after what Sayeed said-”

  “What was that?” said Owen. “What did Sayeed say?”

  “About the evil eye,” said Selim. “We don’t want any of that here.”

  “Ssh-!” whispered McPhee. “This is the important bit.”

  The baby was brought out into the yard. First it was paraded round the yard to general appreciation. Then it was given to its mother, who had now appeared in the yard and was seated on a special chair festooned with flowers and coloured handkerchiefs. An older woman brought out a brass mortar which she put right next to the baby’s head and then struck repeatedly with a pestle.

  “That’s so that it doesn’t grow up to be frightened of mirth and music,” said McPhee.

  Finally, the child was placed in what looked to Owen very like an ordinary sieve and shaken.

  “What’s that? A sieve?”

  “It’s to prevent tummy upsets,” said McPhee.

  The baby survived these and other ordeals and then was brought up to the roof for presentation to Owen and McPhee.

  Owen knew, at least, about this bit and produced some coins, which the baby’s mother tied into its hair.

  Everyone waited expectantly.

  “What is its name going to be?” whispered McPhee.

  “Name?”

  “Mahbuba,” whispered Selim.

  “Fatima,” whispered his wife.

  Selim glared at her.

  “Khadija,” said Owen, “Khadija Mahbuba Fatima,” and hoped that everyone was satisfied.

  “Well, that’s that,” said Selim. “Now, perhaps, we can get on with things.”

  Owen asked if the baby and mother would like to stay on the roof in the cool air.

  “Stay on the roof?” said Selim, astonished. “The place for them is indoors. I’m on the roof.”

  Baby and mother disappeared below.

  “Lemonade?” said Selim happily. “There’s plenty. Don’t hold back!”

  For some time a set of bagpipes had been trying without success to push its way into the densely-packed yard. At last someone saw it.

  “The musicians! God be praised! The musicians have arrived.” A way was not exactly cleared but found: bagpipes and man were hoisted into the air and passed over the heads of the crowd until they reached the opposite wall, where the bagpipes player established a perch for himself. He was shortly joined by two drummers and a cymbals player, transported likewise. With a roll on the drums the music began.

  Down in the yard, men began to writhe. That was about all there was room for. It soon became evident, however, that some men could writhe better than others and it was not long before they attracted a certain space and following. Women now began to appear in the doorways and at the edge of the yard, watching admiringly. Whatever might be the case in the houses of the rich, where troupes of female gipsy Ghawazi dancers might be hired for the occasion, in more lowly houses it was the men who danced.

  Selim, monarch for the moment of all he surveyed, was content for a while to sit on the roof imbibing prodigious quantities of lemonade. Then his limbs began to twitch and his haunches to wriggle; and shortly afterwards he leaped to his feet and rushed to join the pullulating throng below.

  “Greek, would you say?” said McPhee thoughtfully. “Demeter? Persephone?”

  “The Aalima? Oh, yes, definitely.”

  McPhee looked pleased.

  “Glad you think so, too. Cultic, I’m pretty sure.”

  Owen would have liked to have gone down into the yard, not so much to dance-he regarded that as impossible-as to talk to some of the people there. At one point he did, indeed, descend the steps but the bottom of them was as far as he got. He stood there for a little while exchanging remarks with people he recognized.

  Among those he recognized was Sayeed Abdullah, not dancing himself because of the decorum of age and his injured leg. He sidled round to Owen and greeted him shyly.

  “Nice to see you here, Sayeed Abdullah.”

  “Selim invited me. I said: You will have enough without me. But he said: No, no, the more the merrier. He is, indeed,” said Sayeed Abdullah gratefully, “a most munificent person.”

  “He is indeed.”

  And as a result, thought Owen, would almost certainly be broke the following morning. The seniors in the Police Force, on Garvin’s instructions, had tried to dissuade the constables and orderlies from too lavish expenditure on celebratory occasions. Births, naming days, circumcision feasts, weddings and funerals came round all the time and their cost was an important reason why the ordinary Egyptian was usually heavily in debt. The connection between the night before and the morning after was not very persuasive the night before, and the morning after, wise words were too late.

  “Your wife is here, too, I gather.”

  “Oh, yes, effendi, she is inside.”

  Sayeed Abdullah drew near to Owen, looked over his shoulder and muttered: “I’ve told her to stay near the baby and keep off the evil eye. It’s the least we could do.”

  “Oh, yes, very good idea. It’s important to take care over such things.”

  “Well, yes, effendi, especially as I’ve seen her do it before.”

  Owen turned to him.

  “Just a moment, Sayeed Abdullah; what was that?”

  “I’ve seen her do it before, effendi. You remember, I mentioned it to you? The constable up from the country- the one who wouldn’t pay his subscription?”

  “I do remember. But, Sayeed Abdullah, what is it that you are saying? That the woman who cast the evil eye on that occasion was-the Aalima? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, effendi. And that was why I was so worried. I did try and warn Selim, I could do no less after his kindness to me, but he said that you had bidden-”

  “Let us be quite clear about this. The Aalima worked with Hassan? Perhaps still does work with Hassan?”

  “I do not know about that, effendi, but I know that she did work with Hassan, that she came when he called. And what she did once-”

  “Thank you, Sayeed Abdullah, that is most helpful.” Owen went back up the steps and sat down again on his chair. Below him, in the yard, the music swirled and the men danced. Torches now were brought and fixed to the wall. In their fiery light he saw the excited, happy faces.

  He went down the steps again and called to one of the women in the doorway.

  “Is Aisha there?”

  Shortly afterwards, Selim’s wife appeared.

  “Aisha,” said Owen, “is the Aalima still with you?”

  “She is, indeed, effendi. She feasts with us within.”

  “I would like to see her,” said Owen. “On the roof.”

  Aisha went into the house and returned with the tall figure of the Aalima.

  “Some questions about the ritual?” said McPhee, over Owen’s shoulder.
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br />   “Some other questions first,” said Owen.

  They drew back from the edge into the centre of the roof space, where it was quieter.

  “There was a time,” said Owen, “when you worked with a man named Hassan. He was an orderly at the police station. He worked for a Greek, Philipides effendi, and did his bidding. Among the things he did was collect money from the other orderlies and from new constables. If they refused to give, he would have them beaten; and sometimes he would do other things. Once, for instance, there was a man newly up from the country whose wife was having a baby, and he called a woman in and made her cast the evil eye. That woman was you.”

  “What if it was?” said the Aalima.

  “If it was,” said Owen, “it was another thing to add to the many things that are piling up against your name. The heap will very soon topple over.”

  “To cast the evil eye is nothing,” said the Aalima scornfully.

  “To work against police officers is something,” said Owen. “And to work with Hassan is something more.”

  “Those are just words,” she muttered.

  “They are more. You cannot go home tonight. You come with me to the Bab-el-Khalk.”

  “I have done nothing!” she protested.

  “You have worked with others who have done something. That is enough.”

  For the first time she was shaken.

  “If I have,” she said, “it is very little.”

  “That is perhaps so,” said Owen, “and if it is, I will make a difference between you and the others. But only if you help me.”

  “I have already told you everything-”

  She stopped and looked at Owen.

  “Tell me about Hassan.”

  She shivered slightly and drew her shawl about her, even though beads of perspiration were running down her face.

  “I had not seen him for some time,” she said, “and then he came again.”

  “When was this?”

  “Before the Bimbashi came. He came to tell me the Bimbashi was coming. And what to do.”

  “To put a drug in the drink?”

  The Aalima inclined her head.

  “And to arrange for him to be taken?”

  “No, no,” said the Aalima, “that was nothing to do with me. All I had to do was make sure the Bimbashi was drugged. Hassan would do the rest.”

  “I shall ask him.”

  She shrugged.

  “He may say other,” she said, “but I have told the truth.”

  “All right,” said Owen, “we will speak more tomorrow. Now we go to the Bab-el-Khalk.”

  The Aalima followed him submissively. As they reached the steps, he turned to her.

  “Perhaps I will speak with Hassan now,” he said. “Where is he?”

  “Effendi, I do not know. I never knew his house. He would always send when he wanted me.”

  “But more recently he has come?”

  “Yes, effendi, but I still do not know where he lives. He stays, I think, with his sister. It is in the Gamaliya somewhere.”

  “What is the name of the sister?”

  “I do not know. She is married. Her husband is, I think, a snake catcher.”

  “That will do,” said Owen.

  “It’s Al-Lewa again, darling,” said Zeinab, folding up the newspaper. “They’re still after you, I’m afraid.”

  “What is it now?”

  “However, it’s plainly false this time.”

  “This time?”

  “Well, the other time it was about women, and you know what you are-”

  “Irreproachable,” said Owen, offended.

  On any other occasion, Zeinab would have taken the matter up and developed, not to say embroidered, the theme. This morning, though, she was worried.

  “It’s about those stones,” she said. “Both the diamond and the necklace. They know all about them and are asking what’s happened to them. Darling-?”

  “They’re in a safe place,” Owen assured her.

  “Not-not your pocket, by any chance?”

  Owen pulled them out.

  Zeinab came across.

  “Look, darling, I don’t normally question what you do, but I really do think this time-! They are bound to ask what you are doing with them in your pockets.”

  “I’m taking them round,” said Owen, “to all the jewellers. And asking them who bought them.”

  In Mahmoud’s little office, with the three of them in there, the temperature was over 100. Sweat ran down Philipides’s face in trickles; but that may, of course, have not been just due to the heat. He put his handkerchief to his forehead.

  “It was done without my knowledge,” he said.

  Mahmoud bent forward over his desk. He was less like a mongoose now than a bird of prey: one of the smaller hawks perhaps.

  “Let us get this straight; when Hassan approached Police Officer Abdul Bakri and solicited money, it was with your knowledge; when he approached Orderly Sayeed Abdullah and solicited money, it was without your knowledge?”

  “That is correct,” said Philipides, in a voice that was almost inaudible.

  “Others were approached too. Can you tell me which of them were approached with your knowledge?”

  “I cannot remember.”

  “You remembered Abdul Bakri.”

  “He was the one-”

  “That Garvin found out about?” Mahmoud finished.

  Philipides bowed his head.

  “Which were the ones he did not find out about? Can you give me their names?”

  “It is too long ago,” said Philipides wretchedly.

  “Wasn’t there a record?”

  “Mustapha Mir-”

  His voice died away. Mahmoud sat watching him.

  “Mustapha Mir,” he said softly after a while. “Tell me about him.”

  Philipides made a weary gesture.

  “What is there to tell? You know-”

  “Have you spoken to him lately?”

  “Spoken? How could I? He is in Damascus.”

  “I thought you might have spoken when he gave you your instructions.”

  “Instructions? What instructions?”

  “You tell me.”

  There was a little silence.

  “I know nothing of any instructions,” said Philipides shakily.

  Mahmoud gave him a moment or two. Then, without a sign being given, Owen knew it was his turn. The two had interrogated together before.

  “Philipides,” said Owen softly, “did you know that your wife had come to see me?”

  “ ‘Wife’?” said Philipides, eyes starting from his head. “Wife?”

  “Three times: once in an appartement, once in an arabeah, and once in my own house. She said it was without your knowledge. Is that true?”

  “Wife? I haven’t got a wife!”

  “When she came to my house, she left a diamond behind. Deliberately. I wondered if that too, was without your knowledge?”

  “I haven’t got a wife,” said Philipides, moistening his lips.

  “It is important, you see. Planting evidence, as, of course, you know, having been a police officer, is a crime. I was wondering if you wished to be charged with her.”

  “I haven’t got a wife,” said Philipides. “I haven’t got a wife! This is a trick!” he burst out. “A plot! I haven’t got a wife!”

  “It will be easy to check,” said Mahmoud.

  “Check, then!” said Philipides, turning on Mahmoud. “Check!”

  “She told me she was your wife,” said Owen.

  “It is a lie! I haven’t got a wife,” said Philipides, weeping. Mahmoud looked at Owen. Owen knew that he was wondering if he had got it right. He was wondering himself.

  “She said she was your wife.”

  And then something came into his head, something that Selim had said as they walked away from the girl’s appartement. Not Philipides’s woman, but-

  “Is it true that you are not married?” he said to Philipides.
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  “It is true! I swear! Check-”

  “Perhaps it is true,” Owen said thoughtfully. “But then, why-?”

  He thought hard. Then-

  “Philipides,” he said, almost gently, “I really think that you should talk to Mr el Zaki. In your own interests. I think you may be right, that there is a plot against you. Only it is not I that am framing the plot, it is another, whom you know very well. Think for a moment: a woman comes to me and leaves a diamond. The diamond is later referred to in the press as evidence that I am guilty of accepting bribes. It is a plot against me. But at the same time, Philipides, it is a plot against you. For the woman claimed to be your wife. I can think of only one reason for that: she wished to incriminate you. Why was that, do you think?”

  “I do not know. I have done nothing-”

  “I will tell you. Because the man behind this wished to cover his tracks. At your expense. You know the man, I think. Perhaps you should tell Mr el Zaki about him.”

  Paul brought the telegram to the club that evening and showed it to Owen. It was from Wainwright.

  Suggest change venue Flower Show not time. Move closer to river. Heavy watering should do trick.

  “Does that mean he’s still coming?” said Paul crossly.

  “Oh, my head!” gasped Selim. “Oh, my head!”

  “Just bloody get a move on!” snapped Owen.

  “I come, effendi, I come! Oh, effendi,” said Selim, falling in beside Owen and clutching his head, “do you think the Aalima put something in the drink again?”

  “No, you just drank too much of it.”

  Georgiades came up.

  “I checked the names the teacher gave you,” he said. “This was the only one who lived in the Gamaliya.”

  “I want you to get them both,” said Owen. “Both Hassan and the brother-in-law. Be careful with the brother-in-law. He may have a bag of snakes with him.”

  “Snakes!” said Georgiades. “What the hell do I do with them?”

  “We ought to have brought a catcher, I suppose. Selim! The second man may have a bag with him. You take charge of that.”

  “Abdul!” he heard Selim saying a little later. “I’ll take the man, you take the bag.”

  “But, Selim-” pleaded Abdul’s worried voice.