The Donkey-Vous mz-3

by Michael Pearce

  “Go back to her now. You have done well.”

  Appeased, the tracker sloped off.

  “We’d better find Abbas. We don’t want him breaking in on things.”

  Abbas had had enough sense to stay where he was. They found him and the donkey-boy sheltering among the pillars. “Allah be praised!” said Abbas. “You are here!”

  “We are here,” said Owen, “but how do you come to be here?”

  “I was looking for the camel,” said the donkey-boy, “as you bid me. And, effendi, I have found it. I saw the track and I said, By God, that is the track of the camel I seek. So I followed the track and it brought me here.”

  “Where is the camel?”

  “Over there, hidden among the stones.” The donkey-boy pointed. “Effendi, there are three good riding camels with it. It came into my mind that those you hunt may be intending to flee. I felt, therefore, that you should know at once. But this man-” he looked pointedly at Abbas’s direction- “would not go for you.”

  “How could I go?” objected Abbas. “I was bidden to stay with you.”

  “One of us had to go,” said the donkey-boy, “and it could not be me, for if the camels moved, only I could follow.”

  “It could not be me,” said Abbas, “for the effendi told me to stay with you and not leave you.”

  “Fortunately,” said Owen hastily, “I am here so the question does not now arise. You have done well,” he said to the donkey-boy.

  The donkey-boy smiled with pleasure.

  “The camel is in good condition, effendi, though I would like to look at the legs. The left hind leg drags a little. It may be nothing, just a habit of the beast. All the same I would like to look, for it could slow them down if they mean to travel far. But then, of course, they would not be traveling together, for the others are true riding camels whereas this is only a beast of burden. It is my belief they used it to bring the prisoner.”

  “Prisoner?”

  “Yes, effendi, they had a man with them who was bound. Did I not say?”

  “No, you did not say.”

  “The three riding camels came separately, I think. When we saw them there were four men, and also the one that was tied.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “Two walked off across the stones. Two stayed with the bound man near the camels.”

  Four men. They could not take them all at the same time. They would have to take the two with the prisoner first.

  “Rosa will be returning at any moment,” said Georgiades. “We haven’t got long.”

  The two men were squatting in a gap among the stones. There was no light but Owen’s eyes were used to the darkness and he thought he could see a bundle lying a little to the men’s right. Tsakatellis would be bound and gagged. If he were still alive.

  The two men were talking in low voices.

  A stone moved in the darkness and the men were suddenly quiet. There was no further sound and after a little while the men resumed talking.

  Owen made no move himself. Georgiades and the trackers would do it better. It would have to be done quietly. The two men who had gone to collect the money would return at any moment. He had stationed himself where he could intercept them.

  He wondered why Georgiades was taking so long.

  Someone had made their home in the rubble. It was quite some way away but their brazier blazed up for a few seconds and he could see the two men clearly.

  They both looked up together as if something had startled them. A dark shape suddenly appeared behind them and one of them fell sideways. The other two shapes merged.

  Owen went forward.

  The man Georgiades had hit lay inert. The other man was pinioned by the two trackers. One of them had his hand over the man’s mouth.

  Georgiades was bending over the bundle. The man was wrapped in a hooded galabeah. Georgiades pulled back the hood as Owen arrived.

  The man was gagged but his eyes were open. And alive.

  Footsteps approached, crunching slightly on the rubble.

  Georgiades let the hood fall back over the man’s face. He slipped quietly off to one side. One of the trackers, the one who did not have his hand over the man’s mouth, slipped off to the other. Owen stayed where he was.

  “Suleiman,” called one of the approaching shapes softly. “Suleiman, where are you?”

  The inert man suddenly groaned.

  The two shapes froze. Other shapes closed in on them. They had to do it from too far away. One of the shapes broke away and ran.

  “Get after him!” Georgiades shouted.

  The tracker ran off. Away in the darkness someone was scurrying and scrambling.

  The first inert man, recovering, tried to get up. Owen put his foot on him.

  There was a triumphant shout.

  “I have him, effendi!”

  It was the donkey-boy.

  “I have him, effendi! Abbas, this way!”

  Georgiades hauled the man he was holding over to where Owen was and threw him to the ground beside the other two. Then he went back for the bag.

  Abbas and the donkey-boy came over the rubble supporting a man between them.

  “I caught him!” said the donkey-boy excitedly. “Remember that, effendi, and let it tell in the scales for me. I caught him!”

  Owen pulled the gag from Tsakatellis’s mouth.

  “It is the police,” he said. “My friend, you are free.”

  They were just cutting his bonds when Rosa arrived. Georgiades took her gently by the arm and brought her to her father.

  One of the men went with them to show them the house where Moulin was held. It was in one of the poorer quarters and some distance away and the donkey-boy proposed they use the riding camels. Georgiades, the complete city dweller, had never been on a camel before. Owen, however, had. When he had first come to Egypt and had been stationed with Garvin at Alexandria to learn the ropes he had spent some time with the drug patrols. He could not call himself an accomplished rider but he could ride without falling off and make the beast respond as he wished.

  They took two camels only, the donkey-boy and the guide on one of them, the guide tied hand and foot and slung over the camel’s neck. Owen and Georgiades on the other. Georgiades did not say much.

  They stopped the camels at the end of the street and went the rest of the way on foot. The house, like the others in the street, was single-story. There was a solid wooden door, clearly barred on the inside, and heavy shutters on the windows.

  They went around the back and found the outside stairs leading up to the roof. Two men were sleeping on the roof. They woke them and made them come downstairs and show them into the house. In one of the rooms they found Moulin.

  There was a woman in the house but no other men. They made her light a lamp. When it was alight Owen looked at the men again and saw that one of them was Abdul Hafiz.

  “ Un brave homme,” was Madame Moulin’s judgment, as she prepared to make her departure. The Charge bought two bottles of champagne, the first before she went, so that they could all drink Owen’s health, the second after she had gone, to celebrate his own release.

  The scheme to build a gambling salon on the other side of the river, alas, fell through. The Khedive decided, in view of the publicity, not to persevere with the idea. Abdul Hafiz and his associates were, therefore, able to go into prison with some sense of achievement.

  The commercial interests Monsieur Moulin represented were fobbed off with the award of the contract to build the masonry apron. Paul felt pleased with the establishment of the new principle that the usual greedy sods shouldn’t have it all.

  The Colthorpe Hartleys soon left for home, not so much for his sake as for that of his wife. Colthorpe Hartley himself had survived his ordeal remarkably well. “Damn donkey-boy!” he said with an amazed chuckle. “The fact is,” said Lucy, “I think he had been a tiny bit bored with the holiday. He never did like shopping. Shall we be seeing you in England soon, Captain Owen? I do hope
so.” Returning to England had always seemed such a remote possibility that Owen had never really thought about it. However, on inspection the idea seemed to have merits. He did nothing about it, though. Some time later he received a letter from Lucy saying that she was thinking of coming back to Cairo next season as she had unfinished business. Gerald went to India.

  The donkey-boys went to prison. That was inescapable. They received comparatively light sentences, however, in view of their cooperative attitude and after six months Owen had them transferred to police headquarters where he employed them as trackers. They all took to this with gusto and the one who had identified the camel stayed on after their sentence expired.

  The other donkey-boys returned to their old pastures at Shepheard’s, kept green for them by the help of sundry relatives and friends. Daouad’s circumstances were, however, reduced to such an extent that the dowry Ali’s family could provide no longer seemed so insignificant.

  “Besides,” he said to Owen, when he was inviting him to the wedding, “her face is like the moon and her eyes are like the stars. A true wife is better than a thousand piastres. Although, frankly, I would have preferred a thousand piastres as well.”

  Daouad’s wedding was not the only romantic consequence of the kidnappings. One morning Rosa appeared in Owen’s office when he was talking to Nikos and Georgiades.

  “I wish to make a complaint,” she said.

  “You do? What about?”

  “I have been assaulted.”

  “ Assaulted? ”

  “Yes. By one of your men.”

  “Who? Who has-?”

  “He has,” said Rosa, pointing at Georgiades.

  “Me?” said Georgiades, astounded.

  “Georgiades!” said Owen and Nikos together, shocked.

  “I have never even touched her,” Georgiades protested.

  “Yes you have.”

  “When?”

  “That day. At the El Hakim Mosque. When you caught hold of me.”

  “I am sorry that you should have been treated roughly on that occasion,” said Owen, “but-”

  “He felt my breasts.”

  “Georgiades!” said Owen and Nikos, shocked again.

  “I didn’t feel her breasts! I thought she was a boy. And then when she screamed, I-”

  “There you are,” said Rosa.

  “I am very sorry this happened,” Owen said to Rosa, “but, you know, it is easily understandable.”

  Rosa stayed silent.

  “Georgiades,” said Owen, turning to the Greek, “you should apologize.”

  “Apologize?”

  “Yes,” said Owen firmly.

  “Very well, then,” said Georgiades. “I apologize.”

  “I don’t accept your apology,” said Rosa.

  “But what do you want?” asked Owen, bewildered.

  “I look to you,” said Rosa, “to see that my honor is protected.”

  “Well, yes, I’m only glad to. But…”

  “He will have to marry me. He is not a man I would normally have chosen but in the circumstances…”

  Owen tried to persuade her that this was not necessary. Rosa, however, was adamant.

  “I cannot marry anyone else,” she said, “not now that he has sullied me.”

  “I haven’t sullied you!” protested the distraught Georgiades.

  “My innocence has gone forever,” declared Rosa.

  “Anyway, you can’t marry him,” said Owen. “You are too young.”

  “I am fourteen,” said Rosa with dignity.

  “That’s right. Too young.”

  Rosa’s face darkened with fury.

  “I shall speak to your lady,” she said.

  And did.

  “Fourteen is quite old in Cairo,” said Zeinab. “Most girls marry when they are thirteen. The men prefer it because it makes them more biddable. In Rosa’s case I think that point has already passed.”

  “Georgiades is over twice her age,” Owen pointed out.

  “That is supposed to lead to proper authority in the household.”

  “I’ll talk to her father,” said Owen, “and get him to sort her out.”

  Tsakatellis was inclined to share Owen’s view that his daughter was still too young to marry. This was to no avail, however, for his mother, the old Mrs. Tsakatellis, unexpectedly sided with her granddaughter. The other Mrs. Tsakatellis, Rosa’s mother, was not consulted in the matter.

  Owen reported the deadlock to Georgiades.

  “It’s no good,” said Georgiades. “They’ll get me.”

  “What do you mean-‘They’ll get you’?”

  “With a knife between the shoulder blades. You don’t know the Greeks.”

  “Nonsense! Whatever are you thinking of?”

  “Her relatives. It’s a matter of family honor now.”

  “What nonsense!”

  Georgiades, however, remained gloomy.

  One morning he came into the office in a very agitated state. “It’s terrible,” he said. “They’ve sent a matchmaker.”

  “You don’t have to agree,” Owen counseled him. “You’re a free man.”

  “Not any more,” said Georgiades. “Not any more!”

  First came two men carrying mirrors shaped like shields and mounted on long staves; then a band, playing strange Oriental instruments and mounted on camels with white shells on their bridles and shells and mirrors and tinsel on their scarlet caparisons. Then came masked jesters and banner-bearers, and a bagpipe band on foot, paid for by Owen. Last came the bride in a beautiful dark-wood palanquin borrowed for the occasion from one of the donkey-boys’ clients.

  The donkey-boys were naturally there in force. Owen caught sight of Daouad’s beaming face among the throng and several of the faces behind the jesters’ masks seemed vaguely familiar. Even the boys from the donkey-vous across the street had been allowed to join in for this special occasion. There was Ali marching proudly beside his new brother-in-law.

  The procession passed directly in front of the terrace steps where Owen and Mahmoud were standing. The donkey-boys waved up and there was a splendid jingle of bells.

  The snake charmer gave a violent start.

  “There it is again!” he cried out in alarm. “Just as it was before!”

  “Not quite as it was before,” said Owen. “Or so I hope.”

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