The Face in the Cemetery

by Michael Pearce

  ‘Now I think that when you saw the books you worked out that it must be something like that and saw no reason why you should hang around any longer. Am I right?’

  ‘Quite possibly,’ said Kattim. ‘What happened to the guns?’ he asked.

  ‘I think they were split up on the jetty, probably by the mudir’s clerk Abdul, and two hundred were carried off at once, almost certainly in a truck from the sugar factory, while the rest were taken up to the police station.’

  Kattim nodded.

  Owen took a sip from his cup, then put the cup down.

  ‘There are, though, two things that puzzle me. The first is this. You are a responsible, diligent official of the Ministry of Finance. You saw that a crime had been committed and you also, I think, saw how it had been done. And yet all you did, when you got back to Cairo, was to write a report criticizing the Ministry’s procedures!’

  ‘I have explained. I did, in fact, do quite a lot. The fact that it was another Ministry—’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Or, at least, I don’t think that was all of it. I think you thought that the Ministry itself might have had a hand in it. You thought that there might be some political agenda here, a Nationalist one. And so you—a good Nationalist yourself, no doubt—decided to hold back.’

  For a little while Kattim said nothing. Then he smiled.

  ‘Something like that, no doubt,’ he said. ‘And the second thing?’

  ‘Who the two hundred guns went to,’ said Owen.

  ***

  When Owen got back to the apartment, Zeinab was out on the balcony, looking into space. She hardly registered his presence when he sat down beside her.

  ‘What is the matter?’ he said.

  ‘Nothing is the matter.’

  ‘Something is the matter.’

  At last she told him. While he had been away, she had visited one of her cousins, the Princess Fawzi. They were not especially close but Zeinab quite enjoyed her cousin’s coffee mornings, when she picked up the latest Cairo gossip. That morning, though, she had sensed something in the air. Her cousin had seemed distant. And not just her cousin. The other people there, too, whom Zeinab normally got on with, had been, well, not exactly rude but somehow unwelcoming. She had had the feeling that she was being given—she looked at Owen to check the English—‘the cold shoulder, yes?’ Not one to accept this, Zeinab, before she left, had pulled her cousin aside and demanded to know what was the matter.

  After much humming and hawing, the Princess had said that it was her marriage.

  ‘Marriage?’ said Zeinab, astonished.

  ‘If it’s not true, I’m glad to hear it,’ said Fawzi.

  ‘What marriage?’ said Zeinab.

  ‘Yours, with that Englishman.’

  Zeinab had started to say that there was no question of any such marriage, but then had stopped.

  Instead, she said:

  ‘People have known about this for ages. Why are they suddenly getting excited now?’

  ‘An affaire was one thing. Marriage is another.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Especially now. Now that the Turks are going to come in and throw the British out.’

  ‘They’re frightened, is that it?’ said Zeinab, beginning to fire up.

  ‘No. It’s that they’re beginning to take sides. After all, the Ottomans are our own people.’

  ‘I marry whom I like!’ said Zeinab, through clenched teeth.

  ‘Why don’t you like a good Egyptian, Zeinab? Is there something strange with you? Perverse?’

  Zeinab by this time was getting very angry.

  ‘If that’s how you feel—!’ she had said, and left.

  ‘It’s not how I feel, Zeinab,’ her cousin called after her. ‘It’s how people feel.’

  Zeinab had still been seething when she got home, but then a certain reaction had set in. Did people feel like that?

  Over the next day or two she had sounded people out. In too many cases, unfortunately, it appeared that they did.

  Even her musician and artist friends.

  ‘You would have thought that they—’ she said incredulously.

  Cairo had somehow become different, she said. It was the war. It was giving everything a shake, deepening old fault lines. And suddenly it was becoming important to be on the right side of fault lines which in the past you had danced carelessly over.

  Owen was shocked. Of course it did not come as a surprise to him. He had, he realized, been thinking about precisely this for some time, not just since he had become involved in the case of Hilde Langer, but certainly more acutely since then. He had thought, vaguely, that it would be worse for women; even that it might be hard for Zeinab. But somehow it had not really come home to him. Now it did.

  He put his arms round her and tried to reassure her. She merely shrugged and turned away. Later, she got up and went into the bedroom.

  But then she came out again and asked him if he still had Hilde Langer’s letter. He had been keeping it, knowing that he would soon be going down to Minya again, when he could give it to Mahmoud personally. He found it and gave it to her. She read it through again, slowly and carefully this time. Then she handed it back.

  ‘It won’t be like that with me,’ she said. ‘I shall fight.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Owen couldn’t settle to anything the next morning. He found himself thinking about Zeinab all the time. Mid-way through the morning he received a message from Nuri Pasha, Zeinab’s father. It asked him to come and see him as soon as he could. Owen guessed that it was about Zeinab and went at once.

  It was not that at all; at least, not in the way he had imagined.

  ‘My dear boy,’ said Nuri, as soon as they had settled themselves together on the huge divan in the mandar’ah. ‘I felt I really should have a word with you about this monstrous idea of yours—to go and fight in the war. It is making Zeinab most unhappy. I must say, I find it more than a little surprising myself. I thought you had outgrown such nonsense. Young men, I know, are always wanting to go and fight wars. They feel a need to prove their manhood. But you, my dear fellow, surely have no need, at this stage in your life, to prove that? Fighting is best left to people you employ for the purpose: the Sudanese, for instance. Certainly someone else.’

  In a way, Owen was relieved. He had been afraid that Nuri, aware of the pressures on Zeinab, might have been about to ask him to back off from their relationship, at least until things had become clearer, and he was not at all sure how he was going to reply. Nuri, though, was evidently not so up-to-date.

  ‘I remember, dear boy,’ he said now, reminiscing, ‘when I was your age, all hot to go and fight the Bulgars. My mistress at the time—it was Zeinab’s mother, a very intelligent, strong-minded woman—said to me: “Nuri, is this wise? If you will not think of me, think of your country. It needs such talent as yours. At home.”

  ‘And, do you know, dear boy, on reflection I saw that she was right. Women are more realistic than we are. They see these things more clearly. We should trust their judgement more. And so, my dear fellow, I urge you: do listen to Zeinab on this. She is very clear-sighted on such things.’

  ‘She is, Nuri. However…’

  ‘And then there is another thing,’ said Nuri, getting into his stride. ‘Zeinab loves you, dear boy, and I, too, am very fond of you. I would be very glad to have you as my son-in-law. That is, if you were richer. I have brought up Zeinab to have expensive tastes—’

  ‘You have, Nuri, you have.’

  ‘—which even I am sometimes unable to provide for. What chance is there of your doing that on your present pay? Your career, dear boy—I hope you don’t mind me saying so—languishes. War is an opportunity to improve matters.

  ‘When all the other young men went away to fight, on the occasion I spoke of, they left gaps at Court which
I was able to take advantage of. I was able to establish myself in the Khedive’s favour and have never looked back. Let me urge you, dear boy, to seize this opportunity.’

  Owen, relieved, promised to consider Nuri’s wise words (‘I speak as a father, dear boy…’) and they lay on the divan, sipping sherbet and chatting, for some time.

  Nuri Pasha had had a long, distinguished—not untarnished but always distinguished—political career which he hoped was not yet over. He had at one time been one of the Khedive’s Ministers, until an unfortunate decision—he had backed the wrong horse: the British—had brought his ministerial career to an abrupt end. Ever since, hoping against hope, he had kept himself au fait with the political currents that ebbed and flowed around the Khedive’s office. He was a mine of information about those who aspired to power, particularly information which might be used to discredit them. His contacts ran far and wide; and Owen, as he was lying there, suddenly had an idea.

  ‘I wonder, Nuri,’ he said, ‘if in your peregrinations through the corridors of power, you have ever come across a man named Faruq Rahim?’

  ‘Faruq Rahim? I do not think so.’

  ‘He is in one of the Ministries—Interior.’

  ‘Ah!’ Nuri thought. ‘I have him now. But, dear fellow, if he is in the corridors of power, it is only as an office-boy!’

  ‘I know, Nuri, by your standards—’

  ‘He has turned out to be,’ said Nuri, ‘a great disappointment.’

  ‘Why is he a disappointment, Nuri?’

  ‘Because people had such great hopes of him. I remember talking to Ismail Ifqat Bey once—that was when Ismail was still a Minister—and him being very excited about a young man he’d found whom he thought would do excellently for a certain job. It may surprise you, dear boy, to know that Ministers are always on the look-out for bright young men. Well, Ismail thought he had found one.

  ‘What he needed was someone capable who had had experience of work in the provinces. Well, of course, capability and provinces don’t normally go together and he’d been having difficulties finding someone. And now here was someone who seemed to fit the bill in every way.

  ‘The job was something to do with cable or wireless stations. At least, it wasn’t directly to do with that, but the Ministry wanted someone locally who would facilitate the project—you know, someone who would know when to turn a blind eye. There was a political aspect to the scheme, you see. It was a German idea; they wanted to build a chain of such stations going all the way down the coast to German East Africa, and the Ministry supported it because they saw it as one in the eye for the British.

  ‘Well, of course, when the British found out, they blocked it and the scheme came to an end. Faruq Rahim, though, had done enough to impress his superiors and so they promoted him into the Ministry. But then, dear boy, do you know what they found?’

  Nuri paused dramatically.

  ‘No?’

  ‘They found he was not interested at all!’

  ‘Not in promotion?’

  ‘No, no, no. He was interested in promotion all right. But in politics. He wasn’t interested in politics. It will come as no surprise to you, dear boy, that the people at the top of the Ministry were heavily Nationalist. That, of course, was how they had seen the wireless stations—as a means of striking a political blow at the British. They had taken it for granted that he had understood that and shared their views.

  ‘It was only afterwards, after they had promoted him into the Ministry, that they found out. He was not at all interested in politics but only in money-making. There were rumours of over-close relationships with contractors, bribes, that sort of thing. Well, they didn’t mind about the bribes, but the lack of political interest was quite another thing.’

  ‘Nuri, are you sure about this? His lack of political interest? I must say, you surprise me.’

  ‘Quite sure, dear boy. It brought his career to an end.’

  ‘Nuri, this is important. I am investigating, you see, a certain incident in the provinces in which I think he may have been intimately involved, and I need to know if there is any likelihood that his actions were politically motivated.’

  ‘No likelihood at all, dear boy. As I say, he has been a great disappointment.’

  ***

  McPhee stuck his head round the door, then came right into the room.

  ‘Gareth.’

  Owen sat up. McPhee did not normally call him by his Christian name. This must be serious.

  ‘Great news, Gareth. They’ve accepted me.’

  ‘Accepted—?’

  ‘For the Army. I leave in a fortnight.’

  ***

  ‘But he’s too old! And he’s half-way round the bend! He’s—’

  ‘He is,’ agreed Zeinab, who thought that anyone who volunteered for the Army, particularly in war-time, was halfway round the bend.

  ‘It’s ridiculous!’

  ‘It is,’ she said happily, putting her arm around him.

  ‘I must say, it makes one consider one’s own position, though.’

  ‘What?!’ said Zeinab, withdrawing her arm.

  ‘Well, you know. A man like that! When one has so much more to offer oneself.’

  ‘But this man is a lunatic. You’ve said so yourself.’

  ‘He is. But…but perhaps not altogether. Not in wanting to do his bit.’

  ‘Cannot he do—what was that you said?—“his bit” outside the Army? Where he is?’

  ‘It’s not the same.’

  ‘No, it is not. The man is evidently afflicted. One of the blessed of God. That being so, when he is “doing his bit” in normal life, he is obviously not doing it very well. He will do better off in the Army where it is not noticed.’

  ‘It’s not quite like that.’

  ‘I would have said it was. Everyone knows that you send your weakest son. And if you don’t want to do that, you pay some simpleton to go instead. That is why the Army is full of simpletons.’

  ‘No, no, you haven’t quite—’

  ‘It is best if this man goes and you don’t.’

  Owen was silent.

  This infuriated Zeinab, who knew it meant that she was not carrying him with her.

  ‘Well, go, then! Go and get yourself killed! What is it to me? You’re just a stupid Englishman!’

  ***

  Faruq Rahim was in his mid-forties and was wearing a gold bracelet. That was the first thing that Owen noticed about him. It wasn’t usual for under-secretaries to wear gold bracelets.

  There were other things. His suit was well cut, certainly better cut than Owen’s, better, Owen thought, even than Kitchener’s. The shirt was good, too. Egypt was a cotton country and there were very good shirts to be obtained in Cairo. This one was silk.

  He came forward to greet Owen with hand outstretched.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve met,’ he said. ‘Strange, isn’t it? In a small place like Cairo.’

  ‘My work doesn’t usually bring me into the Ministry,’ said Owen. ‘And I daresay you’re kept pretty busy.’

  ‘Well, yes. Especially at the present time.’

  ‘And short-staffed.’

  ‘That, too,’ Faruq Rahim agreed.

  ‘I am afraid I have to accept some responsibility there—taking so many of them into internment.’

  ‘The Germans, yes.’

  ‘Of course, it makes space for Egyptians.’

  Faruq Rahim shrugged.

  ‘Egyptians or Germans, it doesn’t matter much,’ he said, ‘so long as they can do the job.’

  It was an answer that McKitterick might have given; but not Mahmoud.

  ‘I’ve been talking to one of your inspectors.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘A man named Fricker.’

  ‘Fricker? Oh, yes, I know him. Ger
man. Very hard-working.’

  ‘He certainly seems very committed to the Department.’

  ‘Always has been.’

  ‘He was responsible, I gather, for the proposal to arm the ghaffirs?’

  ‘Responsible? I wouldn’t say that. He certainly discussed the proposal in a report he drew up.’

  ‘Who was responsible, then?’

  The Egyptian back-tracked.

  ‘I’m not quite sure who the suggestion initially came from. In a Ministry, you know, there are always several hands at work.’

  ‘The suggestion came from higher up?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

  He wouldn’t say anything, thought Owen.

  The Egyptian sensed his reaction and back-tracked again.

  ‘I think they welcomed it when it was put to them,’ he said.

  ‘Who put it to them?’

  ‘I think I can claim the credit. After it had been talked through inside the Department.’

  ‘The idea did come from Fricker, then?’

  ‘Yes, but it needed to be talked through. And of course his original idea was modified in the process. So it wasn’t quite his concept that went eventually to the Minister.’

  ‘I see. The Minister welcomed it, I think you said?’

  ‘Yes. Not at first. He had some doubts about it.’

  ‘Which were?’

  ‘Cost.’ The Egyptian smiled. ‘Whether the British would accept it.’

  ‘However, they did. And you, I understand, were given the responsibility for overseeing its implementation?’

  ‘That is so, yes. It is, essentially, a provincial matter, and I am the one who deals with the provinces.’

  ‘You have had, of course, experience of the provinces.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘At Minya.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where, in fact, the problem has occurred.’