The Snake Catcher's Daughter

by Michael Pearce

  “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 Eight

  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 café. 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.”

  “That is unjust,” said Owen quietly.

  Mahmoud shifted uncomfortably.

  “It is not your fault,” he said. “It is because you are an Englishman.”

  Oh no, thought Owen, so that’s what it is.

  “Have you forgotten so soon?” he said reproachfully. “I am not an Englishman.”

  Something stirred down in the dumps. Arab, Mahmoud might be, and liable to plunge into the trough of depression; but Arab, he still was, and unable to forgive himself for anything that seemed a breach of courtesy. He raised a hand apologetically.

  “I am not always clear,” he said, “about the difference between an Englishman and a Welshman.”

  “This is fighting talk,” said Owen.

  Mahmoud managed something that was a little like a smile. He took a sip of coffee, looked at it with surprise and took another sip.

  “What have we done this time?” asked Owen.

  “We? I thought you were a Welshman?” said Mahmoud, beginning to sparkle.

  “We have a pact with them.”

  “If you have, it’s a pact with the devil.”

  “Are things that bad?”

  “Well—”

  Mahmoud looked round and waved for more coffee. He was beginning to brisk up. That was a good sign. Mahmoud, in normal form, had all the briskness and sharpness of a mongoose.

  “They won’t give me access,” he said.

  “Access?”

  “To the files. It is quite improper. To
refuse a request from the Ministry of Justice, from the Government. Whose country do they think this is?”

  “Hold on. Whose files are we talking about?”

  “Garvin’s, Wainwright’s, Mustapha Mir’s. Yours.”

  “I haven’t refused you access.”

  “Haven’t you?”

  “I’m still thinking about it.”

  “It’s not going to be up to you. An in-principle decision has been taken. By the Consul-General.”

  “I’ll have a word with Paul.”

  “It’ll be no good. This goes deep, you see. It raises big questions. The biggest,” said Mahmoud bitterly, “is: who governs this country? And we know the answer to that, don’t we?”

  Owen tried to think what to say. Mahmoud, however, was not expecting a reply.

  “It’s the principle of the thing,” he said vehemently. “It is fundamental to the administration of justice. The investigating officer must have access to relevant documents. No one, no one should be able to refuse. No one should be above the law. Neither I nor you, nor the Khedive, nor the British. We are all equal before the law. Everyone! That is what justice is.”

  “Yes,” said Owen, “but this is Egypt.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It should make no difference.”

  “It is the difference,” said Owen, “between an ideal and reality.”

  “Yes, but,” said Mahmoud, all excited now, “on this there must be no compromise. Or where shall we be? One law for one, one for another”—forgetting that in Egypt there were at least three legal systems—“No!” He banged his fist on the table. The cups jumped. Owen looked around apprehensively; but other people, all over the place, seemed to be banging their fists too. It was the normal mode of Arab conversation. They were probably talking about something as innocuous as the weather. “We cannot have it!” shouted Mahmoud. “Not as Egyptians, no, nor as English, but as part of mankind! It is our right!”

  He banged his fist so fiercely that even some of the other bangers looked round.

  “And as Welshmen, too,” added Mahmoud, a little self-consciously.

  What was he going to do? Owen asked himself. Not about Mahmoud’s depression—he was bouncing out of it now and was once more rearing to go—but about the issue of principle? The Consul-General had defined it and that ought to have been the end of it for any member of the British Administration. But Owen wasn’t, or, at least, not quite, entirely a member of the British Administration and interpreted himself as having some degree of latitude. He didn’t have to go along with it if he didn’t want to.

  “Why don’t they let me investigate?” cried Mahmoud, firing up again. “Have they something to hide?”

  “I doubt it. It’s just the normal bureaucratic reaction.”

  “Is it that they do not trust me?” demanded Mahmoud fiercely.

  “No, no, no, no. It’s nothing like that.”

  Except that in a way it was. Every administrator—and Owen was one himself—developed a kind of plural sense of the truth. They knew the truth had more than one side. The difference between Owen and the others, however, was that whereas for them there were only two sides—their Department’s and anyone else’s—for him there were so many sides that he couldn’t keep up with them. Mahmoud, on the other hand, believed that there was only one truth, which it was his job to discover.

  People who felt like that were always difficult to deal with. They recognized everybody else’s partiality but not their own. They made, however, very good investigators.

  “They look down on me,” said Mahmoud, “because I am an Egyptian!”

  “Nonsense!”

  He knew, however, that he would have to do something.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said: “you can look at my files.”

  Mahmoud stopped in his rhetorical tracks.

  “I can?”

  “Or rather, Mustapha Mir’s. Those relating to that period. The ones we can find,” he amended, remembering what Nikos had said.

  “That will be something,” said Mahmoud. “That, in fact, would be a great help.”

  “I hope so.”

  “But, look,” said Mahmoud, remembering that Owen was his friend, and concerned, “I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “How will you get round the Consul-General’s ruling?”

  “No one’s told me about it yet,” said Owen. “By the time they do, it might be too late.”

  ***

  “No one’s said anything about it yet.”

  The necklace hung casually on a hook beside Zeinab’s dressing table. It had not been admitted to the silver box where she kept her bracelets, rings and other jewellery.

  “That’s funny,” said Owen, picking it up. “You’d have expected someone to have claimed the credit by now.”

  “Or the reward?”

  “There isn’t going to be a reward,” said Owen firmly.

  “No?”

  Zeinab put the necklace back on the hook; which was exactly where she liked to keep Owen.

  “You’re right, though,” he said, reflecting. “No one gives something for nothing. The question is: what reward did they have in mind?”

  “I’d have thought that was obvious,” said Zeinab.

  “That’s what I thought, too. But the fact that they haven’t come forward is making me think again.”

  “What else could it be?”

  “Either it’s part of some deal your father is cooking up—”

  “Forget about my father. He usually tells me if he’s thinking of me marrying someone.”

  “—or else, or else, it’s not really to do with you at all, it’s—”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s something to do with me.”

  “Oh, come, darling—”

  “It’s like those earrings. The ones that were sent to Garvin. Or rather, to Garvin’s wife.”

  He told her about them. Zeinab listened seriously.

  “First the diamond,” she said, “then this. I think you ought to go a bit carefully, darling. For a while.”

  “Yes, you’re right. We ought to be a bit careful with the necklace. See it’s kept somewhere.”

  “Your pocket, perhaps?” suggested Zeinab.

  ***

  The Aalima, straight-backed and veiled, was waiting to receive him. The coffee pot was already standing on the low table beside the divan and the pleasant aroma of the coffee filled the room. The shutters were closed because of the intense heat, but enough light came through the slots to make it unnecessary to use a lamp.

  The Aalima was more relaxed this time and conversation was conducted at a proper pace. Owen fell naturally into the long, graceful Arabic salutations and then gradually, feigning proper reluctance, allowed himself to be persuaded to sip his coffee, praising it copiously. One of the things he liked about visiting Egyptians was that their courteous insistence on observing the forms reduced everything to a slow rhythm. Owen was all in favour of slow rhythms, especially in heat like this.

  They discussed the hot spell and wondered when it would end; and little by little the conversation turned to the point of his visit.

  “I have done what you wished,” said the Aalima at last. “I have asked my women what happened in the courtyard that night.”

  “And?”

  The Aalima frowned.

  “It is bad,” she said. “I wish I had never agreed. Either to their suggestion that I let him see or to his own insistence. It was bad. And bad comes to bad.”

  “It was bad to drug him, certainly.”

  “What followed was worse. Men came into the courtyard.”

  “Is not that forbidden?”

  “They said they had my word. My women knew that I had made some agreement and thought that this
was part of it. That is what I meant when I said that bad leads to bad.”

  “They used you for their own ends.”

  “That is always the way,” said the Aalima, “with men.”

  Owen said nothing.

  “It spoiled it,” said the Aalima. “It destroyed the sanctity of the Zzarr. I should not have agreed. Now I shall have to do it again.”

  “You have, of course, done it again, and I hope my presence did not spoil it that time.”

  “We shall have to see. All I know is that what I did the first time was not successful.”

  “The spirits remained after?”

  The Aalima inclined her head.

  “Not surprisingly,” she said.

  “What did your women see?”

  “Men came into the courtyard. They took the Bimbashi on his chair and carried him out.”

  “Did they know the men?”

  The Aalima shook her head.

  “Would they know them again?”

  “It was dark.”

  “They carried him out of the courtyard. Did your women see where they carried him to?”

  The Aalima hesitated.

  “This is the worst part,” she said. “They carried him back into the outer courtyard.” She looked at Owen. “So that everyone could see.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “They showed him to those who were there. They raised him on his chair.”

  Still Owen did not understand.

  “There were people in the courtyard?”

  “Many.”

  “And McPhee was…displayed?”

  “Yes. They said: ‘See how the Zzarr has been violated! And see who has done it!’”

  “No one has told me this.”

  “I did not know it either,” said the Aalima, “until I asked.”

  ***

  Sheikh Musa sighed.

  “Well, of course!” he said. “That was exactly the problem. After that there could be no denying it. Everyone had seen. I did my best. I tried to play it down. ‘Zzarr?’ I said. ‘What Zzarr? The church does not know any such thing.’ Which was all very well, except that everyone else did. To deny that there had been a Bimbashi as well would have been too much. It would have been like performing a sort of inverse miracle.”