The Snake Catcher's Daughter

by Michael Pearce

  “The Courts—”

  “Firms.”

  “Business.”

  “He just doesn’t realize.”

  “It’s the time!”

  “The inefficiency!”

  “Yes,” said Mahmoud, slightly surprised, “the inefficiency.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Owen, who had long ago learned that the only way of being sure, in Egypt, especially in hot weather, that a thing had been done was to go yourself and see it had been done, paid a visit to the household of Sayeed Abdullah. It was in a tiny street below the Citadel, right on the edge of the city. The houses here were single-storey, simple blocks with flat roofs. Some of them had tiny yards, in which the people did their cooking and as Owen went past he caught the wafts of fried onions. It was about the time of the evening meal, when it was still light enough to see but darkness was beginning to take the heat out of the air.

  He found the house and knocked on the door. Somebody moved on the roof above him. Perhaps the family was already up there, where later they would spread the beds and sleep, trying to catch a breath of evening air. After a moment, as no one came, he stepped back to call up.

  And then someone came round the side of the building, out of the shadows and put him in an expert necklock.

  He immediately raised both his feet off the ground and then drove the heels of his shoes hard down the front of the bare shins of his assailant. The man gasped and involuntarily released the lock just enough to allow Owen to drive back with his elbow. He twisted round and broke loose enough to free the other arm. He brought his fist in hard but it was partially blocked and thudded into the shoulder, rather than against the neck as he had intended.

  He didn’t get a second chance but was at once enveloped in an enormous bear hug. His feet were lifted right off the ground and he was swung round and crashed against the wall.

  Every bit of breath was jolted out of him. His attacker prepared to swing again. Owen couldn’t stop him and had to take the blow. This time, though, he was able to raise his feet behind him, put them against the wall, and push off. His attacker, still holding him fast, staggered back across the street. They came out into some lamplight.

  “Why, effendi!” said the surprised voice of Selim.

  The mighty grip loosened.

  “Jesus!” said Owen. “What’s going on?”

  “You told me, effendi!”

  “I just said, guard him!”

  “You said no one was to get at him!”

  “Yes, but I didn’t say kill anyone who approached!”

  He was able to speak now and his head had not been torn off as at first he supposed. He was even able to reflect that at least Selim was obeying instructions effectively.

  “Sorry, effendi,” said Selim contritely.

  “It’s OK. You were quite right,” said Owen grudgingly. “Best to be on the safe side.”

  “Sayeed has told me they are bad men, effendi,” Selim explained, “so I thought it best to strike first and caution afterwards.”

  “In this instance,” said Owen, “you are probably right.”

  “Nasty bastards,” said Selim, leading Owen into the house. “Did you see what they did to his leg? I’ve promised him that if I get the chance, I’ll do the same to them. You needn’t worry though, effendi, they’ll still be able to talk afterwards. Just.”

  Selim, it transpired, was already a great favourite of the family. He and Abdul covered the guard duty in shifts. Since, when they were not assaulting astonished visitors, the duty entailed staying indoors in the shade, drinking innumerable cups of tea and spending most of the time chatting to Sayeed, they embraced their responsibilities with relish.

  “We are beloved of the family,” Selim assured him.

  Not too beloved, Owen hoped, and had a private word with Selim about this before he left.

  “Effendi,” swore Selim, “I will not lay a finger upon her. You can rely on me. Especially as she is old enough to be my grandmother.”

  Even so, Owen had his doubts. As to Selim’s discharge of the rest of his duties, he was, on reflection, rather more satisfied. A little over-enthusiastic, perhaps, but on the whole Owen thought it best not to complicate matters by urging moderation in other things as well.

  ***

  The expected newspaper attacks appeared. They were aimed this time, however, chiefly at Owen. “Why me?” he complained to Paul.

  “They must think you’re getting somewhere,” suggested Paul. “Of course, they’re not very well informed.”

  Owen had gone to the lengths of calling on Paul in his office at the Consulate-General.

  “Not because you’re bothered about newspaper attacks,” said Paul.

  “Them? Oh no, it’s something else.” He hesitated. “Actually, I do feel I might be getting somewhere. Only I’m not going to do it in time. Before Wainwright gets here. Or, at least, before he leaves England in order to get here. In which case it will be too late to stop him.”

  “He will be leaving England the day after tomorrow,” said Paul.

  “You don’t think—if he could just be delayed a little?”

  “Tried that,” said Paul, “but he wants to get out in time for the Flower Show.”

  He was, however, thinking. Suddenly, he squared his shoulders.

  “I have a duty,” he said. “A duty to obstruct anyone who goes to a Flower Show other than by accident. I will try again. This time I will raise my game.”

  He took a pad of Governmental telegram forms from a drawer in his desk and picked up a pen. A few minutes later he stopped and rang his bell. A worried middle-aged man appeared.

  “Wilson, what do gardeners do in the garden in England at this time of the year?”

  “Not much.”

  “They must do something. My mother is always out there.”

  “Dig?”

  “Something technical.”

  “Water dahlias?”

  “That will do nicely. Thank you, Wilson.”

  When he had finished, he passed the result to Owen.

  “How’s that?”

  Consul General to Wainwright deeply grieve to inform you Flower Show cancelled.

  “Paul,” said Owen, “it’s not been cancelled!”

  “Think he’ll check?”

  He picked up the pen and made an alteration.

  Flower Show likely postponed.

  “Paul,” said Owen, “won’t he check that too?”

  “Ah, yes, but I’ll get the Old Man to ask the Committee if it ought to be postponed. In view of the heat. They’ll argue about it for days and by the time they’ve made up their minds it’ll be too late to do anything other than postpone it.”

  “He may wonder why it’s postponed.”

  “The heat. I’ll put that in.”

  Postponed due to extreme heat. Likewise judicial investigation.

  “Paul, do you think that’ll convince him? I mean, he’s been out here, he knows about the heat.”

  “Should I make it stronger? Perhaps: Due to extreme heat and political unrest.”

  “The Flower Show? Postponed because of political unrest?”

  “Certainly. There’s always political unrest about Flower Shows. My mother—”

  “Paul, that’s in the Cotswolds. In England.”

  “All right. I’ll make it clear that it’s the inquiry that might be affected by political unrest. How about this?”

  Deeply grieve to inform you Flower Show postponement due extreme heat.

  In view judicial inquiry also likely postponed political unrest suggest delay departure. Will inform you when situation changes. Further consideration your part: danger dahlias.

  McPhee and Owen arrived together. Selim met them beaming and ushered them at once into the small yard. Every inch was decorated wi
th bunting and the air was heavy with the scent of sweet peas, huge bunches of which were scattered everywhere. Along one side of the wall was a low table on which stood vast bowls of hot rice and buttered beans.

  “Heavens!” said Owen. “How many are you expecting?”

  “No one, effendi,” said Selim, with a broad flash of white teeth.

  This was, as McPhee pointed out, the correct ritual answer. In theory, namings were modest domestic occasions, kept deliberately low-key in order to avert the wrath of malign spirits which might envy the good fortune of the family if too ostentatious a display was made. In practice, of course, no one could resist the chance of a binge and Selim had invited the whole street.

  Plus a few more. Owen recognized many faces from the Bab-el-Khalk, together with those of constables and orderlies from many of the city’s substations. He had also noticed Sayeed Abdullah, who greeted Owen with his usual deferential bob of the head.

  “Well, I couldn’t leave the poor old chap at home by himself, could I?” Selim excused himself.

  “What about the family?” said Owen, a trifle anxiously.

  “Oh, they’re here too,” Selim assured him. “Inside.”

  Which was where, for the moment, all the women were. If there were as many of them as there were of men in the yard there were more than a hundred in the tiny, two-room house. Owen could not believe that to be possible. Mother and baby, of course, were inside, too.

  “How’s the baby?” he asked, again with some anxiety.

  “Baby?” said Selim, a little vaguely. “Oh, yes, baby. Oh, very well, very well.”

  He showed Owen and McPhee up to the place of honour on the roof. Two rickety cane chairs had been placed on the very edge, where there was a good view down into the yard.

  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 Abd
ullah 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.

  “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.”