“She’s been a good wife to you,” he said. “More to the point, she’s brought you in some extra money. Would a new, more beautiful wife do that?”
“No, but she might do other things,” said Selim, ever hopeful.
The financial arguments proved in the end persuasive, especially as Owen hinted at the possibility of further employment for Aisha.
“After all,” said Selim, “I can always get rid of one of the others.”
***
Commotion again in the Bab-el-Khalk. Sounds of doors banging, feet running. A mob of orderlies at Owen’s door.
“Effendi, oh, effendi—” almost weeping. “Come quick!”
Down into the courtyard.
“What is it?”
Pointing. The orderlies’ lavatory again. And then, there, curled up in the very doorway, he could see it.
“Fetch the snake catcher!”
“Effendi, effendi!” Hands plucked at his arm. “Not just there!”
But almost everywhere. In the patch of rough ground where every day McPhee tied up his donkey; in the bike shed where modernist Nassir effendi parked his new bicycle; in the brickwork behind the tap in the yard—a crucial place, this, because it was where the orderlies went for drinking water; among the brooms and pails which the cleaners used every morning to scour out the Bab-el-Khalk; and out, lazily sunning themselves, on the very front steps of the police headquarters itself.
“Most interesting,” said McPhee, down there too. “The plague of Egypt! Now what number was it?”
“What the hell have you done this time?” said Garvin, descending from his office.
“Effendi,” said Owen’s own orderly, Yussuf, “you really are in trouble. It’s the Rifa’i. And Suleiman wants to use the—”
“Get Jalila.”
“Effendi, is this wise? You’re in enough trouble as it is. That’s what caused it in the first place.”
“Fetch her.”
“Effendi—” Then, seeing Owen was adamant, “With her father?”
“Without her father.”
“Effendi—!”
But Jalila came. Even she blanched.
“You can do it, can’t you?”
“Yes, but—effendi, you have been good to me, but in your own interest—the Rifa’i are strong. You will have to work with them.”
“I appoint you official snake catcher to the Bab-el-Khalk.”
“Yes, effendi, thank you, effendi. But—”
“What is it?”
“Effendi, it will be the same with all the buildings. I cannot do them all.”
The phone rang and Owen was summoned. It was Paul.
“Gareth, there’s a slight spot of bother here at the Consulate-General—”
Owen returned to the courtyard.
“Could you do it if you had enough assistants?”
“Effendi, it is not wise. And I would not wish to. It would be to change too much.”
“She’s right, Owen,” said McPhee.
“It was going to happen sometime,” said Jalila sadly. “My father was wrong. I could never be a boy. I could never be one of the Rifa’i. Even you,” she said to Owen, “cannot make me that. It is best to accept it. I will rid you of these snakes. But after that you must bring back the Rifa’i.”
Jalila set to work, watched by an enthralled crowd. At the end of the morning she placed two full, wriggling bags on the ground before Owen.
“I will pay you enough,” said Owen, “for you to have a handsome dowry, so that you can marry the man of your choice. However, I would like to put another proposal to you, too. That is, that you should be on my payroll and work for me. I need more women among my agents.”
“Women on the payroll?” said Nikos faintly when he heard. “This is worse than Cromer!”
Owen summoned the leaders of the Rifa’i.
“First, one of your members attacks the Bimbashi. Then there are snakes in the courtyard. It seems to me that there are but two ways for you to go. One is to the caracol, where you would stay for a long time; the other is that we should go back to the way things were.”
“Without the women?” asked one of the Rifa’i leaders.
“Without the woman. Without an increase in pay, too.”
“It’s a deal,” said the Rifa’i.
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The Snake Catcher's Daughter Page 19
