Death of an Effendi

by Michael Pearce

  ‘That was for this project in the Fayoum, was it?’ said Owen, puzzled.

  ‘No, no! I wouldn’t have anything to do with that! It was completely lunatic, as I said. It wasn’t just working together, it was, well, everything together! Complete equality. Well, I couldn’t have that. “It’s utter nonsense,” I said. “You can’t have a peasant equal to a Prince, or where will you be? It turns everything upside down.” “Well, yes,” he said. No, no, I wasn’t going to have anything to do with that. I was only willing to let him borrow my name for the Covered Markets Scheme.

  ‘Covered Markets!’

  ‘Yes. They had this scheme, you see, to build a covered market in every town in the Fayoum. So that it could take place in the shade. Well, I wasn’t sure I was altogether in favour of it, in principle, I mean. After all, we’ve managed all right without them up to now, haven’t we? But they said, no, no, it will be better for everyone, better for the animals, the produce. “Look, Prince,” said Tvardovsky, “it will be better for you, because we can make some money out of this.” So I lent him my name.’

  ‘And he bought shares with it?’

  ‘Yes. In the Fayoum Covered Markets Company. But then he kept the share certificates. “It may be your name, Prince, but it’s my money,” he said. But now I’d like them back.’

  ‘Ye-es. Of course, it was his money.’

  ‘But my name. I mean, they’re legally mine, aren’t they?’

  ‘I think we’d have to let the lawyers sort that out.’

  ‘I don’t think we need to bring the lawyers into this, do we? Surely not in the case of a Prince of the blood.’

  ‘Well—’

  They had reached the end of the avenue. Owen saw suddenly that the groom was riding behind them with the Prince’s horse.

  ‘A dammed nuisance,’ said the Prince, ‘him dying like that. He ought to have sorted things out first. He must have known.’

  ‘Must he?’

  The Prince glanced at him.

  ‘Wasn’t that why you had the gun?’

  ‘Why must he have known?’

  Fuad shrugged.

  ‘People invest hopes,’ he said. ‘Both on the lunatic side and on the sane side. And then when they are disappointed—’

  He snapped his fingers and the groom brought the horse up alongside him.

  ‘He would have been all right if he had stuck to one side. The Covered Markets Scheme, for example. But when he started mixing them—’ He shook his head. ‘An egg,’ he said, ‘I’ve always said that he was like an egg. A rich Russian Fabergé egg. A fine piece of work.’ He swung himself up into the saddle. ‘But cracked,’ he said.

  Chapter Six

  ‘Truly,’ pleaded Owen, ‘she was about eighty.’

  Zeinab, however, was still not entirely convinced, and, to make amends, he decided to buy her a picture. He returned to the gallery, where Raoul was in process of dismantling the exhibition. There were still some pictures on the walls, however, one of which, Owen remembered, Zeinab had particularly liked.

  ‘Jesus!’ he said, reeling back. ‘That’s two months’ pay!’

  ‘Cheap at the price!’ urged Raoul.

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘I’ve got the artist to pay. And then there’s my own costs: rent, publicity, that sort of thing. Not to mention advances here and deposits there. There’s a lot of financing behind an exhibition, you know.’

  ‘No, he doesn’t,’ said a voice behind them. ‘My friend understands nothing whatsoever about finance. It is what holds him back in life.’

  Owen turned. It was the woman he had met in the hotel in the Fayoum. ‘Hello!’ he said, surprised. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be here?’

  ‘I thought you had left the country. You know, that since you were with the Russians—’

  ‘One of them, Boris, who lives in Alexandria.’

  ‘There seem to be a lot of Russians living in Alexandria.’

  ‘There are. It’s a hell of a lot better than living in Russia. However, what I’m doing here is picking up a picture. That one,’ she said, pointing to the mummy portrait.

  ‘Natasha is returning it for me,’ said Raoul. ‘It was only borrowed.’

  ‘Boris is interested in pictures?’

  ‘Not to him. I’m taking it back to a friend of mine who lives in the Fayoum.’

  ‘She wouldn’t by any chance be an old lady?’

  ‘Irena Kundasova? How do you know her?’

  ‘Saw her only last week,’ said Owen.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘How does she come to be a friend of yours?’

  The woman shrugged.

  ‘We Russians stick together. At least, out here we do.’

  ‘Of course. She was a friend of Tvardovsky’s, too, wasn’t she?’

  ‘A good friend.’

  ‘You were a friend of his, too,’ said Owen. ‘You went to his tent that night.’

  ‘I should have slept with him,’ she said. ‘Instead, we wasted our time arguing.’

  ‘Over what?’

  ‘I was trying to persuade him not to go out on a limb.’

  ‘In case he was sawn off?’

  She looked at him sombrely.

  ‘There was always that possibility,’ she said.

  She turned to Raoul. ‘How about that picture?’

  ‘I’ll wrap it up for you. It won’t take a moment. You don’t mind, do you?’ he said to Owen. ‘You could think about that picture.’

  ‘I’m thinking about another one,’ said Owen.

  Raoul looked troubled.

  ‘I’d like to sell it to you,’ he said. ‘But I’ve brought it down as low as I can already. Honestly! I’ve already given you a big discount—’

  ‘Don’t worry! I’ll find another. It’s just that I can’t afford—’

  ‘All right,’ said Raoul. ‘Another five per cent!’

  ‘Hey!’ said the woman. ‘A double discount? You never do that for me!’

  ‘He’s a friend of mine.’

  ‘Aren’t I a friend too?’

  ‘Sure. But he’s the Mamur Zapt!’

  The woman went still.

  ‘Mamur Zapt?’ she said.

  Owen helped her carry the portrait out to her arabeah.

  As it pulled away, he saw Zeinab standing beside him.

  ‘About eighty?’ she said.

  ***

  Some hours of explaining later she consented to return with him to the gallery.

  ‘I’ll have that one,’ she said.

  Which wasn’t the one he had chosen.

  And more expensive.

  ‘I’ll let you have credit,’ said Raoul sympathetically.

  ‘For three months, please,’ said Owen, resigned.

  While Raoul was wrapping it up, and while Zeinab was looking at some pictures at the other end of the room, he said to Raoul:

  ‘Who was that woman?’

  ‘Natasha? She works for Savinkov. When I say works—’

  ‘I know what you mean. Who’s Savinkov?’

  ‘A financier. Big. Interests everywhere.’

  ‘What sort of interests?’

  ‘Cotton? Doesn’t he own cotton mills somewhere? With some Syrians? And wasn’t there a big dust-up about some company he was interested in in the Fayoum? What was it, now? Something to do with transport. A Light Railway Company—the Fayoum Light Railway Company. Yes, that was it.’

  ***

  In the Place al Ataba black-gowned, black-veiled women with baskets on their heads were hurrying to climb up into the unroofed, horse-drawn native buses, and dark-suited young office effendi with smart canes under their arms and red pot-like tarbooshes on their heads were jumping off the electric trams and rushing i
nto the offices of Credit Lyonnais. Everyone was hurrying, which was a pretty fruitless thing to try to do, thought Owen, given that the square was as usual blocked with arabeahs, carts, forage camels with their great loads of clover swinging down on either side, and sheep; not to mention loofah-sellers, lemonade-sellers looking like portable urns and hatpin-sellers looking like strayed hedgehogs with their pins sticking out all over them; not to mention sellers of every other description, standing casually in the middle of the road, to the fury of the tram drivers uselessly clanging their bells.

  Mahmoud came through the tables towards him; not hurrying, just his usual brisk self.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, after the usual prolonged Arab greetings, which neither hurry not briskness would allow to be curtailed, ‘it is a case of extradition.’

  ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘Security, whatever that means in Russia.’

  ‘It’s Russia that’s applied for extradition, is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, at least we’ve got something.’

  ‘Yes.’ Mahmoud hesitated. ‘Yes,’ he said again.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s still not quite right.’ Mahmoud frowned. ‘At least, I think it is not quite right. He appears to have been arrested merely on the Consul’s oral request. Now that could be acceptable if there was a need for speed; if, say, there was a risk of the man fleeing, and there was no time to prepare a formal request. But then a formal request should quickly follow. So far no written request has been lodged, and it is now some weeks since Strakhov was taken into custody. I know what you are going to say,’ he said hurriedly. ‘You are going to say that sometimes administrative processes in Egypt are not as quick as they might be—’

  He looked expectantly at Owen, who, however, certainly wasn’t going to say anything of the sort.

  ‘But even so! And, besides, a practice seems to have grown up in Alexandria of acceding to even merely oral requests of Consuls. It is an informal—and illegitimate, in any view—extension of Capitulatory Privilege.’

  Another questioning look; which Owen, again, carefully did not rise to.

  ‘But that is not all. If that were all, then, perhaps, I would have to tolerate it.’

  He grimaced. ‘Tolerate! That I should say this!’ said Mahmoud wryly. ‘That anything to do with the Capitulations was to be tolerated, much less an illegitimate extension of them! But that—that is not the worst thing.’

  He looked at Owen.

  ‘He is being held incommunicado,’ he said.

  ‘Incommunicado?’ said Owen. ‘But—?’

  ‘I know. It is not possible. That is what you will say. And yet he is. Merely on a Consul’s word.’

  ‘I’m sure—’ began Owen.

  Mahmoud held up a hand.

  ‘He is not even being allowed access to lawyers.’

  ‘Oh, come!’ said Owen.

  ‘I assure you!’

  ‘I find this very hard to believe.’

  ‘I find it hard to believe, too. But I have checked this very carefully. I have spoken to his friends and they tell me he has been denied permission to speak to a lawyer. I have asked the Ministry to give me details of his legal representation and they were unable to supply them.’

  ‘But, surely, he can be extradited only after proceedings in court; and if there are proceedings in court, he must be legally represented.’

  ‘One would have thought so, yes.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You see now,’ said Mahmoud, ‘why I think things are, well, not quite right.’

  ***

  ‘The Fayoum Agricultural Produce Company,’ said Owen.

  ‘Well, no, Effendi, I’m afraid not. We don’t have the company details here. It’s registered in London.’

  ‘All right, then; the Fayoum Construction Company?’

  ‘That’s registered in Paris.’

  ‘Fayoum Transport?’

  ‘Moscow.’

  ‘Meat Packaging?’

  ‘London, again.’

  ‘Bridges and Waterways?’

  ‘Paris, I think. No, London.’

  ‘Look, are all the companies in the Fayoum registered abroad?’

  ‘Oh, no, Effendi. Just most of them.’

  ‘What about Kfouri Cotton Mills?’

  ‘That’s a private company. We wouldn’t hold the details here.’

  ‘Where would you hold them?’

  ‘Nowhere, actually. If it’s private, it’s, well, private.’

  ‘Fayoum Sugar Cane?’

  ‘That’s a private company, too. In fact, it’s the same private company. That is, it’s another company belonging to the Kfouri Brothers.

  ‘Who are the Kfouri Brothers?’

  ‘Syrians.’

  ‘It’s not registered in Aleppo?’

  ‘There’s no need to. They’re both private companies. What exactly were you looking for, Effendi?’

  ‘I’m trying to track down the interests of a man named Savinkov.’

  ‘I don’t think you will find that here, Effendi. Mr. Savinkov is a financier based in Alexandria.’

  ‘I’m told he has interests in the Fayoum?’

  ‘Very possibly. But you won’t find them listed.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m not sure that someone like Mr. Savinkov works like that.’

  ‘All right, forget Savinkov. Let’s try Tvardovsky.’

  Some time later:

  ‘Look, I know he had interests in the Fayoum.’

  ‘I think it’s the same thing as with Mr. Savinkov, Effendi: financiers like that often don’t hold shares in their own names.’

  ‘Then how the hell do you find out who owns what?’

  ‘With difficulty, Effendi; as I am finding just at the moment.’

  ‘Why are you finding that?’

  ‘Have you heard of the Fayoum Light Railway Company, Effendi? It was floated a little while back. Unusually, subscription to its shares was restricted to native Egyptians. I have been set the task of finding out whether the restriction was observed. As you can guess, I am having difficulties.’

  ‘The Fayoum Light Railway Company is one of the companies I’m interested in.’

  ‘I’m not surprised, Effendi.’ The Egyptian coughed a little, discreet cough. ‘Effendi, I think you may find that some of your interests come together. It was widely rumoured at the time that both Mr. Savinkov and Mr. Tvardovsky were very interested in the Light Railway Company. But, of course, they are not native Egyptians. However, they were—or so it was rumoured—associates of the Kfouri Brothers. Who are native Egyptian. Or so they claim,’ said the clerk, who was a Copt.

  ‘The Light Railway Company is not a private company?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And, presumably, in view of the restriction of ownership, it is registered in Egypt?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘So the company’s details are here? Could I have a look at them?’

  ‘I am afraid not, Effendi. Somebody is working on them.’

  ‘Could I borrow the file? Just for a short time?’

  ‘I will go and ask him, Effendi.’

  He went across the room to where a man was working behind a partition. A little later he came back.

  ‘I am sorry, Effendi, he is unwilling to relinquish the file. He said he came in especially to consult it.’

  ‘Oh, very well. Well, look, let’s try another: Covered Markets.’

  When a file was borrowed, a slip was placed in the space it had occupied. The clerk consulted the slip and then came back.

  ‘I am afraid, Effendi, that he has borrowed that one, too.’

  ‘God damn it!’

  The clerk coughed his discreet cough.
r />   ‘Do you read Arabic, Effendi?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then perhaps, if you wished, you could consult my handwritten notes. As I told you, I have been working on the Light Railway ownership and have extracted many of its details. The names of shareholders certainly.’

  ‘That would be very helpful!’

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t. There were the names, certainly, and some of them, he could guess, were front names for Savinkov and Tvardovsky: Mohammed Kfouri, for instance, and Osman Kfouri. And also, even, possibly Irena Kundasova Scitovsky—the old lady living in the house at Medinet, who, presumably, had lived long enough in Egypt to count as Egyptian for this purpose. But what were the hidden threads of meaning, what did it all add up to? It took a certain sort of person to read behind the record and Owen wasn’t that sort. The clerk, no doubt, was. So was Owen’s own official clerk, Nikos, another Copt. Copts were good at working the ways of bureaucracy. They’d had plenty of practice at it. Three thousand years. Yes, that’s what he would do. He would get Nikos to come over here and go through the files. He’d like that.

  He handed the notes back to the clerk and thanked him.

  ‘Not at all,’ said the clerk politely. ‘It’s not every day we get the Mamur Zapt here.’

  ***

  The man behind the partition raised his head. As Owen picked up his tarboosh and prepared to go, he came out from behind the partition and went up to him.

  ‘The Mamur Zapt? Tobin.’ He shook hands. ‘I work at the Russian Consulate. If I had known it was you, I would have let you have them. We could have worked alternately.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Care for a coffee?’

  There was a café along the road, in a little square where a large lebbek tree stretched out its limbs and provided shade. There was a dark, cool room underground but they chose to sit outside in the square.